Re: LOGO-L> constructionism

[KERRB@Magill.UniSA.edu.au]

From:	IN%"mccallis@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu"  "gary mccallister" 21-FEB-1998 06:09:06.48
To:	IN%"jstclair@omsd.cerf.fred.org"
CC:	IN%"logo-list@gsn.org"
Subj:	RE: LOGO-L> constructionism

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Date: Fri, 20 Feb 1998 12:29:30 -0700 (MST)
From: gary mccallister <mccallis@mesa5.mesa.colorado.edu>
Subject: Re: LOGO-L> constructionism
In-reply-to: <"20 Feb 98 05:21:28"@omsd.cerf.fred.org>
To: jstclair@omsd.cerf.fred.org
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Gary Mccallister wrote:-

>     You know, if I find a set of data that allows me to make a 
>prediction and be right significantly more often than I am wrong, and 
>that allows me some greater control over my environment and over events 
>that occur, I really don't care if someone can "falsify" it or not.  Does 
>this make me a shallow person?

I agree that philosophy that cannot be useful should be discarded. Its just 
that it doesn't seem fair to me that behaviourism can be falsified but 
constructionism cannot.
eg. a simple S-R paradigm cannot explain how we solve hard problems, because by 
definition hard problems are ones where we make mistakes along the road of 
solving them.

But constructionism (that we make mental models) just seems to be a self 
evident truth. Constructionism is a good idea but its not science. We would 
have to get into the how we make mental models (the mechanism) for it to be 
science.

One critique of Piaget, Chomsky is that they are mentalist. ie. they just 
postulate the existence of mental structures without attempting to explain how 
they came about. That's a useful exercise in imagination but I wouldn't be 
satisfied at just leaving it at that.

-- Bill Kerr
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