Unconscious Competence LO19625

Leo Minnigh (L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl)
Mon, 26 Oct 1998 12:34:49 +0100 (MET)

Reply to Fred Nickols LO19612 --

Dear LO'ers, dear Fred, Jacqueline (LO 19602), T.J. Elliot (LO19618) and
Keath (LO19616),

Thank you all for your thoughts. They all refer to competence in
isolation, or personally judging one's level of competence.
I will use Freds message as a reference.
Fred wrote:

> It would certainly seem reasonable to gauge the competence displayed by
> one individual in relation to the competence displayed by another
> person--a sort of "compare and contrast" approach.
>
> However, I believe that is only one way of assessing competence. In your
> Friday vs Robinson Crusoe example, you assert that RC, living alone on the
> island, has no way of knowing if he is competent or not.
..........and
> Here, I disagree. Robinson Crusoe could just as easily gauge his
> competence in terms of the extent to which the shelter he built matches
> his requirements as he could by comparing his shelter or efforts with
> those of Friday. In other circles, this is known as
> "criterion-referenced" performance.

I start doubting about my own thoughts.

When asking my son what he thinks about the issue, his answer was
something like this: "Dad, someone is perfectly able to judge his own
level of competence. It is good and necessary that people overcome their
sense of inferiority and have a self consciousness of their own
competences. They are able to set their own personal criteria to 'measure'
their degree of competence. As a matter of fact, it is the only way to
survive in this world."

I was doubting even more.

But my thoughts were ever running to another direction. I was thinking of
all those organizations, institutions, nations and persons who stick on
their way of acting and living: traditions. The question for me is: if the
competence level is reached, is there a will to learn further and a will
to change? Too often we see the contrary: never change a winning team; why
changing if the way we do is succesfull? The permanent search for
alternatives, quality improvement, adventure and change desappears. That
is my strong hesitation for the conscious-competent quadrant. One's
competences should perminently questioned, in the frist place by their
owner (which RC did in your example, Fred).

Jacqueline (LO19602) sketched a situation that Crusoe (BTW, I had to laugh
when Jacqueline misspelled this name in Caruso; I suddenly saw Robinson
building his shelter while singing beautiful arias) improved his fishing
capacities by personal mastering. Yes, Jacqueline, this is very true. I
strongly favour too, personal mastering. But does this happen with persons
which are confident (sorry, conscious) of their competences? There are
still people reinventing the wheel. There is nothing wrong with it.
Because I hope that someday, someone will invent a wheel that could escape
from the ordinary one-dimensional movement (only back or forward); a
wheel that could move in all directions in a flat plane. Such invention is
not possible by persons who are conscious competent (because we all THINK
that we are competent and that an improvement of a wheel is not possible).
(the roller or balpen is such a device, but I doubt if one will see this
as an alternative for wheels under a car).

So what do I have in mind with the consciousness and competences. I hope
I will make it clear by changing these words in other words:

unconscious = passive (or entropy sensu stricto)
conscious = active (entropy production)
incompetence = becoming (moving)
competence = being (staying)

In the four combinations with a metaphor:

uncon-incomp = passively moving = a car without a running motor rolling
downhill
uncon-comp = passively staying = a parked car
con-incomp = active moving = a car moving by a running motor
con-comp = active staying = a non-moving car with running motor

And again, in still other words:
the words consciousness and unconsciousness may also be
changed in will(ing) and unwill(ing)
And the words competence and incompetence could changed in teaching and
learning.

And to end, I agree that self-teaching is possible (by trial and error)
but only if there is a will.
My favorite quadrant - as I mentioned in an earlier message- is therefore:
con-incomp: the willing to learn (moving as a car with a running motor)

I hesitate to mention this: all the above ideas are linked with the
principles of movement (Panta Rhei).

dr. Leo D. Minnigh
minnigh@library.tudelft.nl
Library Technical University Delft
PO BOX 98, 2600 MG Delft, The Netherlands
Tel.: 31 15 2782226
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Let your thoughts meander towards a sea of ideas.
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-- 

Leo Minnigh <L.D.Minnigh@library.tudelft.nl>

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