La magia de la mente

Los sistemas tradicionales pretendían establecer un orden para poder' pensar'. Esta aproximación al conocimiento se muestra insuficiente.El elemento que permite criticar esas aproximaciones está en el fundamento de 'orden'.

En el estado del arte actual, el concepto de orden en el marco mental resulta un corsé demasiado estrecho para explicar por ejemplo la 'emocionalidad en las decisiones' o 'la intuición de los actos'.

Esto sugiere variar la definición de conocimiento para extenderla a 'todo aquello' que se necesita para explicar el 'estado mental' de un sujeto. El cambio de variable es explícito: desde conocimiento a estado mental...

Hay que alertar sobre el uso de estado ya que no se corresponde con una 'posición estática' ni siquiera en el dominio mental: el sujeto es dinámico por lo que el estado que lo representa tiene que tener esta característica. De la misma manera hay que alertar sobre el 'dinamismo' que no se establece mediante los ejes tradicionales del espacio-tiempo: un 'concepto' es 'independiente' de los ejes del espacio-tiempo y como tal sólo es un elemento ficcionado, existente en el dominio del sujeto.

Cada vez en más medida, se puede observar como los 'elementos estáticos' (en el sentido del espacio-tiempo) dejan de ser útiles en el contexto social lo que constituye la constatación del estado del arte al que me refería más arriba. Es cada vez más difícil establecer 'a priori' un orden que se mantenga.

Esto nos lleva a aproximar sujetivamente la realidad de manera no lineal, caótica, aproximaciones mediante las que el orden se puede establecer en 'cada instante' teniendo en cuenta las condiciones de contorno  en las que se establece dicho orden.

El marco temporal en que es válida una decisón, junto al tiempo en que se precisa para alcanzar el estado que 'la habilita' son los elementos de 'holgura' de los que dispnemos en el marco del Personal Knowledge Management. Y siempre ya con un 'riesgo alto'.

Esto afecta tanto al "Knowledge "como al "Management".

A worm on the apple

Since the beginning I've maintained the position that knowledge, if that word refers to 'something', is personal and after having made a recent googling of the tendencies over the subject, I feel comfortable: it looks that almost everyone is in that trend. It is a fact that the terminology is still using the 'formalization' of explicit and tacit, but I think that it is just about trying to grasp at straws because of the old principles of management. Theoretically, I think that it is enough to have three concepts, data, information and knowledge (definitions for such approach can be easily find on the Web) and that explicit knowledge could be reduced to information. 'Data' is to be maintained as an entity just because as a mean to justify the physical support (for example, to 'name' every thing that is on a Google disk server has we can use 'data'- but it can be maintained that on the knowledge domain if there is not an 'human access' to that data, it is 'nothing' and that once it is 'accessed' it is information being used to acquire knowledge).

From the point of view of a company, it looks like the only way to 'improve' its knowledge is to 'adquire it', and the only way to do that is including people that has the 'missing knowledge'. The problem so could be focused over two questions. The first is determining 'what' knowledge is missing. The second is, once acquired, 'to spread' the new knowledge over other employees. This trend can be traced over efforts on 'retain' and 'attract' the 'talent' that companies do.

Determining the 'what' looks like an entrepreneurship tasks. Could be seen positioned under the strategical core of an enterprise. Let us assume that by those means, a result can be reached (maybe through 'darwinian techniques') and that the 'what' is determined, quantified, located in the market and 'adquired'.

From there an 'opposition' (over 'encapsulation') could be established: The new knowledge could be seen as a worm on the apple (it makes it nest, gets fed up by the apple and some time latter flies away) or an approach that leads necessarily to running a transformation process so the apple, the company, changes to something else 'essentially different'.

So a meaningfull 'knowledge management', is not about what it looks like at fist , managing 'someting', but a consequence of a transformation process that will transform the company and so the company management if self; or will end with the 'fly away' of the butterfly; or in, the 'worst case', could extinguish the whole company.

Presentación Presentation

This in being developed on an ongoing basis.

At the beginning of each post there should be information about the state of it.

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Presentation.

Knowledge has being a point of interest for me along the last 15 years. The first input was Knowledge Management, where I posted the seminal question: how a company could manage something that is 'personal'?. Trying to understand how knowledge could be defined as an asset, I begun looking for the definitions (in those times, Encarta was `the encyclopedia' and the DRAE was just coming on line): one pointing to mind and the other to soul. I get astonished as I knew that since the early 60’s of the past century, a lot of work and money has been put under artificial intelligence.  Ok with that there has not been what have being promised, but in that time, there were expert systems and so, some advances in understanding knowledge as a structure, so what where those references to mind and soul? I begun to work over it. And I found a broad area of interest where some knowledge management has to be carried for not getting lost.

We can see that from that days, the ones of Expert systems to now there has being more advance (let us pass through some examples: - Those photo cameras that finds the mouth and that gets the photo when there is a smile. - Those applications for advising about the route to somewhere. – The announce of a car that can drive by itself. – The automatic pilot of the airplanes… and, maybe, the most appealing: that robot that is ‘analyzing’ Mars. And don’t forget the web searchers and Wikipedia. All this ‘applications’ runs over computers and so, there should be adequate data structures and processes, processes to select a target, to take decisions and so on.) and, as all of them have being developed under some methodology, project control, adequate complex processes, managerial techniques and so on, we can expect that advances in understanding how to manage knowledge has being done and some clarification over what does mind is can be put over ten table.

Recently I began to work over Google+ and found a Community with the 'formal' name of Personal Knowledge Management; that title describes my approximation to this matter and from the readings of some posts over there, I decided to contribute with this 'pseudo theoretical' approach, in the aim of exposing what by myself has been developed over the matter and obtaining tips to align my knowledge over it.

I have not followed an MBA or alike, but I have being involved in management for most of my work life (I know that there could be several wife's, but are there several life's?) so at least It could be said that I have an intuition about what management means and as I have been involved in several innovations projects, also that I'm sensitive to what Management of Personal knowledge means.

It is obvious that this text has not the aim of an academic one. I think it should be positioned just as 'notes about' Personal Knowledge Management.

Some discussions have the form of 'the egg and the hen' one. Those are solved by the way of axioms. In those cases, the context text should suggest the point of view. For example the one about the essence of human being to be personal or social, in most cases here is stated that the subject, the person is first.

As exposition goes through facts, the discussion over evolutionism and creationism becomes irrelevant.  Saying that ‘It take nature a long period for an organism to fly, but humans did it just in a few decades (fifteen thousand years, if you want)’, does not imply anything about that 'the human capability to make airplanes' or the one of 'birds to fly' comes through evolution or by other mean. My personal approach is through evolutionism; sorry if I express it braking so this principle of irrelevance.

Why that subtitle?

Nature flows by doing. Human flows by thinking. Looks like some poetry didn't it? More about this issue in the Introduction.

Next steps

Writing about Personal management is new for me, so it will take time to arrive to some results. My interest is to check how the proposed Knowledge model behaves.

