Human Reframing and ICT

Human Reframing and ICT -
a basic theoretical framework
Zvi Lanir

The three human intellectual virtues

In the basis of understanding Cognitive Reframing as a powerful adaptation mechanism, lays the distinction between three basic human intellectual virtues: Techno, Episteme and Phronesis (see figure 1).

Each one of the intellectual virtues activates a different mode of human cognition. In the following part we attempt to describe each of the virtues' nature of function. However, one should note that neither of the virtues can be activated without the others. The nature of inter-relations between the three virtues and their activation as a systemic whole - the Reframing Cycle, will be described in the second part of the paper.

The Episteme intellectual virtue
This is the intellectual virtue of acquiring rules that describe the world, based on overt signifier-signified relationships. It may come from overt theory (scientific or Na?ve Theories) or common sense. The virtue of Episteme includes both acquiring the rules and using them, thus conducting logical extrapolation on them (as reasoning and analysis).
The representations of the Episteme are terms, semantics, encyclopedic knowledge , and other rules that are always general and beyond the specific context. Nevertheless, when we are confronted with a new context, we seldom find that the Knowledge we have acquired through the virtue of the Episteme is sufficient to pave our way in this new context.

The Techne intellectual virtue
The Techne is the virtue of getting better in doing things, technically or socially, through experience (with our senses). It results in better tacit knowledge relevant to the context.
Traditionally, Tacit Knowledge refers to technical know-how acquired by experience and not by learning rules or theories that explain this know-how (much like the know-how of riding a bicycle). We, however, refer to Tacit Knowledge as encompassing pre-conceptualized perceptions one acquires of the world around him through experiences . These pre-conceptualized perceptions, in a similar way to tacit know-how, become possible by pattern recognition through the senses, since no Epistemic theory exists yet to explain them.

The Phronesis intellectual virtue
Phronesis is the virtue of contemplative thinking , the virtue that enables us to create and express new meanings through conceptualization. Conceptualization is the formulation of mental constructs that can escape signification in a mutually exclusive manner. Although we all possess the cognitive ability to carry out conceptual thinking, we usually do not use it in practice. The default of our thinking is 'thinking in words' as if the words are terms maintaining signifier-signified relationships to a particular object to which they point. In Conceptual thinking most verbal units (words or chains of words) are treated as concepts open to different interpretations that can change in different contexts.

While terms are mutually exclusive, concepts relate to each other in a systemic manner. A Concept's meaning (interpretation) is reached as a result of its interaction with other concepts. When we try to activate our Intellectual Virtue of Conceptual thinking, we find out that we can interpret or clarify a concept only by means of other concepts connected to it in the conceptual system. A change in the meaning of one concept changes (or at least holds a potential for changing) the meaning of the other concepts in the system, thus causing a change in the whole conceptual system.

In the basis of conceptual thinking lays our ability of Abstract Symbolism. Human beings, and apparently no other living creature, are able to cross what Deacon terms the "symbolic threshold" - using symbolic representations whose meaning is not clarified in relation to physical objects but in relation to other symbolic representations.

Abstract Symbolism can also serve us as a basis for the creation of Conceptual Awareness, the awareness of the need to change the mental model as a system, and not to make do with a change of only one or two concepts in the system. Moreover, Conceptual awareness is required for reinterpretation of interpretation not less than information is needed to interpret things. By suggesting new interpretations of concepts, people can create new alternatives for thought and action. Conceptual Awareness is also essential for guiding the process of human negotiations of meanings, for altering common rooted perceptions and for creating new collective understanding for shared action.

The dynamics of the intellectual virtues as one cycle
Most organizational and personal settings tend to make do with stressing the relationship between Techne and Episteme virtues, thus neglecting the potential of Phronesis for personal and organizational relevancy (see figure 2). This partial utilization of the potential of human intellect often results in ad-hoc adjustments in the set of general rules and schemas out of the accumulation of experience (either personal or collective).

The Reframing cycle represent the dynamic activation of the three basic human Intellectual Virtues as one cycle.
As such, it involves de-freezing of current epistemic representations of knowledge through conceptualization thus exploiting the different forms of tacit knowledge (Techne) that were gained through experience. The Reframing process results in the creation of new frames that can serve as the basis for adjusting and formulating new epistemic knowledge to meet the actualization needs of the new frame.

The first stage in activating the cycle is initiated by a realization discrepancy between the Techne and the Episteme in a particular context . This discrepancy is often evident in a feeling of inadequacy and insufficiency when trying to convey and explain the experience by using the epistemic virtue. Conceptual awareness is the key for utilizing this potential to commence the entire cycle. Initiating the entire cycle is a challenge that needs special attention and consideration in order to overcome the tendency to take the shorter way, from the Techne to the Episteme.

