Talk:Gordon Pask

Conversation theory
I created a redirect from conversation theory to this article. Eventually, content may be split off from the Gordon Pask article to population a separate article on conversation theory. Nesbit 16:31, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

John Hi, CT and AI have much in common the main defining property is the eternality of Actor Interaction and the begins and ends of Conversation Theory. Pask helpfully, ahem, provides a table at the end of IA Theory highlighting more... The key thing is that Actors support Conversations. The details: the Uns, the Cons, the Procs, the Progs, the Aps, the Ds and Inters are do-able but the precise distinction is not always absolutely clear at first. I don't know anyone who has an intuitive grasp of all this yet. Anti-meshes, analogy and ontology meshes came as something of a surprise. Most of us thought they were implicit. Usually these things can be resolved with extreme thought. Time and again after years one finds oneself saying "Ah yes"- one comes to know as G. would have it. There's still a lot to sort out. Hopefully Bernard Scott and Ranulph Glanville will contribute to this Edit Talk page in coming weeks. But we may need some bright PhD student to come along and sort this out. Any thoughts Paul? --Nick Green 01:02, 24 May 2006 (UTC)

Just put up some CT graphics. If they could be inproved. Any offers from a Photoshop wizard? If anyone has a copy of Conversation Theory could they please scan the cognitive reflector pages and I will redraw for the section- unless one of you has a better idea.--Nick Green 01:47, 28 May 2006 (UTC)

Cybernetics Society Succession box
I noticed that Pask was president of the Cybernetics society. If anyone has information about other past presidents we could make a nifty succession box like the one for Lee Cronbach (past president of AERA). Nesbit 23:38, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Cross-disciplinary prose
The cross-disciplinary prose especially with regards to physics, angular momentum and cosmology (?!) are not standard explanations in regards to these subjects. I don't know anything about the subject of this article, but I do know that these sections are not factually correct, and if the subject of this article really does advocate such explanations he is basically advocating pseudoscience with respect to those formulations. Thus I have put the totally disputed tag on this article to indicate this problem. Please comment here on how we can resolve this matter. --ScienceApologist 21:21, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

What facts are you challenging? Some critics have come to grief on the very idea of thoughts exerting forces, but since thoughts are thermodynamic processes they must. Cosmology and epistemology are closely related by the way differentiation in the Universe is said to have evolved. Anyway if you could state what it is you find factually incorrect I will be happy to amend with supporting references. Can I email you anywhere?

--Nick Green 01:46, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The article consists mainly of assertions about what Pask wrote. Assessing the article's factual accuracy and NPOV would therefore require a comparison of what Pask wrote with the content of the article. In the absence of such an assessment, I would suggest that the template questioning the article's accuracy and neutrality be removed, or replaced with a more appropriate template. It has to be admitted, however, that Pask's ideas can be quite far out, and some people do see them as pseudoscience. Possibly there is a way to rephrase portions of the article so that the ideas will get a more sympathetic reception from a general audience. Nesbit 03:25, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Writing NPOV means clearly demarcating what is Pask's opinion and what is verifiable fact. As it is, for example, there are no cosmologists that I'm aware of who take this stuff seriously even though a reading of this article would have the reader believe otherwise. --ScienceApologist 14:59, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

You, ScienceApologist, say cosmologists would not take this seriously.

Since you can't deny that knowledge is an outcome of cosmic evolution I am somewhat perplexed by your criticism.

Pask's approach produces a wave theory of matter first suggested by de Broglie but brushed aside by the Copenhagenists (as Carver Mead points out- see refs- and see quote at end of his Wiki entry). I've just added a url to this. If you have any other arguments to submit please do. Clearly I support Nesbit who started this article. As I tried to show Pask was well known and respected in Cybernetics, the author of some 200 papers and recepient of two doctorates, by examination, and a third Sc.D. from his old college Downing Cambridge for his life's work. What he says may seem counter intuitive- but that makes it worth saying. There is much worth discussing arising out of Pask's work and I look forward any further criticism. Perhaps a look at Penrose, as ref'ed, talking about his possible new Cosmolgy might satisfy you. --Nick Green 17:31, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You have missed the point. I'm merely saying that the current wording of the article inappropriately makes claims that Pask's ideas are somehow related to disciplines where he is not referenced or known (e.g. cosmology). The wording of this article is not NPOV right now. --ScienceApologist 19:10, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Thanks SA. Pask was influential in physics in that his remarks about Stirling Numbers of the Second kind may have inspired the formation of the ANPA group (lately addressed by JH Conway, L Kauffman and Osborne & Pope) whose aim was to explain the universal constants as the outcome of combinatorical processes- but he certainly never contributed to the cosmological literature. In an early paper to the 1961 Namur Cybernetic Congress, "The cybernetics of evolutionary processes and of self organizing systems", he remarks "The idea of Self Organization belongs to the present and imperfect search for coherence" (1.8.1). Coherence as a both a defining and dynamic process is a major theme in the IA manuscript. I hope this resolves the dispute.

Pask, in common with many cyberneticians, wanted a cybernetics that was rigorous in its interdisciplinary application. If physicisists can ever be persuaded to give up their sub-atomic particle model in favour of a wave model, as Carver Mead suggests and Penrose is leaning, he may yet succeed. --Nick Green 19:58, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * It's all well-and-good that this may be a goal of Pask's followers, but we need to make sure that the article doesn't promote such hopes but merely reports them. --ScienceApologist 20:39, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

Well perhaps one of us could remove your objection. You might like Sir Michael Atiyah's (video) Kelvin lecture to the IET (no available at present) "Solitons - A new paradigm in mathematical physics" --Nick Green 20:57, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see Pask's ideas as presented in this article as simply arguing that solitons should be used more often. The NPOV notice should remain until we come to a consensus on how to deal with these issues. --ScienceApologist 23:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * SA's objections are that criticism of Pask's ideas is not reported in the article, and therefore the presentation is one-sided and lacking NPOV. The solution is for someone to summarize and cite published criticism of Pask's work, especially from physicists or cosmologists. Until it is established that such criticism actually exists, I would think the template should be removed. Nesbit 22:35, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * When someone's ideas are unknown in the field, it isn't exactly NPOV to claim implications for the theory without also pointing out its marginalization. The template should be kept until it is established whether Pask's work is taken seriously by anybody in, for example, physics. --ScienceApologist 23:43, 24 June 2006 (UTC)


 * You claimed factual inaccuracy. You haven't shown any yet. You claimed lack of neutrality. You showed none. His work may be unknown to many but that makes the Wiki entry all the more important. There is no criticism because, it seems, none of Pask's assertions can be contradicted. When Downing awards him an Sc.D. after an academic committee has considered his life's publications you be sure he was taken seriously. Happy to leave up your objection longer if that's what you really want. But someone must come up with a substantial objection to his position. Otherwise, I would say, you owe Pask's memory an apology. Look again at the juicy research problems he left us: the tapestry model and the specification of a practical field concurrent computer devoid of mathematical pathology. Nothing trivial or pseudoscientfic about that I can see, but I remain at your disposal.--Nick Green 00:51, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Mostly, Pask used physical concepts as metaphors for elaborating cybernetic theory. I don't see that reporting this is POV. It is quite factual. If any physicists object to how how he used physical metaphors it might be interesting, but again, we would need verifiable claims. At times Pask mused (some might say over-expansively) about the physical implications of his cybernetic theories. This is also factual. Nowhere does the article claim that Pask had a substantial impact on physical theory. Nowhere does the article claim that Pask's theories are true, only that he articulated them -- exactly what one should expect in a biographical encyclopedia article. There is willingness to address your concerns, SA, but unless you can be more specific, there is not much we can do. Nesbit 04:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Problems
I really wanted to have a discussion about the issues of how to handle this article in NPOV fashion, but that has seemed to have gone nowhere. So I'll start with a partial list of problems (which come up about every single sentence in the section I tagged):
 * Me too. You really have to "do the work" and look at the references provided. But Pask is difficult so further explanation follows.

Pask considered concepts to be persisting circular spin processes in any medium: stars, liquids, solids, gases or, indeed, brains. Is this a list that Pask provided? Is there a cite to this? Why stars, liquids, solids, gases, and brains as the list? What distinguishes them as special for Pask's "spin"?
 * Yes. This is a matter of Pask's definition of a concept e g para 90 Pask 1993, the m-individual being the medium supporting the spin states. I don't deal with p and m-individuals in my account. He often gave this list in seminars etc
 * Great, so can you give a quote in para 90 Pask 1993 that lists these five items as evidence of concepts to be persisting circular spin? Because as a physics educator I'm telling you that this sentence reads to me like nonsense. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Let's start with "wave mechanics produces self-organisation". What's the problem with that?--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * How does wave mechanics produce self-organization? Is this supposed to be an emergence idea? I have seen wave mechanics produce increasing entropy as well as self-organization. There doesn't seem to be any rule that makes wave mechanics better or worse at allowing for self-organization than any other process or theoretical treatment. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Interactions of concepts produce learning, evolution, cosmology and, in general, self-organization lately called emergence. This is stated as fact. It's not a fact. Interaction of concepts do not "produce" cosmology nor evolution in the sense that most naturalists describe these subjects. Unless you are arguing the old materialist argument here, in which case you need to make it clear that it is the POV of whomever is making the argument.
 * This follows from Pask's definition. He is dealing with Self Organisation which he says is produced by the Interactions of spin states. The rest: learning, evolution and emergence, follows. That should be clear even to a particle physicist!
 * If "Self Organization" is "produced" by the "interactions" of "spin states", then a quote for this needs to be provided. However, even if this is the case, I don't see how the sentence in question follows from this. If Pask said the sentence in question, please cite it. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * This is the thesis of the Pask 1993, 1996 references.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Can you provide the sentence where he states this? --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