I'll do my best to try to maintain the ideas out an Self help approach or Coaching an so. I use to say that different technicians with the same data arrive to the same solution. I will see in this case if I could be considerer a 'technician of an unknown discipline'.

Introduction

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How Personal Knowledge Management could be understood.

 One way could be considering 'Knowledge management' as a fact, that is in the business approximation how an employee should organize him /her self in an organization that is Knowledge oriented. This approach could be extended for example in the form of 'Knowledge society',  ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Society#Knowledge_society), a society supposedly organized around knowledge. These approaches need to be based over social sciences and could be better defined when arriving to the concept of management.

Another way is considering 'Personal Knowledge' as a fact, and focus on how a person can manage his /her 'Personal knowledge' in his / her current social context. This approach needs to be based on Psychology and or Cognitive sciences. This approach could include the first one, but that is not a necessary condition: target could be seen differently.

Here I will try to follow the way of considering 'Personal Knowledge' as a fact. Life has only one time to be lived so matching all the personal circumstances is a 'must'. There is another thing to be aware of under this way. Its about how from the perspective of oneself can be established something about oneself knowledge. In the papers (history) this refers to introspection techniques that are not enough. Contrast should be carried on.

Nature flows by doing. Human flows by thinking.(1)(3)

The assumption under Nature flows by doing is that any organism acts. And so, humans as organisms act. An organism, and so human being, could be see as a living thing.

No single organism is completely free. The natural flow for an individual organism is restricted by the space and time dimensions applied to where and when that organism ‘is’, its surroundings, and of course also it is restricted by the characteristics of the organism itself.

Organism’s life is social and the complex ‘cohabitation’ of multiple ‘organisms societies’ determines, let us say, the general natural flow. As the perspective here is from the organism, the model will require to support let us say at least the minimum of this complexity by each organism.

As action is inherent to organisms, life, in some sense, it can be explained as acting. Next question is, how ?  The answer have being expressed along the time by psychologists (so over the human being), under different paradigms. Along the Behavioral period, the action was explained by the action itself; that did not meant that when doing there is ‘no thinking’ ; just that defining and investigating thinking is not an easy or a scientific subject. Later, the Cognitive period focused on thinking as part of doing and now days the Emotional period links both paradigms giving us a ‘gestalitic’ map of the subject that acts. Under every paradigm, there is always something that motivates the action.

Action implies a great complexity; for example, moving a hand towards a target is a very complex feed back process where information should be generated in time and according to the feed back information that is coming through various perception systems, for example, sight, the movement is being carried on. An organism brain (we are restricting the scope to some organism's)can be viewed as receiving inputs and on accordance to them generating responses for the organism to act and under a brain centric perspective (we are restricting a bit more the scope)(2), an action could be understood as an output that has all the data or information needed for the action to be completed.

So, the domain of Natural flow restricts every thing to the extended world of an organism. If there is a mismatch in acting, that is if the organism is able to perceive something but can not act over it, will be executed a process that or converts that in a thing over the extended world or produces a signal to 'ignore it'. Natural flow (acts) have always a target that must be in its domain.

I think that there is a ‘general agreement’ on that every organism acts, feels and thinks at a time: not isolated acts, nor isolated feelings nor isolated thinking's.

So as we are organism, we should act in the way that the others, that is in the Natural flow. There is an obvious fact: ‘human doing’ looks different from the one of any other organism. The extent of human language, getting aware about time, the one of writing and that Human society complexity and imprecise as a product of human capability of virtualization 'over the time', are facts.

The paradigm here is that we act as other organisms over an 'extended world'(in the restricted sense of the above paragraphs)and that the difference observed in humans could be explained by that their brain is more powerful in how it constructs the 'extended world', applying things in ways that include 'nonsense ways'  and so can create tangible and intangible things maintaining all that under the restrictions of the Natural flow. Simple examples show that a great power could be obtained from that way of extending world. It is a bit surprising and important to note how we can learn in detail something as complex as walking or writing ( fine motor skill ) and also learning so coarsely, for example something like 'a glass of water'. that I think could be explained t through this way, this is what is referred under 'Humans flow by thinking' or 'Human flow'.

Natural flow and Human flow is an egg-chicken problem. In this case, the prevalence is taken over Natural Flow.

Cause-Effect logic. It looks like those procedures are brain 'hardware implemented'; they are exorbitantly used by occidental culture and are essential in science. But some irrelevancy can be found for causes when digging a little bit in terms, for example, personal logic. There is a difficulty, maybe an absence in terms of determination, to find a 'mental cause' for a more or less determined effect. I think, that 'lack of determination' was one of the foundations of Behaviorism in Psychology and I´m sure that it is in the foundations of such a 'flow division' here.

Management

In Business there could be said that there is good an 'less good' management . There is money as a variable to measures results. Psychology has nothing similar; How 'motivation', 'happiness', 'fear' …could be quantified? In the other hand, it can be assumed that any organism manages its life and so that some intuitive (Natural flow) ways of doing that are applied. And living for organisms is not a mechanic way: The most used term there is 'survival', but to survive includes thinks that have not a mechanic response; the more advanced robots are able of (industrial) some advanced responses but I don't know that any one arguing to be the leader of the pack.

I am not sure about once identified a management technique over 'some part' of personal knowledge, that is over a division of life, it could be applied to the whole subject structure, that is, similarly applied to the 'other parts'.

In any case, in the 'state of the art',  it looks like we need to focus through a point of reference, let us say 'Work life' and try to check that no inconsistencies arrive in other parts of the whole subject structure.

Chapter One

(posts under this tag)

Contains those definitions that are needed for the 'discipline'. At least three words have to be delimited: Personal, Management and Knowledge. The approximation will allow to define a model of the main construction that will be used on next's chapters: 'knowledge structure' and the basics processes: introduce, extract and change(Wow! Looks like in Computers: Add, Change and Remove !).

Chapter two

(posts under this tag)

Under the consequences of Chapter one, the proposed model suggest that the best way of personal knowledge managing is what we get through Nike: Just do it!

In terms of the model could be said as: Just use a Natural flow; then the best recommendation should be: think as less as possible!  .

The question arises from the fact, that as the world in witch human life develops changes under the virtualization paradigm, some thinking has to be done. So the personal knowledge is being changed through different ways. As said in the presentation, the human ecosystem varies and some work is to be developed for the personal knowledge to be aligned.

Other humans put new things on our life, for example look at the iPhone; is it a phone? I'm not going over it (everybody knows that it is not just a phone)But the relevant thing is that the paradigm over it has changed our behavior;  and the paradigm stated is pervasive: probably it extends all over the world, under whichever culture.

In the same sense, there are inputs that come from the labor world. It sounds strange as we are personalization business's, but that is the approach. Company's have their Knowledge and it evolves; of course that there are humans implanting those changes, but the repository is nor the human brains, but computers (completely formal)and papers (almost completely informal).

Management of personal knowledge will focus on how to convert that flow, that is originated on the Human flow to the natural one, in other terms, who to use new thinks in a Natural flow, use them just do!

So, looks like I will not follow a traditional approach to management, maybe exploiting what it looks like is my best aptitude: innovate.

