project management

Among my favorite topics is the abstraction called 'meta', or 'recursion', and sometimes characterized by 'levels of abstraction'. I am sometimes suspicious that most people aren't aware of it, or at least don't care about it. That's probably because most of the time I think individuals or groups are addressing it specifically and primarily, leading me to throw out something that has the same relationship to another part of the discussion - and usually to get a response which is either a very short meditation on the Koan I've offered or an awkward silence.

To be a little more specific: if a is meta to b, then b is a part of a ('part' could also be 'contained by', 'defined by', 'child', 'branch', 'aspect', 'dimension'). This is immensely confusing because there is no standard about whether or not this relationship is communicative - that is, whether you can switch a and b and still use the word 'meta'.

Demonstration: What is the relationship between A)'Strategy' and B)'Tactics'?
1. A is higher-level than B.
2. A is lower-level than B.
3. A is an overarching concept encompassing B and other concepts.
4. A is an underlying concept at the root of B and other concepts.

After much study, I believe that the relationship it is communicative (non-directional), but that nobody recognizes this. Thanks to Lakoff for helping me to see: this is because our representations of the relationship all rely on spatial metaphors (which is inherently directional for humans, unless you're an astronaut).

Examples: Christopher Alexander's model of abstraction in the design process shows direct learning of how to build a house - i.e. by watching someone and helping them - closer to the top of the printed page than mediated house design - i.e. architectural plans - which is higher again than reflective design - i.e. critiquing a plan as a drawing, as a physical and visible object.
The Christian model of 'infinity', 'eternity', and 'truth' as being way up in the sky, beyond the clouds.
When someone is talking about principles, attributes, or concepts which are unfamiliar or foreign - and thus not linked to anything tangible in the listener's experience - (i.e. 'innovation', 'collaboration', 'utopia', or 'e to the pi i plus one equals zero'), one might say the speaker 'has his head in the clouds'.
When someone speaks of familiar principles that the listener has, time and again, heard associated with particular events and environments (for my father - and thus for me - theses are values like 'a good, hard day's work', 'the value of a dollar', 'quality', and 'power'), the speaker is described as 'having his/her feet on the ground,' and their pronouncements are 'fundamental truths'.

This exploration of metaphors and language lends itself to a thousand tantalizing tangents, but I'm most interested in how the principles, groups, and relationships that are so important to one person are routinely presented and represented ass-backwards to another person. And I don't mean just that they're talking about different levels - one about a strategy and the other about a tactic - but that one person is imagining to move in the direction of bigger, longer-term, more all-encompassing strategies, and the other person is imagining to move in the direction of more concrete, immediate, actionable specifics - and they both describe the next phase of planning as 'strategy'.

With a clearer understanding of the commutability of 'meta', we can work out a standard which will help rectify this.

There were other examples of this phenomenon from class today, but I have to get ready for class tomorrow!