IA is a wave mechanical theory of processes and the products they produce. Really? What is the wavelength of these processes? Does the waveform carry angular momentum? If you act the Hamiltonian on the wavefuction do you get the total energy of the form?
 * Yes. As you know the distribution of observable wavelengths depends on temperature or interacting waves with angular momenta.
 * Waves don't have temperature and don't necessarily carry angular momentum unless there is a particular gauge symmetry. So how does IA conform to this gauge symmetry? Where's your citation? --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Wien's Law? You'll have to explain your point about Gague symmetry further.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Wien's Law applies only to electromagnetic radiation. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

With further consideration it may be applicable to nanotechnology assembler design. You have a citation for this?
 * No but control of ang mom perhaps with a geometry derived from the prismatic tensegrity seems worth considering. I thought it worth mentioning to bring in current research problems. Spintronics focuses on this. Formalising this in the notation of your choice is at this stage an exercise for the reader. I give a flavour of Pask's Lp.
 * If you don't have a citation for this, I don't think it should be included. If you want to say that Pask influenced spintronics, that's fine, but you should provide a citation for this. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Pask's extraordinary ideas about the prismatic tensegrity force model and the Borromean links might help sort out the ghastly stability problems of eg the STM environment- indeed they may hint at approaches to the Tokamak stability problem. You can't object to be distinuishing possible applications of Pask's ideas to help focus understanding- or can you?--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * But does anybody actually care? Do you have any evidence for physicists taking this seriously? --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

In 1995 Pask stated (Green 2004) what he called his Last Theorem for all forces: "Like concepts repel and unlike concepts attract". This is a good sentence and should be considered a model for the prose in this article.
 * Given to me verbally (Green 2002 Kybernetes 30, 5/6, 2001 p676 "Gordon Pask remembered and celebrated part 1"). Discussing this theorem seemed the quickest way into his later work.
 * Oddly enough, this is the first sentence that actually seems to be verifiable for me. This comes across as an analogy rather than a statement about physics. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

''Angular momentum considerations make this feasible when the origin of a co-ordinate scheme is constructed on one of the three minimal concepts. This is a consequence of the Superposition principle.'' This is a jumble according to the physics articles that are linked to. Is this Pask's opinion? If so it needs to be cited.
 * When Pask said "all forces" the only way all forces, strong weak etc, can be understood is via their common property: momentum (h/lambda)
 * That's silly. One can understand "all forces" in a variety of ways, not just in terms of momentum. As the sentence currently reads, it looks factually incorrect. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Well you must explain how the term force can be used strictly without reference to momentum.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You can explain all forces in terms of energy conservation as per Hamiltonian and Lagrangian mechanics. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

''A time domain projection shows unlike phase cancellation and like phase summation in a sine wave representation. Put simply the interference, "beats" and polarization of different and similar frequencies produce the universe.'' Polarization has nothing to do with "phase cancellation and like phase summation". This prose in terms of physics is poorly written and doesn't seem connected to anything else in the previous paragraph. If this is a cited opinion of Pask, great. Cite him. But right now this reads like a failing response to one of my Intro Physics essay exams. I don't even know how to correct it. Even as an educator, I don't know what kind of information this sentence is trying to convey.
 * The production of an ordinary and extraordinary wave as a beam transmits is no doubt an important feature of self organisation and anisotropy. I used the above terminolgy because constructive and destructive interference is regarded as a property of waves of the same or similar frequency. Pask's no doppelganger clause does not allow frequencies to be the same.
 * What is an "ordinary" and "extraordinary" wave? No such thing exists in physics? How can we evaluate a statement that claims to make physical arguments with ideas that are not discussed in physics. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * See Birefringence and please try to be a little less apocalyptic in your cricism. Trouble with applying cybernetics (outside pure cybernetics which Pask definitely was practising) is one can easily be a jack of all trades but master of none.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * So you're passing these things through different media? This is my major problem, the discussion of physics jumps from perspective to perspective without being clear as to why this is justified. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

In their angular momentum synthesis of gravitational and electromagnetic forces Osborne and Pope independently found "like spins repel" and "unlike spins attract". Huh? Spin is different than mass, charge, etc. They are all measured with different units. If this is Pask's idea, cite it, but right now it looks just plain wrong to this physics instructor.
 * Yes these properties all produced from ang mom according to Osborne. Go back to your text books. Although Osborne (Keele University) is a mathematician his exposition is straight forward. He considers the gravitational case then the Bohr Atom. They go further than I need for Pask's Last Theorem throwing out polarity, fields and forces in favour of ang momentum only.
 * Yes these properties all produced from ang mom according to Osborne. -- I don't know what Osborne was doing, but he basically spent page after page to derive the virial theorem which is a statement about energy and not angular momentum. Osborne's analysis is definitely a form of pseudophysics. It may be clever to him, but I guess it just comes out of having never been exposed to physics beyond an introductory level. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You have no problem with "like spins repel unlike spins attract" then. The cybernetic point here is to lift applicable rules out of the complexity.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Actually, I do have a problem because the author confuses time symmetry with space symmetry. The virial theorem is a time-invariant conservation accordingly following an inner product of momentum with position. Angular momentum is a cross product of the same variables. Different symmetries: different physical measurements. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

This approach acknowledges that an observer is a subjective participant in physics and in general. Is this in contrast to any other approach? Really, I'd love to know a physics that doesn't acknowledge an observer.
 * Well some still talk about an objectivist position. It's hard to avoid when discussing similarities and the limits to invariance in Nature.
 * Can you quote an "objectivist" who disputes this statement? --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What statement? Similarities exist?--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * The original statement seems to indicate that there are perspectives where the observer isn't a subjective participant. Yet you haven't quoted any "objectivist" that claims the contrary. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

''From relativity Pask found that no two concepts could be the same because of their different acceleration histories. He sometimes called this the "No Doppelgangers clause" - later stated as "Time is incommensurable for Actors".'' We can rewrite this sentence, I hope, to conform to exactly what Pask was saying. "Acceleration memory" is definitely a pseudoscience I've seen before, so if that's what he's advocating we have plenty of critics we can cite which illustrate the problems with this idea.
 * You might call it memory but consider Borel's point that any random number selected from a 0,1 interval is infinitely long. Nature doesn't know about precision but we know that, for example, any pair of protons will have slightly different masses because of their different dynamical histories.
 * That's not true. Protons have the same mass independent of their dynamical histories. This is the problem with acceleration memory. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * My point is the speed of protons will never be exactly the same because their subjective experience will never be the same because of their different perspectives in given contexts. Nothing to do with memory which is just a persisting closed interaction in Pask speak-those small diffrences are behaviour defing, however. Happy to drop "acceleration histories" if that still offends.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * What do you mean the speed of protons will never be exactly the same? Why won't the speed of protons be exactly the same? --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

The mechanism of thought he proposed was the repulsive unfolding by braided wavefronts Mathematically, what is a "braided wavefront"?
 * My attempt to evoke the Borromean wave mechanical knot theory object produced from a closed braid.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * As described: a minimally triple crossing of three wavefronts. Crossing a three braid three times and closing it produces a Borromean link which when you remove the necessary eccentricity produces a spherical wave. You might like to try that yourself in, say, Mathematica, the run time is long more than an hour.
 * That makes no sense. "A minimally triple crossing" is a physically meaningless phrase. Making up mathematical objects might be exciting, but it doesn't elucidate this physical analogy. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Try one of Kauffman's papers on Quantum theory and knots. But I am seeking a language to summarise Pask's wave mechanical approach. Suggestions welcome.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Are you trying to connect to quantum topology? This did not come across in that prose. I really have no idea what you're trying to say with that sentence. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

of a concept entailment mesh into its circular component (frequency) processes. What is a "circular component process? Because "frequency" is just the reciprocal of the period of an oscillation.
 * See below

Pask (1996) found concepts are packed to a depth of "countable infinity" when sampled with begins and ends. What does this mean? I have studied countable and uncountable infinities in analysis, but can we have a cite for this claim that "concepts" are "packed" to this "depth"? (I don't even know where one is packing said concepts).
 * the decomposition of the rise time of a beginning and and an end produces an infinite series of Fourier terms.
 * That's a meaningless statement. Fourier series are usually infinite. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes particularly when there are discontinuities like begins and ends- Gibbs ringing?--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * So you agree that the statement is meaningless? --ScienceApologist 01:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

This can be seen in the Fourier series decomposition of an observation and in a concurrent universe where everything interacts with everything else, albeit very weakly with distant objects. This sentence also makes no sense in terms of a sentence that uses concepts from physics to discuss physical ideas. A Fourier decomposition occurs when you take a signal and decompose it in phase space. One can Forier decompose anything, but this sentence does not serve as physical evidence for the previous indecipherable sentence.
 * I hope it does now.
 * Sorry. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

''After a sufficient duration of interaction (he called this duration "faith") a pair of similar or like-seeming concepts will always produce a difference and thus an attraction. '' Again, if Pask said this, quote it and cite it because right now I have no idea where "faith" is coming from.
 * Faith is the time it takes to produce a product or make an observation. This was from notes I took at a seminar he gave and wrote up in Green 2004
 * Then please cite it. The major problem is that there are no citations to any of this stuff and if it really is your collected notes on the subject, I have to say that you aren't reporting the ideas in a way that are accessible to people who study and teach physics. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * It is cited but not in context.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't think it is a good idea to yank this controversial term "faith" out of context and try to apply it to physics. It does not help the reader understand what you are trying to say and ultimately makes the author look like a charlatan. If you want to cite the connection between faith and physics, please make it relevant. --ScienceApologist 01:18, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

