Sinikka has posted a very thought-provoking piece (“CCK08 – random connections of today“) in which, using the analogy of Andy Warhol’s painting of Marilyn Monroe, she grapples with the “significance of nodes”, knowledge and context, and what appears to be randomness of connections, saying:
“…the Andy Warhol method of multiplying the same image over and over again with varying colours to create a piece of pop art made me think of all the blogs of this course. I have seen many summaries, mind maps, and other representations of this week’s readings in different blogs. Basically, the content is the same, but it is presented in different forms. All these put together would create something remotely suggesting the idea of the Marilyn prints.”
I’ve posted my thoughts on this as a comment saying:
“This is such a thought-provoking post I don’t know where to begin. Your analogy of the Warhol paintings of Marilyn is fantastic and I agree it definitely lends itself to the idea of interpretation of knowledge being dependent on an individual’s circumstances and context.
Actually taking this one step further, if we were to ask “which individual Marilyn image is the canon” it would make things even more interesting. The reality would perhaps be “none is; all are”.
As far as the multiplicity of nodes is concerned, I think the significance is that they enable us to make connections. Conceptually I may not be able to make an immediate connection with the entire principle of Thermodynamics but I can start to grapple with it piecemeal.
What I’m able to connect with first will depend on my existing conditions and context. A node that’s right next to me and I can clearly relate to will enable me to make a conceptual leap in understanding, which will then facilitate another, and another until eventually I’ve come to realise a far greater understanding of the subject that I possibly could have without the nodes present. You might say they act as a roadmap for learning perhaps.
You spoke of the “random connections”. In this context I wouldn’t personally call them random – they’re quite related in fact. They may be tangential to what you were originally trying to learn, but I can definitely see where quote conceptually lead to the chart, which lead to the power law diagram.
Regarding Wikipedia, I use it as my starting point for most subjects. It’s not the end all and be-all certainly, but I’ve found it can lead to some valuable connections and leads to other sources, which in turn lead to others. So we start to see the same node-hopping I mentioned earlier.”
I encourage you to visit Sinikka’s post rather than comment here – this post is to track my own contribution to the thread rather than start a new one.
