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Rule generation. Hebb's rule, fundamental in connectionism, states a rein-
forcement of the connection between two nodes once they are both in reso-
nance (activated). Frequent activation, therefore, will lead to a preference
for this connection, once one of the two nodes becomes activated. The same
holds with chains or trees of connections. Once any part of such connective
patterns becomes activated, as part of the global state of the whole network
("mind"), the related connections will work without further release (due to
the increased "weight" of the connections).
No wonder that we experience children as perfect creators of regularities
and rules: What has functioned twice already has good chances to undergo
preferenced activation in case of the third appearance. Also the genesis of
subjective routines and habits, emerging through participation and often
without conscious notice, finds a simple explanation in this model. What is
learned in the classroom is co-learned in its majority, it emerges by the way.
The overtly and consciously learned issues probably would never function
without these obscured co-learned backgrounds.
The totality of experiencing. Besides Hebb's rule, the brain connections
follow the reciprocity rule: Connections between two different regions of
the brain, layers, or patterns of nodes are reciprocal (with very few excep-
tions). Since practically every part of the brain is connected with every other
part, there are global states of the mind only. Thus, not only all senses are
involved but also emotions and even the position or movement of remote
extremities of the body (kinesthetics). The brain is understood as a highly
"cooperative system." "In the end all processes depend functionally upon
the status of single elements," as Varela and Thompson (1991) have pointed
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HEINRICH BAUERSFELD
out, and these depend upon their related global states (distribution of activa-
tions all over the network).
The globality of the states of the mind appears for us as the totality of ex-
periencing. A smell can elicit a whole reminiscence in all details. In the
classroom, even minor changes in the presentation of a task can evoke quite
deviant interpretations from the students. The totality of our experiencing,
however, unveils the secret of our creativity: A global state of mind can be-
come activated just from any of its single parts, enabling us to combine el-
ements from quite different domains of subjective experience by passing
through a series of different global states.
Students' errors. If a network produces inadequate reactions, there are
many options for interpretations. In a new situation, the reaction will be
given tentatively, using partly available and partly new (weak) connections.
In a routine situation, the reaction can come from a preferentially available
(strong) but inadequately formed pattern of connections. Or, two likewise
current alternatives can compete. In any case, the adequate definition of the
situation can fail, which makes it impossible to activate the adequate pattern
for the expected reaction, and so forth.
In a mathematics classroom, related to calculations, for example, the four
different interpretations would require different help and inventions. In the
new situation, encouraging the parts that are already functioning adequately
will be a useful strategy, whereas the usual product correction would end in
confusion. Product correction in the routine situation will leave the pre-
ferentially available connections almost untouched; in the very next similar
situation, the inadequate pattern will "fire" again – if other and more
intensive inventions have not enabled a comparably strong replacement. For
many students, text problems produce the case of two strong options
competing: "I don't know whether to multiply or to divide!" (The pursuit of
this problem here would require a more intimate discussion of text
problems.) In case of a miss of an adequate situational definition (adequate
global state), metacommunication may form a helpful strategy, that is,
negotiating about what we are talking about.