Gordon Pask Quotes

Cybernetics is the science or the art of manipulating defensible metaphors; showing how they may be constructed and what can be inferred as a result of their existence.

Man is always aiming to achieve some goal and he is always looking for new goals.

If cognitive processes can be realized in a general machine then it is possible to execute mental operations in artifacts that are not necessarily subject to the embarrassing spatio-temporal limitations and structural frailties of a biological processor.

By definition, a pair of inherently unmeasurable, non-stationary systems, are coupled to produce an inherently measurable stationary system.

There are two subcategories of holist called irredundant holists and redundant holists. Students of both types image an entire system of facts or principles. Though an irredundant holist’s image is rightly interconnected, it contains only relevant and essential constitents. In contrast, redundant holists entertain images that contain logically irrelevant or overspecific material, commonly derived from data used to "enrich" the curriculum, and these students embed the salient facts and principles in a network of redundant items. Though logically irrelevant, the items in question are of great psychological importance to a "redundant holist", since he uses them to access, retain and manipulate whatever he was originally required to learn.

Cybernetics is a young discipline which, like applied mathematics, cuts across the entrenched departments of natural science; the sky, the earth, the animals and the plants. Its interdisciplinary character emerges when it considers economy not as an economist, biology not as a biologist, engines not as an engineer. In each case its theme remains the same, namely, how systems regulate themselves, reproduce themselves, evolve and learn. Its high spot is the question of how they organize themselves. A cybernetic laboratory has a varied worksheet - concept formation in organized groups, teaching machines, brain models, and chemical computers for use in a cybernetic factory. As pure scientists we are concerned with brain-like artifacts, with evolution, growth and development; with the process of thinking and getting to know about the world. Wearing the hat of applied science, we aim to create what Boulanger,' in his presidential address to the International Association of Cybernetics, called the instruments of a new industrial revolution - control mechanisms that lay their own plans.

To summarize the matter, teaching systems ought to be conversational in form and so devised that strategies are matched to individual competence.

A computer that issues a rate demand for nil dollars and nil cents (and a notice to appear in court if you do not pay immediately) is not a maverick machine. It is a respectable and badly programmed computer... Mavericks are machines that embody theoretical principles or technical inventions which deviate from the mainstream of computer development, but are nevertheless of value.

The' holist/serialist' distinction (Daniel, 1975; Pask and Scott, 1971, 1972) is an example of different learning strategies, rather than the more generally exhibited learning style. The holist or serialist strategies are exhibited in a , strict conversation,' and are thus insufficiently refined to account for learning in general. Holism and serialism appear to be extreme manifestations of more fundamental processes, which are induced by systematic enforcement of the requirement for understanding which is as strong as, or stronger than, the requirement for' deep-level' processing.

Holists are distinguished from serialists in terms of the number of inferential statements they produce... It is possible to distinguish the serialist from the holist by a tendency, on the part of a serialist, to preserve the order of the programme presentation format which is absent in the holist. Presented with a holist programme the serialist is unable to preserve the complete order but he does manage to preserve sequentially arranged fragments.

Holists, either irredundant or redundant commit mistakes due to simple over-generalization (for example, that (β) always implies "Bushy Tail" which is true for only some subspecies) or systemic over-generalization to render the classification scheme more rational or symmetrical than it actually is (for example, falsely naming a subspecies "Bit QL" on the evidence that Q stands for "4-legged" and L stands for "Linear" together with the valid inference that a 4-legged linear creature exists. A serialst is prone to list the subspecies by examining picture cards in Class A. If he is to be successful, he checks the relevance of the information entering his list by forming single predicate hypotheses.

There is a theory of learning and teaching together and that is all. Results from many studies support this point of view as, also, does the evidence of commonsense. So, to be dogmatic (but with confidence) learning implies teaching and teaching implies learning. Sometimes the teacher and learner responsible for th joint process are obvious (a student at a desk and another person wearing an academic cap and gown). Sometimes, the teacher and learner are not so obviously distinct and turn out to be unexpected but, once-indicated, intuitively plausible entities.

Complex human learning is a concept involving communication between the participant in the learning process, who commonly occupy the roles of learner and teacher.

It seems to me that the notion of machine that was current in the course of the Industrial Revolution – and which we might have inherited – is a notion, essentially, of a machine without goal, it had no goal ‘of’, it had a goal ‘for’. And this gradually developed into the notion of machines with goals ‘of’, like thermostats, which I might begin to object to because they might compete with me. Now we’ve got the notion of a machine with an underspecified goal, the system that evolves. This is a new notion, nothing like the notion of machines that was current in the Industrial Revolution, absolutely nothing like it. It is, if you like, a much more biological notion, maybe I’m wrong to call such a thing a machine; I gave that label to it because I like to realise things as artifacts, but you might not call the system a machine, you might call it something else.

Since human beings are highly adaptable it may be possible for an individual with any sort of competence to learn, in the end, according to any teaching strategy. But the experiments show, very clearly indeed, that the rate, quality and durability of learning is crucially dependent upon whether or not the teaching strategy is of a sort that suits the individual