The second stage in the Reframing Cycle is based on exploiting the discrepancy between the Techne and the Episteme in order to formulate a new conceptual frame, relevant to the experience by which Tacit Knowledge of the Techne is gained.
As tacit knowledge is knowledge that has no words to describe it, conceptual thinking creates abstract concepts that their relationship to each other and to the existing non-satisfying terms captures the uniqueness of the experience. As was mentioned earlier, this stage involves conceptual thinking based on abstract symbolism. Herein lays the key to mental model elicitation and reframing.

Accomplishing the second stage, results in a new overt and systemic conceptual frame. This new frame can now be discussed, examined and redesigned consciously and explicitly. This represents the third stage in activating the cycle, in which one moves from the conceptual mode of thinking back to the Epistemic mode. This stage is aimed at Semantic enrichment that stems from the new frame. New semantic relationships are now defined between categories and between items within the categories. These items or categories are defined or redefined in a 'signifier to signified' form.

By the use of terms rather than concepts, arguments are now structured in a way that frees them from the circumstances of their presentation and assures them external validity that is not affected by the practical context of their use. The Praxis Reframing cycle is now fulfilled, only to open a new round. Figure 3 illustrates the activation of the cycle through the 3 stages.

The role of ICT in the Reframing Cycle
Since the introduction of the PC, we write better, we calculate faster, we express ourselves clearer and we communicate a lot more. Even our thinking processes were influenced by the changes on our desktops.
Although many of us find ourselves thinking more easily about our tasks when we execute them in front of the computer, when we actually in need of reflecting and deliberating upon their fundamentality, we tend to leave the computer aside. The reason is that while the computer has focused on propagating our Epistemic skills and on solving problems more systematically, the meta-cognitive skills required for elicitation the entire cycle of our reframing have been left beyond the focus of computer and ICT applications. The main claim here is however, that technology can and should be focused in developing accelerating devices for the activation of the human reframing thinking cycle.

ICT has a great potential for enabling and facilitating the Phronesis virtue of human thinking in particular, and the entire Reframing Cycle, in general. The main obstacle for this is the yet to be explored zone of research between cognitive Reframing theories and ICT. In this final chapter we will demonstrate shortly this argument and its ramification for outlining a new generation of thinking enablers and facilitators.

The Reframing cycle described above revolves around the creation and exploration of conceptual maps. As was explained before, these structures of conceptual relations need to escape signification in a mutually exclusive manner in order to represent thought or 'knowing in being'. Escape that will be allowed for through certain capabilities ICT can provide. These are the capabilities of multi-media, multi-modality, advanced interface and interactivity. The materials from which we construct our conceptual map can be of different dimensions. We can use a textual description, verbal fragments, a graphical representation, a relational structure of concepts or even all of them together. The enormous advance of ICT in representing multi-media content can be harnessed to support this complex virtue of human thinking and enable its representation. The more advanced the representation, the better it will reflect our Phronesis needs.

Certain dimensions of expression are already available and applicable to the representation of intricate ideas. The list is growing continuously as technological R&D advances. For example, Visual shapes can represent choices that are made although yet unexplained and therefore cannot be well represented by texts or figures. Another somewhat simple example is the physical character as a representative of a conceptual one; size of boxes may indicate the importance attached to different concepts, although the reason for the difference in importance is not yet clear to the thinker.

The multi-modal use of symbols can also be very useful in representing simultaneously several dimensions or hierarchical organization of concepts and the type of relationships between them.
Multi-modal representations are effective in establishing 'thinking marks' and providing memory cues to the mind for the kind and state of understanding reached so far.
The interrelation between these modals is also of great importance and can be enabled by computerized accessories. For example, the shifts between textual and graphical modes of representation of thinking are used to encourage the de-freezing of the existing frames. By seamless movements between different dimensions of our thinking we are exposed to the complexity of it, and thus are encouraged to look for alternative structuring logic.

The Reframing process requires 'far associations' thinking. The ability of the brain to provide such 'far associations' (to distinguish from 'near associations' that come to the mind almost automatically), is very problematic. For effective 'far associations' processes, we need an 'association memory' which complexity is far beyond an unaided mind.
The computer abilities to store, 'remember' , retrieve and represent complexities in different forms, can be very useful in designing 'far associating' enablers. While information and knowledge storing, mining and management are well established, very little has been done to use computerized abilities for enhancing human association capabilities, despite its importance for creative thinking in general, and specifically for the Reframing process.

In potential, a new generation of 'Conceptual Maps' is called for to represent complex cross-linked conceptual propositions and reveal new leaps in the shared understanding and awareness. This new generation should support processes of designing and redesigning of network centric shared frames. The challenge is to provide a platform through which each participant contributes to the shared frame and is nourished by it and by frames of other participants in the network centric system.

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