Chapter three

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Why 'Management over written materials'.

The leading question could be:

How do manage knowledge for improving information creation?

Parts:

Why writing?

What's are the process involved there?

What does semantic meaning is?

What are the semantics on a text?

Could it be retrieved?

If so, what do it serves for?

What is an Ontology?

Does a personal Ontology  has sense?

Do a personal Corpus has sense?

Tools and 'trends'

Wikis

Hyperlinks

The spread sheet paradigm

Semantic Web

MindManager

Power Point

OneNote

 An example could be this blog

Domain information sources

 (posts under Notas tag)

 ___________

(1) The idea of flux here do not denote any force or think like that. It is used in an as an exoteric form as is used 'electricity' or 'digestion' in other domains. In the other hand, as flux almost allways denote 'motion' and 'analogue continuity', an so implicitly time and continuity are there, a paradox or contradiction between asuming quanta for knowledge and trying to 'fix' it and using flux is there and somohow assumed.

(2) More neural elements that those that are on the brain are involved in organism activity.

(3) On feb 19, 2013 I found information of a previous use of Flux. It comes from academic Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi)

First point

Let us start at the beginning: Some definitions.

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Index

1. What does knowledge is?
• In the model it is an structure. Nodes and relations between nodes. It contains every personal knowledge. We can access to nodes or sub structures.
2. What does learning is?
• Is the process that permits maintaining (add, change, delete, modify)the knowledge structure
3. What does thinking is?
• define thinking as employing the knowledge structure Virtualize so learning process can act. Words and language as an structure made on the fly 
• Abuot Constrains
4. What does mental processes are?
• Tools
• The Oneself
5. What does perception means?
• The access to mind objects and natural flow object. 
• About memory
6. About management.
   • Evolution of the term
   • New trends

   •  Note About Computer Paradigm

   • Focal point

1. What does knowledge is?

Why to begin Here?

As we are working in 'Personal knowledge Management', that is, trying to manage 'something' it is needed to define the 'thing'.
As Knowledge is a big term, it make sense to establish what is the meaning of 'Personal Knowledge' and how it is being used, some kind of how it is being 'made operative', in this context.

Hellström and Jacob.'

the constitutive and transformative character of 'knowledge'

Evolution of the term

The term evolves under Philosophy as a component of philosophical systems(Gnoseology and Epistemology branches are specifically oriented to knowledge). Categorization, Systemic, Structural, Functional, and so sustain theoretical approaches.

Psychology incorporates it mainly under the education branch.
Sociology incorporates also Knowledge study as a term under their domains.
A multidisciplinary approach to knowledge appears under Cognitive sciences.
Some where in the puzzle appears Computer Sciences under Expert systems and Artificial intelligence.
In Business, there has being, as production became more technified and so since the second half of XX century, an interest on 'capacitating work force'. In the late 70's, with the incorporation of computer based technologies in production and administration company's became 'quality oriented' and appeared 'know how' as differentiator. As 'information became to flow globally at fast pace, shrinking time and so space, un localization appear and as a consequence, company's become a 'knowledge repository'. I thing that a paradigmatic today's company would sell everywhere, buy or manufacture 'just in time' wherever productivity is the best and design wherever are the best designers and technicians ; all this 'company operations' require to be carried on what is called knowledge. Of course, people in that company could know nothing about Plato's definitions or methods.
Note About Computer Paradigm
Computers are interesting machines.
It has been used for some times the study of mental processes considering there could be some similarity.
I think that the approach could be interesting, at least for one or two things. if it is done not in terms of 'information processing' but in terms more related with what a computer is.
Let us focus, for example on a PC. It has two differentiated parts, in general described as hardware and software. Let us focus a bit more in the hardware part, the one that in the paradigm should lead the model of the brain.

Of course that there are physical (things, chips, cables…)but also there is something important: the capability of processing depends mainly on the capability to process of the, let us say, CPU. And here capability of process is a very determinate term: a list of 'microinstructions' watch are the real components of every program that 'runs in a determinate machine (or its clones).Also there are needed programs (drivers, and so)to manage the parts that surround the CPU, and a basic program a control program, that puts all together to an initial state, let us say the waiting. Over that 'hardware' more programs are installed or 'can run'; for example, an operating system. Of course, the CPU knows nothing about google, it just receives a list of instructions and execute them.
So from this paradigm something is useful: it suggest that first should be trying to look for the microcode on the brain or at least assuming that there is 'some'.
More suggestions could be tricky. The computer has a centralized architecture, with well defined parts, and that is not the way that, it looks like, brain works; neuronal tracts are 'more' mesh.
Another thing that could do is that, it could be that as in computers, any 'compatible software' could run, and the software determines the 'behavior' of the machine. So software in the brain, for example 'culture', determines the behavior.
But, as in the case of computers, were it is not possible to know what microcode hardware is running looking at the high level utilities, it could be nonsense trying to 'induce' how things are in the brain just with observing the behavior; that sound as nonsense as trying to induce how a computer works being 'the best' google user.
Computers do not 'process information', just runs lists of instruction, Information is not 'resident' on computers, in there there are just data that needs to be under a 'meta structure' to acquire sense, and sense is just given by humans. So, it looks like computers are in the natural flow: they act. Humans do what they best know: we virtualized those acts and assignee them some virtual sense

Joel Mokyr Article: An approach to Knowledge from the Social point of view is interesting in the sense that shows why the foundation of the Knowledge structure and the Natural / Human Flow as artifacts on this approximation;: knowledge at a social level is as the union of all the sets of individual knowledge

… contradictory … “knowledge” pertains to what an individual believes to be true' … Knowledge differs from information… access costs … “useful knowledge” was used by Simon Kuznets (1965, pp. 85–87) as the source of modern economic growth. [Joel Mokyr] am motivated by the centrality of technology. … technology in its widest sense is the manipulation of nature for human material gain, knowledge of natural phenomena and regularities that exclude the human mind and social institutions.  …knowledge that catalogs natural phenomena and regularities (“knowledge of what”), which I will call propositional knowledge .….  Prescriptive knowledge has the form of techniques or instructions  When these instructions are carried out in practice, we call it production, and then they are no longer knowledge but action. 

Article.Knowledge-based Society, Knowledge Society: 'The extraordinary value of knowledge is, of course, that there are no limits to its growth or the value it can generate. … challenges are global in their scope, profoundly interconnected, and dependent on scientific and technological input … communications technologies make it possible to teach and collaborate with anyone anywhere. Online educational resources and organizations devoted to creating partnerships and networks among scientists, engineers, and educators continue to proliferate.* But in the end, the task of creating a truly global knowledge society, of knitting together the scientific and technical communities of nations to solve humanity's common problems, falls to each and all of us.'

