Short Glossary
Virtual World
In physics, it is common to build models of the objects being studied and to experiment with these models. Models can be physical or virtual.
For example, someone studying the flight of a cannonball can build a cannon and shoot small balls from it. This would be a physical model.
But if he has a physics textbook, he can build a virtual model in a notebook: set the parameters of the shot, describe the terrain, and calculate where the cannonball will land.
In my discourse, the virtual world is a model of the real world in which people, tasks, and communities are represented.
Thought Experiment
Experiments with people are difficult to conduct. But in the virtual world we can mentally play out encounters of a person, a task, or a community with another person, another task, or another community.
For this, the initial parameter values must be set correctly. Then we can calculate or evaluate the possible results of the encounter.
This is a thought experiment in the virtual world.
Person
A person is one of the three main entities of the virtual world. A person is described by parameters that make it possible to predict encounters with tasks, other persons, and communities.
Task
A task is one of the three main entities of the virtual world. It places demands on a person or a community. By observing whether a person copes with a task or not, we can judge his abilities.
Community
A community is one of the three main entities of the virtual world. It has its own rules, expectations, boundaries, and ways of enrolling “good” people and firing “bad” ones.
Encounter
In the virtual world, entities encounter one another. Usually, we consider encounters between two entities: a person encounters another person, a task, or a community; a community encounters a task or another community.
Encounters between three, four, or more entities are also possible, but their probability is lower and their analysis is more complex. Therefore, we first study encounters between two entities as the most important and the most convenient for modeling.
External And Internal Task Conveyor
There are two different task conveyors.
The external conveyor is the flow of tasks that come to a person from outside. For example, in an oral exam, the teacher gives the student tasks one by one. The conveyor is not inside the student’s head: it is an external belt carrying tasks.
The internal conveyor is a model of what happens to a task in the human psyche. The task enters the psyche, passes through psychic mechanisms, is transformed, delayed, distorted, solved, or rejected.
The external conveyor makes it possible to observe the person. The internal conveyor helps us understand how a person solves tasks in general.
Warming-Up
The Warming-Up model is one of the three models that help describe the entities of the virtual world. It describes the sensitivity of a person, task, or community to time: entering work, tempo, delay, acceleration, and endurance.
Encodings
The Encodings model is one of the three models that help describe the entities of the virtual world. It describes forms of representing information: text, picture, scheme, image, meaning, scenario, and other ways of encoding.
Levels
The Levels model is one of the three models that help describe the entities of the virtual world. It describes the complexity of a task, person, or community and makes it possible to understand where a task is too simple, too complex, or matched to the participant’s abilities.
Warming-Up / Encodings / Levels
These are the three models that help us describe the entities of the virtual world: the person, the task, and the community.
Each model has its own list of parameters. When we combine the three lists, we get an empty grid - a general blank map.
When we describe a community, some rows of the list are marked as demonstrated, and some as forbidden to demonstrate.
When we describe a task, some rows of the list are marked as strongly required, and some as forbidden.
When we describe a person, some rows of the list are marked as a lot, and some as completely absent.
This gives us the Community Map, the Task Map, and the Personality Map.
When an encounter takes place, we compare the maps of the participants and apply known formulas to them in order to predict the possible result of the encounter.
Map
A map is a way to describe an entity of the virtual world through the parameters of three models: Warming-Up, Encodings, and Levels.
For a person, we build a Personality Map. For a task, a Task Map. For a community, a Community Map.
Maps allow us to compare the participants of an encounter and predict the possible result.
General Psychology / Differential Psychology
General psychology answers the question: how do we all think, and what do we have in common?
In my discourse, this question is answered by the model of the internal task conveyor. It shows what happens to a task in the human psyche in general.
Differential psychology answers a different question: how do we differ when we think?
In my discourse, this question is answered by three models: Warming-Up, Encodings, and Levels. They show why one person solves a task better than another.
Co-knowledge
Co-knowledge is a shared context, shared knowledge that allows two people to organize communication and cooperation.
This context is divided into layers corresponding to different time horizons and different layers of being.