DDS Research Collective Meetings - Master Thread - 2024 Q3

[matthewmccarthy11]

Notes and context for the monthly DDS meetings of the research collective for 2024. The notes for these meetings will be pasted both here in this discussion, as well as in the overall master thread

Intention of the meetings

To support:

• 🚢 Shipping stuff: create and share "white papers", thought pieces, apps etc
• 🤔 Developing sensemaking: develop our own personal and collective sensemaking

Within our two themes of:

• Second Renaissance Movement 🌅 (aka metamodernism / metacrisis / ...)
• Deliberately Developmental Spaces (DDS) 🧑‍🤝‍🧑🌀 (aka Conscious Co-living ...)

Rough agenda each meeting

Context

Include here the context on the call and why it is happening. Include key links, information etc.

• 🧘 meditation (3m)
• 👋 Check-in (5m)
• Welcome new joiners
• 🔭 What is the research group (if new joiners) (5m)
• Brown bag talk or invited guest talk (if scheduled) OR Dialogue
• Updates from study groups and key projects

[matthewmccarthy11]

DDS Meeting-August 2024

Present: Matthew, Rufus, Boaz, Isabela, Danielle, John, Lauren

Context

We will be using this meeting to provide an 'open space' to brainstorm different kinds of questions and topics as it relates to DDS. We split up into two rooms and investigated possible questions.

Notes from open spaces (breakout rooms)

DDS room 1: What is developmental “progress”?

• Boaz: Youth development & graduated map. Not clear on ages and stages at what we are looking at at what age
• Isabela: Confusion. Come out of conversation with Boaz. How does the developmental aspects which signify a move from somewhere to somewhere, and a development of complexity, and how does this align with e.g. buddhist / zen theory.
• Debate on whether capacities are (not) given at a certain age - ecological focus - Thelen and Smith
• Rufus: good to create reference materials that are distilled and easy to access for continued use.
• Interest in age-group specific developmental stages, and contrasting views more ecologically oriented (saying people primarily evolve in context), relevant Readings:
  • Esther Thelen and Beverly Ulrich SRCD Monograph, "Hidden Skills" (1991)
  • Maps and rafts as possible ressource -https://lifeitself.org/blog/domains-maps-rafts
• References: Thelen and Smith
  • https://cogdev.sitehost.iu.edu/labwork/dynamicsystem.pdf
  • Eastern Body Western Mind - Anodea Judith

Boaz reflections on question on developmental goals

Not having a goal can be a goal.
"If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there" Lewis Carroll. Not having any goal will generally take away from the potential for "deliberate" in DDS. This approach als neeeds to be balanced with integration and 'offline' periods.

Rufus

Context: https://lifeitself.org/blog/domains-maps-rafts

• What is developmental "progress" / evolution? More areas you can get to -- ability to move more about the map. Prefer map / locations than stages though think stages often apply. Think of multiple domains of which solid ones are cognitive complexity (neo-piagetian), waking up and growing up (culture)
• How is represented in science and different wisdom traditions?
  • Buddhism oxherding pictures etc. Culadasa book mind illuminated is a good recent synthesis of tradition with modern neurscience. has clear stages**
  • Waking up:
  • Growing up: think color series is decent map of growing view in history/science (though still not very evidenced). has some mapping to e.g. Inglehart etc.
• What is "it" that matures? This is a big question. More dubious about pure ego-dev theories. Think culture/worldview matures, complexity capacity matures, etc
• Is it continuous or stage ... **It varies. Often suspect "stagey" or at least "locationy" ie. you move to discrete locations
• Is it biologically based? Nativist (e.g. chomsky) for capacities (it's all just there and unfolds biologically) and cultural relativist (it's all culture) Obviously both and suspect a fair amount of nativism in e.g. cog complexity

Lauren

Eastern body western mind maps stages of development across both perspectives - predominately on 0-15/18years

• Sense is that developmental moments as an adult happen when crisis hits
  Developmental aspects as a younger person, in own experience, just happened or felt that way
• which leads me to think that developing awareness is key to a person being able to develop at whatever age/stage
• so is it the awareness that matures and the ability to hold conflicting/cognitive dissonance causing situations/polarity at the same time - role of observer
• All have the capacity to evolve and all do in someway, but not to the same degrees. Degrees differ and we may go backwards before going forward (and that would impact future lives etc but in this particular lifetime) if there are not the right tools it could result in someone getting stuck.

Notes on "what is maturation?"

• What is developmental "progress" / evolution?
• How is represented in science and different wisdom traditions?
• What is "it" that matures?
• Is it continuous or stage ...
• Is it biologically based? Nativist (e.g. chomsky) for capacities (it's all just there and unfolds biologically) and cultural relativist (it's all culture)
• Esther Thelen and Beverly Ulrich SRCD Monograph, "Hidden Skills" (1991)
• Maps and rafts as possible ressource -https://lifeitself.org/blog/domains-maps-rafts
• Interest in age-group specific developmental stages, and contrasting views more ecologically oriented (saying people primarily evolve in context), relevant Readings:

DDS Room 2 - Warm and thick data of development:

• Starting from the judgement of how we view develpoment- we think 'higher' is 'better'
• Warm data: the integration of objective and subjective
• Narratives are uniquely contextual and subjective
• What are the many different kinds of developmental data?
• Mapping dialectics: where is the polarity? What are the contrasts? Where are we on certain polarities?