Life Discovery: The “Experience — Theme” Ladder and Meaning
Let’s talk about the hierarchy of life
This article is about Life Discovery Activity and the Anticipatory Activity System Framework.
The Life Discovery Activity focuses on 1) Detecting Potential Contradictions and 2) Exploring Potential Themes in order to enhance a person’s life development. In order to cope with potential contradictions, we need to adopt objects as Means for solving problems. In order to develop potential themes, we need to adopt objects as End as creative spaces.
Today I am going to talk about Exploring Potential Themes with the “Experience — Theme” ladder metaphor.
The term “Theme” is adopted from Curativity Theory and its sub-theory Themes of Practice. It also echoes the idea of “Concept” from Project-oriented Activity Theory.
The Hierarchy of Life Experience
Yesterday I published Life Discovery: The “Problem — Solution” Challenge and Response and adopted the Alford-Head Typology to define a knowledge niche for Life Discovery Activity. See the diagram below:
It’s clear that Life Discovery Activity doesn’t want to deal with low complexity of problems (such as tame problems, communicatively complex problems, and politically complex problems) and multiple stakeholders (such as politically complex problems, politically turbulent problems, and very wicked problems).
From the perspective of the Anticipatory Activity System Framework, this mini matrix can be understood with the following two dimensions:
- The Hierarchy of Life Experience: It defines the complexity of cognitive content of problems.
- The Self — Other Relevance: It defines the complexity of social context of problems.
I have adopted a typology of the Self — Other Relevance for the Anticipatory Activity System Framework in previous articles (1, 2). This article will discuss the Hierarchy of Life Experience.
The Anticipatory Activity System Framework
The Anticipatory Activity System framework is a hybrid theoretical framework that curates the following two theories together:
- Activity Theory
- Anticipatory System Theory
The above diagrams highlight the following primary concepts:
- Anticipation
- Activity
- System
- Self — Other
- Present — Future
- Object — Objective
- Result — Reward
- First-order Activity — Second-order Activity
As an abstract theoretical framework, the Anticipatory Activity System framework can be applied to the different time-scale of analyses.
This article aims to 1) develop a model for understanding the hierarchy of life, 2) based on the hierarchy of life, develop a multiple-level model for applying the Anticipatory Activity System framework to Life Discovery Activity.
The Hierarchy of Human Activity and Social Practice
Since Activity Theory is a major theoretical resource of the Anticipatory Activity System framework, I’d like to consider the hierarchy of Activity as the starting point for the present discussion.
On Sept 29, 2020, I published an article titled Activity U (VI): The Hierarchy of Human Activity and Social Practice and reviewed A. N. Leontiev’s three-level hierarchical structure of activity.
Originally, A. N. Leontiev (1978) developed a psychological theory at the individual level with the concept of Activity. Thus, we see three levels of activity correspond to three levels of psychological notions. The three levels of activity are activity, actions, and operations. The three levels of psychological notions are motive, goals, and conditions.
According to Leontiev, “Separate concrete types of activity may differ among themselves according to various characteristics: according to their form, according to the methods of carrying them out, according to their emotional intensity, according to their time and space requirements, according to their physiological mechanisms, etc. The main thing that distinguishes one activity from another, however, is the difference of their objects. It is exactly the object of an activity that gives it a determined direction.” (1978, p.98)
So, what’s the object of the activity?
The answer from Leontiev is the motive of activity. Leontiev claimed, “According to the terminology I have proposed, the object of an activity is its true motive. It is understood that the motive may be either material or ideal, either present in perception or exclusively in the imagination or in thought. The main thing is that behind activity there should always be a need, that it should always answer one need or another.” He also added a note about the term motive, “Such restricted understanding of motive as that object (material or ideal) that evokes and directs activity toward itself differs from the generally accepted understanding”.(1978, p.98)
After defining the “activity — motive” level, Leontiev moved to its sub-level: the “action — purpose” level. He said, “We call a process an action if it is subordinated to the representation of the result that must be attained, that is, if it is subordinated to a conscious purpose. Similarly, just as the concept of motive is related to the concept of activity, the concept of purpose is related to the concept of action.” (1978, p.99)
In recent years, activity theorists went beyond Leontiev’s theoretical scope and expanded activity theory to “activity system” and “activity network”. Following this trend, researchers developed new versions of the hierarchical structure of activity for theoretical and empirical purposes. One version is Clay Spinuzzi’s “Three Levels of Scope”.
