Comments on blogs and discussions.
THEME 1
THEME 1
Blog comments:
On Katya Ksenofontova
Is it you that had a bachelor in philosophy? Could you explain more to
me why you favour Kant (I haven't read Kants "Critique of Pure
Reason" but I did order it now after the seminar) and not for example
Rawls? I also did the connection with Plato, it felt like Russell criticized
epistemology on the grounds of, "I do not fancy I know what I do not
know", or what do you think? Do you agree with Russells view generally or
is it something you find confusing in his readings?
On Diana Imamagaiazova
3) We started to discuss how these theoretical studies are related to
the media. The theory of knowledge is closely related to our object, because
the knowledge simply cannot exist without the media to translate this knowledge
through. In the first place the human
language mediates the messages but it also distorts the pure logical schemes
(like the Russell’s denotation). We can see how language categorizes the
entities by giving the names for them. In the same way - by the transmission of
messages – all the media create a new message itself, or as it said by MacLuhan
“the medium is the message”
Hmm, this is interesting. But I do not agree with the notion "
because the knowledge simply cannot exist without the media to translate this
knowledge through", that's like saying that a man is not wise because he
doesn't share his wisdom. Or did I miss-interpret your thought?
On Susanne Forchheimer
"I wish we had spent a little more time on the connection between
engineering and philosophy. Even though most time was spent on questions like
“what is knowledge?” I still didn’t really grasp the connection to engineering
in a sense that philosophy could be a helping tool for engineers."
I completely agree with this comment, on the one hand it's good to know
epistemology because it's an essential part in gaining an understanding why we
conduct research. But on the other hand in this course I would rather have an
introduction to morals and ethics because of the engineers codex of honor. I
think that morals is a better concept to introduce for an engineering audience
(but in my studies of philosophy morals was introduced after
epistemology).
On Maksym Feshchuk
"Besides that, philosophy opens our mind and helps to improve the
analytical abilities."
Maksym do you agree with Russell that there is knowledge that we can
know, or do you disagree i.e. there is no knowledge that we can know because of
our own limitations, and senses?
I could also widen this question to embrace truth. But I think I'll skip
that for now!
On Markus Warne
Ah, I found your comments interesting Markus. But I have one objection,
Russell is indeed pro science that's why he sets up the premises for the
understanding of knowledge (because they are in a way measurable and Russell
being a mathematician...). The problems arise, according to Russell, when we
try to understand the whole concept of
knowledge and where it derives from. He isn't a theist so he refutes Hegel for
example and other (plato for example) and
in my opinion also limits himself to the concepts he can understand, in
other words he doesn't consider himself with metaphysics and the thoughts of
metaphysics that modern science do imply (as shown in quantum physics). I do
wonder what Russell did with the physics of light from a philosophical point.
On Johan Blomgren.
"It’s hard to tell if the philosophic part will be of any real
practical use in the future, as opposed to learning how to find good articles.
However, I don’t believe that this is its main purpose..."
Would you think that that just a brief introduction of epistemology and
a larger one of i.e. morals should be a better concept in this course? I'm
referring to the engineer’s codex of honour as an example for my line of
thought (that could actually be useful for us as engineers in our future work
if we would like to honour the codex).
Blogg discussion:
Did they
mention why the tests only were given to I suppose a relatively small group of
students instead of just a increased target group? Also, did you find some
particular parts of the results which were not reliable because of the tiny
taget group?
Hmm, no I
think it was because it was implemented in a course as a part of the
examination. That's a tricky question. I don't think so. No. :)
Your reflections are quite interesting, but I disagree only
mainly two parts:
1) Theme 1 being "a good crash-course on the subject of epistemology"
and
2) "some things you cannot measure"
I disagree with the first point simply because I feel like we didn't really have much time to learn the subject of epistemology. Only having a few days to try to understand such a debatable subject is too little. Sure, we may come back to it further into the course, but not in such depth, that I believe, is needed to really understand the area of the problem. Generally, I think philosophy is interesting and something there should be more of in all different kinds of higher education.
2) I don't know on what ground you say this, but I'll share my view on it anyway. I believe you actually can measure everything; it's just that we don't have the tools or the capacity to do so now or ever will. Now you may ask, how is that? Well, too keep it short and not to get lost in semantics, let's say that atoms are the smallest units we can observe. And as we've been taught, they move in probability patterns. Therefore, if we have enough computing power, we should be able to predict everything, no? So even things like emotions, which usually isn't quantifiable, could be predicted, if the assumption made is correct. However, it would require such massive computing power to predict the everything, that we might as well say that we cannot measure some things.