<Quote .Article>: 'knowledge about knowledge. Creating value is about creating new knowledge and capturing its value. The most important property is now intellectual property, … Workers at all levels in the 21st century knowledge society will need to be lifelong learners, adapting continuously to changed opportunities, work practices, business models and forms of economic and social organization'

<Quote .Article> 2011: 'The first time we ever heard about “knowledge society” was back in 1969, when Peter Drucker used these words to describe certain aspects of management, but it wasn’t until 1990 when researchers like Mansell or Stehr published their studies, that we really started to know about it. We can find the keys to Knowledge Society following the steps of what we call the Information society, heading towards a much more collaborative global world of knowledge sharing'

Trends

The main trends could be exposed as:

Consider knowledge as something that is supported on the brain

Maintaining a look over what is coming from Neurologists.

Consider that it is able to formalize knowledge in some way.

The support could be found on Cognitive sciences approach.

Those trends suggest:

A first idea  in the way of formalization could be to define a Unit of Knowledge, in the way as it has been done in information theory (Shannon and so on) and develop a Theory of knowledge. If I’m in the right way, may be someone (else) will develop such a theory.  It looks like we have to abandon the idea of knowledge as a thing and try to approach it in another way. (1)

Another one is to omit an strict definition of knowledge going through it by a 'loose one' and make a turn around over a process approach. By now the idea is to extend the ideas under 'learning' to more process (for example those described under 'conditioning'). This means that I am proposing to get back to ideas that were being used several decades ago with the advantage that there is theoretical support and technical development over it.

___________________

(1)I assume that knowledge could be represented by a quantum variable, so assuming that there is a unit of knowledge.

Local use of the term

In any case it is needed a 'local' definition for knowledge.

At least to some extend sources domain reference for Personal Knowledge could be found over the Cognitive sciences (interdisciplinary sciences are like a moll; now days Cognitive sciences trends are more in the neurobiology domain)

I used the verb 'to think' and the substantive 'thing', and so I am proposing that 'things are needed to think' so considering knowledge as a set of things. This approach is the one that has been carried by philosophers, for centuries. Over the time the question arises to ‘ontology’ (in the philosophic sense) that is, how does things are? It can be seen easily that, for example, the screen of your computer 'is'. What about colors? What about meaning? Color or meaning exist as exists the screen? In this way we have to consider that there are different kinds of things. How are processed those kinds on the mind? Are there different ‘processors’? (I am introducing another term, the mind, and using a paradigm -the one that considers an approach to the mind as ‘something that processes ‘something’ usually described as ‘information' or 'data'). Over the time the analysis of ‘thinking’ evolved. It is relevant to expose the idea of ‘association’ that means that things are related in some way, for example in time or place… the sense there is, for example, that if you have the idea (as a thing) of a ‘leg’, and the idea of an ‘animal’, the mind works associating them, so you can obtain ‘the dog has 4 legs’. A more sophisticated and modern example is that if you are in a 'good mood' you will associate 'what is happening' to that mood. Focusing in the first example there is a basis for induction (a logic term that describes a formal process), not just over ‘things’ but over 'associated things'’ and that implies a change in the paradigm: knowledge becomes related with ‘associated things’. As a way to describe ‘associations’, we arrive to ‘structures’. The term structure is related with several sciences and technologies. For example, if the thing is a building, architects say that there is a structure in it; if it is a computer program technicians says that there is a data structure supporting the logic and so on. It is a diffuse term with which we try to express ‘things are related some how’. Structure has some connotations of organization and stability. It is a diffuse term with which we try to express ‘things are related some how’.

Knowledge structure

Structure has some connotations of organization and stability. We assume those 'properties' in knowledge. We can try to approach the knowledge concept saying that a 'loose definition of structure' could be used and so assuming that there is a structure supporting knowledge, name it as Knowledge structure and try to 'populate it', taking care about how we insert characteristics of knowledge more or less accepted as ones of knowledge, as could be association and things and propose ways of including others that are coming from investigation. The idea under this is that if more assumptions are made a 'part of the Knowledge structure' involved in those assumptions could be defined in a more formal way making at least that part of knowledge tractable. As parts are not isolated ones, the total structure continue to be involved so influence of changes over to whole structure is maintained. And another change in the paradigm: knowledge is related with ‘structured things’.

With knowledge structure we are assuming that there are parts of knowledge and that those are also related, and as so (parts related to parts related to parts…) that it is a mesh. So we will assume that it is possible to focus just in those elements or parts that participate in just 'some relation' . (2)

The question then that remains 'unsolved' is how to match the 'physical' structure (the one that is in the brain) with this 'logical one' . There is a lot of references under the idea of matching through 'functionality'. In the case of knowledge, there are approaches under the structural way, for example those that has conducted to mind maps an so on, but with, let us say. questionable results at least in obtaining a formal approach. If you look at the brain, there are tracts, nodes, 'zones' and so, and it looks like there are similarities of this elements  (aspect, configuration, position, ..) between individuals of each specie. it can be supposed an structure there.

We can consider the brain as formed at least by neurons related by synapses so the definitions could feed if we use as part a group of neurons that supports a part of knowledge, and we extend that to a 'network of related groups of neurons' to support a composed concept (not necessary related with words). We can extend this idea to arrive to the one of a global knowledge structure as the one that involves ‘all’ neurons. To represent changing we can manage over time introducing the idea of a neural state. Looks nice, didn't it? Yeah, but really complex as could be seen through some magnitudes. For example: a complex processor (CPU) has over 6 x10^9 transistors –memory should be added, I suppose- (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transistor_count ) and estimates for synapses are ranging from 10^14 to 5 x 10^14 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuron) and that some digits have to be added to codify the way in which synapses is modulated. Also, problems come from understanding how the synapses operates, what are the real neural components (the white matter) and of course the inconvenience because testing could just be done under several restrictions. And also from the neurons them self, they are not all equal, there are different types, and also some studies suggest that they are not just carrying 'data' like wires, but that it could be some functionality in themselves.

______

Delete on the Knowledge structure. There are process to delete, amnesia is an example. The habitual way is to forget. And it is a curious process.

______

 _____________

Knowledge structure order

We have not defined an order in the knowledge structure above that one that permits to 'define' parts in a loose way and could derive from the definition of structure (related nods). We do not need to specify more because the need of a precise order should arrive when trying to describe any one of the processes or tools that uses knowledge parts. So we can assume for the knowledge structure a  loose ordered one. Examples of loose knowledge structures could be, in academics: domains or disciplines; and in business modern organizations. The characteristic of this kind of structure order gives some functions: order is not complete nor strictly directed. I call this a mesh.

Knowledge structure properties.

When trying to relate an item within an structure by a property, there could be others because other item properties so there could be not a unique hierarchy (for example, organize from colors an size). So it is needed that kind of flexibility in the knowledge structure.

?? Some process could produce change and reference of an item could change and modifications over it could generate inconsistencies hierarchies .. That's why functional programming is looked with interest ( F#).

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Knowledge structure dimensions

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Knowledge structure semantic dimensions

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(2)Knowledge is not static so more complexity is to be expected. I assume that effects of change in the Knowledge structure are sequential.

Focal Point

Natural flow is about time and space. How do that goes on the KS? Data in the KS… and these 'data' are metadata that is data related with the modulation, not with the 'elements themselves'.