At this point I hope you see that I have an enormous numbers of objections to the prose written in this article. It was for this reason that I didn't list specific objections because there are just so many. What I wanted first was a concensus on how to proceed in the general philosophy of reporting in this article. --ScienceApologist 08:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Yes Pask is tough going but I hope you will find worth persisting with. You will "come to know" as he once said. Since physics has a difficulty in modelling an electron/photon you might like to consider Williamson's model "Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology?" (Annales de la Fondation Louis de Broglie, Volume 22, no.2, 133 (1997)) http://members.chello.nl/~n.benschop/electron.pdf.
 * I just read this paper. The author apparently hasn't studied physics well enough to know about the history of the observations and that electrons and protons are not classical objects but quantum mechanical ones. His entire analysis proceeds at an extremely superficial level: about that which can be found in a typical introductor text on modern physics. As a theory, it doesn't deal with the quantum electrodynamics or the quantum chromodynamics associated with these particles and totally misses the boat with respect to the standard model of particle physics including an ignorance of the difference between leptons and baryons. But that seems to me to be beside the point: What does this author have to do with Gordon Pask? Is it important to cite such pseudophysics in this article? Does it really help elucidate Gordon Pask's ideas? --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Just to remind you that there are toplogical approaches that may explain why, for example, electron beams don't confirm Stern Gerlach.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, there is a topological approach to spin, but that's not evidenced in the paper you cited nor is it relevant to the supposed equivalency of protons and electrons. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Now once more I ask you: What are these facts you contest? I am simply reporting Pask's work as Nesbit has pointed out. I have tried to make it clear by emphasising the more conventional implications of his approach. Try http://www.cybsoc.org/gordon.htm if you'd like to know more about this fascinating man.--Nick Green 14:50, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I think I was pretty clear in telling you what statements seem to come across as facts. It may be better to confine the article to "conventional implications" to avoid this uncomfortability. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes take care here. Physics can be seen as a restricted n-body problem but this cannot be solved. A concurrent approach may at least throw light on this. I take it I am not prohibited from pointing this out. Pask is a critic and wanted to make knowledge more easily applied. I'm sure Wikians would not be pleased to surpress criticism that questions the status quo. Its not clear to me yet that his Lp can do this but it might.--Nick Green 00:52, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I certainly don't want to censor any of Pask's notable ideas from this article, but I do think the current presentation of the interaction section is wanting. --ScienceApologist 01:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Good! I count this as progress. Treatment of some of the more startling claims could be improved by explanation, quotation from Pask, and rephrasing so that they are less provocative. Removal of some points is a possibility, but not necessary if there is evidence that Pask uttered them. Nesbit 14:19, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Every remark attributed to Gordon is either in his published work, his unpublished last manuscript or been reported in peer reviewed Journals eg like my two papers in Kybernetes. Difficulty in understanding, yes but no dissention yet! Happy to consider any specific rewriting recommendations to make things clearer. The interplay of kinematic seeming epistemolgy (the permissive condition) and kinetic Interactions can be confusing. The point about cybernetics comparing and contrasting has not appeared in print before but maps beautifully into comparing and contrasting a pair of complex waveforms which constructively and destructively interfere (or beat) which I suppose is the central message.--Nick Green 15:04, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * In reporting Pask, we should be careful to ensure No original research. This should be no problem, because there are *many* peer-reviewed publications and biographies to draw from. We should not introduce connections to physics that are not already published. My preference is to downplay the clash with quantum theory because it unnecessarily provokes reactions like that from SA. The line should be that Pask was an recognized cybernetician who, interestingly, believed that his theories had implications for physical theory. Because he was notable as a psychologist/cybernetician the article's emphasis should be in those areas. Nesbit 16:02, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * I appreciate your perspective, Nesbit. This is exactly the type of collobartion I was hoping for. I have no doubt that we can get this article to a state that would be factual and NPOV if we work together. --ScienceApologist 21:35, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * BTW I did not mean to imply that there is any problem with citing the Green (2004) paper, vis a vis the No original research policy. It is a peer-reviewed journal article and is used appropriately. Nesbit 22:07, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * In principle, I don't have any problems citing this paper either, though I prefer the primary sources (i.e. Pask's own work). --ScienceApologist 22:20, 25 June 2006 (UTC)

Nesbit: I like the changes you have made. But I should point out you call Pask a psychologist and cybernetician. His first PhD was in psychology in 1964 according to Scott's obituary but he had been contributing to the Cybernetic literature for some years by then eg the 1961 paper "The cybernetics of evolutionary processes and of self-organizing systems", 1959 "Physical analogues for the growth of a concept" Proc National Physical Laboratory Symposium on the mechanisation of a thinking process, Her Majesty's Stationary Office and 1958 "Growth process in a cybernetic machine" Proc. Int Ass. Cybernetics. He called himself a "cybernetist" a term coined by Felgett (a Fellow of Royal Society) to evoke physical rather than the more common and euphonius "cybernetician" of, strictly, biological cybernetics. see Pask (1993)para 293 and 321. His great collaborator Scott (from whom we might hear more about the Saki, CASTE and Thoughsticker machines, P and M-idividuals for example) was a psycholgist.

With regard to physics I would be reluctant to withdraw references to Carver Mead and Penrose in that they are contemporary authorities supporting Pask's 1990s (and earlier) position. But feel free to make any changes of emphasis or style you think might improve. As an ex chemist/physicist (now IT and cybernetics- Fellow of the society since 1980 and now member of the Council) I was initially appalled when Pask spoke to me of the "atomic hypothesis" but realise now his criticism was well founded, with e.g. de Broglie (1923) and Schroedinger (1926) being the parents of this approach. SA trusts you and so do I!--Nick Green 23:03, 25 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Penrose never mentions Pask in his interview. Indeed Pask is not mentioned in the cosmological community at all. --ScienceApologist 23:36, 25 June 2006 (UTC)
 * You would no doubt allow that Pask was an expert in Self Organisation and that Penrose was talking about a possible wave mechanical theory of Cosmology which is a primary aspect of the theory of self organisation. Since this is contemporary work I see no problem in citing it. Its rather like saying x or y's conjecture was later proved by z or w. Standard practice. I notice no reference to Wiener or von Foerster's work on Self-organization in the Wiki- but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be there (in fact I should attend to that in due course). I may say I much appreciate your drive to raise standards but let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater. We want people to understand from what they know and Penrose is particularly clear. Hope you enjoyed it!--Nick Green 01:16, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Penrose was discussing standard cosmological theories that have nothing to do with Pask. Making these connections without direct citation to what Pask says (I'm positive he never commented on Penrose's speculations) is the very definition of original research and is not allowed in this encyclopedia. We need to remove this reference. --ScienceApologist 01:20, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Pask's work is original but not in a way that violates any Wiki requirement. That's why it must be allowed to reach a wider audience.


 * The real problem here is that Pask stated his Last Theorem for "all forces" and that his concepts exist in "all media" stars gases etc. I have tried to show you how this could be correct without taking a personal view of my own. I simply report his work. Are you telling me you are going to be the guy that says I may not state Pask's theory of learning/self organisation with his three doctorates and innumerable teaching appointments, 259 papers and for all I know never having read his work? The Cambridge committee awarding him his ScD in 1995 had to go through all his life's work. If you are going to supress his "all forces" and "all media" then I want to know what the Appeal procedure is.--Nick Green 20:02, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Putting it together
It seems to me ScienceApologist is just arguing against de Broglie et al. There is agreement about some of your criticisms but there can also be agreement-to-disagree about the importance of x or y's contribution. I am happy to say something like Pask's Last theorem awaits a proof but I will want to point at ways it might be done and relevant work of others otherwise Pask appears to be a crank which he was not.

I'll try to draw this together in coming days. I have given "knock down" arguements but you yet resist eg Fourier (where we agree the technicalities), the proton speeds (Borel and relativity to support no doppelgangers- Pask held since seventies Pask 1993 paras 82,187) and that wave mechanics (WM) produces self organization. WM is not one process in this context it is the process. Have you any other candidates? Your turn to be the suspect crank now. Then there's your remark about nobody caring about STM/Tokmak control. Then "faith" you ask for a reference, get it, and think it's politically incorrect. I may agree but that is what Pask said and why should religion have all the good words? You need faith in your hypothesis before you conduct an experiment but you can't resist an opportunity to witch hunt. These human terms aid applicability and that is what this is about to Pask as educational psychologist: Faith the time it takes for a process to produce a product (or description). What could be fairer than that? Then your response to birefringence and the anistropy implicit, incidentally, in the prismatic tensegrity force model. I sympathise with your difficulty with the "level" we are talking but we are just talking about the way waves with angular momentum interact: Pask's oscillators' "radiation" (Pask 1993 paras 84, 145, 204, 338, 326 or Pask 1996 p361). One can say he was using analogies but then so is anyone building a model and using a notation. In the end we can only improve our descriptions. Your point about Penrose not commenting on Pask is surely irrelevant and actually yes Pask does mention Penrose twice in Pask 1993.