In 2013, Clay Spinuzzi published Topsight: A Guide to Studying, Diagnosing, and Fixing Information Flow in Organizations and introduced his research methodology and related tools. He still uses three levels of scope for Topsight, however, we have to notice that the “macro level of activity” refers to two models: Activity systems and Activity networks. The concept of an activity network is not a part of Leontiev’s original theoretical framework, it was introduced by Yrjö Engeström in 1987.
If we consider the activity network as a new layer, the hierarchical structure of activity should expand from three levels to four levels:
- Activity Network
- Activity System
- Actions
- Operation
In fact, some activity theorists have argued there is a need to expand Leontiev’s three-level hierarchical structure to a four-level hierarchical structure. However, there are many versions of this kind of argument.
Human activity and social practice are extremely complex, the hierarchy is a great thinking tool for understanding it. I also reviewed several models from other theoretical approaches to human activity and social practice. I summarized them in the following table. You can also view its original file on Google Spreadsheet.
Based on perspectives from activity theorists and other researchers, I found there are eight levels of hierarchy of activity and practice. The six mid-levels are adopted from activity theorists. The top level is adopted from anthropologist Morris Opler (1945). The low level is adopted from ecological psychologist James J. Gibson (1979).
I also classify these eight levels into three types: “logical level”, “actual level”, and “possible level”. We can call the logical level the ideal level too. I don’t have perfect terms to name these types.
As mentioned above, hierarchy is a thinking tool. We don’t have to search for a “right” model of the hierarchy of human activity and social practice. It depends on the needs of theoretical development and empirical research.
Thus, I call the eight-level hierarchy “a universal hierarchy of activity and practice” in which I use “activity” as a regular word, not the concept of activity theory. We can see this new hierarchy as a basic reference, readers can adopt some levels from it and form their own version of hierarchy to match their needs.
The “Moment — Project — Theme” Hierarchy
On Feb 13, 2022, I published the Life-as-Project approach and adopted Howard E. Gruber’s evolving systems approach to the study of creative work (1974,1989) for the approach.
Gruber’s approach uses “Task — Project — Enterprise — Network of Enterprise” as a structure. This is different from Activity Theory’s “Operation — Action — Activity” hierarchy.
The Life-as-Project approach focuses on the creative life, so the core of the approach is Project. The above hierarchy is a model of the hierarchy of projects.
In other articles, I often use a three-level hierarchy to develop models. For example, the diagram below lists three models of hierarchy.
- The Ecological Practice Approach: Lifemove — Lifeway — Lifeform
- The Life-as-Activity Framework: Moment — Project — Theme
- The Context of Developing Tacit Knowledge: Flow — Story — Model
For Life Discovery Activity and the Anticipatory Activity System framework, I’d like to select the “Moment — Project — Theme” as the foundation for further development.
The “Biographic Time — Social Space” Matrix
On Oct 22, 2021, I shared the Creative Work Canvas and coined a new term called Lifescope.
I drew the above diagram to visualize the notion of “Lifescope”. There is a dimension called Social Space behind “Self → Other → Field” and “Moment → Project → Theme” refers to another dimension called Biographical Time. These two dimensions define a creative person’s Lifescope.
A creative person’s Lifescope is defined by his creative work which can be measured with social space and biographical time.
Now we can consider the “Biographic Time — Social Space” matrix as a general tool.
In fact, the above “Moment — Project — Theme” roughly echoes the following framework which was developed in 2019 for my book Curativity.
The above framework aims to discuss the transformation between individual life experience and collective social culture. Based on several case studies, I discovered the above six-level hierarchy.
Now we see a general three-level hierarchy from my creations:
- Moment > Lifemove > Individual > Flow
- Project > Lifeway > Community > Story
- Theme > Lifeform > Society > Model
It is clear that the Moment level is about the short-term immediate situated individual experience while the Project level is about long-term cross-situation collaborative activities. Finally, the Theme level refers to logical/ideal collective social realities.
The “Possible — Actual — Logical” Hierarchy
On April 26, 2021, I reviewed the development of Ecological Practice Approach which is my primary theoretical work. I used the above “universal hierarchy of activity and practice” to organize the third version of the approach.
Activity theorists use “activity — action — operation” as three levels of the hierarchy of activity theory. I personally suggested another way to adopt the concept of affordance to Activity Theory. Instead of matching the existing three levels of hierarchy of activity, the concept of affordance can be considered as a new level for extending the scope of the hierarchy of activity. The operation level can’t cover the meaning of the concept of exploratory action. The exploratory action goes beyond the scope of activity theory. Thus, the “possible level — affordances — exploratory action” combination is a heterogeneous theoretical resource to activity theory.
