I love Csikszentmihalyi' and others' proposal of 'flow'.
It is a great definition that describes humans losing their sense of humanity (loss of reflective self-consciousness is the key characteristics of flow) and instead becoming biological robots.
I've been arguing this is a good description of humans and humanity and that sense of self is a secondary artefact for some time. This of course strongly implies that both sense of self and agency are illusions. Ah - back to the agency argument!
Psychology and design theorists seem to naively want things both ways - that being human requires that one *has* reflective self-consciousness, and, on the other hand, that really being human requires that one *doesn’t have* reflective self-consciousness (i.e. one is in flow). Thinking and theory has been really poor on this one in the Western world. Others have done better.
To resolve the issue and produce better theory will (as I've argued) require a better and very different theory of self, and that theory of self will need to have self as something different from people thinking they are who they are because they perceive it. In fact, it is likely to insist that self is something other than thinking and using words.
Going back to Ken and Don's earlier issues. As the person subjected to the most ad-hominem attacks on this list(!), I note that ad-hominem personal attacks primarily come as a result of presenting analyses that others don't want to be made public...
Best wishes,
Terry
---
Dr Terence Love
PhD(UWA), BA(Hons) Engin. PGCEd, FDRS, AMIMechE, MISI
Director,
Love Services Pty Ltd
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-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Keith Russell
Sent: Friday, 17 October 2014 9:36 AM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subject: Re: "towards an ecology of materials" by Tim Ingold
I can see how an account of friction might well be argued inside of an account of flow as offered by Csikszentmihalyi.
The model of flow he offers is a very simple one - it also talks to a lot of creative folks because it offers to structure an experience they and many other people have of being in the flow.
I am quite sure that Csikszentmihalyi could do this job if asked to. His account, to me, is dangerous because it is so simple and because a lot of creative folks embrace it in its simplicity as if they now had a very large all-weather coat and as if they will never need to even change their underpants again.
Obviously, there is no flow without friction - friction is an account of possible understandings of flow ands flow is an account of possible understandings of friction.
When talking about flow, I want to also talk about snags and bends and beavers that bit you on the bum etc.
This is not the same for the discussion about various understandings of cognitive sciences. Perhaps Don could offer us a continuum that would fit many examples of cognitive science somewhere? That could be useful - but not, I suggest, in the same reflexive way that friction and flow go together.
Cheers in a semi-state of flow
keith
On 17/10/2014 5:37 am, "Don Norman" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>I plead guilty. Deliberately guilty. Delightfully guilty.
>
>
>On Thu, Oct 16, 2014 at 11:02 AM, Fiona Candy
><[log in to unmask]>
>wrote:
>
>> Don, I do not believe it is acceptable, reasonable or fair to cite a
>> private exchange of creativity and ideas over dinner,
>>
>
>A dinner attended by 10 people is not private. Moreover, our exchange
>has been widely discussed on campus.
>
>
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