My reasoning regarding 2) may/is not (be) on a higher level; and frankly quite a lack luster; maybe not even dignifying an answer, but I have the belief that you discuss such things in more advanced philosophy.
1) Theme 1 being "a good crash-course on the subject of epistemology"
and
2) "some things you cannot measure"
I disagree with the first point simply because I feel like we didn't really have much time to learn the subject of epistemology. Only having a few days to try to understand such a debatable subject is too little. Sure, we may come back to it further into the course, but not in such depth, that I believe, is needed to really understand the area of the problem. Generally, I think philosophy is interesting and something there should be more of in all different kinds of higher education.
2) I don't know on what ground you say this, but I'll share my view on it anyway. I believe you actually can measure everything; it's just that we don't have the tools or the capacity to do so now or ever will. Now you may ask, how is that? Well, too keep it short and not to get lost in semantics, let's say that atoms are the smallest units we can observe. And as we've been taught, they move in probability patterns. Therefore, if we have enough computing power, we should be able to predict everything, no? So even things like emotions, which usually isn't quantifiable, could be predicted, if the assumption made is correct. However, it would require such massive computing power to predict the everything, that we might as well say that we cannot measure some things.
My reasoning regarding 2) may/is not (be) on a higher level; and frankly quite a lack luster; maybe not even dignifying an answer, but I have the belief that you discuss such things in more advanced philosophy.
Well I wan't to dispute your second disagreement with the fact
that we today have an understanding - through quantum mechanics - that the
phenomena of light is in fact random. I have understood that when trying to
build the mathematical concept of light researchers fail because of lights
inheritance of randomness.
This is from wikipedia: "Instead, modern physics sees light as something that can be described sometimes with mathematics appropriate to one type of macroscopic metaphor (particles), and sometimes another macroscopic metaphor (water waves), but is actually something that cannot be fully imagined. "
You say: "I believe you actually can measure everything; it's just that we don't have the tools or the capacity to do so now or ever will.
The problem lies within the phenomenology of light: Iight is like the concept of God. We can't today understand the phenomena behind it, and therefor we can't measure it because it seems to belong in a diffrent realm (i.e God standing outside the creation not being a part of it). But we can use it within our own limitations and we can interpret it in our own reality. That's why I'm saying "somethings you cannot measure", because of the limits of the human mind to fully grasp reality. And it would be rather foolish to suggest that we can actually create a computer that could in fact calculate everything when it's invented by a limited mind. Bertrand Russell says we should not bother with with this kind of understanding because we cannot grasp it or because it belongs to metaphysics, and yes you can't explain metaphysics you can only reason about it, therefor you can't measure it either.
I also dispute your first argument with the fact that a crash-course is just a mere introduction, and a mere introduction to epistemology is in fact the statement of "there is no such thing as knowledge". It should alas only provoke intrest to actually dig deeper in the subject.
But I may be wrong, and you may be right but as the hitchhiker guide tell us:
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened”.
;-)
This is from wikipedia: "Instead, modern physics sees light as something that can be described sometimes with mathematics appropriate to one type of macroscopic metaphor (particles), and sometimes another macroscopic metaphor (water waves), but is actually something that cannot be fully imagined. "
You say: "I believe you actually can measure everything; it's just that we don't have the tools or the capacity to do so now or ever will.
The problem lies within the phenomenology of light: Iight is like the concept of God. We can't today understand the phenomena behind it, and therefor we can't measure it because it seems to belong in a diffrent realm (i.e God standing outside the creation not being a part of it). But we can use it within our own limitations and we can interpret it in our own reality. That's why I'm saying "somethings you cannot measure", because of the limits of the human mind to fully grasp reality. And it would be rather foolish to suggest that we can actually create a computer that could in fact calculate everything when it's invented by a limited mind. Bertrand Russell says we should not bother with with this kind of understanding because we cannot grasp it or because it belongs to metaphysics, and yes you can't explain metaphysics you can only reason about it, therefor you can't measure it either.
I also dispute your first argument with the fact that a crash-course is just a mere introduction, and a mere introduction to epistemology is in fact the statement of "there is no such thing as knowledge". It should alas only provoke intrest to actually dig deeper in the subject.
