John Seely Brown: Blended Epistemology

From an April 2009 talk (video) by John Seely Brown at Indiana University:

We’re moving toward what you might call a blended epistemology. We moving beyond a simple homo sapiens notion that underlies much of the reason why universities first existed – that is “(hu)man as knower.” Now, we’re beginning to find interesting blends between “(hu)man as knower”  and “(hu)man as doer,” homo faber and homo sapiens.

I suggest there is something else on the horizon. … What about homo ludens? What about the notion of play? How does making and knowing and playing start to come together?

From his slide on “A highly textured concept of play” (pdf, p.21):

• Play as freedom to fail
• Play as in to play along – improvisation
• Play is in the play in a steering wheel
• Play as in a flexible dynamical system – plane wings
• Play as in play of imagination – poetry
• Play as in an epiphany – suddenly falling into place as in solving a riddle

Perhaps one of the key things to recognize is the notion of play as epiphany. Suddenly this riddle comes together. It doesn’t come together through cognitive thinking. It comes together by letting your mind be free, and play with it, in ways we don’t even understand what is going on. I think that sense of play is going to turn out to be critical in solving so many of problems we’re facing today. We have to be able to combine this notion of homo sapiens, homo faber, and homo ludens. …

Why this is so important and why we moved beyond the narrow meaning of homo sapiens is that basically authority is up for question.

In a rapidly changing world, the biggest obstacle to innovation is wisdom. Why is that? Because wisdom is based on authority, and authority is based on experiences and assumptions that, by and large, are no longer valid.
 

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