Why do I add the idea of affordance to the hierarchy of activity and practice? I think the value is it could expand the scope of hierarchy from “actual” to “possible” because affordance refers to “action possibilities.” Eventually, I develop “logical — actual — possible” as three levels of hierarchy for the Ecological Practice approach.
Now, we can detach the “Possible — Actual — Logical” hierarchy from the Ecological Practice approach, and attach it to Life Discovery Activity and the Anticipatory Activity System framework.
Discovery, Anticipatory, Next…
Since the “Moment — Project — Theme” hierarchy has been highlighted the logical level, we can only pay attention to the pair of concepts of “Possible — Actual”.
If we merge the “Moment — Project — Theme” hierarchy and the the “Possible — Actual — Logical” hierarchy, we can get the following model:
In fact, each level has its own structure of “Possible — Actual”. This is what I am searching for Life Discovery Activity and the Anticipatory Activity System framework.
For Life Discovery Activity, we can discover potential things at three levels:
- Moment: What will happen in the next moment?
- Project: What should I do for the next project?
- Theme: What would be the next cultural theme?
The above three questions are also suitable for the Anticipatory Activity System Framework. Now we can apply the framework to three different time scales.
Moment: Perceiving Creative Actions
A person can produce a creative action at a particular moment. For example, the screenshot below shows an example of an unintended creation action.
In order to discuss creative action, I developed the 3I model in July 2020. As the diagram below shows, the 3I model has three core entities which are idea, initiator, and initiatee. It also considers two types of events: act by initiator and react by initiatee. Finally, the model considers platform as the context of entities and events.
As the above discussion mentioned, acting refers to the process and there is no product that remains after acting. In order to make the “Process as Product” approach possible, I use the term “Idea” to refer to the product aspect of creative actions and use the term “Act/React” to refer to the process aspect. This pair of concepts solve the problem of disappearing immediate experience. I further consider the “Idea” has three elements including name, form, and content.
The name is the essential part of turning the Moment into a Project and a Theme.
Project: Objectifying Creative Ideas
A person also can run a creative project for a short period of time or a long period of time. For example, The BED Talk challenge was initiated by speakers and authors David Rendall and Stan Phelps. The idea behind a BED Talk is to share a short, unscripted video sharing something helpful…recorded from your bed since you’re (hopefully) at home. This is a creative project.
From the perspective of Project-oriented Activity Theory, a project is a process of the formation of a concept. The process has three phases: Initialization, Objectification, Institutionalization. See the diagram below.
For example, the name of BED Talks is “BED Talks”, its form is “recording a short talk in bed”, and each BED talk has its own unique content. The name part is very important for communication and distribution. A name can generate a hashtag for people to follow on social media platforms, a name can help people mention a creative action in words, and a name can be a keyword for searching and finding. Most intended creation actions have a short name and hashtag, sometimes unintended creation actions don’t have a name.
Giving a name to a creative action is the phase of Initialization. Making a BED Talk video and other material things is the phase of Objectification. Hosting the project and curating the community around the project is the phase of Institutionalization.
Exploring Potential Themes
The Life Discovery Activity focuses on 1) Detecting Potential Contradictions and 2) Exploring Potential Themes in order to enhance a person’s life development. In order to cope with potential contradictions, we need to adopt objects as Means for solving problems. In order to develop potential themes, we need to adopt objects as End as creative spaces.
There are at least three ways of exploring potential themes:
- The Bottom-up approach
- The Top-down approach
- The Dialogue approach
You can learn about these three approaches from my knowledge curation framework:
- The Bottom-up Knowledge Curation Framework
- The Top-down Knowledge Curation Framework
- The Dialogue Knowledge Curation Framework
The Knowledge Curation Activity is about discovering new knowledge themes. If a person chooses epistemic impact as his life aspiration, then the knowledge theme is the main part of his life themes. For example, the theme “Curativity” is one of my life themes. I have over ten years of work experience in curation-related projects. In 2019, I wrote a book titled Curativity and develop a theory called Curativity Theory. I consider it an example of the Bottom-up Knowledge Curation Framework. The theme of “Life Strategy” is an example of the Dialogue Knowledge Curation Framework. The theme of “Diagramming as Practice” is an example of the Top-down Knowledge Curation Framework.