But I may be wrong, and you may be right but as the hitchhiker guide tell us:
“There is a theory which states that if ever anyone discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened”.
;-)
Thanks for taking time and answering my question, and sorry for
not replying sooner. I thought I would get an automated mail from blogger since
that's what happens when I get comments on my own blog.
Anyway, in hindsight, I feel my argumentation was really weak, as you really demonstrate by crushing it ;). An argument in line with what you said ,(but don't quote me on this one) is that mathematicians have "proved" that we'll never be able to understand everything, due to limitations of math. I don't know where I've read it, but maybe in relation to quantum mechanics. So maybe the same argument but different worded.
On the first point we'll have to agree to disagree; the introduction haven't (yet) sparked any kind of interest for me in the field of epistemology. Your point may be true, but I really feel that where too little time to begin to grasp the concepts.
In closing, I would also like to quote from the hitchhiker:
"There's all sort of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place"
Once again, thanks for replying!
Anyway, in hindsight, I feel my argumentation was really weak, as you really demonstrate by crushing it ;). An argument in line with what you said ,(but don't quote me on this one) is that mathematicians have "proved" that we'll never be able to understand everything, due to limitations of math. I don't know where I've read it, but maybe in relation to quantum mechanics. So maybe the same argument but different worded.
On the first point we'll have to agree to disagree; the introduction haven't (yet) sparked any kind of interest for me in the field of epistemology. Your point may be true, but I really feel that where too little time to begin to grasp the concepts.
In closing, I would also like to quote from the hitchhiker:
"There's all sort of stuff going on in dimensions thirteen to twenty-two that you really wouldn't want to know about. All you really need to know for the moment is that the universe is a lot more complicated than you might think, even if you start from a position of thinking it's pretty damn complicated in the first place"
Once again, thanks for replying!
THEME 2
Blog comments:
On Niklas Berg
”I feel weird trying to come up with
a definition for what theory is when the academic world has yet to do so, but I
guess that was the challenge for this theme.”
I also believe this was the case. Maybe we actually should get an
understanding for what’s appropriate to think when we speak about Theory in the
academic sense. But maybe also to reflect on the possibilities of what we learn
is not so much hard facts as we are raised to believe. I think that this have
been the common themes for the first two weeks.
On Philip
Andersson
"I think ”What theory is not” is a fantastic article because of its
ability to give concrete examples of failed efforts to construct theories in
research papers as well as its easy-to-understand language."
This was also my initial thought about the paper. And I still feel the
same, I do believe it was a good read and for certain I feel that if we had
read it before our bachelor theses we could actually have built a better
chapter of background/theory. It is also
interesting to use these concept of what Theory is not when reading other
research articles and reflect on your own understanding of the paper you are
reading.
On Niklas
Fyrvald
"One thing I was missing this week was a lecture. It would've been
interesting to hear what a “professional” or researcher within the subject of
“What is theory?” had had to say about the theme. "
I completely agree that it would have been good with a lecture on what
Theory is and how you should conduct theory and work with theory in for example
our master theses. This is something I would prefere to actually be this course
main agenda (to actually teach us how to write good essays or theses) and a
good tip for the future. What I'm
calling for is more concrete ways of exploring how a good theses should be
written instead of touching upon subjects just to get to know them a bit. This
could be good to evaluate in a later stage or in a course reflection.
Blogg discussion:
Interesting
reflection! Also, in order to establish a theory researchers needs to convince
others. Thus, part of suggesting a theory is presenting it and using evidence
to convince the readers and the researchers that review the work before it is
published. Not sure how Copernicus would have succeeded in the world of science
as it looks today.
That's
true and it's also true for Einstein and others. Sometimes it's seems hard to
be a pioneer. :)
THEME 3
I was sick this week and hadn’t as many comments as on the other weeks.
Blog comments:
On Maksym Feshchuk
"In 1970, LeDoux began studying the emotions from fear. He
suggested that all reactions that are true for the fear will be true for other
emotions, too."
This is interesting. What was his conclusion? Was there any evidence
that his hypothesis was true? I believe fear is an interesting subject because
it's something we doesn't really want to talk about. But all humans are afraid
of something it's almost like a consensus of society that "if we are
silent and not talking about it nothing will happen". And I believe that this is a paradox because
if you don't talk about what you fear you will indeed be more afraid of what
you fear.