It would help me if you could clarify your position with reference to Carver Mead's criticism of the Copenhagen Interpretation which I suspect you are determined to resist. Knowing more about you will help in keeping explanation focussed eg do you know anything about knots? I might introduce Pask's process/product complimentarity which may clarify a lot for you and others. Then we can move on to some of the technicalities eg the Fourier business and the topology questions. I might for example take the "Compare and Contrast" approach as outlined above but I want to avoid a wrangle about quantum gravity which I see looming where Pask only spoke of forces and made no phenomonological claims. If you have a Wiki respectable term to use which refers to waves that carry angular momentum please suggest it.--Nick Green 04:14, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I have to say, Nick, almost everything you wrote above has nothing to do with this article on the subject of Gordon Pask. As you put it "Pask only spoke of forces and made no phenomonological claims." I think we need to basically trash the entirety of the prose of this section and rewrite it so that we discuss what Pask's ideas about interactions were, what the physical analogies he made were, and leave it at that. The cites that are given are not to Pask's work but rather to third-rate researchers from lower-tier British colleges who are publishing generally on the fringe of physics at best. There is way too much analysis and out-on-a-limb connecting of the dots that goes on in this article and the post you made above.


 * Let's put it this way: go through the entire section and ask yourself the question: "Did Gordon Pask say anything remotely like this in his published statements?" If the answer is "no" then you get rid of the statement. If the answer is "It's the natural result of his analysis" then replace the statement with his analysis and avoid the editorializing and the original research. If the article were actually written from the tone of "Pask said this about thus-and-such" then there would be no issue and we could move on.


 * --ScienceApologist 04:42, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

A horrible first attempt
Well, no one seemed to be taking my criticism seriously, so I rewrote the section to conform to a style that would be more in keeping with NPOV than the previous prose. I don't pretend that this is accurate, complete, or even free of bias. It's simply, in my opinion, a better written section that comes closer to the ideals I was espousing above. --ScienceApologist 05:25, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

In all honesty I have to say it's not bad, but, of course I have problems with it. Clearly the **all** forces problem is one of them but a remarkable piece of work. Well done. One way out might be to use the term radiation rather than electromagnetic radiation but I'm not in love with that. Sorry you felt Carver Mead couldn't be squeezed in but I see why Wiki might think that.At least I can say you've kept much that I thought was under threat! Will think further. I've always had difficulty with the Borromean model and its attendant prismatic tensegrity. Let's hope Penrose comes up with a formal paper soon. I should probably clean up the CT section with the same style graphics you have used. Thanks. --Nick Green 00:59, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I should add you can take off the dispute notice as far as I am concerned.--Nick Green 01:02, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

SA's revisions do scan better. Although I've been known to consort with them, I'm not a physicist and can't comment in an informed way on the natural science issues. There is room for further improvement in the article, especially in clearer explanations suitable for a general audience. Classification is an unavoidable part of the WP biography business. I agree, looking especially at his publication venues, that Pask was primarily a cybernetician, and then secondarily a psychologist. He did have a notable impact on instructional theory, and so I'd like to keep him in the educational psychologists category, not to the exclusion of other categories of course. Nesbit 01:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Thanks Nesbit. How about (of the Last Theorem) Pask said it applied to all forces. And similarly Pask said the prismatic tensegrity represented the forces of repulsion and attraction in the topological Borromean ring model. Strictly "electromagnetic radiation" should go his preferred and published term was radiation. See the quote from the 1996 paper which could tie things up for now (if hard, for me, without Mead, solitons, and angular momentum). Currently at end of CT section.--Nick Green 17:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Do you have a cite for where Pask said it applied to all forces and where Pask said that tensegrity was a representation of a physical force? I understand IA as being an analogy and a criticism but not as a physical model. --ScienceApologist 22:19, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Personal communication reported in Green 2004 (peer reviewed) papers given to various learned groups and the Cybernetics Society itself and see the quote in CT "congruent with the forms of physical theories" (my italics). NB not similar or analogous to). This is important and MUST stay. You and I know angular momentum provides the bridge but Pask never discussed that with me. To be frank the penny didn't drop on Ang Mom until the Osborne and Pope paper. I agree there is an error there in I think what is a cross product, but I checked it and it doesn't materially affect their conculsion. If physicists took some of this on board we might drag them out of the 70 years in the dark ages that Mead claims they have suffered. But that's for another day. A rigorous proof is needed and Pask did say for all forces- first recorded in (word for word) Green 2001- peer reviewed- Kybernetes "Gordon Pask remembered and celebrated Part 1 vol 30 No 5/6. Part of 4 issues celebrating him.--Nick Green 23:03, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Hmm, well I'm not sure that this is good enough for inclusion in the article. A personal communication is a powerful research tool, but I can't quite shake the feeling that Pask was mainly dealing with explanation by analogy and not advocating a new physics. Claiming "forces" are based on "concepts" is really the bigger issue. That kind of extrapolation really makes the materialists uncomfortable (ever tried to measure a concept?) --ScienceApologist 08:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

SA you said to me "If the article were actually written from the tone of "Pask said this about thus-and-such" then there would be no issue and we could move on." Much is written from this perspective. I said Pask said his last Theorem applied to all forces. I have reported this twice in peer reviewed journals given two papers at conferences and discussed at various meetings-on this yet you have removed it. This is no service to Wiki, Pask's memory or physics. Why so touchy? Check out sparticles GUT etc what's your problem? He was ill for the last few years of his life and this almost has the status of a dying man's confession.--Nick Green 23:41, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm not sure of the context of Pask's comments regarding "all forces". Since this is a theorem about "concepts" it could be that he's talking about "all" forces that involve "concepts" (whatever that means). See my comments above too for more objections to why the "all forces" application is touchy. I recognize that it's an important point to you, but I'm not convinced we have the resources right now to properly attribute it as Pasks making an absolute statement about physical forces. --ScienceApologist 08:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

SA I see you've also taken out the prismatic Tensergrity reference. We took these models to an address he made to the Club of Rome and consultancy he was doing for Hydo Aluminum yet because you cant see the major axes of a Borromean link are equivalent in some sense to a prismatic tensegrity and a potential concurrent computing element we are censored.These too were reported as above. Hmm. Waiting.--Nick Green 23:54, 27 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Actually, I've left it in. The only thing I took out was the reference to forces for, again, physical reasons having to do with the connection to concepts not the analysis itself (which I admit I don't follow, but will accept as Pask's model for interaction). --ScienceApologist 08:28, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Ok- sorry, must have got my versions mixed. Your "infinite nature of waves" and doppelgangers simple "histories" were very helpful (There's a proof para 188 Pask 1993) but... In Green 2001 (not reffd in Wiki but mentioned above) I recorded the moment Pask delivered his Last Theorem. I ask


 * "What kind of forces?". He replies "Forces". So I ask "Yes, but Gordon, electrical, magnetic, gravitational, weak, strong?". He says "Just forces". I record that I said "Oh" at this point.


 * As you can imagine this has been the subject of much, I hope learned, discussion with cyberneticians here in UK. I thing we have to accept this must be a Newtonian/Einsteinian force so the rate of change of momentum defines it. Pask was never wrong in my experience. I left his company System Research in 1979 to become his friend as well as colleague and often found myself saying Ah ha!- he was right: The centrality of analogy and ambiguity, for example, (when a derivation is viewed from a different perspective- thought as driven by ambiguity resolution). His final fixing on coherence and decoherence as generative concepts for Lp as in newly added quote. This is definitely not a trivial matter for me. If you can find a way to give me the room to relate what he truly said (and perhaps record a measure of skepticism) you would be doing no disservice.--Nick Green 12:50, 28 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm still struggling with the context of the argument regarding "forces". One could easily read this as an argument regarding the "forces" that exist between "concepts" which is a pure analogy and doesn't have anything to do with physical forces. For example, his insistence that it is "just forces" could be seen as saying that he isn't tallking about "electrical, magnetic, gravitational, weak, strong" but rather "just forces" that exist "between concepts". You see the issue? I can accept Pask is right about "forces" between "concepts" but I don't have any way to relate the theory of like and unlike concepts being tied to physical objects because concepts are not measurable. --ScienceApologist 14:46, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * On two or three subsequent occasions I said to Pask "All forces" and slap my forehead as he nodded smiled and twinkled. But how about this either I tell the anecdote or simply say Pask held his theorem applied where forces acted. Your "just an analogy" cuts no ice in that Pask claimed (see quote at end of CT) congruence with the form of physical theory. Recall Pask's defn of a concept: persisting (ie stable with "tail-eating" closure) circular processes. Add in Ashby's theorem summarised for persistance as a system has an internal a model (stated Every good regulator of a system must be a model of that system) and you see the depth of the problem: every model is an analogy. We lost that Pask concepts exist in any medium (I'll find a quote) but I'm quite happy with the Wiki Defn of a force! I'll think some more and come up with a proposal unless you see no hope yet.--Nick Green 15:15, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * "persisting circular processes" is a mechanistic not a phenomenonlogical description of concepts and there is no way to connect them to physical sources. Yes, every model is an analogy but if you are going to revamp a paradigm you need to do it on the paradigm's terms. That's how the game works. All the statements of Pask can easily be "explained away" as though he were making analogies to his field of study and wasn't trying to make claims about, for example, the "persisting circular process" associated with "mass", for example. --ScienceApologist 15:21, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * That's right. Gordon once called himself a philosopher mechanic. I'm not trying to revamp his paradigm- that's what I'm afraid you seem to want. Mass is produced from waves eg as Wilczek points out to MIT(as refd above) m= E/c^2. To me mass is soliton-like but expect delay while I search further refs. Whenever I have a problem with Pask I usually start by asking myself what does signal processing tell us?--Nick Green 16:57, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Your statements about mass are wholly incorrect. Mass is not produced from waves. Rest mass energy is not in the form of a wave, though there are untested speculations about this. See quantum gravity for the problem. Since there is no theory of everything, we really don't have a good way of connecting quantum wave mechanics to general relativity which seems to be what you are suggesting Pask is doing. I disagree, I think that pask is saying that the "force" between "concepts" behave as waves as a means of analogy. He then goes on to claim that his analogy may not be far off from physics, but doesn't make any statements about physics per se. --ScienceApologist 19:55, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * No I'm not claiming Pask said anything about mass (except needing any competent dynamic medium for his concepts to yield a product para 160 Pask 1993). But note if no doppelgangers is correct then problem of GR/QM might be resolved. You may look at his histories proof (Pask 1993 para 188) and find it's just an analogy. Fine. But ask what distinction needs making to make it a fully competent model? Stimulating as this is I probably won't make much progress with this for a few days. You might like Wilczek's video lecture where he discusses "Einstein's second law" http://web.mit.edu/nobel-lectures/. Your "wholly incorrect" looks a bit stern if not off base entirely (relevant part starts 19mins in). He uses what is known by cyberneticians as Bremermann's limit to compute mass. This he calls fact (at question time). He goes on to discuss cosmolgy (some epistemologists insist on a cosmolgy to claim "understanding")dark matter and unification.--Nick Green 22:54, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