Usually two 'kinds of things' are established, that translated to this model are more or less those related with the ones that come from the Natural flow and those that come from the Human flow. In this model, as Natural flow refer to acts, there should be no distinction about any 'kind' of things under the Natural flow. For example: 'love' and 'steak', are things that can be used in similar acts, as in 'writing about love' or 'writing about steaks'. And as almost anything that is in the Knowledge structure is there by the learning process, almost every thing is virtualized. This set can be named as 'virtualized world' or 'extended world'. Resolving that 'almost' pass through the physical support, that is, every thing that could be used by each of both fluxes should have the same characteristics of those ones that come from the physical constitution of the body, for example the heart beat. So it is needed for the learning process (it is not need to define two learning processes) to convert 'any thing' from the Human flow in a compatible form of that of the physical support. But as we can not 'understand' the hard code, the model should be constructed over an intermediate step, the virtualized world or extended world, that defines the domain that is related with what we can tell about acting and thinking and where other characteristics that are there, as 'emotions',  but about which our 'telling' is not that good are included as parameters that modify the access of the flows to those thinks. Some characteristics are needed in the components of the Knowledge structure to support 'things', 'acts', 'emotions' and so.

Future Focal point

The development will follow by the 'written knowledge'.

Why 'The development will follow by the written knowledge'?.

Natural flow is a complex dynamic and feed back process where an organism brain should use any useful available tool and knowledge.

In the actual state of the art there are no means, but in experimental or medical surroundings, to measure the relation between brain states and organism acting. There is a reasonable doubt about if  it would be stated a deterministic relation in the near future.

The act of writing involves thinking and natural flow acts. It is assumed that in that 'state', the one of writing, Natural flow actions could be well separated from those that involves 'thinking' and so we could obtain a way of analyzing knowledge processes. Writing is a mechanic and sequential act. Written materials are static. Written materials do not reflect personal knowledge, but if something could be established as a 'final write material', It is assumed that there is, in  those 'final write material', some reference to some personal knowledge. If there is enough final write material, a mechanical process could construct some part of personal knowledge, the one referred to de domain of discourse. This point to extend the concept of linguistic corpus to a personal corpus, and so if applying semantic tools could produce results.

One of the questions that arrive when looking at 'written materials' is that there are words and it is not necessary to relate knowledge with words as there are not words in acting, that is in the Natural flow. In the other hand, words are needed to communicate. So…

2. What does learning is?

As far as I know learning is a better established concept than knowledge. Since Pavlov established the Conditioned learning or Classical conditioning or however you like to refer to it, we have a supporting point about learning. Of course that is not a very innovative reference, but let me pass over all of the theories that have being exposed since then to assume learning as a fact, and propose it as a process by mean of which we are able to introduce in the brain some ‘knowledge’ (whatever this means).

The objective of learning is allowing that new things can enter in the extended world and could be used by the processes related with the natural flow.

Let us assume that learning, at least some kind of it, is genetic programmed. That means that every organism is prepared to learn.

Neural networks, an example of AI element, has a learning process, after witch, the Neural network can decide if an impute in of one or another 'categories'; it is an example of how learning, Natural flow an Human flow is used here.

3. What does thinking is?

Everybody has an idea about what it means. For example, this word has been introduced in the above description of knowledge. But that’s not true when you approximate to the term through Philosophy, Psychology or Cognitive sciences. The main problem is that of course, we can identify thinking with that process that works when you, for example, are typing a new text (I am in that kind of mode now). But also can be identified 'other kind' of processes. For example, you can observe yourself (or any other one) when drinking something or walking through the street; those actions are done, let us say naturally: almost we don't identify any thinking there. It can be said that that type of instinctive actions or automatic behaviors or whatever name is used are not in the domain of thinking. As so they had been positioned over the time.  But if you were a robot programmer surely you will not agree: drinking form a glass or walk in the street are not that simple: a lot of ¡knowledge has the be put in the system and managed for a robot to achieve them. Now let us observe ourselves when in a meeting with our friends we talk and, for example, we make a joke ¿is that on the domain of thinking?

We can enter on a discussion and try to delimit 'categories of thinking' and assign objects to those and so on… but there is another way: We can say that every action requires a previous knowledge and define thinking as employing the knowledge structure. In this way we can say that we are able to drink from a glass because you learned (incorporate to the knowledge structure)what a glass, and learned how activate the correct muscles to grasp, and controlling the movement over a 3d space, and moving the mouth muscles, focusing the eyes.... Let us suppose that whenever you learned about your muscles, about how to move your arms, how to grasp what a glass is, some elements were archived in the knowledge structure. So the brains is populated by sub structures of knowledge and 'by itself' makes our life going on. We can assume that there are thinking processes that are hardly related with the natural flow.

As indicated above, there are the ‘other processes, those introduced above as related with the popular way of describing thinking. For them, we can suppose that they operate over the same knowledge structure and only if needed another one will be constructed  Let us establish two scenarios differentiated by the use of words.

If words are not used, we can assume that thinking can work over the general knowledge structure; and there are no differences between processes, but those that permit incorporate a process itself and the 'pieces' in the knowledge structure and suppose that all the knowledge needed is there, incorporated through learning process along time.

When using words, for example when talking or writing, by some means it is needed to relate structures of knowledge and language (structures of words). A second acceptation for thinking could be obtained from there: thinking is the relation of knowledge structures and language.

We can find here an approximation to the traditional division of mind and brain where mind is used to describe ‘that part’ that processes those 'explicitly human processes' and that has been a focal point over the time. Brain is a more general term mainly used by other branches of science.

In this approach, we flip to the sense that brain is the focus part and mind, if used, should refer to a process (the theoretical support could be found - more or less - in ‘Neurosciences’). It can also be found at least some influence or convergence in the approach to knowledge as tacit or explicit in the writings of Nonaka and Takeuchi’s

3.1 About Constrains.

Do every thing can be think?

It is easy to approximate a first answer through the knowledge structure. As so far it is defined (as thinking is defined as manipulating the knowledge structure) each individual could be able to think about those things that are in his or her knowledge structure. So, employing the learning process (the one that incorporates perceptions into the knowledge structure)it could be said that anything could be 'learned' and so, that anyone could thing about every thing. And that's against the 'common sense' (we should consider as a fact that not everyone can think on everything). For coherence, we have to look for an explanation on the knowledge structure and look for 'restrictions' or 'constrains' in it.

For many time the paradigm has been that natural flow is not in between humans’ constrain so humans were just constrained by the human flow. Here we will consider that separation between the natural flow and the human flow is a virtually creation , and as we 'continue' being organism, there are natural flow constrains also for them.

As we have included in the knowledge structure all that related with the natural flow, we will look for restrictions coming from this area. Some technical terms related could be 'brain plasticity' and mathematical 'Chaos theory', Emotions, &c.