On Diana Imamagaiazova
"I can't find words to explain how useful was our seminar on SPSS.
I never worked with it before, but I'm definetely going to use it for my
upcoming survey. Previously I've used Excel which doesn't suit so well for
sociological analysis. For instance, it is really easy to analize the
cross-tabs in SPSS. I was amazed that you can do it with a couple of
"clicks"!"
I wasn't able to go to the seminar that week because I was ill and after
reading your post it seems that I really missed something. Wich group did you
go to? Because when our group had the lab (on Monday) the program didn't work
as proparly as it should have been I was told.
On Sann Cedergren:
"I feel as I did not learn as much about quantitative methods as I
would have hoped for."
Hmm, I agree with you on this one. But on the other hand I think that
quantitative methods are the mos intuitive subject of research because it's
always about measuring and quantifying data so maybe therefor we didn't get a better
explanation? Are you taking the courses in HCI now? If so you will have a
course about quantitative and qualitative methods. It's a good one.
THEME 4
Blog comments:
On Mattias Öster
"During the lecture we discussed the definition of empirical data
and what in the study which in turn could be counted as empirical data. I have
always linked empirical data with some kind of measurements, which often is
used within quantitative studies. Apparently are like in this case reflected
practices or sketches counted as empirical data too, even if these sketches
don´t visualize measurements of something. Interesting though because these
sketches showed only the concepts of Actdresses but they were still defined as
empirical data."
I also reflected upon this, and I asked Ylva at the lecture why there is
not a distinction between for example the study of phenomenology and that of
empirical research. She concluded the she agree with me and that it's hard to
actually pinpoint this case study as empirical. I just believe it should be clearer
guidlines. "If you want to discuss phenomenology do it in this setting or
in this qualitative research, if you want to discuss empirical data or findings
- do it in this research area".
On Beau Brown Armstrong:
"Any team that can fir the words comics, robots and fashion into
its title, must have had a little more enjoyment than the typical study."
I must say that I completely agree with you on this one. But also I did not know that it was the Toyota-engineers that developed the QR-code. That was an interesting fact. Thank you. Back to the design research and the funfactor, do you think it's possible to conduct a thesis on this theme? Does design-researcher have more fun at work then a regular researcher: A Qualitative study? I think it's a really good topic for as you write It also seems to me that design-research is a lot fun to conduct. But I do wonder if it's limited to phD theses and actual research rather than bachelor and master theses, cause it seems rather time consuming, especially if you build any kind of complex prototype.
On Sann Cedergren:
"I have therefor been a bit surprised when reading all of these journals where the majority use ether qualitative or quantitative methods."
This was also something that struck me as rather odd. But then again when i read the paper I felt that mixed research was just not to combine some qualitative method with some quantitative method instead instead it was something different. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on but it seems to me that my interpretation may be wrong because of your posting. Or did you discuss this any further? What is actually mixed research?
I must say that I completely agree with you on this one. But also I did not know that it was the Toyota-engineers that developed the QR-code. That was an interesting fact. Thank you. Back to the design research and the funfactor, do you think it's possible to conduct a thesis on this theme? Does design-researcher have more fun at work then a regular researcher: A Qualitative study? I think it's a really good topic for as you write It also seems to me that design-research is a lot fun to conduct. But I do wonder if it's limited to phD theses and actual research rather than bachelor and master theses, cause it seems rather time consuming, especially if you build any kind of complex prototype.
On Sann Cedergren:
"I have therefor been a bit surprised when reading all of these journals where the majority use ether qualitative or quantitative methods."
This was also something that struck me as rather odd. But then again when i read the paper I felt that mixed research was just not to combine some qualitative method with some quantitative method instead instead it was something different. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on but it seems to me that my interpretation may be wrong because of your posting. Or did you discuss this any further? What is actually mixed research?
On Mary Shelukho:
"And as Stefan fairly noticed, if the researcher really wants to
get good results, he needs to call and remind people about it all the time and
this is very tiresome and exhausting."
Yes, I do believe that this is a fair point to be made. But it's also
interesting with a diary because people can really express their inner feelings
in a much more private way if that's something you want to investigate. One
author that's gained alot from her dairy studies is Sherry Turkle the author of
Alone Together, and one of the leading researchers at MIT.
