Replying to LO28219 --
No At, That is why I defined the context in which I put the word. You
went to the denotative use of the root word. Dictionary.com lists six
different uses of the word complex which you can check.
For complexity it is a quality of being complex. The key is that it is a
state of being complex. That state of being has various levels. When a
person has zero virtuosity, they have a ten on the complexity scale.
When the complexity scale is zero you have the reverse for virtuosity.
But for me the difference is that you can say something IS complex but you
cannot say that something IS complexity. It is a noun but it is not an
object but a process that one does. You can find an in between word in
"complicated" but it still relates to a projection of an inner state of
being out onto the environment. That is the example that I used with the
Oriental student. He was accurate when he said "very complicated" but in
general usage he was also beginning not to take responsibility for the
complexity. It was something outside himself that he was victimized by.
The problem with "complicated" is in the attitude of the person perceiving
the density that is greater than one. If you say it is "difficult" then
that places the responsibility for growth squarely on your own shoulders.
If you say it is "complicated" the position that you take to it is
reversed. and the implication is that it is the same for everyone since it
is an external state. That is inappropriate to pedagogy. In pedagogy the
only limitations are the limitations of time, resources (talent) and
access to a way to solve the problem. None of those things are really
external to the individual. It is the refusal of the individual to
consider him/herself as a victim of an external circumstance that defines
pedagogy's basic attitude. "Attitude" meaning the mood that the
individual chooses to surround themselves with feeling the experience from
that projection and the resultant action or the act of lowering complexity
and attaining virtuosity. I admit that all English is contradictory.
That is why we must be so very clear as to the way that we are defining
the words in the beginning and not take for granted that people simply
understand. That is why I am so pleased about the invention of the field
of Semiotics. As a practical musician and teacher both Semiotics and
Musicology, which were invented around the same time, have immense
practical significance in the development of Mastery in the Performing
Arts and better define the map of that pedagogy if we are willing to use
it in that fashion. It is that map that Donald Schoen and Peter Senge has
used in their writings about Mastery as well.
Must go,
May your day be a good one.
Ray Evans Harrell
> So I now want to ask -- did you have
> >mastery = zero complexity = virtuosity
> or
> "mastery = zero complications = virtuosity"
> in mind?
--"Ray Evans Harrell" <mcore@nyc.rr.com>
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