Talk:Gordon Pask

message: I created a redirect from conversation theory to this article. Eventually, content may be split off from the Gordon Pask article to population a separate article on conversation theory. Nesbit 16:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Conversation theory 

message: I noticed that Pask was president of the Cybernetics society. If anyone has information about other past presidents we could make a nifty succession box like the one for Lee Cronbach (past president of AERA). Nesbit 23:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cybernetics Society Succession box 

message: The cross-disciplinary prose especially with regards to physics, angular momentum and cosmology (?!) are not standard explanations in regards to these subjects. I don't know anything about the subject of this article, but I do know that these sections are not factually correct, and if the subject of this article really does advocate such explanations he is basically advocating pseudoscience with respect to those formulations. Thus I have put the totally disputed tag on this article to indicate this problem. Please comment here on how we can resolve this matter. --ScienceApologist 21:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The article consists mainly of assertions about what Pask wrote. Assessing the article's factual accuracy and NPOV would therefore require a comparison of what Pask wrote with the content of the article. In the absence of such an assessment, I would suggest that the template questioning the article's accuracy and neutrality be removed, or replaced with a more appropriate template. It has to be admitted, however, that Pask's ideas can be quite far out, and some people do see them as pseudoscience. Possibly there is a way to rephrase portions of the article so that the ideas will get a more sympathetic reception from a general audience. Nesbit 03:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: You have missed the point. I'm merely saying that the current wording of the article inappropriately makes claims that Pask's ideas are somehow related to disciplines where he is not referenced or known (e.g. cosmology). The wording of this article is not NPOV right now. --ScienceApologist 19:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: It's all well-and-good that this may be a goal of Pask's followers, but we need to make sure that the article doesn't promote such hopes but merely reports them. --ScienceApologist 20:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: I don't see Pask's ideas as presented in this article as simply arguing that solitons should be used more often. The NPOV notice should remain until we come to a consensus on how to deal with these issues. --ScienceApologist 23:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

text: SA's objections are that criticism of Pask's ideas is not reported in the article, and therefore the presentation is one-sided and lacking NPOV. The solution is for someone to summarize and cite published criticism of Pask's work, especially from physicists or cosmologists. Until it is established that such criticism actually exists, I would think the template should be removed. Nesbit 22:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: When someone's ideas are unknown in the field, it isn't exactly NPOV to claim implications for the theory without also pointing out its marginalization. The template should be kept until it is established whether Pask's work is taken seriously by anybody in, for example, physics. --ScienceApologist 23:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: You claimed factual inaccuracy. You haven't shown any yet. You claimed lack of neutrality. You showed none. His work may be unknown to many but that makes the Wiki entry all the more important. There is no criticism because, it seems, none of Pask's assertions can be contradicted. When Downing awards him an Sc.D. after an academic committee has considered his life's publications you be sure he was taken seriously. Happy to leave up your objection longer if that's what you really want. But someone must come up with a substantial objection to his position. Otherwise, I would say, you owe Pask's memory an apology. Look again at the juicy research problems he left us: the tapestry model and the specification of a practical field concurrent computer devoid of mathematical pathology. Nothing trivial or pseudoscientfic about that I can see, but I remain at your disposal.--Nick Green 00:51, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Mostly, Pask used physical concepts as metaphors for elaborating cybernetic theory. I don't see that reporting this is POV. It is quite factual. If any physicists object to how how he used physical metaphors it might be interesting, but again, we would need verifiable claims. At times Pask mused (some might say over-expansively) about the physical implications of his cybernetic theories. This is also factual. Nowhere does the article claim that Pask had a substantial impact on physical theory. Nowhere does the article claim that Pask's theories are true, only that he articulated them -- exactly what one should expect in a biographical encyclopedia article. There is willingness to address your concerns, SA, but unless you can be more specific, there is not much we can do. Nesbit 04:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Cross-disciplinary prose