Those ancient Greeks like Aristotle, Plato, Pythagoras, and so on are recognized for a lot of great thought, but there is one that is some opaque: a general law of logic for the brain processes. I mean, not the logic itself, like the Aristotelian one, but the need of a logic for the brain to works. I think that there is a general acknowledgement on tight ere is not ‘one logic’ (of course that ‘syllogisms’ or 'induction' are a good tool)that could be considered as a general law (that one that must occurs in every brain), but we can affirm that a `logic’, however it is formulated, is needed for the brain to work.  Philosophers are the people that study human social principles and values. They establish frames that could be seen as, at the same time, restricting and permitting how knowledge structures can be formed; the restrictions align the personal knowledge structures to what could be expressed under the 'common sense'.  Almost all the thinking that a human can ‘produce’ is supported over structures allowed under the ‘dominating philosophy’ (the one that occurs at the moment and in the space in which a human ‘is being’). But as virtualization is a mean to broke limits, in any moment new proposals, out of the dominating frame, can occur and social acceptance or rejection will result in variations of the ‘common sense’ . Here we are approximation to a broader restriction term, where are included other restrictions that comes from sources not necessarily proposed through philosophy.

In the model, the place to support these logics is as a modulator of the perception (an interesting proposal, indeed). There is no need to include any restriction that impeaches more than one logic or the correctness of such a logic (so creating place to, for example, the paradoxes, ambiguity, interpretation, cultural diversity, &c). Just maybe could be needed a ‘soft internal coherence restriction’. As an example, look at this: there is no problem for us 'to see a flying elephant'.

What are the consequences of positioning  the restrictions as modulation of the perceptions?

As mental processes and natural flow's are positioned as parts of the perceptions, we don't need to explain separated modulations systems (for example  'mental processes and emotions").  A support to this could be, for example, the hormonal system.

There is no need to put restrictions through the knowledge structure, allowing us to maintaining the idea of some stability or rigidity for it.

This approximation means that when you don't like something or you think that 'something is wrong', those 'qualifications' are been carried as restrictions and so, that the knowledge structure can act over the modulation 'on the fly'. This could explain how for the same 'question' answered in different moments, the personal answer could be different or the absence of reasons.

4. What does mental processes are?

Mental processes are described in the literature as those needed for  thoughts, actions, plans, language, understanding of others and so on. There is not an official list, but this king of more or less general descriptions are more or less in 'all lists'.

Process is a word, noun and verb, that pushes the idea of well defined actions and sequence (some kind of order), as in things that can be engineered. Usually a process is described as a transformation operation: input into outputs and so it also includes or is referenced to a 'target' giving a sense of directions. It is used under many disciplines: chemistry, management, production, project management, cooking and others ...

Most of the time, it is used like a wildcard.  It implies mainly a reduction of the scope. I use it when a detail description is not convenient under the circumstances of the speech, and even when I am not able to. Here, actually, I have, and will put, under it a lot of things that are not well defined, and in most cases not even remotely reach an approximation to a definition.

Thinking by now is described as 'employing the knowledge structure' for an action to occur, and that can also be looked in terms of processes. Yeah! Gerund terminations always 'point to a process'. Learning was described as a process.

As said in the introduction, an organism receives inputs and actuates in accordance to them. So, simplifying, an organism can be see as a bunch of processes that carry on with inputs and generate outputs.

By now let us not consider transfer from the knowledge structure to the positions where it will cause the action to be carried on (for example the muscles of the hand). We will reduce the scope just to letting and getting data in  'somewhere' of the perception mechanism (1). When referring to mental process that occur in the brain, it looks like there are a lot of, let us say, ‘tasks’ occurring at the same time and involves different neural tracts and neuron groups. So the brain ‘global knowledge structure’, should be changing in several physical (geographical in terms of the brain) points at the ‘same time’ and the coherence of the ‘system’ should be maintained… a complex system indeed!  

There is a ‘Natural flow’ tool, a ‘mechanism’ that permits to ‘focalize’, getting aware just of a part of the knowledge structure so making ‘opaque’ almost all structure. For example, I can type without noticing that I am moving my arms, and that I am sighing.

Structure has some connotations of stability. Process implies changes and something to execute it . Something has to make the changes. Changes in the brain are constantly occurring; scientists explain that blood and ‘other things’ are moving over there and a lot of substances are changing of place and ‘concentration’. So it is not needed to define ‘who’ is making the changes, but just be aware that the changing process is implied there. If structure is defined as ‘how the parts of a thing relate to each other’, as said, we will assume that processes can focus just in those elements or parts that participate in 'some relation'. As no one will take 'that' ashtray for drinking, we will consider that the process that is being triggered under the word 'to drink now' should be able to select the glass. As said before, there are a lot of thinks that need to be learned along time for being able 'to drink from a glass' and that learning process has changed the knowledge structure in a way that all needed for the action to be carried on has been stored, also the selection of the knowledge needed for it.

So mental processes here are a little different, are more like actions, related in terms of langue with verbs over the extended world.

So we can define anything as a mental process, for example running and we  can say that it includes some planning, And what about planning itself? I think that it is not needed to be a mental process (someone can run without knowing that there is a planning there, so planning looks more a construction) but as we humans virtualize, we can make planning a mental process and observe us when planning and we will not be able, as we did not established a difference in the perception of things coming through  natural flow or human flow, to make any difference. Of course any one will ask for planning in lunch time!!

The Oneself

And so we can construct (an important process)the Oneself. We can admit that any organism has capabilities of identifying their limits, so by that path we can construct a part of the definition of the self as coming from the natural flow. Also it is not difficult to assume that any organism can identify its kind from other kind of organism; this can be supported 'easily' at least under those who have different sexes (males and females)and another bit comes through the same path (by now I'm proposing that any organism knows that he is an individual and probably -if circumstances occur- of a determinate kind)  ; with these and with learning (imitation or copying)and via virtualization it is not difficult to assume that human brain is able to create a Oneself as the virtual representation of a human and attribute it whatever 'experience recommends'-  through the learning process. So in this model oneself is just a part of the knowledge structure (Is it possible to play chess against yourself?). And it is a powerful toy: it permits us to 'manipulate'  to some extent the knowledge structure. It also permits to refer to mental processes as tools, in the sense that tools are specialized means that Oneself can use to modify the knowledge structure and so not having to use other words as functionality

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(1) This permit us to not attend those automatic responses that occurs, for example, when someone moves rapidly his hand because it gets burned!. There is an interesting thing here, because in this kind of situations there is not enough time for the central neural system to command.

5 What does perception means?

We can see the brain as surrounded by several neural links that populate our body till specialized parts, in the 'peripheries', that actuate as detectors and that this neural ways by some means can change the knowledge structure . Probably an explanation could be obtained from an approach to functions like 'seeing' or 'listening'. Let us assume that those processes make knowledge structure changes.

But that do not explains everything that is in the knowledge structure. There is also something related with he words. And not everything in that domain came's through the 'peripheries'. Indeed, it can be said that no one of the things that 'can be named' come through the natural flow path.

Let us propose a situation where the brain is just working with a knowledge structure only related with the natural flow, where the subject is just doing; an example of this could be 'a completely concentrated football player in the middle of the action'; we can assume that there are not words needed. The state of our player can be changed, let us say, 'de-stressing' the situation upon we find some one where there appears the needed of words, and so, it could be assumed that words are something related with the kind of process that arrive, not to the knowledge structure itself.

