Life Discovery: Significant Insights Analysis

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#11 —The “Domains — Works” Mapping and “Domains (Works)”
#11 —The “Domains — Works” Mapping and “Domains (Works)”

Oliver Ding

On April 20, 2022, I wrote a sentence below for an article titled

Knowledge Discovery: The “Domains — Works” Mapping⁠

The Domains — Works mapping can be seen as a nested structure: Domains (Works).

After publishing the article, I realized that this sentence indicates a connection between the following two theoretical approaches:

The Domains — Works mapping:Activity Theory

Domains (Works):The Ecological Practice Approach

This is a Significant Insight!

A Significant Insight connects two parts of your life experience and creates a new meaning which could lead to a new life activity, even a life transition.

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Significant Insight

This insight is about the Knowledge Discovery Activity and its canvas. See the picture below.

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The canvas was designed with two sub-spaces. The highlights a light blue area around the boundary between the inner space and the outer space. That means the Knowledge Discovery Activity is a cross-boundary activity. You can find more details

here⁠

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According to Kaptelinin and Nardi (2006), there are five basic principles of Activity Theory:

Object-orientedness

Tool mediation

Internalization — externalization

The hierarchical structure of activity, and

Development

We can apply these five principles to discuss the Developing Tacit Knowledge activity. You can find more details

here⁠

and

here⁠

. Our discussion about inner space and outer space echoes the Internalization-externalization principle.

For Activity Theorists, there is a debate on the Internalization-externalization principle. Some members pay attention to the paradigm of Internalization while others emphasize the paradigm of Externalization. I support both sides and I think the principle is a whole. We can’t only accept half of the principle.

For Developing Tacit Knowledge, I consider it a self-determined activity with social support. Also, I think there are many paths or strategies for developing tacit knowledge. It all depends on a person’s motivation, situation, and vision.

Thus, the Domains — Works mapping echoes the Internalization-externalization principle of Activity Theory.

The notion of Domains(Works) refers to the Ecological Practice approach which uses “Container” as a core concept. See the diagram below.

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The concept of Container is inspired by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson’s conceptual metaphor Container and image schema Containment.

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According to Mark Johnson (1987), “If we look for common structure in our many experiences of being in something, or for locating something within another thing, we find recurring organization of structures: the experiential basis for in-out orientation is that of spatial boundedness. The most experientially salient sense of boundedness seems to be that of three-dimensional containment (i.e., being limited or held within some three-dimensional enclosure, such as a womb, a crib, or a room).” He also pointed out there are at least five important entailments or consequences of these recurring experiential image-schematic structures for in-out orientation. (pp.21–22)

For Lakoff and Johnson, Container refers to the in-out orientation and boundary of space. However, I pay attention to the dynamic relationship between Container and the Things it contains. I coined a new term called “Containee” to simply represent “Things contained by Container”.

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In 2018, I drew the above diagram to present a multiple container model. I used red dots, green dots, and black dots to represent three types of status:

Red dots: the entities are located inInside Space.

Green dots: the entities are located inSpilling Space

Black dots: the entities are located inPublic Space which is outside the Spilling Space.

In 2019, I continuously worked on developing container thinking with the idea of the Container System. Eventually, it became the foundation of my theoretical account: the Ecological Practice approach.

In Feb 2021, I applied the Container Thinking to discuss Platform-based social practice and developed the notion of “Platformba(Platform)”. You can find more details

here⁠

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The “ba” is originally found in Japanese. The concept of “ba” has been used extensively by Japanese management researcher Ikujiro Nonaka in his SECI model of knowledge creation. The platform-ba is an emergent social substance that is formed by people who have relations to a platform. While a platform is designed, managed, and controlled by its owner, its platform-ba is determined by people, the users, and stakeholders of the platform. By using the new term Platform-ba, I can highlight the active aspect of platform practice which refers to people’s activity.

The notion of “Domains (Works)” is an application of the above Container Thinking which is the core of

the Ecological Practice approach⁠

What’s the difference between Activity Theory and the Ecological Practice approach?

I have been working on Activity Theory and the Ecological Practice approach which is inspired by Ecological Psychology for many years. Since I know the difference between these two approaches, I carefully maintained the boundary between them.

