Situational Note-taking: Mental Platform as Evolving Concept System

A working definition of “Mental Platform” and two case studies

The above diagram is a model for Developing A Concept System. This is a short note about it. You can find my original ideas on Twitter.

This is a personal note.

I will write long articles about the above model later.

Where did it come from?

It came from the diagram below.

The above diagram is the landscape view of the Ecological Practice Approach.

On Nov 4, 2023, I adopted it to discuss developing a concept system and coined three new terms:

• Mental Platform: How do you think?
• Behavioral Network: How do you do?
• Material Container: What do you make?

It means the process of Developing A Concept System is not only about thinking, but also about doing, saying, and making.

This view is also called the Ecological Approach to Social Cognition. You can find more details in Themes of Practice: Concept, Activity, and Cognition.

From Theoretical Platform to Mental Platform

In the past two weeks, I continually worked on the above model.

Though my original purpose was to develop a model for discussing Developing Products, my recent mental focus moved back to Knowledge Innovation.

In the direction of Developing Tacit Knowledge, Knowledge Engagement, and Knowledge Innovation, I connected “Mental Platform” to “Theoretical Platform”.

The notion of “Theoretial Platform” came from my 2021 book (draft) Platform for Development: The Ecology of Adult Development in the 21st Century.

The book defined a concept called “Developmental Platform” which refers to a social environment that could strongly support adult development in various ways. I also discovered five types of Developmental Platforms.

• Organization
• Community
• Platform (Technological Platforms)
• Theory
• City

An established theory, a theoretical tradition, or a school of thought, could offer people supportance in knowledge engagement. So we perceive some theories as Theoretica Platforms.

Moreover, if we connect it with the activity of Developing Tacit Knowledge, then we should define a subject concept that corresponds to the objective concept Theoretical Platform.

• Theoretical Platform: an objective concept, a public concept system
• Mental Platform: a subjective concept, a personal/private concept system

Since a theory is a (public) concept system, the mental platform is a (personal/private) concept system too.

How does a Mental Platform evolve?

How does a personal/private concept system evolve?

Several days ago, I published an article about Robert Kegan’s knowledge enterprise. In 1994, Robert Kegan introduced the “Five Orders of Consciousness” framework in a book titled In Over Our Heads. See the diagram below.

The above table is very complicated. How to read it?

Kegan’s Self — Object relationship can be seen as the Part — Whole relationship. If you see the row of Underlying Structure, you will find a pattern behind the five orders of consciousness.

• Single Point: The is a simple Whole which is the part. There is no distinction between the Whole and the Part.
• Durable Category: The Single Point becomes a Part of a Whole which refers to a Category. There is a distinction between the Whole and the Part.
• Cross-categorical/Trans-categorical: The Durable Category becomes a Part of a Whole which refers to two categories.
• System/Complex: There are more than two categories within the Whole.
• Trans-system/Trans-complex: There are two Systems within the Whole.

In this article, we only need the row of Underlying Structure.

Last night, I realized that I could use the “Underlying Structure” to understand the evolving concept system.

How to validate this idea?

Case Study 1

Last night I did a case study.

I reflected on the development of the Project Engagement approach and found five movements in the journey.

Case Study 2

This morning, I did the second case study.

Bingo!

This is fantastic!

Other Possibilities

Kegan Robert’s model is not the only pattern of the evolution of concept systems. For example, I used the diagram below to represent the development of the “Anticipatory Activity System” framework.

I just use Kegan Robert’s model to test the working definition of “Mental Platform”.

Now I can claim that a Mental Platform is an evolving concept system.

How does it evolve? It’s an open issue.