But ask what distinction needs making to make it a fully competent model? The policy of original research spell it out. Since there is no verifiable "solution" to the problem of quantum gravity claiming that Pask offers a solution is problematic. What's more, Wikczek is not the subject of this article. We should go by what Pask says. --ScienceApologist 01:43, 29 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Well all I can say is Pask said (to me and many other since the late seventies) that concepts were persisting circular process in any medium. It's implicit in much of what he says and my job is to make this plain so I make generalisations from his published work and his many personal communications with me. There's a reference to concepts in stars: "No one denies that stars shine more brightly than people, emitting brighter light. The following proposition is less commonly accepted, but is far from outlandish, taking a star as a potential M Individual. It might be that stars are also brighter and more subtle in a mental sense, but not knowing them so well, it is hard to say. Regarding people, on the other hand, one indisputable fact, poignant for observers, is this" (Pask 1993 para 90). Am m-individual is a coherent medium in which a p-individual (a collection of states which might be described as psychological-I have colleagues more expert than I in this aspect of the work who may come forward). His was also a theory of consciousness (hardly surprising) but others more expert than I etc (I worked on decision environments others worked on his teaching machines- not referenced yet).


 * So when I say Pask's is a theory of self-organisation and learning (and must include cosmology because it's epistemological importance if the stars still rankle) beacuse I am thoroghly familiar with his work of his last three years I speak with some authority, recognised in my recent peer reviewed papers. You resist this on no grounds that stand up and some doubtful physics. Wiener wrote papers on everything (logic, QM Relativity) but his idea for identifying black boxes from the time series they produce make cybernetics a candidate for a theory of everything. Laughlin (Nobel 1998)http://large.stanford.edu/rbl/lectures/index.htm ("Principles of organization are what really make our world knowable not theories of everything") points out that self organisation is at the heart of ToEs.Again you resist this aspect of the work. You may be interested how the quote goes on:


 * "91.They may choose, aware of the consequences of their choice. It is certainly legitimate for a scientist, having knowingly excluded consciousness from that which is, consciously, observed, to adopt an impartial, external, irresponsible stance, knowing and admitting full well that his or her reports are confined to a limited domain viewed through the spectacles of a deliberately limited methodology. It is a very different matter if someone concerned with the larger arenas, of society, organizations and so on are irresponsible enough, a pejorative in this context, to ape the manners of impartiality. Yes, scientists they may be, but scientists who claim, with no sound cause, to encompass consciousness in any enquiry of sensible consequence. Those who adopt that safe and faceless stance, are grotesque, pretentious and cowardly knaves, worthy of derogation.


 * "92.Those who have the courage to participate with others in a culture, society, enterprise or organization under scrutiny, deserve respect. For in doing so, maybe as scientists, they bear the flag of J.B.S. Haldane, in the field of physiology, (Haldane,J.B.S, Biog, 1992). as actors in a proper company of players. These actors have, willy nilly, taken on full and unconditional responsibility, accepting the risks involved, for their actions and interactions."


 * Almost as though Pask himself anticipated your response! I retire for a while.--Nick Green 19:01, 1 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't think you responded to my major point which is that physicists in general don't recognize Pask as a theoretician equivalent to Einstein. It isn't the place of Wikipedia to promote him as such. --ScienceApologist 19:20, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I'm just reporting what he said and wrote. If you feel able to compare him to Einstein because of his fundamental work in Cybernetics on Self Organisation I am delighted, but all the more reason to ensure a fully correct entry on Wikipedia. Why you feel able to challenge Pask's definitions and censor me me from quoting contemporary authorites in support of his approach is quite beyond me. You accuse me of original research when all I do is try to make Pask accessible to a wider general audience. Concepts are defined for any medium, self organisation implies stars, evolution etc. Kinetic IA is the support of the begins and ends of kinematic CT. What of this do you want to censor? The points about waves are born out by Wilczek, Mead, Penrose and the approach by Laughlin, for example. And we have the problem of Osborne and Pope. Pask strove to make applicable descriptions. Interaction is the subject. How would you like to proceeed?--Nick Green 21:10, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

Self organization is a concept that applies to various endeavors, it is not a catch-all application that plugs in wherever you want. Wilczek, Mead, Penrose, Laughlin, Osborne and Pope are not Pask. Claiming that they represent Pask's work is original research. --ScienceApologist 22:15, 3 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The lack of rigour shown by others is not not my concern --Nick Green 00:53, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * But lack of rigour is a concern of Wikipedia. The syntheses you propose definitely look like original research. For example, Penrose never even comes close to mentioning Pask in the citations to his work you use. --ScienceApologist 03:08, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I still don't see why citing others working in a field to assist in explaining to a general audience can possibly be "original research". If I'm writing about Galileo and the pendulum can I not point out Huyghens later discovery of anti-phase synchronization of a pair of pendula on a wall? That's not original research. Maybe you should consult an expert on the history of cybernetics and self organisation(SO). But note there are errors in the current Wiki on SO. Ashby was a cybernetcian contributing to early SO ideas(1947) later adopted by Wiener (1961) and von Foerster(1959), later at the Biological Computer Laboratory (with Pask 1961) U of illinos. I suspect some of this is quite new to you and is something of a revelation. I can take no responsibility for others who don't reference Pask I am only concerned with helping others to understand his work. --Nick Green 16:26, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Contextualizing Pask in terms of cybernetics is fine. Contextualizing him in terms of physics in general is original research. --ScienceApologist 18:01, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Pask contextualises himself as a Cybernetist (see previous). His researches may or may not have implications for physics but they do have implications for cybernetics and self-organisation. It is not unreasonabe to say researches in self organization may make a contribution to physics as cybernetics has in the past with the increasing interest of physicsts in information models eg digital physics, complex systems, adaptation all pioneered by cybernetics. Cybernetics tries to find strict methodologies for inter-disciplinary research. Physics is not immune because you say it is! Now please can we get on? and will you deal with the points I raise or find someone who is expert in Cybernetics who can.--Nick Green 20:47, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * The interest that physics may or may not have with self organization is a topic best left for discussion on the self organization article. Unless you have citations that physicists are interested in the models of Pask himself, such conjectures about the implications of Pask's ideas to physics do not belong in the article. I have no objection to dealing with Pask's influence and discussion of cybernetics in this article, but since there are no references to his influence and discussion of physics, such a discussion can only be described as original research. This includes all claims to universiality of idealizations that Pask uses. His discussions work as physical analogies but they are not themselves physical theories in the sense that brane cosmology, for example, is a physical theory. --ScienceApologist 21:24, 4 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Processes produce Descriptions says Pask. All descriptions are analogies says Pask because of No Doppelgangers. I suggest a cooling off period. I simply want to explain Pask's IA theory. You want to witch hunt and say I can't point to recent work because the authorities don't reference Pask. I don't think you can sustain that position. --Nick Green 22:14, 4 July 2006 (UTC)

You cannot reference "recent work" simply because you as an editor perceive parallels with the recent work and that of Pask. That's the very reason the original research guideline was developed. That said, if you can reference a notable, verifiable, and reputable source who draws parallels, Wikipedia as a project encourages you to cite them and include them. As the article was written previously, many of the references to the interdisciplinary ramifications were based on your own interpretations rather than on the published sources that actually made the syncretic arguments presented in the article. If you disagree with this aim of Wikipedia to marginalize your original research, you can always publish your work elsewhere. --ScienceApologist 23:10, 4 July 2006 (UTC)