At the general philosophical level, both Ecological Psychology and Activity Theory share the same view of the inseparability of human beings and the world. Victor Kaptelinin and Bonnie A. Nardi claimed, “In Western thought, the fundamental insight of the inseparability of subjects and objects is expressed, for instance, in the philosophical views of Hegel and Marx, Goethe’s poetry, Brentano’s ‘act psychology’, and the ecological psychology of Gibson.” (2012, p.13)

However, there is an important theoretical difference between Ecological Psychology and Activity Theory. Activity theorists define the “activity” as “object-oriented”, according to Leontiev, “Any activity of an organism is directed at a certain object; an ‘objectless’ activity is impossible” (Leontiev, 1981).

Ecological psychologists don’t use “activity” as a theoretical concept, they use “action” and “activity” interchangeably.

One of the important concepts of Ecological Psychology is the concept of Affordance.

Activity theorists use “activity — action — operation” as three levels of the hierarchy of activity theory and they tend to adopt the idea of affordance at the operation level. I suggested another way to adopt the concept of affordance to Activity Theory. Instead of matching the existing three levels of the hierarchy of activity, the concept of affordance can be considered as a new level for extending the scope of the hierarchy of activity.

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Why do I add the idea of affordance to the hierarchy of activity and practice? I think the value is it could expand the scope of the hierarchy from “actual” to “possible” because affordance refers to “action possibilities.” Eventually, I develop “logical — actual — possible” as three levels of hierarchy for the Ecological Practice approach. You can find more details

here⁠

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The discussion about the “Domains — Works” mapping and the notion of Domains (Works) connects the above two theoretical approaches.

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Method

The method for this task was developed with the following heuristic tool on

April 25, 2022⁠

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The above model is called the Relevance of Zone which considers Other as an important social context for the long-term development of thoughts. You can find more details

here⁠

Based on the model, we can generate the following questions:

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

Self: When did I capture this insight?

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

The following section will use these questions to guide our reflection.

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Analysis

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

The insight is about self-reflection.

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

The insight is about designing the Knowledge Discovery Canvas and the deep connection between Activity Theory and the Ecological Practice Approach.

I used two terms to describe two ideas:

The Domains - Works Mapping

The Notion of Domains (Works)

The Domains — Works mapping refers to the Internalization-externalization principle of Activity Theory while the notion of Domains (Works) refers to the “Container Thinking” of the Ecological Practice approach.

Why do I consider this insight as a significant insight?

The discovery of the deep connection between “Domains - Works Mapping” and “Domains (Works)” offers me a new perspective to see Similarities and Differences between these two approaches.

It will definitely impact to my future work.

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

Initially, I wrote a section for the article

Knowledge Discovery: The “Domains — Works” Mapping⁠

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The above screenshot is the beginning of the section. However, I didn’t expand the piece.

The article was published on April 20, 2022.

On April 25, 2022, I wrote an article titled

Life Discovery: Twelve Significant Insights from Four Months⁠

and directly wrote a long section for the notion.

We can consider “Symbol Awareness”, “Writing as Thinking”, “Self-reflection”, and “Deep Analogy” as techniques behind the process.

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

I captured this insight in my house.

Self: When did I capture this insight?

On April 20, 2022, I published

Knowledge Discovery: The “Domains — Works” Mapping⁠

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

The insight was born from writing an article about Knowledge Discovery Canvas.

It also connects to my two knowledge enterprises: the Activity U project and the Ecological Practice Approach.

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

It will definitely impact to my future work. Now I can’t predict the concrete actions and activities.

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#11 —The “Domains — Works” Mapping and “Domains (Works)”#11 —The “Domains — Works” Mapping and “Domains (Works)”

Significant Insight

Method

Analysis

Other: Who is the Significant Other for this insight?

Thing: What’s the insight about? Why do I pay attention to it?

Think: How did I get this insight? Is there a technique behind the process?

Self: Where did I capture this insight?

Self: When did I capture this insight?

Activity: Is this insight part of an activity? What’s the activity?

Activity: Has this insight led to a new action or a new activity?

#11 —The “Domains — Works” Mapping and “Domains (Works)”
#11 —The “Domains — Works” Mapping and “Domains (Works)”