message: See page 1437 in Nick's paper, where he writes "this statement is intended to embody all forces...". The obvious compromise is to insert up to two sentences following the literal description of what Pask wrote with something like the following "According to Green(2004), Pask intended this to apply to all physical forces, including nuclear gravitational, and electromagnetic forces." In my view we can sustain a sentence or two citing Nick's publications, but any more than a couple of sentences would run up against the vanity and notability guidelines This article should keep the focus quite firmly on the ideas that Pask published. There is a lot more to be done on clarifying the central and widely recognized contributions of Pask, without spending more energy on  arguments about whether they had implications for theories of planetary evolution. Nesbit 22:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Nesbit. Only just seen this. That makes sense to me.--Nick Green 00:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Could we quote Nick directly from his paper? I really think this is going out on a limb here to accomodate the viewpoint of a single person, as familiar as he may be with the subject, but I'd be more comfortable with a directly quoted citation than an amalgamated statement. --ScienceApologist 00:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see that it makes a difference whether quoted or paraphrased, although paraphrasal usually allows ideas to be more flexibly fitted to the context. Quoting is fine by me. Nesbit 02:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This is not the single viewpoint. I report literally what was said in Green 2001 both papers have been peer reviewed and the remark is reported on the official Society web site. The quote would be "This statement is intended to embody all forces: weak, strong, gravitational and electric or magnetic, which give rise to the self-organising character we see in Nature. " Green 2004. I would like to add "This can be seen as a describing a generalised interference phenomenon" as an aid the the general reader. If you think someting about why sine waves are related to spins and vector addition it could also be included. (We see gravitational interference with gravity meters under planetary alignment and planetry opposition, for example.) Or how about "The attractive state maintains the forms about us. What we observe is the radiation produced by repulsive interactions or concept unfolding, as Pask called it". And please this is not Wiiki OR, these are strictly consequential statements aimed at clarification.--Nick Green 19:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

text: OK I'll have a think about that but I'll obviously want to do some explaining about the nature of epistemological self organisation. Is this the kind of thing Wilczek or Penrose would have to put up with? Anyway Pask was a deep thinker and teacher (although his technical writing is difficult, preferring the assertoric approach- find a counter example to falsify) so I guess this OR business is going to be an on going struggle. Next time you're in the library pull out the Collected Works of Norbert Wiener and be amazed, be very amazed! The scope is breathtaking and his method - black box analysis- remains the key. Pask's Last Theorem operates in that Black Box so this is no trivial exercise. I'll make a proposal in next couple of days. Best to you.--Nick Green 00:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Your proposal seems a bit tried since there is no explanation for how "periodic momentum transfers" interact with "concepts". More than this, we should just quote you because we are taking your word that Pask said that his theorem applied to all forces. You could have misinterpreted him, for example. --ScienceApologist 06:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  1. for "perodic momentum tranfsers" read waves? 2. We have to do something on "all media". I suggest Pask's early definition of a concept was "a procudure for bringing about a relation. Not a set of things" (Pask 1975). Implicit here is the idea that an act of communication produces a relation and a coherent synchronous dependence (para 103 Pask 1993). This is very general and Pask would speak of circular processes which produce and, incidentally reproduce (see also Pask 1993 eg para 138, 336) in any medium in his tutorials and seminars. Later we see we see "any competent medium" (Pask 1993 para 160) and a discussion that describes as "far from outlandish" that concepts exist (ibid para 90) in stars.--Nick Green 21:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

text: So you want me to go into the physics of this? Certainly. "Interactions produce wave cancellation and reinforcement". Remember "persisting circular processes" produce waves.--Nick Green 22:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't true. When a billiard ball interacts with another billiard ball in the classic momentum conservation experiment there are no "waves cancelling" or "waves reinforcing". It is straight particle-particle interaction. Waveparticles don't always equate to waves. Sometimes they equate to particles. --ScienceApologist 01:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

text:  procedure and relation entirely conventional definitions. Use Wiki. Don't quite see your problem with "Pask space" (clearly you still think him a witch, for heaven's sake read Carver Mead "Collective Electrodynamics" their perspectives were pretty well identical) Of space he says "This emission is characteristic of any kind of language and any action, it is, ...a radiation emitted in meaningfully quantised packages. Emitted into what, though? Do we need some kind of aether as a medium ... or can we simply say that it goes into the curious topological manifold which extends from something into the void?" eg recall Williamson "Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology?"--Nick Green 22:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Well if procedure and relation are conventional, then Pask's definition is unconventional because there are no dictionaries I know of that define concepts in such a way. --ScienceApologist 01:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