 * How about this?: Pask once said "There are no such things as inputs and outputs. Only fields" (Green 2001 Kybernetes 30 5/6). This wave mechanical approach is born out by the recent critcisms of the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM by Carver Mead in his "Collective Electrodynamics" (ref) and Sir Roger Penrose recent "loss of mass" conjecture in Cosmolgy (ref.). Perhaps I might add Wilczek in QCD(ref). This is just me as a teacher trying to teach Pask's IA Theory of learning and Self Organisation. No research just "parallels".--Nick Green 17:51, 5 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Your analysis belies a certain ignorance of the history of physics. Pask's statement that "There are no such things as inputs and outputs. Only fields." isn't as revolutionary as you seem to think it is, and it certainly doesn't require quantum mechanics to be realized. In fact, traditionally it is James Clerk Maxwell who is attributed with insisting that the field interpretation of physics was the correct one rather than the source/sink interpretation. So using the references to the Copenhagen Interpretation, Penrose's explanation of universal variation (which he, I might add, did not invent) and any reference to QCD are not relevant. I understand that you want to "teach" Pask, but the encyclopedia isn't the place to do it. You can write your own textbook at a different wikipedia project, if you'd like, but any form of didactism doesn't belong in this article as it represents a violation of original research ideals of Wikipedia. --ScienceApologist 19:11, 5 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Perfectly aware of the history you cite that's why contemporary references to the status of wave mechanics are so essential for a proper explanation. Can you distinguish between teaching and describing to a general audience? I suggest you try a form of words of my statement above you find acceptable. --Nick Green 16:41, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't object to you using a description of wave mechanics in the article, but in fact we already do this! If you read the commentary surrounding the question about atoms, you'll find that we do justice to Pask's opinion on the matter, at least as far as I can ascertain from the sources we list. The difference between teaching and describing comes from the synthetic nature of the prose. If you are pulling from sources that are similar but are not linked by means of direct citation or shared terminology then you are teaching by means of the admirable higher order thinking skill of synthesis and you should head on over to Wikibooks. I would say that all of the sourced writing you are indicating here does fall into this category. If instead you are relying on simple expository prose that is not synthetic (that is, not combining ideas or statements in ways that aren't evident from the published texts) then you are describing the topic in an encyclopedic fashion. --ScienceApologist 16:47, 7 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Pask's work is original but not in a way that violates any Wiki requirement. That's why it must be allowed to reach a wider audience.


 * The real problem here is that Pask stated his Last Theorem for "all forces" and that his concepts exist in "all media" stars gases etc. I have tried to show you how this could be correct without taking a personal view of my own. I simply report his work. Are you telling me you are going to be the guy that says I may not state Pask's theory of learning/self organisation with his three doctorates and innumerable teaching appointments, 259 papers and for all I know never having read his work? The Cambridge committee awarding him his ScD in 1995 had to go through all his life's work. If you are going to supress his "all forces" and "all media" then I want to know what the Appeal procedure is.--Nick Green 20:08, 7 July 2006 (UTC)

Nick is correct that simply explaining and reporting on Pask's work is not original research. On the other hand, SA correctly observes that certain types of explanations can easily stray into original research. It looks to me that compromise is definitely attainable if you focus on the wording of specific sentences. First pick a sentence from the current article that you think is incorrect or does not follow WP guidelines. On the talk page rewrite the sentence in a way that is acceptable to you, and you think might be acceptable to the other. Then the other either accepts the sentence or rewrites again. After the first few sentences are done it's easier to start working in paragraphs. Nesbit 06:48, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Good suggestion. As the article is currently written I really don't think there is any OR issues. I wait for Nick's suggestions. --ScienceApologist 15:47, 8 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Ok. SA,You wrote "In 1995 Pask stated what he called his Last Theorem: "Like concepts repel and unlike concepts attract" " I add: "for all forces which interact through exchanges of momentum. And go on "He defined concepts as persisting circular processes in any medium: a star, a solid, liquid or gas and, indeed, brains of all kinds. IA is a process theory of wave interactions which support concept acquisition. It is consistent with and predictive of many aspects of theories of cosmolgy (eg Penrose), evolution and self organisation. Through their interactions systems, or coherencies, as Pask later preferred to regard his Actor entities, learn how to persist and maintain their stability" How's that? Paragraph, then pick up your text, SA, "For ease of application.... Put in cites to Wiki etc and Pask 1996/93.--Nick Green 21:38, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, I disagree with everything you added because I believe it represents original research. Please point to the direct quote were Pask said "for all forces which interact through exchanges of momentum" (which I'll point out is a redundancy). The rest of your statement also has no references to Pask's work. I'm not looking for references to other's work, just Pask's. --ScienceApologist 22:40, 9 July 2006 (UTC)


 * OK. Just put in "for all forces". I don't think people will understand how it could be true unless something like that is plainly stated. Now what else do you object to?--Nick Green 00:51, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I know you say that Pask told you in personal communication that it was "for all forces", but can you back that up with any cites to his writing? Can you back any of your proposal with published works by Pask? --ScienceApologist 17:48, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * "for all forces" Green 2001, Green 2004 (all peer reviewed), Cybernetics Society website (I am a Fellow -their highest professional qualification). No dissention. Many discussions. You don't make stuff like that up! Gordon was a cybernetician taking an epistemological view of self organisation as learning (these aren't just random words this is what he did and it is not OR in the Wiki sense and you MUST get your head around this, no doubt it is all new to you). The rest follows and there are many supporting quotes of the evolution of the definition of a concept one early (1975) "a procedure for bringing about a relation (not a set of things)" The in "all media" (solids, liquids gases, stars, brains etc) and "hard carapace" appeared in seminars at the then Brunel University Institute of Cybernetics with his research students at about this time; then we had concepts produce and incidentally reproduce and finally the Last Theorem for "all forces". de Zeeuwe, one of Pask's colleagues, calls it a a theory for the study of interactions rather than a theory of interactions. As such it is extremely important that his views are promulgated. There's no doubt he was working on this for years. Pask wrote the entry on cybernetics for Encylopaedia Britannica in 1972. Next question please! "all forces" must go in. He said it, first time as "just forces" latterly "all forces" I repeatedly questioned him about this.--Nick Green 21:57, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Well, Nick, I looked at the references you provided and could find nothing other than hearsay in support of the contention that Pask believed his last theorem applied to all forces. I really do want you to give me a direct quote of Pasks along the lines of "My Last Theorem applies to every force in the universe" to include in the article. I'm just not seeing, for example, that Pask was contending that viscous forces, for example, could be modeled by his Last Theorem. Until we have a good source for this, it just doesn't belong in the article, in my opinion. Perhaps we should start an article Request for comment or post a comment to Wikiproject:Physics regarding this. What do you think? --ScienceApologist 22:24, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Pask is talking about Self Organisation. If he says "attract" or "repel" he means it but the implications may not be apparent to the general reader. As to viscosity imagine my delight at finding finding braids applied to the study of turbulence(a group at University Collge London). It's likely you can model a vortex, whirlpool or typhoon as a Borromean ring with its current, counter current and third "suction" force seeking closure as per Pask's perscription. But hearsay? Its a multiply peer-reviewed remark he made which is a great jumping off point for quickly grasping his depth. IA is a kinetic theory (as opposed to kinematic), he states this over and over again (plenty of quotes). But will the general reader get it? Will you? Obviously not. So all forces must go in. There are Pask refs for everything else- although as you may know by now Pask is no easy read. Remember I am only reporting what Pask said there's no OR from me. Happy to post an RFC to physics but I'll write it!--Nick Green 23:31, 10 July 2006 (UTC)


 * How about "Towards the end of his life the celebrated cybernetician Gordon Pask who studied self organisation, learning and epistemolgy from 1950s to 1990s announced what he called his Last Theorem "Like concepts repel unlike concepts attract". He stated it applied for all forces. Pask defined concepts as spins: persisting circular process recursively packed in any medium, stars, liquids, gases, solids or of course brains. It is a potentially central object of his learning theory of self organization: Interactions of Actors Theory. Unforunately he never published this, although he published much material coherent with this view. It can be seen as a simple statement of constructive and destructive interference. Is it suitable for reporting in Wiki?"--Nick Green 23:52, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Compromise on all forces
See page 1437 in Nick's paper, where he writes "this statement is intended to embody all forces...". The obvious compromise is to insert up to two sentences following the literal description of what Pask wrote with something like the following "According to Green(2004), Pask intended this to apply to all physical forces, including nuclear gravitational, and electromagnetic forces." In my view we can sustain a sentence or two citing Nick's publications, but any more than a couple of sentences would run up against the vanity and notability guidelines This article should keep the focus quite firmly on the ideas that Pask published. There is a lot more to be done on clarifying the central and widely recognized contributions of Pask, without spending more energy on arguments about whether they had implications for theories of planetary evolution. Nesbit 22:56, 10 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Thanks Nesbit. Only just seen this. That makes sense to me.--Nick Green 00:08, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Could we quote Nick directly from his paper? I really think this is going out on a limb here to accomodate the viewpoint of a single person, as familiar as he may be with the subject, but I'd be more comfortable with a directly quoted citation than an amalgamated statement. --ScienceApologist 00:39, 11 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I don't see that it makes a difference whether quoted or paraphrased, although paraphrasal usually allows ideas to be more flexibly fitted to the context. Quoting is fine by me. Nesbit 02:40, 11 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not the single viewpoint. I report literally what was said in Green 2001 both papers have been peer reviewed and the remark is reported on the official Society web site. The quote would be "This statement is intended to embody all forces: weak, strong, gravitational and electric or magnetic, which give rise to the self-organising character we see in Nature. " Green 2004. I would like to add "This can be seen as a describing a generalised interference phenomenon" as an aid the the general reader. If you think someting about why sine waves are related to spins and vector addition it could also be included. (We see gravitational interference with gravity meters under planetary alignment and planetry opposition, for example.) Or how about "The attractive state maintains the forms about us. What we observe is the radiation produced by repulsive interactions or concept unfolding, as Pask called it". And please this is not Wiiki OR, these are strictly consequential statements aimed at clarification.--Nick Green 19:11, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

