A Few Words, First

The reader is invited to see into our thesis a desire that the educational system function at a level where deep learning occurs in most instances.  Deep learning is related to the formation of individualized inner understanding of self, society, and the natural world.  A justification for what is learned may be found in a demonstration that deep learning, of this type, changes the individual in a positive cultural and personal way.  This change may be shaped by educational process designed to benefit a new generation of human beings.  A virtual infrastructure will lift social values in much the same way as violent on-line games now debase the perceptions of our children, but the results will be positive. A reinforcement of experience shapes behavior.   The benefits from positive change are felt at two levels, within our social organizations and within sense of self by the individual. 

We have designed a new system supporting universal education.  There are; however, many philosophical challenges to understanding what educational processes might become in the near future.  What is the difference between mass education; as we have it today, and this notion of deep learning?  We must also understand the positive and negative in what we have.  Today, we have an educational system that is partially socialized.  It is manipulated by businesses and dysfunctional for most individuals.  The dysfunction is sometimes overcome in beautiful and significant ways. 

The system works in same cases, for some people.  We do see successful outcomes, but most individuals are not helped by our school system.  The picture is not transparent.  For some reason, a celebration of limited and selective success hides a larger failure.  Education is not the only place where we find failure hidden by deception. Failure and deception is active in most of the social, economic and environmental challenges we face.   Understanding why there is a crisis, and overcoming this crisis is a critical next step for humanity. 

The Bridge proposals are grounded in a specific thesis; that what we see as systemic dysfunction is not an accident.  There are specific causes involved in producing mechanisms through which any system performs whatever occurs.  Part of our thesis is that, over time, these systems induct both negative and positive properties from the individual into the “system”. 

How to avoid an induction of negative characteristics, from the individual to the whole, has become a central focus of systemic elements of the Bridge infrastructure.  The key theoretical concept is that of a “utility function”.  It is thought to have partial control over how a complex system evolves.  Formal models that use utility functions demonstrate that properties, such as individual selfishness, are aggregated over time, resulting in specific social characteristics[1] [2].  Elitism is often part of how professors of mathematics feel about knowledge of higher mathematics, for example.  Very common feelings of elitism may explain part of why only a few individuals pursue an understanding of mathematics.  Certain feelings about nationalism or racism may offer additional understandings.  The individual faculty member’s fear of being held responsible may lead to institutional hiding of failure, and a cycle leading to greater failure.

Our analysis sheds light on why the current system is not grounded in a way that would allow fully socialized systems to perform better.  We advance a theory based on science and systems theory.  Our view of science recognizes organizational structure for social value, and a separate structure for personal value.  This recognition allows us to model social systems in a hybrid way; restricting rational choice to localized interactions and social benevolence to interactions that are not localized.  The dual nature, localized and distributed, found in physics is to be used in our model.

A sense of the common good is to be instrumented within a social media.  A balance between socialism and capitalism is anticipated.  Socialism is seen as the pure representation of social value, without considering specific individuals.  Free market capitalism is, in contrast, seen as a pure representation of individual value, without considering social value.   Neither model is complete, but both might interact to produce the better educational system.  This is our hope and our expectation.

The pure representations, socialism or capitalism, are often in conflict with each other.  Both representations are combined into a single model only by addressing hard problems in systems theory; e.g., those of non-locality, emergence and induction.  For example, the side effects of capitalism, as often practiced, creates social injustice by treating individuals unfairly.  The consequences to the individual are often ignored.  On the other hand, our sense of social benevolence is misplaced when the inner perceived realties of the “other” individual is not accounted for.  We act when we believe we know best, and thus often harm the other individual.  Good intentions are often overcome due to an absent of complete knowledge.  Markets sometimes do not work due to distortions in the marketplace due to the same absence of complete knowledge.  Nowhere are failures such as these more evident than in education and health care.  On the other hand, we have great successes and are part of an advancing civilization. 

Stratification theory is posed as a means to better model educational, economic, or environmental systems.  It is a new theory, but the principles may be seen arising in enterprise oriented transition systems, often called “service oriented computing”[3] software systems.  We also see this theory in physics, chemistry and biological systems.  A central principle is based on electromagnetic coherence.  In simple terms, transaction logics are sought which indicate how services are to be defined and fulfilled.  This type of model often produces value within enterprise systems attempting to make coherent the reality of supply chains and purchase agreements.  Real economic interaction is not this simple; however.  Logics imply rational coherence and yet often fail to resolve instances where there are structural conflicts. 

Technical means are used to provide a three dimensional avatar world having high degrees of informational security and in-world monitoring. This world serves a dedicated purpose, both in the management of education and in the delivery of services.  Multi-coherence is defined as a complex phenomenon having the ability to form field coherence and to then shift from one field coherence to another.  Creating a new perception to replace a perception that is less valuable is served by having knowledge representation tools where shifts in viewpoint are facilitated.  This capability is offered to the individual and to the educational institutions themselves.

Our technical means models a shift from one sense of coherence to another sense of coherence.  Why has this been part of the design? Academic learning is not merely a linear adding of facts, but rather the gaining of insight about a field of study. Deep learning is learning that transforms the individual in the presence of knowledge. This knowledge is handed down from past generations.  This means that learning involves changes in the neuro-architecture.  A neuroscience-based model of individual thought is built into the architecture[4].  This model is connected to standard knowledge representation formal languages, primarily resource description framework language[5].

For example, most individual high school students have a false belief about the value of higher mathematics.  This belief has to be abandoned and a new belief developed if educational experience, about higher mathematics, is to provide a specific value to the individual.  Deep learning methods are incorporated into a virtual infrastructure designed to provide a transition from high school to college.  We cannot merely seek to add something to the individual, but in a real sense we must allow a change in how the individual sees him or her self. 

The individual is supported in developing an understanding of self, within a system that will allow this development within systemic constraints imposed from the community of scholars.  In the case of mathematics, a community of mathematicians agrees a set of focus topics.  This set is represented by names of topics, illustrations of specific topics, and common understandings about how topics are inter-related. 

The infrastructure if developed as designed, will function both with social objectives and free market dynamics.  A network of specially shops will provide economic support for the Bridge infrastructure.  We have focused our thought on how local communities might gather for coffee, or for health related teas.  The “Second School” Tea and Coffee shops might have a bakery and teleconference rooms.  As social media develops, the teleconference rooms initially function to connect the high school student into the system.  Once the virtual connection is made, the individual has potential resources far exceeding what the average American student currently has.  A grass roots evolution of an economic marketplace, based on a franchised community centered business, could produce financial support from free market principles.  A business model is designed so as to produce a social value.