text: Have you or Gordon Pask actually studied quantum mechanics? Did he, for example, ever try to work through a solution of the Schrodinger Equation? Or did he just make all this up as he went along? --ScienceApologist 01:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Both of us fully familiar with QM/WM. This is a wave model- I hope you understand that, that's why I still want Penrose and Mead in. The spins can be seen as the curl of the Vector potential, if that helps you. Are you now able to accept "all media"?--Nick Green 23:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good try, but not quite. Particles are not waves. --ScienceApologist 00:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: What about wave/particle duality? Big things are made from small things which are fields, eg see Wilczek and check your text book! Anyway there are plenty of quotes in the 1996 paper on the media question. I'll use that-if not as clear as earlier apparently to you illegal description. Are you a really a physicist? Do you know what a wave theory of matter is? I have supplied references for you. Particles are created by waves. Particles are, ahem, an analogy only. They are soliton-like. How do you account for the hardness of particles without waves?--Nick Green 04:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, wave/particle duality states that the phenomena are the same, but you can't ignore one half of the pairing in favor of the other half. It is indeed true that there is a wave-nature to all of matter, but there is simultaneously a "particle" nature to all of matter. In a young's diffraction where you follow which slit the waveparticle travels through, there is no sense in which the collapsed wavefunction at the slit acts as a wave with the requisite wavelength. It acts as a particle. --ScienceApologist 13:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  This is not the place to resolve this question. Let's simply say that IA is a wave theory. How about this quote from Pask 1996 "Some (any dynamic) medium" or "any interpretive medium, human, animal, organizational, possibly mechanical, possibly even cosmological". Then we have the quote from my paper as "all forces" and I cite Mead as a contemporary wave theorist and critic of the Copenhagen Interp and Penrose recent cosomological conjecture. These are orientional rather than supportive of Pask's posn and I will make that clear.--Nick Green 17:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

text: But their findings are confirmatory of Pask's approach, which was more contraversial when Pask made them, incidentally. We don't want him to look like a lunatic do we? So how about "Pask stated this applied to all forces in all media" (see Pask 1996, Green 2004)--Nick Green 17:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

text: I take now that the above is acceptable. Might I add for the general reader:"The conservation of momentum applies here (see Bosons) and Pask's statement can be seen as the constructive (repulsion of like concepts) and destructive (attraction of unlike concepts) interference produced by interacting waves. The sufficiency of Wave Mechanics has been advocated by Carver Mead in his "Collective Electrodynamics" and Sir Roger Penrose has recently conjectured a "scale free" wave mechanically based cosmology." (ref to video)--Nick Green 04:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Please find me one person other than yourself commenting on what Pask said who believe that Pask's theory applies to all forces. Making extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence. The edit stands. --ScienceApologist 21:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: As it is, there is no definition of "concept" that applies specifically to "forces". I should point out that in quantum mechanics, there is really no such thing as "forces", only waveparticle exchange. In this view, there isn't a clear analogy between what the "like" and "unlike" "concepts" are that are causing the "repulsion" or the "attraction". Furthermore, in general relativity, there is no gravitational force: only geodesics. In this view, the gravitational force is "fictitious" in that it represents an observationally dependent reference frame and local metric. Again, the analogy is weak or at the very least not elucidated by Pask in any of the primary sources. --ScienceApologist 16:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Pask preferred a wave mechanical model with the momenta exerting forces. This aids applicability. Pask's Complementarity Principle is distinct from Bohr's. In the last paper he states it as "There is no such thing as a product without a process to create it and no such thing as a process that creates no product." Products are bounded with begins and ends like conversations but processes are eternal. He even reflects on the particle-like character of a converstion. So we may simply say waves produce quanta. This position is surely worth considering as we disentangle ourselves from the Copenhagen Interpretation. Maybe conventional Physics will catch up with Cybernetics one day!--Nick Green 04:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Until such time, synthesizing as you are doing is simply original research and will have to be confined to other websites. -ScienceApologist 20:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Compromise on all forces

message: Nesbit: I'm not happy that the new quote in IA meets your "general audience" criterion but if they're prepared to think and not too hide bound it is very rewarding. Ideas for cleaning up the diagrams welcome. In a talk to MIT Frank Wilczek confirms angular momentum at heart of asymptotic freedom of QCD. So that's the strong force for you. It's rather more obvious for beta decay so that's the weak force the rest follows from the very fact of Newtonian defn of force. Pity we are banned from making this clear to the general reader. So further improvements are posible but I need to think how.
:My point is that all technical terms, symbols and concepts should be explained. For example, the arrowhead and cross-arc notation used to symbolize conjunction and disjunction should be spelled out so that readers can interpret the diagrams in the conversation theory section. Even some common terms, such as kinetic, may need to be explained because their meaning in the context of Paskian theory is not clear to novices.Nesbit 06:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: One of Pask's other collaborators may have a view on this but to me => meant produces (as in entry) and -> as in the diagrams too although when I first joined him as a student it would be "derives" or indicating a logical dependendence. The use of an arc withing a conjuctive pair was in use at System Research but in later work disjunctive relations were less emphasised as the resonance model took over.--Nick Green 12:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: General audience