For business impact, we can find an example of the Bottom-up approach from Richard P. Rumelt’s book Good Strategy, Bad Strategy. The case is about the reborn of Starbucks:
In 1983, Howard Schultz noticed an anomaly and from that insight a fascinating new business was eventually born. At that time, Schultz was the marketing and retail operations manager for a tiny chain of Seattle stores selling dark-roasted coffee beans.
On his first visit to Italy, Schultz discovered the Italian espresso experience, “It was on that day I discovered the ritual and romance of coffee bars in Italy. I saw how popular they were, and how vibrant. Each one had its own unique character, but there was one common thread: the camaraderie between the customers, who knew each other well, and the barista, who was performing with flair. At that time, there were 200,000 coffee bars in Italy, and 1,500 alone in the city of Milan, a city the size of Philadelphia.” (2011, pp.249–250)
Rumelt uses the word “Anomaly” to describe Schultz’s experience, “For Schultz, the experience in Milan was an anomaly. In Seattle, the market for dark-roasted arabica beans was a niche, populated by a small but growing group of especially discerning buyers. But the vast majority of people in Seattle, and in American — even the well-to-do — drink cheap, bland coffee. In Milan, expensive high-quality coffee was not a niche product but the mass-market product. And there was a further anomaly: in the United States, fast food meant cheap food and plastic surroundings. In Milan he saw ‘fast coffee’ that was expensive and served in a lively social atmosphere, so different from that of an American Main Street diner or coffee shop. Americans, especially those in the Northwest, were at least as wealthy as Italians. Why should they drink ‘bad’ coffee and not enjoy the pleasures of an espresso latte in a social setting?” (2011, pp. 249–250)
We can guess that Schultz was one of the millions of visitors in the year when he first visited Milan. Also, we should notice that the Italian espresso experience is not a private thing. It’s open to Schultz and other people.
However, only one person turned his experience into a strategic hypothesis: the Italian espresso experience could be re-created in America and the public would embrace it. The project of Reborn of Starbucks was started with such an idea which grew into a real concept later.
I used the above diagram to explain the concept of “culture” from the perspective of Project-oriented Activity Theory. It zooms out to a large view that connects the Individual mind (Idea) and the Collective theme (Zeitgeist) through Collective Projects (Concept).
Not all ideas lead to a real concept which means a social practice from the perspective of Project-oriented Activity Theory. Though Blunden’s approach focuses on “the formation of a project with a concept of the problem is an original and creative social act”, I think the non-problem idea could develop into a real concept too.
Cultural Innovations can be driven by problem-solution ideas and play-for-fun ideas too.
The Experience — Theme Curativity
From the perspective of life themes, we can find a three-level hierarchy too. For example, Yale management professor Amy Wrzesniewski discovers that there are three types of work views:
- a job (“I view my job as just a necessity of life, much like breathing or sleeping”),
- a career (“I view my job primarily as a stepping-stone to other jobs”), or
- a calling (“My work is one of the most important things in my life”).
We can consider the above typology as a hierarchy of work. In 2016, I developed a similar hierarchy:
- Category: a person considers job positions as her or his career themes.
- Experience: a person considers job experiences as her or his career themes.
- Principle: a person considers abstract principles as her or his career themes.
The Experience level refers to a person’s subjective feelings about working on some things. Several job positions may share the same subjective feelings. Thus, the Experience level (subjective feelings) is more abstract than the Category level (job position).
The Principle level is the highest abstract level of career themes. A person jumps from her or his own subjective feelings to objective laws of the world. It is not Ray Dalio’s Principles that refer to rules of work and life. Many great creators tend to find principles for their creative life. However, it is a long journey to search for a unique principle.
In the above speech, Bret Victor talks about the Principle, “As you approach your career, you’ll hear a lot about following your passion or doing something you love. I’m going to talk about something kind of different. I’m going to talk about following a principle — finding a guiding principle for your work, something you believe is important and necessary, and right, and using that to guide what you do…As a technologist, you can recognize a wrong in the world. You can have a vision of what a better world could be. And you can dedicate yourself to fighting for a principle. Social activists typically fight by organizing but you can fight by inventing.”
Bret Victor spent almost ten years discovering his career principle:
Here’s something I’ve come to believe: Creators need an immediate connection to what they’re creating. That’s my principle.
I watched Bret Victor’s speech in 2016. Then, I discovered my own principe “Curativity” in 2018.
The Experience — Theme Curativity is based on the connection between your life experience, the development of social culture, and the laws of the world.
Curating pieces of life experience into a meaningful cultural theme, is the meaning of the Life Curation Activity.
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