In the other hand, we have assumed the virtualization path and there is no problem to admit that words are a great basis for it. We just need for maintaining the unity of knowledge structure that through this path, the knowledge structure can be changed. As the model gets simplified (without loosing generality) if this kind of modification is assumed to be essentially similar to the one that is made through other elements of the perception system, we can assume the 'mental process' as a sense.

We are suggesting something radical, I think, against the principle of duality, that has lead philosophy for siècles for resolving the problem that if we have two structures we need in general have everything duplicated, or a disjunction ´two different systems isolated each form the other, or two systems and an interface.

Some paragraphs above, I establish that two kind of structures could be needed, the one about witch we have being exposing ideas an another one coming form language. From here, we can obtain that this 'verbal structure' could be created on the fly and for the needs of determined mental process, for example the one of 'talking' or the one of 'writing'.

About Memory

It looks like there is more or less, common agreement in that there is not a memory 'chip' in the brain.

In the other hand, there are a lot of theories and studies about memory going on. Most of them divide memory in something like levels: Operation memory, long durance memory (like those batteries of the Rabbit…), and so on. Probably the influence of how computers work has something to do in those  approximations.

As we assume an structure, by definition there is some stability and memory can be defined as the stability of the structure itself, or in other words, memory can be defined, as a thing, as the one that gives the knowledge structure it's stability.

There is and 'old' proposal, due to Hebb, that suggests something like memory is 'just and 'habit of neurons and synapses', so 'exercising memory' could be explained as a consequence of using parts of the knowledge structure (that's the thinking definition).

It looks like in this approach, sorry about that, there is nothing that we can call 'memory' (I can hear the laughs…); we don't need it. Of course, we can use human flow  and each one can define such a thing; it could be useful as you know in a lot of mental exercising.

About virtuality

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14 ene 2013: 18:30

Reeditado

1. What does virtuality is?

Why to talk about it?

For a lot of time for most humans the ‘important things’ were in the domain of natural flow, the one, let us say, of time and space. This affirmation is a bit tricky: for example, by nature, humans form groups and use tools, and in those concepts there can be found something that is essentially not in the domain of time and space. But we can observe, may be speculate, how other organisms, mainly those that developed a neural system, make similar things than humans and assume just a ‘quantity difference’ between humans and other beings. Humans don’t run that fast nor has powerful claws but have a more powerful brain to compensate in the fight for survival.

Virtuality

Over the time, we have tried to explain the difference between humans and other organisms in different ways, all of them mainly based in the same assumption: Humans can think and all other cannot. In historical time, that trend takes us by a strange way, the one that makes us to put humans as an organism in a second place and adopt the paradigm that ‘thinking is a quality’ that any other organism has. Now days we are a bit confused: scientists are telling us that emotions, that traditionally were related with animality, are in the base of our decisions and that thinking is not independent of them, so if seems that we have to consider our animality important, and that the difference with other organisms could be more a quantity one.

So we can say that humans are organisms that have a tool that permits them to think more powerfuly than the other organisms.

And were the power is? It comes from virtualization. Let us say that a human being can walk (a natural flow action), but that he or she uses shoes to walk. This last is a virtual act. Why?. First, shoes are a virtual think, because they are something that some one, a human, 'created' (maybe coping, maybe he was a blind man that had a great idea, it does not matter; shoes are virtual, let us say, 'because that').  I can see that it is strange to call virtual to something, so 'contundent', but (please, stop laughing and let me continue...) this is the link that permits the explanation of how, and this is the second way, being natural organisms, human can 'manipulate' (through virtual acts), virtual things. In other words, in the domain of brain, 'love' an 'shoe' are essentially equal (sorry for making you laugh again).

Virtual acts are so pervasive that human’s life is being developed over them in a way that it can be said that Virtuality is the actual life of humans.

Under this scope, we can establish a process in the brain that transforms something in the domain of the natural flow in something virtual, that is, something that only has sense in the way that human brain works (usually pets use shoes for a lot of thinks, but never for wearing them). Virtualization could be defined as  the transformation of 'natural thinks' in virtual ones. The question that arises is: are all things virtual?  The answer to this question is more theoretical than practical (it could take years to understand what philosophers wrote about it, but as a tip, just consider that in the world that there are more organisms than humans), and it looks like it is possible to consider that all things are virtual. Of course all that are related with knowledge are virtual.

Another interesting thing is that we can generate and implement new  things over virtual ones. Once e have something under the control of our brain, the results are unpredictable. We make shoes; cars, including those that have nothing to do with the natural flow: a book, the web... . And if I observe my surroundings almost all of them are of this kind or better said, all that I perceive as surrounding me are virtual. I live in virtuallity (and this is not a song's lyrics...)

Management

First published 11.2.2013

Evolution of the term  

The definition in Wikipedia includes the personal approximation to Management, but, if you take the time to read the entire item; you will find no personal approach under it. Looks like there is a pitfall using this term in the personal context! Sorry for that! Maybe I have being working so much time for companies that management is a term that I use even for my family life!!! As a simple check, I went to my wife and asked her: Darling, do you manage your time? The answer was clear and loud: NO! Damage!!  

- Me, I want to continue with it, because I feel that everyone can understand better that the actual needs requires more of you than being a ‘well organized person’ and to manage oneself time sounds as a new ‘paradigm’, but   

- My 'common sense' does not agree! Let us see: Management is (at least, could be considered ) in the domain of some social science, which means; theory, people, PhD’s, marketing, enterprises, &c. My good! A universe! And are we going on with the ‘personal approach to management’? What should we do? Ok, let us act as politicians (or maybe as managers): Just put our ties in its correct place, smile and, Go ahead!

What are the sources?

Cognitive sciences (assumed as included in First Point), Business Management, Business Knowledge Management.

What about Social Business?  What about Social media in business?

Pre requisite

After some work over the issue, I feel that some skills on business management should be required to those how approximate to the Personal Knowledge Management approach.

Approach: 'organism as a business'

The idea could be: Formalize an organism as a business. There will be a GM, a CEO, a CFO,  process, products, &cetera

That roles and persons and things could be created under the Human flow, but it looks like that that will not work over the Natural flow. Making the exercise could be a way to approach to management.

Approximating a 'new Era':  

First of all we will try not to get some personality disorders. That looks not good at all. Then, under ‘personal management’ we will try to transform the good manners of management into the personal knowledge context in the aim to expose tools that permits to adequately control and push oneself to have, a bigger boat!? If we are able and that's oneself target, Why not?

Just do it!   

Yes, that comes from Nike commercials.

Simple recommendation, but it looks like something is missing…   

Another vision, that includes a feed back loop could be:  

Just do it!  ...come on doing it

It looks like Just do it has another face:  Il fâut le faire!