message: I am interested in Pasks theory on metaphors, especially the definition of cybernetics as "the art and science of manipulating defensible metaphors". This quotation is generally attributed to Pask, but always misses detailed informations about the actual source. (A starting point for a search could be Pasks "An Approach to Cybernetics" (1961), but this book is hard to get in Europe.) I hope someone can give me a hint. -Armin B. Wagner 13:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Beer reports a conversation with Pask: "Just remind me of your personal definition of cybernetics would you?", says Beer. Pask replies "It is the science of defensible metaphors." It is an interesting recollection and well worth looking at in toto. See Stafford Beer in Pask's Festschrift- Systems Research vol 10 No 3 1993 p16 --Nick Green 20:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Theory of Metaphors

message: I'm removing the :Category:Cybernetics again, because persons are not to be listed such a category if there is specific :Category:Cyberneticists. This is the rule. Now I can imagine that this was happened because of the mentioning in the article of:
* Conversation Theory (CT) 
* Actors Theory (IA)
An easy solution here is to create two separate articles, and put them in the :Category:Cybernetics - Mdd 18:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  No persons in the [[:Category:Cybernetics]] 

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 06:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: Although I'm loathe to get anywhere near this discussion, I have to make one or two points, based on personal knowledge:Pask was never appointed to a substantive chair at the Open University. I am quite sure about this because I happened to be a member of staff at the OU Institute of Educational Technology at the time. Pask was employed for a couple of years as a consultant on a curriculum project funded by the Ford Foundation (Project Leader was Brian Lewis). At that time and for many years before and afterwards, Gordon's home base was Systems Research Ltd in Richmond (which I notice is not mentioned). He also held a part-time chair in Cybernetics at Brunel, and a visiting chair at (I think) Illinois/Urbana-Champaign (Heinz von Foerster was a close friend). The Open University may have given him, temporarily, the title of Visiting Professor.Along with a lot of bright ideas, Gordon was full of... well, self-promotion is maybe the best way to put it. It doesn't surprise me at all that contributors have found him difficult to sort out! His prose was about as incomprehensible as it is possible to get; sentences abound 250 words long and full of special terms used by Pask alone. My advice would be to stick to the WP basics: facts verified with refs, dates, quotes with refs... It's hard work, but who says biography should be easy?  Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I would suggest that most of the other universities listed were not substantive chairs, but Visiting Professorships. A Visiting Professorship is an honorary title, though one may be paid for duties specified. A substantive chair gives membership of a university's Senate, and is the subject of a full legally-binding employment contract. Same distinction between a Visiting Research Fellow and a substantive Research Fellow.  Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All good things to point out. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree. Thanks. -- Mdd (talk) 17:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

text: Pask also gave a series of lectures at Chelsea College; I attended but I don't think anyone was much the wiser at the end of the course - he was an entertaining speaker though.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apepper (talk • contribs) 22:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pask and the Open U 

message: * In this edit text is copy/paste here from the Conversation Theory article. -- Mdd (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Copy-paste registration 

message: three of the Gordon Pask 'obituary' links point to the sub-domain www2.venus.co.uk which appears to be no longer available -- (www2.venus.co.uk hosted pages that were originally published by Venus Internet Ltd, both of whose directors knew Gordon Pask -- Venus Internet Ltd was sold and is now part of Venus Business Communications Ltd) Oniscoid (talk) 10:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  bad links 

message: I have moved the interactions of actors information to its own page, as it was dominating this biography.86.155.99.174 (talk) 19:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Interactions of actors moved to own page 

message: I've got rid of the banner saying that it was too much like a resumee. I think I've made it less like one, but if other editors feel diffrently feel free to change it. The article still has issues, but I think it's slowly coming along. If I've done a faux pas by getting rid of the banner, please say (and my apologies if so). T. O. Manning (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Great work on this article, much improved since I last looked at it. Nice work, and support removing the banner. Hinterlander1 (talk) 14:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: Much obliged. HTML is a pain! T. O. Manning (talk) 13:09, 13 May 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Got rid of banner