complexity theory as a building stone for a new science ... - UN Virtual

COMPLEXITY THEORY AS A BUILDING STONE FOR A NEWSCIENCE OF LEARNING AND EDUCATION THROUGH PEERINTERACTIONDr Ton Jörg, Utrecht University, The NetherlandsINTRODUCTIONSocial sciences has been in crisis since long, partly by being the captive of what the Frenchphilosopher and pedagogue Edgar Morin has called the ‘blinding paradigms’ (Morin, 2001). These canbe ascribed to the historical tendency of social sciences to become scientific by trying to copy thenatural sciences, i.e. of physics. Such a tendency has been called ‘physicalism’ (see e.g. Radnitzky,1967; Bhaskar, 1986; Clayton, 2004; Sidorkin, 2002). This term refers to a specific scientificdescription of social reality, which may be called ‘ontological physicalism’ (Clayton, 2004, p. 4). Itimplies a strong objectivistic, rationalistic, and reductionistic view of reality. This view has beendominant for a long period in our history and still seems dominant. It is my impression that socialsciences are unable to escape those old ideas, to “set aside dear old habits of thought,” as Dennettexpressed it so nicely (Dennett, 2003; cf. Wertsch, 1998; Starobinski, 2003; Stacey, 2004; Clayton,2004). This view is similar to Vygotsky’s who, in his days, was already clear about the role of oldhabits of thought and the blind alleys of science (Vygotsky, 1997a, p. 97). So, the problem is one ofescaping those old ideas and habits of thought. Doing so is strongly needed when a new view onlearning and education is to be developed. A view which goes beyond the orthodoxy of thinking on thissubject. In developing this new view on learning and education, it may be shown that pedagogy andeducation, and teaching, is never innocent (Bruner, 1996; Bransford et al., 2000; Sidorkin, 2002).In this paper, I try to sketch a programmatic approach of the development of a new science oflearning. It is my conviction that the crisis referred to above may be regarded as a driving force forinnovation of the field of education and educational research: an innovation towards a new synthesisof natural and social sciences (see Vygotsky, 1997a; 1978; Bhaskar, 1986; Clayton, 2004; Eurocore,2005). Actually this means that one should not only take an interdisciplinary perspective, but, a morefundamental trans-disciplinary approach (OECD, 2002; Jolles et al., 2005; emphasis added). In thispaper such a perspective will be taken as the point of departure for the formulation of a new science oflearning and development, by shaping a new reality, to reinvent the culture of education (Bruner,1986, p. 149; emphasis added; see also Bruner, 1996; and Jörg, 2004c). But to do so, we first need togo beyond what has been called ‘the war of paradigms’. Recently some real moves have beenundertaken in the field of cognitive science and the field of learning and education, with the intention toovercome the bad effects of myopia and blind spots ‘produced’ by the blinding paradigms; to get awayfrom the errors, the ‘blind alleys of natural science’ (Vygotsky, 1997a, p. 193; Vygotsky, 1997c, p. 13).To my mind, these are the blind alleys which are still there (cf. Goodson, 2003, p. xxii). These movesimply an openness of mind of scholars operating in those fields. One should realize that sciences canbe incomplete in their description of reality. Dennett (2003) gives the nice example of the bumblebeeswhich cannot fly according to the models in use. One can give more examples of the incompleteness,also in the social sciences. One may conclude that reality, as we may view it, can be very differentfrom the old ideas of reality put forward in philosophy and the different theories in science.In my presentation I shall try to show in what way complexity theory may be helpful to escape the oldideas and the blind spots of social sciences, which may lead to rethink educational psychology(Bruner, 1996, p. 53), and to build a ‘new science of learning and education.’ (Jolles et al., 2005; cf.Donovan et al., 1999). It seems that the different complexity theories are not of much use for thisambitious enterprise because they not really lend themselves for application to the complexity ofreality (Stacey, 2003). But ‘thinking in complexity’, and the different metaphors in use in the field ofcomplexity theories, can be very helpful in the invention of a new science of learning and education(Mainzer, 2004; emphasis mine). This thinking in complexity may bring us to a better description of

eality of learning and development and education, opening our very eyes for all of its inherent detailand dynamic complexity.My focus is on learning and development, and the theory of it, from a Vygotskian perspective, to betaken as social processes of learning and development through communicative human interaction.Such a theory may be regarded as being “at the same time a theory of education.” (Bruner, 1962, p. v)The interaction with all of its complex dynamics and effects is simultaneously both social andindividual. This view is fully in line with the view of Ralph Stacey who, in his book “Complexity andgroup processes”, starts with the radical social understanding of the individual (Stacey, 2003). What isneed, now, is not only a different description of reality, but also the development of a differentexplanation of the reality of human interaction, by the recognition of the complexity of it. Thiscomplexity of interaction is too easily taken for granted in practice. It is my firm conviction that wereally need to open our minds, like Darwin did in his days, to be able to view reality differently: bycomplexifying and liquefying that very reality. What we need is an evolutionary integrative perspectiveof the causal dynamics of interaction to explain the complexity of reality, as being both detail anddynamic complexity. Inventing a new reality seems only possible by introducing a new language, andan adequate vocabulary (Maruyama, 1961), to enable both the description and the possibilities ofexplanation of the new reality (Bruner, 1986; Davis et al., 2000). It will be a language with many newconcepts and metaphors, fostering a different description ànd explanation of the object of study: thelearning and development of peers as partners in communicative interaction. This language shouldfocus on a new synthesis of natural and social sciences (Vygotsky, 1978; Eurocore, 2005). Doing someans that we should start with rethinking: rethinking of interaction, and of complexity, to be able toreinvent reality as dynamic and fluid (Jörg, 2004c). The role of time, which is often neglected in thescientific approach of learning and education, is of utmost importance in this. Only by taking the role oftime seriously we may become explanatory about the way processes can produce the effects we mayassesals in reality.For a new science of learning and education we need a rethinking of the notion of learning of theindividual, and start with the radical social understanding of individuals and their learning in humaninteraction. Taking this perspective it means a rethinking of how individuals learn through interaction.Figure 1Relationship between theories for use in theorizing aboutlearning and development

Interaction itself needs a rethinking too!. History shows that interaction itself is a difficult concept, alsoin physics, with fundamental problems for understanding what is going on in the complex processesinvolved. I agree with Stacey (2003) that we need an adequate process theory of interaction. So, itseems a good idea to start with the problem of interaction as a concept. A concept which is so much inuse in natural and social sciences, but, regularly, not very well understood (Starobinski, 2003). Thedescription and explanation of the complexity of interaction, with its inherent causal dynamics ascharacteristic for the complexity of it (Vygotsky, 1978), can be viewed as the corner stone of a newscience of learning and development. It was also Vygotsky who draw an analogy between the processof child development and the processes of evolution (Vygotsky, 1997c, p. 99). He wrote, already in1926, about the socio-biological foundation of educational psychology (Vygotsky, 1997b, p. xix). Hefirmly rejected Darwin’s notion of evolution as (only) gradual change, as well as the common notion ofunfolding, still popular in our days (see e.g. Van Gelder & Port, 1995, p. 3). His original evolutionaryperspective is another corner stone for dealing with the nature and complexity of learning anddevelopment. He focuses on the growth of the whole person, with his/ her whole mind, viarelationships (cf. Stacey, 2003, p. 5). The dependence of internal mental functions on socialrelationships is essential for that growth (cf. Vygotsky, 1997c, p. 105). These relationships of twopeople, to be taken as a new unit, of ‘the ensemble as a process’ (Granott, 1998), are reciprocal fromthe very beginning of child’s history of development. The ensemble is dynamic and changing (Ibid., p.61). One may call these relationships within an ensemble growth relationships, leading children to newstates of growth. These states can be regarded as qualitatively different (Vygotsky, 1978).Summarizing the view sketched above, I seriously take the challenge of the invention of the newscience of learning we need (Kaufman, 1995, p. 304; OECD, 2002; Jolles et al., 2005), by starting withthe connection between learning theory, complexity theory, and evolution theory: see figure 1 of thetriangular relationship between these theories. This relationship, now, is foundational for a newscience of learning and development, focusing on growth of the whole person, of the whole mind, inand through communicative human interaction within (reciprocal) ‘learningful’ relationships. It is anecessary condition to connect this new science with concrete practical reality (Knox & Stevens, 1993,p. 12)What is needed is a rethinking of educational psychology, and to reinvent the culture of education too!(Bruner, 1986, p. 149; emphasis added) This goal may lead to a sketch of the generative powers ofthe communicative use of language in learning and thinking, to be linked with the inherent causaldynamics of interaction as reciprocal influencing one another in time. The focus should be on both thedescription and the explanation of the processes of ‘bootstrapping’ of each other in social interaction;a ‘bootstrapping’ of each other as a process of social interaction with potentially non-linear effects onthe partners of the ensemble as the new unit of study (see Bruner, 1996; Van Geert, 1991; Granott,1998). This description and explanation demands for a new methodology as well (Azmitia, 1996, p.133). Needed for this is a new adequate vocabulary of interaction and the complexity of it; it could bedone in terms known from the different complexity theories, to be linked with the evolutionaryperspective of learning as states of growth and development of the persons involved in interaction.The concepts of generative processes and generativity are essential for such a description andexplanation. Consequently, time will have an essential role in this. The new science of learning, then,may bring us to better concepts of both the learner, the learning as a process, and of the learningeffects, as fundamentally intertwined dynamic concepts. The mind has a fundamental, dynamic role inthis complex process (cf. Tharp & Gallimore, 1993; Port & Van Gelder, 1995; Azmitia, 1996; andWertsch, 1998).INTERACTIONLearning through human interaction has long been a topic of interest in the fields of psychology andeducation without being understood very well. Interaction itself seems to be the problem: this conceptappeared only in the second half of the 19th century (see Starobinski, 2003). Its complexity as aprocess has been neglected for long in history. This has been true for psychology and the field ofeducation as well. Learning through interaction is not a dominant view in those fields. The notion ofinteraction within a dyad, including the relationship between the two, is not very common. The

common view taken to describe what happens in such interaction is almost unanimously an unilateralview. Mostly, the description simply lacks the notion of circularity of the communicative interactionbetween the partners involved in that interaction (Watzlawick et al., 1967, p. 157). So, it may not comeas a surprise that the field of education is still waiting for an adequate theory of interaction, notknowing how it would look like (Bates et al., 1998).Stacey (2003) was very clear in his stating of the need for a process theory of interaction (p. 4). I fullyagree with Stacey that complexity theories can be of use in describing theories of (complex)interaction (Ibid., p. 4). But I do not agree with his statement that there is not such a thing as a system,but only process (Ibid., p. 5). I think the concept of the ensemble as a dynamic unity of dynamicallyevolving minds in interaction, via mind-to-mind causation (Granott, 1998; Bhaskar, 2002), is a betterstart for description and explanation of interaction as a process. This description is also in line with theone given by Stacey (2003) himself on the use of minds in social interaction, producing that socialinteraction while simultaneously being formed by that social interaction (Stacey, 2003, p. 2). Bothdescriptions ask for a kind of rethinking interaction, with its inherent complexity: a complexity whichhas been taken for granted too long. I would like to suggest the metaphor of ‘bootstrapping’ each otheras a time-dependent process taking place within a so-called ‘reciprocal learning relation’. Thissuggestion of describing interaction between two people as bootstrapping each other as a complexprocess of interaction within the unity of the ensemble of a reciprocal relationship between two peopleis, like Stacey’s, as much based on “a unitary, paradoxical causality of emergent continuity andtransformation at the same time.“ (Stacey, 2003, p. 280; emphasis added) This description ofinteraction, now, is already pretty complex. Yet, it offers only a description, and not an explanation ofthe process of interaction. For a more explanatory view of interaction we may need differentconceptual tools. Tools which are in use in different disciplines, like in the complexity theories in use inthe natural sciences. These theories, now, may offer the possibility of modelling interaction from amore explanatory point of view. Such modelling can be done by taking the perspective of interactionas a circular process, making use of (hitherto unknown) causally generative mechanisms (Bhaskar,1986): both in qualitative and in quantitative terms. Modelling of long-term repeated interaction asbootstrapping of each other between two people, within their dyadic reciprocal relationship, offers aprocess with unexpected potentially non-linear effects on both partners in the process. The processesinvolved may be described as autocatalytic and cross-catalytic in nature (cf. Kaufman, 1995). Theyenable not only the enhancement of the growth of minds involved in the interaction (cf. Stacey, 2003,p. 2), but also how this may happen through the strengthening of connections between the two mindsin interaction. The combination of changes, of the minds themselves and the connection between thetwo minds, may be responsible for the generative powers of communicative human interaction(Bruner, 1986). This bootstrapping, thus, becomes a kind of dynamic, self-perpetuated process ofinterweaving evolving in time (cf. Stacey, 2003), which can be regarded as a flow; a flow that consistsof “separate streams of development that flow together.” (cf. Bruner, 1986, p. 143). This is thecomplexifying and liquefying of reality as we may view it, as taking place in ‘concrete practical reality’(Knox & Stevens, 1993, p. 12). We may speak in this about the tremendous complexity of a newreality. For the description and explanation of the ‘bootstrapping’ process we may call this new realitythe complex reality of ‘mind-to-mind causation.’ (Bhaskar, 2002, p. 245) Such thinking in complexity(Mainzer, 2004) is not only more interesting but, more importantly, may fit nature better (see Stewart &Golubitsky, 1992, in Davis, 2003, p. 42). Thinking along these lines has different implications. At first, ittakes the unity of theory and practice as foundational. Another implication is that, in describingconcrete reality of interaction and learning through (peer) interaction within dyadic reciprocalrelationships, one should go beyond the focus on the individual, and its corresponding approach ofstudy: of methodological individualism (Buckley, 1967; Bhaskar, 1986; Wertsch, 1998). The knownconcept of ‘internalization’, then, becomes a process that is not taking place within the individualperson, but is a process that is simultaneously individual and social (Wertsch, 1995). A description likethis is similar to the view of Stacey on the “radical social understanding of the individual.” (Stacey,2003)

At the same time the new description of the processes involved in the communicative interactionmeans that one should go beyond the notion of action and reaction as the standard explanatorydescription of what is going on in these complex processes (see Starobinski, 2003). Anotherconsequence is related to the concept of communication in the interaction. The German sociologistNiklas Luhmann (2002) has given a description of communication which goes beyond the role of theindividual and the agency of the individual in the communicative interaction. He stated quite clearlythat “only communication can communicate” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 156, 169). The notion that theindividual communicates is a common illusion which we take too easily for granted (cf. the work ofWatzlawick et al., 1967). The view taken in this paper about interaction as communicative humaninteraction seems in full agreement with Luhmann’s, who takes communication as “an emergentreality, a self-generated state of affairs.” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 157; emphasis added) For an adequateconceptualization of human interaction, one needs different tools for description and explanation ofthat interaction, i.e. of the complex processes of what may be called “the communicative humaninteraction within reciprocal relationships.” It is not only information which is of importance in this, butalso influence (cf. Hutchins, in Wertsch, 1998, p. 21; Azmitia, 1996; see also Tharp & Gallimore,1988). To be more specific: it is the reciprocal influences one may exert on each other (cf. Tharp &Gallimore, 1988, pp. 88-89). It may include a description of the generative nature of this reciprocalprocess, which lies at the heart of human behaviour (Buckley, 1967, p. 114). It was also Buckley who,as a sociologist, already described the concept of complex adaptive systems (CAS) from a dynamicsystems perspective (Ibid., p. 81). His work was at the forefront of thinking in complexity. He clearlyrejected the way of thinking in terms of mechanical systems and its dynamics, and took a moreorganic, evolution-informed approach. In his explanation of the organic model he offers anevolutionary perspective in his description of socio-cultural systems. In this description he alsoincluded the thinking about transforming processes, the changing of structure (of the process), and thefunctions of the processes involved. Buckley described his notion of systems in terms of their ability “topull themselves up by their own bootstraps to new levels of survival.” (Ibid., p. 35; italics in original). Allof these elements seem important in complexity theories and thinking in complexity nowadays as well.My description of complexity of learning in and through communicative human interaction withinreciprocal relationships is strongly based in the complex thinking of Buckley, as put forward in his mainwork on systems theory (Buckley, 1967). His basic views of communicative interaction and the dyadicinteraction model are a rich source for thinking in complexity (see especially p. 124, 125). It may beeasily linked with the new dynamic unit of the ensemble of two people in their (peer) interaction as adynamic learning system (Granott, 1998). His view of causal, temporal relations within the ensemblecan be extended to the causal framework of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), a framework which,after a first start in the thirties by the biologist Sewell Wright, has been developed in the seventies ofthe 20th Century. Doing so, his thinking and modelling in relevant qualitative terms can now be put inmore quantitative terms and modelling, i.e. the formulas for the total causal effects within reciprocalrelationships (see Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993). The notion of causality in Structural Equation Modellingis very much different from the notion of mechanical causality: of colliding billiard balls. Within thiscausal framework it has been stated that “The structural parameters represent ……… autonomousfeatures of the mechanism that generate the observable variables.” (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1986, p. I.1;emphasis added) The new modelling enables not only to quantify the generative causal dynamics ofthe interaction as reciprocal influencing within the ensemble of two people as a process (Granott,1998), but also the evolving effects on both of the partners in that interaction. These effects can bepotentially non-linear in time. The causal modelling introduces a kind of thinking in complexity whichseems very fruitful in thinking about the processes of interaction, i.e. the causal dynamics ofinteraction to which Vygotsky referred already in his work, e.g. in “Mind in Society” (Vygotsky, 1978).The causal modelling of interaction, in terms of ‘reciprocal causation through reciprocal influences’taking place in time, may offer a new description and explanation of the causal dynamics involved ininteraction, of the complexity of that interaction. It lends itself to introduce a new vocabulary which isneeded to describe the complexity of the processes involved: with terms like causal, circular or cyclicalloops, and the Reciprocal Relationship (RR) between the elements of an ensemble as a dynamic unityof two people and the (latent) variables involved in such dynamics. The process of reciprocal

causation through reciprocal influences within the ensemble may have different causal effects on theelements of the ensemble: effects like the reciprocal and total enhanced loop effect (Hayduk, 1987;Jörg, 2004a). The link between structure and effects of the causal modelling gives an opening tobecome explanatory about the well-known Matthew effect (Merton, 1986). The same is true for thenewly introduced ‘Comenius effect’, describing metaphorically what happens to the one who ‘invests’in the other, thereby ‘drawing energy’ from the other (see Jörg, 2004a; cf. Calvert, 1999). Moreimportantly, the new vocabulary may give a full extension of the notion of ‘complex adaptive systems’(CAS) by enabling the new concept of a ‘complex generative system’ (CGS). This concept may be ofuse in thinking of development from an evolutionary perspective. To be really adaptive, the systemshould first be or become generative in its interaction with the environment, i.c. the other person. Itenables to speak, then, about the generative processes of the ensemble as a dynamic unit of twopeople in their communicative interaction. This has consequences for learning and development inpeer interaction as well: for the development of the whole person, and of the whole mind, evolving intime. Time will be essential in this, like it is in Darwinian evolution. The learning, however, does notonly takes place within the persons involved in interaction. The question, then, becomes not only “whoare the learners?”, but also “who, or what is ‘doing’ the learning?” (see Hutchins, 1995; Davis, 2003;cf. Luhmann, 2002, on the question “who is communicating?”) These are separate questions, but theanswers about the practice of that learning are fully intertwined! They show an Escherian paradox ofunity: see figure 2, with his drawing “Whirlpools”.Figure 2Escher’s drawing “Whirlpools”COMPLEXITYComplexity can be described in different ways: both in qualitative and in quantitative terms. Mostdescriptions are strictly qualitative. This is also true for descriptions of learning and development oftwo people in the new unit of an ensemble as a process (Granott, 1998). The same is also true for thecase of bootstrapping each other in social interaction within small (sub) communities (Bruner, 1996).Some descriptions are clear about the role of the other in the learning and development throughinteraction, as expressed in the adage of Vygotsky: “It is through others that we become ourselves.”(Vygotsky, 1997c, p. 105) There are also descriptions of increasing complexity such as thosecorresponding with the notion of morphogenesis, linking “processes which tend to elaborate or changea system’s given form, structure, or state.” (Buckley, 1967, p. 58; see also Vygotsky, 1997c; see alsoDavydov, in Vygotsky, 1997b, p. xxxvii) A metaphoric description which corresponds with thismorphogenetic notion is the following: each of the partners involved in this complex dynamic processof interaction may be regarded as being “both the weaver and the pattern it weaves” (Rose, 1997; seealso Vygotsky, 1978; Granott, 1998; Stacey, 2003). This nice metaphor encompasses the complexdynamic process of interweaving (Stacey, 2003). This description is similar, but more dynamic,compared with the one given by Tharp and Gallimore (1988). They speak about “the weaving of newinformation into existing mental structures.” (p. 108; italics in original) The whole of the processes ofweaving and the pattern itself, its dynamic structure, may be described as a dynamic web of

processes and impulses, of the two people in the ensemble, interpenetrating each other as timedependentprocesses (cf. Luhmann, 2002). This view is very much in accordance with the view ofBakhtin on mutual penetration of different perspectives or voices, of mutual inclusion of voices (inSidorkin, 2002, p. 170). Escher’s drawing of ‘Whirlpools’ (above) are a nice illustration of this kind ofdynamic interweaving. This complex process of interweaving in a web-like structure may involvefundamentally time-dependent processes like evolution, involution and revolution, processescharacterized by, and potentially leading to “qualitative transformation or metamorphosis, intertwiningof external and internal factors.” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 73) The dynamic of this process of interweavingthrough intertwining factors, now, can also be described as a complex bootstrapping process withmany factors involved. This description of bootstrapping implies a kind of acceleration in theprocesses and effects involved, an acceleration which corresponds to the famous ‘QuestionAmericaine’, formulated (in French) by Piaget (in Bruner, 1986, p. 141). It brings us to a morequantitative conceptualizing of the processes involved. The long-term repeated interaction in theensemble of two people as the unit of study, can be modelled, now, in terms of causal circularprocesses or self-enhanced causal loops in a causal framework (Hayduk, 1987). They may lead toeffects of acceleration of quantitative change, as foundational for the possible qualitative (self-)transformation. This very process of acceleration can be modelled within the causal frameworkmentioned above, showing the potential non-linear effects of reciprocal causation through reciprocalinfluences (see Jörg, 2004a).Figure 3Escher’s drawing “Möbius-ring”EVOLUTIONTo be able to describe the complex processes of learning and development in communicative humaninteraction, it seems an adequate step to focus on these processes from an evolutionary perspective.It was Vygotsky who, in his days, made already a link between theory of learning and developmentand the concept of evolution, in advancing a socio-biological foundation of educational psychology(Vygotsky, 1997b). He took an evolution-informed approach to learning and development, inspired bythe work of Darwin. He formulated a critical evolutionary view on the development of whole persons bycriticising Darwin’s notion of gradual development and the common use of the concept or metaphor ofunfolding for the processes of learning and development (cf. Kaufman, 1995, p. 152). These havebeen conceived by Vygotsky as similar to the development of species at the individual level (Vygotskyc, p. 99; cf. Goodson, 2003, p. 110). But he took this development (of species) not as a static concept,

having an essence in evolution forever, but as having characteristics which are contingent, dependingon the current (evolutionary) state (see Webster & Goodwin, 1996, p. 66). It envisions the notion ofspecies as flexible, one of construction in the history of science (Ibid., p. 106). Both diversity andmultiplicity play an essential role in the development of the person, regarded as development ofspecies (Ibid., p. 104; see also Davis, 2003). One may compare this with the dialogical function ofdynamism, heterogeneity, and conflict among voices (Wertsch, 1998, p. 115; emphasis added); adynamism which may lead to generative processes of generating new meaning (Ibid., p. 115). On apersonal level, of the development of an individual as partner in the dynamic reciprocal interaction,these generative process may lead to metaphoric descriptions of non-linear, so-called ‘loxodromic’paths of development, spiralling in an n-dimensional space, and the conception of upheavals andturning points in personal dynamic ‘mindscapes’ evolving in time (see Hutchins, 1995; Jörg, 2004b).One may describe the evolutionary perspective of that individual development as ‘feeding on diversity’within the web of causal dynamics of evolution, involution and revolution, as processes which are“mutually related and mutually presuppose each other.” (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 73) To be able to describethe causal dynamics involved, a new vocabulary is needed, encompassing an adequate description ofmutually causal relations (Maruyama, in Watzlawick et al., 1967, p. 157; emphasis added). To be ableto deal with the dynamic complexity of reality that vocabulary is needed to enable the description ofthe multiple-simultaneous, interdependent cause-effect relationships (Kiefer, in Senge, 1990, p. 267).It implies that, in the use of language for the description of the complex reality one is actually dealingwith, one should go beyond the simple linear cause-effort chains (Ibid., p. 267). Doing so, themodelling of the processes of learning as processes of causal dynamic interweaving, in and throughinteraction, may be viewed as a symmetrical process of learners ‘bootstrapping each other’ (Hutchins,1995, p. 292; Bruner, 1996, p. 21; cf. Webster & Goodwin, 1996). Theorising on this tremendouscomplexity of generative processes, then, should link learning theory with theorizing on the conceptsof complexity and evolution.The study and design of learning processes, now, may be formulated as the study and design of adynamic web, as a structure of “mutually and simultaneously influencing change“ (Van Gelder & Port,1995, p. 3). A web that is built up by mutually related generative causal processes, incorporating thenotion of time in its dynamics, based on the “laws of structural relations” in terms of “deeper” causalprocesses (Webster & Goodwin, 1996, p. 110). They clearly state the need of what they call a“speculative” causal (generative) theory (Ibid., p. 115). Such a causally generative theory can bemodelled within the causal framework of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM), also (better) known asthe framework of LISREL (Jöreskog & Sörbom, 1993). The modelling of these processes as takingplace within reciprocal loops shows a dynamic of enhancement which goes beyond “the overwhelmingcommitment to linearity and linear causality” among educationalists (see Davis, 2003, p. 44). A kind ofprocess like this may be viewed as ‘reciprocal escalation’ (Goodson, 2003, p. 238). Modelling soshows the non-linear, potentially exponentially increasing effects on the partners involved in both theinter-generative process of human interaction and the dynamics of intra-generative processes(Webster & Goodwin, 1996, p. 122, p. 230; Clayton, 2004; Jörg, 2004a; Jörg, 2004c; emphasisadded). The loops may be compared with the complexity of behaviour as ‘self’-generated by thedynamic feedback and feed-forward loops, sketched by Edelman (1992, p. 29). These (causal) loopsof interaction and the effects of it on the peers of the ensemble and on the strength, the quality of theirrelationship, then, may become non-linear in time, depending on the strength of the relationship andthe investment of each put in their interaction (cf. the role of synaptic strength, in Edelman, 1992, p.85, and of recursive synthesis by recursive re-entry, at p. 89). The interaction, thus, may become notonly ‘self’-organizing, but also fully generative through the autocatalytic and cross-catalytic processesin that interaction (see Kaufman, 1995). What happens in the interaction is partly dependent on whatthe partners in the ensemble do, but quite a bit of what happens in reality is beyond the control of thetwo in the ensemble. This view is in full agreement with the one of Luhmann, who takescommunication as “an emergent reality, a self-generated state of affairs.” (Luhmann, 2002, p. 157;emphasis added) It means that the generative processes of bootstrapping each other within thestructural personal relationship, which is itself in development, has the spontaneous character of theevolutionary processes of species. This interaction and the effects of it on the peers of the ensemble

and on the strength, the quality of their relationship, then, may become non-linear in time, dependingon the strength of the relationship and the investment each of the partners in the ensemble put in theirinteraction. The personal process taking place inside each of the partners involved in thecommunicative human interaction is one of a ‘self-organized’, patterned process of selectivity, makinguse of the diversity of sense and meaning making, generated in the interaction (Jörg, 2004c; cf.Thomas & Harri-Augstein, 1985).CONCLUSIONThis paper focused on the complexity of learning through interaction among peers within an ensembleas a new unit of study, and their dynamic relationships. It may be concluded, now, that it is the crisis ofdealing with the recognized complexity of reality of learning which has to be faced to be able to explainthe process of learning and development. To my mind it is the very crisis in the field of learning andeducation which may be viewed as a driving force for new theorizing, as it pushes us to a differentview, from a very different perspective. It may be viewed as a push towards a new paradigm. I hope tohave shown why it is fundamentally relevant to incorporate biology, and of evolution in particular, intoour theories of complexity and our scientific study of learning and development. Standing on theshoulders of Vygotsky, I hope to have made clear that a transition from the descriptive to theexplanatory approach is really necessary; a transition Vygotsky was demanding for already in hisdays, to enable the transformation of psychology into a real science. In his view this was only possiblethrough a synthesis of natural and social sciences (Vygotsky, 1978). To do so, one needs to recognizethe causal, generative nature of processes, and the hidden, hitherto unknown (causal) generativemechanisms (see Bhaskar, 1986; Sidorkin, 2002, p. 103). These are necessary to explain howemergent phenomena may show up. In general these elements show how an emergent theory maylook like (Clayton, 2004, p. 5). I tried to delineate a programmatic approach for the development of atheory of learning and development as processes, coevolving through the causal dynamics ofreciprocal causal interaction, and taking place through the communicative human interaction withinenduring reciprocal ‘learning relations’ (Sidorkin, 2002; cf. Stacey, 2003, p. 290; Buller, 2005). Atheory which is based on the concept of causal influence via “deeper” causal processes (Webster &Goodwin, 1996, p. 110), taking place via patterns of causal networks (Clayton, 2004, p. 5, p. 8). It isfocused on the new unit of the ensemble of two people and their minds taken as complex processes,and a new methodology which goes beyond the one known as ‘methodological individualism.’ . Ofcourse, the formulation of such a new methodology is not an easy task (Barab and Kirshner, 2001).You cannot simply construct a new paradigm. It should be viewed, more so, as a complex emergentphenomenon itself. The use of it should enable to take a ‘trans-disciplinary view’ of the complexity ofreality: of the generative, of emergent processes and their unpredictable, unexpected effects takingplace within the new unit of the ensemble, leading to a new vocabulary, of generative structures ofnetworks of interdependent reciprocal relationships and reciprocal interactions as autocatalyticprocesses, fostering ‘powers’ of transformation through a complex processes of ‘self’-organization byexertion of causal force (Clayton, 2004, p. 41). Learners ‘bootstrapping’ each other, then, may bedescribed as involving a kind of causal dynamics of structural ‘Hebbian learning’ through interaction,constitutive of strengthening relationships and the concomitant influences exerted on one another.One may also call such learning ‘generative learning’, which can be linked with the weaving ofinformation and reciprocal influences (Tharp & Gallimore, 1988, p. 109), and the ‘rules’ governing thecomplexity of development of the relationships involved (cf. Sidorkin, 2002, p. 103). It is possible toderive unexpected effects of such a generative process of learning as bootstrapping, in terms ofgeneral rules or ‘laws of enhancement’ through interaction, and their potential non-linear effects intime on the partners involved in the processes of bootstrapping: the so-called ‘Comenius effect’ andthe ‘Matthew effect’ (Merton, 1968), which I have described elsewhere (Jörg, 2004a; Jörg, 2004c). Thelearners, and the learning, then, may be described as “being both the weavers and the causaldynamic patterns they are weaving with their unexpected effects on themselves” (inspired by StevenRose, 1997). This description is very much in line with "the paradox of individual minds forming andbeing formed by the social at the same time” (Stacey, 2003, p. 327), and the description of the natureof the processes of knowing and learning given by Barab & Kirshner (2001), pointing to the dynamicgenerativity of knowing and learning, which they see as basic for engendering what they call !

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