When we did our bachelor thesis we used SMS as a method to remind people
to do their diary each day and it was really an efficient reminder. so yes it's
tiresome and hard but you can get really good data if you just know what to
look for. :)
Blogg discussion:
Very
interesting story about Stefan's PhD-friend started to work at a call-center
just to study his target group on site))) I think despite all the ethical
dilemmas it is really worth the results)) Because in my opinion the main
problem for any research is how to make people feel most comfortable and share
their real thoughts =)
Oh, why do
you believe that to be the case? Is it okay to fool just because of necessity?
Everyone's
different, so different people in the company would give different results I
guess. And the results also depend on how well the researcher manages to
"act normal" during his or her stay, even if the colleagues don't
know he or she is a researcher, don't you think?
Hmm, yes
but this is still an ethical dilemma? Or isn't it? I do think thou that if the
researcher stays at the site for a lengthy period of time then the researcher
wouldn't impose so much of a disturbance to the regular or natural setting (in
this case the researcher doesn't go undercover).
THEME 5
Blog comments:
On Mary Shelokhu
“I have no great idea”.
Because sometimes I feel it myself like having the idea, but I understand that
it’s not a great one. Haibo gave us some advice how to start our own business –
firstly, to validate an idea, get some sort of proof of concept, and even
potentially get some customers, then to raise some money.
What kind of ideas do you
have then, and why doesn't they seem to you as a great idea? I think that this
topic that Haibo discussed was very good and it actually gave me an idea that I
will think to execute in a future course on programming for mobile devices. And
my thought being that I could just copy and further develop an app I have and
then just modify the genre, subject and purpose of the app. I think that Haibos
lecture was really inspiring.
On Diana Imamagaiazova
"First of all, I’ve
found idea of using vibration for rendering the football games into mobile
phones to be rather amusing."
Is this something that
you would use if you hade the opportunity? I personally believe that this seems
just like a gimmick, a little bit like the video-conversations on mobile
phones. The point is that for another purpose this could surley be used
efficient but as a substitute for a live text blog on the football game or just
some regular updates about the score, i don't quite see the point. I get that
it would bring some more interaction but do you really want interaction on a
mobilephone?
On Maksym Feshchuk
"A prototype is a
constructive hypothesis of methodological analysis of project activities"
What do you think about
prototypes that are just being used as an excuse to build something cool? I
mean if you want to develop a prototype of something shouldn't you put it in
context to something other and measure the benefits with your prototype over
the already existing other?
On Bartosz Badura
"It is a very
complex and iterative process, which begins with raising generative questions.
Contrary to other research methods, core theoretical concept(s) are identified
not before, but while the researcher begins to gather data (it is later
categorized and converted to “reverse engineered” hypotheses)."
This is interesting
because I thought that when you used the concept of "Grounded Theory"
it was "Theory established in earlier research" and just an excuse to
not bring forward new hypothesis and Theory. Or is this the case? The
researchers coming up with Theory available on the subject of intrest as the
project goes along? Did you draw any conclusion if it was good or bad? I've
always considered it a bit reductionistic to use grounded theory. But I may be
wrong. :-)
Blogg discussion:
Your idea
of evaluating media technologies through uniqueness, success and usability was
interesting. Of course there are many different aspects that can be evaluated
and most of the time one probably has to limit one self to the most essential
ones which probably depends on the research questions. In our field user
experience seem to be at the heart of many studies. I also think it can be
quite hard to define success. Success for the users or for the researchers? In
my opinion every prototype that generates useful data could be seen as a
success, even if it never becomes more than just a prototype.
Yes but
what is useful data then. Is it just data that enable the researcher or the
user to achieve the goal or is it something that should be considered as useful
for the common good?
"Therefore
I didn’t think that the application of Haibo, et al. (2008) was something that
struck me as a success". I totally agree with you. Moreover, when I read
the paper I was thinking about - "who is gonna use it?" Don't you
think that before developing some prototype researchers should make a survey on
the topic "Would you use the device if it existed already?"
Don't you think that before developing some prototype
researchers should make a survey on the topic "Would you use the device if
it existed already?"
Yes, this was something that I also reflected upon. I totally agree with you on this one. I think that the prototype built by Haibo et al was interesting and well maybe some parts of the study can be used in some other context but I couldn't single out the factor wich would come to illuminate my football experience.
Yes, this was something that I also reflected upon. I totally agree with you on this one. I think that the prototype built by Haibo et al was interesting and well maybe some parts of the study can be used in some other context but I couldn't single out the factor wich would come to illuminate my football experience.
