I am a doctoral student in the Transformative Studies Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Cybernetic epistemology was introduced in my courses and I am in love with it. I am attending this conference because I continue to be curious. I want to see if and how conversing (last year’s conference) finds its way to listening (this year’s conference). And, as always, I want to have fun.
In my academic work, I am interested in using cybernetics as a framework for creating a form of online classroom experience that is a performed embodiment of the transformative subject matter it teaches: a circularly organized interaction between what is taught and how it is taught. I am particularly interested in the aesthetics of the online learning environment as it is embodied in using non-traditional academic communication such as images, video, audio, poetry, and absurd wordplay.
Cybernetic epistemology helps me recognize that I create the descriptions of my everyday world and when this happens I invite a shift to occur. I become more interested in looking at the ways I describe my everyday rather than in a particular category or set of descriptions of my everyday. I begin to notice that I am responsible for participating in what I bring forth as a description and the interactional effect on those around me who do not describe the world in circular or relational terms.
To quote Bradford Keeney, “To the extent that we enact the circularities of our relational presence in a way that fosters the greater circles that hold us, we may be said to be a part of a healing presence and a resourceful participant in the advance of the greater good.”
Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about!
