Learning through Conversation

Agoston Nagy
Jul 24, 2017 · 2 min read

A: ‘Without conversation, there is nothing (no thing).’
B: ‘Doesn’t that imply, “In the beginning, was the conversation” ?’

Dialect with the self & the environment are part of all conscious metabolism. In fact, this continuous self-balancing mechanism makes it possible to adapt ourselves to the different causalities within life and existence. As Humberto Maturana and Francisco Valera states out in biology, autopoesis, or automated self-maintaining is an essential concept for living organisms and complex, dynamic environments. Complexity and dynamism can be achieved by small, simple interactions that are continuously communicating with each other through feedback mechanisms.

On a more abstract level, interacting with ourselves and the world is happening through meaningful conversations. Conversations make it possible to extend contexts, adapt new concepts (learn), share novel observations (teach) based on existing knowledge. The theory of conversation was originally first mentioned within the field of cybernetics. As one of its key researchers, Gordon Pask pointed out, the fundamental idea of the theory was that learning occurs through conversations about a subject matter which serves to make knowledge explicit. This cybernetic framework attempts to explain learning in both living organisms and machines, or the communication within an observer and between the observer and his environment.

Paskian feedback loop diagram (by Rion Willard)

Pask developed his Conversation Theory to describe the interaction between two or more cognitive systems or distinct perspectives within one individual, and how they engage in a dialogue over a given concept and identify differences in how they understand it. A meaningful conversation is constructed of feedback loops through time: a conversational loop unveils the potential of an exciting and organic nature of participation, interaction and creation.

In the age of mainstream machine learning and data driven cultural analytics, the concept of that natural, seamless flowing we experience during a meaningful conversation is becoming extremely important. Beyond words and textual interfaces (consols, chatbots, twitter feeds, atm machines etc), the nature of conversation will define the essence of interfaces and the boundaries of the playgrounds of the future.

However, observing the temporal patterns of activities within those conversations (like as in Lefebre’s Rhythm Analysis) can tell us a lot about our nature and the environment. Doug Rushkoff says, our experience of time has been divided into two parts: chronos and kairos, time and timing. Changing our idea of the passage of time could have enormous effects on the workplace, our understanding of the human body, and how people relate to each other. “We’ve been living in chronos for the past thousand or so years,” says Rushkoff. “Time was what’s on the clock. And now that our digital devices can take that for us. We can move into kairos.”

Agoston Nagy

Written by

coding, algorithmic art, workshops

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade