DIALOG AND DELIBERATION CREATES s Worlds
D&D irreversibly changes the biological systems of participants. Some of these changes we may call learning: learning about others, the world, one*s self, and about D&D processes. Participants in D&D hope that these changes will result in behavior that will improve life; behavior that often makes useful and meaningful changes in the physical universe.
D&D processes may also directly change the physical universe * other than changes in the brain of participants. Some deliberations intentionally create documents. Some D&D sessions may be recorded, and these recordings (as material structures) may be made available for others to perceive and study.
However, with the exception of deliberations whose explicit intent is document construction, most D&D processes focus on participant-participant interaction, with participant interaction with their physical environment quite secondary.
I hypothesize that D&D which more explicitly attends to the physical environment of the D&D processes may greatly improve the effectiveness of D&D. Augmented D&D may actually create new worlds.
I propose to initiate an effort to explore making Semiotic Structures (or s Data ) a very explicit focus of D&D, both as a topic for D&D and as a material product of D&D. For the moment, think of a text document as an exemplar Semiotic Structure.
A simplistic example: The contents of a text document may be the topic around which dialog seeks to explore and share how participants interpret the document and its implications. This dialog could be audio/video recorded in a way that permits instant replay. Additional text documents can be created in the dialog process, as well as editing/expansion of the original document to improve it intelligibility. Edited and packaged, a new "document" could be ready as focus for further dialog, by the same participants or by other dialog teams. One might think this dialog process as creating a component for an educational program.
I call this example "simplistic" because it is easy to trivialize this issue. The view I hope to clarify in this and other associated documents, finds critical significance in a major perspective/paradigm shift that emerges from what seems to be just a subtle insight.
I will be opening a D&D domain in Ncdd Wiki to focus on this issue, and hope to lead a session at the National Conference On Dialogue And Deliberation in Denver in October 2004. I have given extensive thought to this issue and have ideas I wish to present * not as finished theories * but as topics for creative dialog. I request that the initial dialog be directed to mutual comprehension of the ideas presented, and as such I welcome queries aimed at clarification.
Herein is proposed a major shift of reality perspective. Instead of human interactivity occuring within a world, I propose that human interactivity literally creates the worlds we live within. This shift is initially explored in Multiple Human Worlds.