I would be fine with the inclusion: According to Green (2004): "This statement is intended to embody all forces... which give rise to the self-organising character we see in Nature." Since we don't explain how Pask accounted for the four fundamental forces, I say leave that part of the quote out. The other suggestions by Nick I would omit as bordering too much on original research. --ScienceApologist 19:19, 12 July 2006 (UTC)
 * OK I'll have a think about that but I'll obviously want to do some explaining about the nature of epistemological self organisation. Is this the kind of thing Wilczek or Penrose would have to put up with? Anyway Pask was a deep thinker and teacher (although his technical writing is difficult, preferring the assertoric approach- find a counter example to falsify) so I guess this OR business is going to be an on going struggle. Next time you're in the library pull out the Collected Works of Norbert Wiener and be amazed, be very amazed! The scope is breathtaking and his method - black box analysis- remains the key. Pask's Last Theorem operates in that Black Box so this is no trivial exercise. I'll make a proposal in next couple of days. Best to you.--Nick Green 00:18, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

How about: "Pask intended to apply his theorem to all forces (Green 2004). It describes periodic momentum transfers that cancel or reinforce to make concepts or "coherencies and distinctions" (Pask 1993) that evolve through their interactions." Please no more about original research -this is a deep theory about the origins of knowledge and self organisation! Obvious really.--Nick Green 22:48, 14 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Your proposal seems a bit tried since there is no explanation for how "periodic momentum transfers" interact with "concepts". More than this, we should just quote you because we are taking your word that Pask said that his theorem applied to all forces. You could have misinterpreted him, for example. --ScienceApologist 06:45, 15 July 2006 (UTC)
 * 1. for "perodic momentum tranfsers" read waves? 2. We have to do something on "all media". I suggest Pask's early definition of a concept was "a procudure for bringing about a relation. Not a set of things" (Pask 1975). Implicit here is the idea that an act of communication produces a relation and a coherent synchronous dependence (para 103 Pask 1993). This is very general and Pask would speak of circular processes which produce and, incidentally reproduce (see also Pask 1993 eg para 138, 336) in any medium in his tutorials and seminars. Later we see we see "any competent medium" (Pask 1993 para 160) and a discussion that describes as "far from outlandish" that concepts exist (ibid para 90) in stars.--Nick Green 21:27, 16 July 2006 (UTC)

1. There is also no explanation for how "waves" interact with concepts.
 * So you want me to go into the physics of this? Certainly. "Interactions produce wave cancellation and reinforcement". Remember "persisting circular processes" produce waves.--Nick Green 22:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This isn't true. When a billiard ball interacts with another billiard ball in the classic momentum conservation experiment there are no "waves cancelling" or "waves reinforcing". It is straight particle-particle interaction. Waveparticles don't always equate to waves. Sometimes they equate to particles. --ScienceApologist 01:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

2. This doesn't resolve the problem because "a procedure for bringing about a relation" doesn't provide definitions for "procedure" or "relation". "All media" in physics usually means anything that take up space, but in Pask's formulation this cannot be the case unless he is extending space beyond physical space which is an abstraction that prevents us from evaluating Pask in terms of fundamental physics he may or may not have been commenting on. --ScienceApologist 21:41, 16 July 2006 (UTC)
 * procedure and relation entirely conventional definitions. Use Wiki. Don't quite see your problem with "Pask space" (clearly you still think him a witch, for heaven's sake read Carver Mead "Collective Electrodynamics" their perspectives were pretty well identical) Of space he says "This emission is characteristic of any kind of language and any action, it is, ...a radiation emitted in meaningfully quantised packages. Emitted into what, though? Do we need some kind of aether as a medium ... or can we simply say that it goes into the curious topological manifold which extends from something into the void?" eg recall Williamson "Is the electron a photon with toroidal topology?"--Nick Green 22:44, 17 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Well if procedure and relation are conventional, then Pask's definition is unconventional because there are no dictionaries I know of that define concepts in such a way. --ScienceApologist 01:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)

Further note to help you understand Pask's perspective: He formulated his Complementarity Principle: Every product is produced by a process and every process produces a product. So waves produce particles. There's no crazy coexistence and entanglement of all possible states as in wave particle dualism. Carver Mead's position, roughly, wave mechanics works Quantum mechanics doesn't- he rejects the Copenhagen Interp and all its associated blind alleys becaue phase information, so vital for practical men, and Pask, is lost. But that's a debate for another day. The question is how do I explain what Pask said without the Wiki thought police getting uptight!--Nick Green 22:56, 17 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Have you or Gordon Pask actually studied quantum mechanics? Did he, for example, ever try to work through a solution of the Schrodinger Equation? Or did he just make all this up as he went along? --ScienceApologist 01:50, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Both of us fully familiar with QM/WM. This is a wave model- I hope you understand that, that's why I still want Penrose and Mead in. The spins can be seen as the curl of the Vector potential, if that helps you. Are you now able to accept "all media"?--Nick Green 23:35, 18 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Good try, but not quite. Particles are not waves. --ScienceApologist 00:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * What about wave/particle duality? Big things are made from small things which are fields, eg see Wilczek and check your text book! Anyway there are plenty of quotes in the 1996 paper on the media question. I'll use that-if not as clear as earlier apparently to you illegal description. Are you a really a physicist? Do you know what a wave theory of matter is? I have supplied references for you. Particles are created by waves. Particles are, ahem, an analogy only. They are soliton-like. How do you account for the hardness of particles without waves?--Nick Green 04:41, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * Yes, wave/particle duality states that the phenomena are the same, but you can't ignore one half of the pairing in favor of the other half. It is indeed true that there is a wave-nature to all of matter, but there is simultaneously a "particle" nature to all of matter. In a young's diffraction where you follow which slit the waveparticle travels through, there is no sense in which the collapsed wavefunction at the slit acts as a wave with the requisite wavelength. It acts as a particle. --ScienceApologist 13:26, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * This is not the place to resolve this question. Let's simply say that IA is a wave theory. How about this quote from Pask 1996 "Some (any dynamic) medium" or "any interpretive medium, human, animal, organizational, possibly mechanical, possibly even cosmological". Then we have the quote from my paper as "all forces" and I cite Mead as a contemporary wave theorist and critic of the Copenhagen Interp and Penrose recent cosomological conjecture. These are orientional rather than supportive of Pask's posn and I will make that clear.--Nick Green 17:13, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

IA being a wave theory is already included in the article. We cannot use your cites to conteporary wave theorists or to Penrose because those people are not Pask and don't have anything to do with Pask. You're going to have to uncompact what Pask means by "medium" if you want to include the quotes about it. Drawing comparisons between human and cosmological media is not straightforward and would not be clear to most readers. --ScienceApologist 17:36, 19 July 2006 (UTC)
 * But their findings are confirmatory of Pask's approach, which was more contraversial when Pask made them, incidentally. We don't want him to look like a lunatic do we? So how about "Pask stated this applied to all forces in all media" (see Pask 1996, Green 2004)--Nick Green 17:59, 23 July 2006 (UTC)
 * I take now that the above is acceptable. Might I add for the general reader:"The conservation of momentum applies here (see Bosons) and Pask's statement can be seen as the constructive (repulsion of like concepts) and destructive (attraction of unlike concepts) interference produced by interacting waves. The sufficiency of Wave Mechanics has been advocated by Carver Mead in his "Collective Electrodynamics" and Sir Roger Penrose has recently conjectured a "scale free" wave mechanically based cosmology." (ref to video)--Nick Green 04:11, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

I restored parts of this article that were modified which did not conform to WP:NPOV standards. --ScienceApologist 18:59, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Pask's theory applies to all forces and all media as a competent theory of self-organisation should. You are surpressing his work. If you have further objections from physics or the referenced works then state them as you have done before. Otherwise please restore my last edit. If you want private discussion email me at nickgreen.cyb@gmail.com. --Nick Green 23:45, 7 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Please find me one person other than yourself commenting on what Pask said who believe that Pask's theory applies to all forces. Making extraordinary claims requires extraordinary evidence. The edit stands. --ScienceApologist 21:14, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

We have discussed this before. See our exchange of 28th June above. Why is this extraordinary? You said around 26th June above (or was it Nesbit?) "In 1995 Pask stated (Green 2004) what he called his Last Theorem for all forces: "Like concepts repel and unlike concepts attract". This is a good sentence and should be considered a model for the prose in this article." Later you said it was an analogy but to Pask who did considerable work on analogy all descriptions are analogies to a greater or lesser extent. All this has appeared in Journals before reviewed by people who know Pask's work e.g Glanville and Scott. Whether you or I agree with what he said is neither here no there. It is not original research in the Wiki prejorative sense and it is vital to make clear to ordinary people what Pask said. The point is there is no fundamental objection from physics even tho it may have grated, at first, on our intuitions. It is a matter of respectable academic record as, I hope you'll now agree I have repeatedly shown. The rest is fully referenced so please restore the edit.--Nick Green 03:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)


 * As it is, there is no definition of "concept" that applies specifically to "forces". I should point out that in quantum mechanics, there is really no such thing as "forces", only waveparticle exchange. In this view, there isn't a clear analogy between what the "like" and "unlike" "concepts" are that are causing the "repulsion" or the "attraction". Furthermore, in general relativity, there is no gravitational force: only geodesics. In this view, the gravitational force is "fictitious" in that it represents an observationally dependent reference frame and local metric. Again, the analogy is weak or at the very least not elucidated by Pask in any of the primary sources. --ScienceApologist 16:06, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Pask preferred a wave mechanical model with the momenta exerting forces. This aids applicability. Pask's Complementarity Principle is distinct from Bohr's. In the last paper he states it as "There is no such thing as a product without a process to create it and no such thing as a process that creates no product." Products are bounded with begins and ends like conversations but processes are eternal. He even reflects on the particle-like character of a converstion. So we may simply say waves produce quanta. This position is surely worth considering as we disentangle ourselves from the Copenhagen Interpretation. Maybe conventional Physics will catch up with Cybernetics one day!--Nick Green 04:17, 5 January 2007 (UTC)
 * Until such time, synthesizing as you are doing is simply original research and will have to be confined to other websites. -ScienceApologist 20:23, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

General audience
Nesbit: I'm not happy that the new quote in IA meets your "general audience" criterion but if they're prepared to think and not too hide bound it is very rewarding. Ideas for cleaning up the diagrams welcome. In a talk to MIT Frank Wilczek confirms angular momentum at heart of asymptotic freedom of QCD. So that's the strong force for you. It's rather more obvious for beta decay so that's the weak force the rest follows from the very fact of Newtonian defn of force. Pity we are banned from making this clear to the general reader. So further improvements are posible but I need to think how.


 * My point is that all technical terms, symbols and concepts should be explained. For example, the arrowhead and cross-arc notation used to symbolize conjunction and disjunction should be spelled out so that readers can interpret the diagrams in the conversation theory section. Even some common terms, such as kinetic, may need to be explained because their meaning in the context of Paskian theory is not clear to novices.Nesbit 06:20, 28 June 2006 (UTC)
 * One of Pask's other collaborators may have a view on this but to me => meant produces (as in entry) and -> as in the diagrams too although when I first joined him as a student it would be "derives" or indicating a logical dependendence. The use of an arc withing a conjuctive pair was in use at System Research but in later work disjunctive relations were less emphasised as the resonance model took over.--Nick Green 12:04, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Theory of Metaphors
I am interested in Pasks theory on metaphors, especially the definition of cybernetics as "the art and science of manipulating defensible metaphors". This quotation is generally attributed to Pask, but always misses detailed informations about the actual source. (A starting point for a search could be Pasks "An Approach to Cybernetics" (1961), but this book is hard to get in Europe.) I hope someone can give me a hint. -Armin B. Wagner 13:34, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Beer reports a conversation with Pask: "Just remind me of your personal definition of cybernetics would you?", says Beer. Pask replies "It is the science of defensible metaphors." It is an interesting recollection and well worth looking at in toto. See Stafford Beer in Pask's Festschrift- Systems Research vol 10 No 3 1993 p16 --Nick Green 20:43, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

No persons in the Category:Cybernetics
I'm removing the Category:Cybernetics again, because persons are not to be listed such a category if there is specific Category:Cyberneticists. This is the rule. Now I can imagine that this was happened because of the mentioning in the article of: An easy solution here is to create two separate articles, and put them in the Category:Cybernetics - Mdd 18:37, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Conversation Theory (CT)
 * Actors Theory (IA)

Merge proposal discussion
I've proposed merging No Doppelgangers here, since I can find no evidence of notability of that theorem of Pask; Pask himself passes notability, I think, though the evidence needs to be made clear in this article by citing independent sources about him. Dicklyon 05:41, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I checked and found the No Doppelgangers has a low google-rate. So the notability of this concept is questionable. I oppose putting all kinds of theory-representation into a biographical article. Can't the No Doppelgangers concept be merged into for example Conversation Theory? - Mdd 09:59, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I am checking with ex- doctoral students but I think the first proof was published posthumously. It would be nice if we could do right by Pask. Von Foester called him a genius in the Pask Festschrift. He's just had an exhibition of multimedia work in Edinburgh (see Exhibition, Pask archive etc) and his archive is due to be opened at University of Vienna in November with a session led by Ranulph Glanville who will launch a collection of Pask's papers he has co-edited. He talked about "No Doppelgangers" from the late seventies with his students and colleagues but we were all pretty perplexed so Pask (1993) and Pask (1996) is kind of a mystery unraveled. The duration proof is in the middle of his last peer-reviewed paper (along with many other treasures). Actually Mdd, you did something on de Zeeuw who was Pask's colleague/collaborator when he worked on Interactions of Actors as prof of Andragology at U of Amsterdam. Does any of this help?


 * No Doppelganger could be merged into CT. It applies- but only as component of kinetic Actor support of Conversation (said Pask) and I thought it worth a separate entry and given the richness of the theorem (edict or clause- he called it all these things) producing physical differentiation and its peculiar potential cybernetic rigour, the incommensurability of Actor time vs commensurability (see quote in No Dopps) of Conversation durations one can only hope more research is stimulated to tease out some of the finer applicable distinctions. My piece at The Cybernetics Society gives a wider look at his later work. Pask's assertions. Hopefully the new collection of papers will assist us draw e.g. "for every force there is a orthogonal force" and his work on analogy, dependence, contradiction and innovation to a wider audience. Pity to hide such a rich legacy.--Nick Green 18:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * A merge into Conversation Theory seems ok. - Mdd 21:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * You say a merge into CT not Pask Bio seems ok. Shall we see if anybody else has a view? Is a stand alone option possible? --Nick Green 22:15, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I suddenly realize that there is some substancial evidence of the notability: The notability of the No Doppelgangers concept is based on the notability of Gordon Pask. I wonder if this shouldn't be enough to justify the article. I wonder why Dicklyon came up with the idea that Pask himself passes notability. If that was so, he would have never write and publiced it in the first place!? - Mdd 22:39, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Since notability is not inherited, and lacking better suggestions, I went ahead and did the merge. I could probably use some checking, cleanup, refs improvement, or whatever. As to Gordon Pask, I find over 600 books mention him, compared to none in English that mention him along with no doppelgangers. Dicklyon (talk) 22:47, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

WikiProject class rating
This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 06:54, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Pask and the Open U
Although I'm loathe to get anywhere near this discussion, I have to make one or two points, based on personal knowledge: Pask was never appointed to a substantive chair at the Open University. I am quite sure about this because I happened to be a member of staff at the OU Institute of Educational Technology at the time. Pask was employed for a couple of years as a consultant on a curriculum project funded by the Ford Foundation (Project Leader was Brian Lewis). At that time and for many years before and afterwards, Gordon's home base was Systems Research Ltd in Richmond (which I notice is not mentioned). He also held a part-time chair in Cybernetics at Brunel, and a visiting chair at (I think) Illinois/Urbana-Champaign (Heinz von Foerster was a close friend). The Open University may have given him, temporarily, the title of Visiting Professor. Along with a lot of bright ideas, Gordon was full of... well, self-promotion is maybe the best way to put it. It doesn't surprise me at all that contributors have found him difficult to sort out! His prose was about as incomprehensible as it is possible to get; sentences abound 250 words long and full of special terms used by Pask alone. My advice would be to stick to the WP basics: facts verified with refs, dates, quotes with refs... It's hard work, but who says biography should be easy? Macdonald-ross (talk) 17:01, 20 December 2007 (UTC)


 * And I would suggest that most of the other universities listed were not substantive chairs, but Visiting Professorships. A Visiting Professorship is an honorary title, though one may be paid for duties specified. A substantive chair gives membership of a university's Senate, and is the subject of a full legally-binding employment contract. Same distinction between a Visiting Research Fellow and a substantive Research Fellow. Macdonald-ross (talk) 07:37, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * All good things to point out. ScienceApologist (talk) 15:52, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. Thanks. -- Mdd (talk) 17:47, 21 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Pask also gave a series of lectures at Chelsea College; I attended but I don't think anyone was much the wiser at the end of the course - he was an entertaining speaker though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Apepper (talk • contribs) 22:52, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Copy-paste registration

 * In this edit text is copy/paste here from the Conversation Theory article. -- Mdd (talk) 21:52, 16 October 2009 (UTC)
 * In this edit some text is copy/paste here from the Roy Ascott article -- Mdd (talk) 21:55, 16 October 2009 (UTC)

bad links
three of the Gordon Pask 'obituary' links point to the sub-domain www2.venus.co.uk which appears to be no longer available -- (www2.venus.co.uk hosted pages that were originally published by Venus Internet Ltd, both of whose directors knew Gordon Pask -- Venus Internet Ltd was sold and is now part of Venus Business Communications Ltd) Oniscoid (talk) 10:27, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

Missing cyberneticist
in the list of cyberneticists?? - cyberneticians at the end, one important guy is missing, Gotthard Gunther - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_G%C3%BCnther Jpkeno (talk) 13:17, 8 January 2015 (UTC)


 * Hi Jpkeno, much can be done to improve the representation of the work of Gotthard Gunther, for example translating the German Wikipedia article here, and/or adding more information from secondary sources. You are most welcome to do so. -- Mdd (talk)

Interactions of actors moved to own page
I have moved the interactions of actors information to its own page, as it was dominating this biography.86.155.99.174 (talk) 19:56, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

Got rid of banner
I've got rid of the banner saying that it was too much like a resumee. I think I've made it less like one, but if other editors feel diffrently feel free to change it. The article still has issues, but I think it's slowly coming along. If I've done a faux pas by getting rid of the banner, please say (and my apologies if so). T. O. Manning (talk) 18:40, 13 April 2023 (UTC)


 * Great work on this article, much improved since I last looked at it. Nice work, and support removing the banner. Hinterlander1 (talk) 14:01, 23 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Much obliged. HTML is a pain! T. O. Manning (talk) 13:09, 13 May 2023 (UTC)