How (and what)to measure. About effort and time

By now we have the fluxes and from First Point a model supported on the knowledge structure (KS)and a way to modify it and now we must assume that that requires a hard work to be done and consume time. It is a petty, It looked so simple! And there is that Oneself for doing the job! Yeah! But, as you know modifying knowledge requires effort and tools. Life is a general term that  somehow has to be restricted if management theory and techniques are to be applied; we will go on this issue latter.

Knowledge structure, as defined is not valid as a management entity. The way of changing could be something that can be 'controlled'. So 'Human flow looks like something to be managed because it is costly' could be seen as a way.  

A variable named something like 'Mental effort' could be stated to reflect the work an if it is possible to establish a relation between 'Mental effort' and 'Human flow'. But: Natural flow also consumes 'mental effort', examples of that can be found in exercise. So we have to define two kinds of mental effort… And also emotions could affect it. As described, the whole process is heavily interactive and so the Human flow in some cases runs almost out of control. Examples could be process that run over great emotional modulation, as anger or fear or 'love'. More irresolute problems could be found over this element; for example, you can execute a learning activity with explicit learning objectives, but which of those will be in someone knowledge structure is another thing (Yeah! That's why exams are for!). So we have to define two kinds of mental effort and then try to measure the impact of modulation… Let us look at other  approach.

Natural flow looks a better site since measuring could be done over what is done. And what is done has properties in time space domain. So it looks like behavioral concepts are to be applied or at least considered.

Note: as said, go to next bookstore and buy something amusing…

Now, as What is more or less clear (Natural flow ) we can try on how.

As said, in the domain of Natural flow every thing is in the current human extended world. Natural flow (acts) always have a target, so measure could be done in terms of establishing a variable in the time space domain that could represent Natural flow 'position' and by means of which the distance to a target could be measured. This process of measuring could be done in time so no interferences on the Natural flow should be expected. This way is that usually is described as: 'after a meeting, review results and decide new actions', where 'decide' and 'measure the distance to the target' converge more or less in the meaning.

The model establish that if there is a mismatch in acting, will be executed a Human flow process that consist in acquiring the means for the Natural flow to achieve  and over this subtract, a relation between measures over Natural flow and Human flow process can be constructed. So it could be that management in this domain has to do with mismatches in the Natural Flow. So, what if we the distance to the target with the means that modulates perception so the process gets auto feeded can be related ?

In the other hand, the feed back process has another 'propertie'. As it acts as a trigger for Human flow process, and this one gets in those that can be controles, as the ones that actuate for some new things to be incorporated in the Knowledge structure because new dimensions are to be included in the target, Target itself becomes a usable thing for describing Natural flow management. This process suggest to focus on the target dimensions to establish management actions. For example, it could be stated an 'strategy' as 'not implementing new dimension unless enough distance reduction on the existing space is achieved' or 'look for new variables if distance has not been enough reduced since the last checking'. Effort, now, could be also observed, and conveniently managed through  to check if there are ways to maintain distance reduction with less effort; back up effort could be required for new improvements.

Time could be next considered. It is an external variable, so there is not influence from an organism over time and from this some pros and cons arise.

Personal productivity is a measure about how much 'product' is obtained per time unit.

The bunch of tools that permits establishing the distance to a target in a compromise between efficiency and effectiveness, where the last two 'terms' refer to how the distance to a target could de managed, could be named as Personal Knowledge Management tools or just PKM.

The question of how the target is established  has not an easy answer, It is a hen - egg problem so it can be assumed that, by any means and some how target is established.

PKM has to do with Human flow, with how and what new or existing things and their perceptions are to be established, that is what and how are included in the KS for the Natural flow.

Changing perceptions will affect the way of:

- which things are perceived  

- how things are related  

- which tools are related with which thing  

- which tools are used to modulate the learning process.

PKM in this approach is related with emotions.

What changes

...

  

Hierarchies over the mesh    

If we are trying to manage knowledge, as managing implies order it will be necessary to define some order. For example, a Practice Community establishes a domain and so an order; an Ontology accomplishes the function with a stronger order relation.

As Knowledge structure contains all the 'Personal Knowledge', one approach could be establish first an ordered group of areas and then try establish an order over each area . This has been the traditional approach. It might continue being a good approach but for the social recent changes. So the analysis should be by focusing on those social recent changes. The technological changes and the 'semantic changes'…

KS contains a mix of domains.

Where are the limits?

Natural flow, has the 'space and time' domain so we are used to organize things in that space of four dimensions. If the space that is being  managed is defined over more dimensions, order becomes something to be constructed.

For example, an efficient plan can be constructed in the sense that along time the results are efficient in time. That do not 'implies' that they are in the 'money / time' domain.

As Human Flow is multidimensional, there is a problem on defining which variables are to be selected to as the organization chart variables. The habitual way is to establish a complex variable that is a function of others.

Do the mental tools form one hierarchy could be applied over another one?

Business

From the definition of management in Wikipedia (is easy to reach that on the  web) follows the need of clarifying two 'terms", business and "organizational activities". Following that trend I wrote: 'Let us say that a simple business requires a simple management. As it gets bigger (in any sense)more management should be needed and organizational activities could become an issue'. But It sound nonsense to follow that trend. I can suggest a simplified definition for 'business' (looking it from inside): people and processes.

Let me explain this:

As business born and die (1), we can focus around the birth, of an specimen: Basically it will be needed: an idea, money for buying things, tools and so on and some one to execute the idea (obtaining so the 'product' or the 'service' and of course for selling it). Why money is missing on the above definition: from this point of view, money is not strictly a needed part of a business, I mean, of course that a business could be formalized just for its economics, but letting banks apart, from inside, money can be seen as 'the force  of Star Wars', at least, let us assume that. Something more is lacking, don't it?  Ok,  physical tools and the 'matter' are needed  to be transformed and at last have something to sell (what about if that is a service?).

Now, let us see if and how can we match Personal Knowledge management, under the proposed model of Knowledge with this simplified model of a business. It looks like:

matter could match with the knowledge structure,

processes with the mental processes and,  

what about people? At most could be two: The 'One'  and the 'Him /Her Self'. Oh! 'Its Self ' was just a tool, so just one: The 'One'.

And so: Brilliant result!! Yeah!! That's for the Nobel prize:

Personal -> Me

Knowledge -> My Knowledge structure

Management -> My mental tools.

Great, at least it could be said in an elevator trip!

NOTE:

At the Introduction I made the promise not to run under the kind of approach of the Self Help manuals but, might be better use of your time acquiring some of them, instead of continue reading here!!!

…

Oh! Steel there?

So lets go ahead going back.

¿Matter? Are the 'material thinks' part of the business? Really they aren't. For example, the product could be done by others. So no 'matter' is needed. So as said, its enough with just People and tools to describe a business from inside, so

Houston, we have a problem!!!

We do not need the Knowledge Structure!!!

…

NOTE:

ibid

...

Oh!! Steel there??!!!!

So 'Me' and 'My tools' is the issue… well, looks like a little tricky… as the 'tools box' is the knowledge structure it is need at least for carrying the tools. (No, there is not enough place in your iPhone to carry your mental tools!)

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(1) Grow or die! Sveiby.

 UNDER CONSTRUCTION