Alon Serper's Web Pages Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: Description: The image “file:///H:/public_html/image014.gif” cannot be displayed, because it contains errors. Salvador Dali

As from June 1, 2012, I am testing, piloting and developing my applied dialectical method at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University (NMMU) in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The Psychology department of NMMU very kindly agreed to host my National Research Foundation (NRF) fellowship. I should like to thank both the NRF and NMMU for this opportunity.

Here is the Facebook page for my applied dialectical method and my NMMU fellowship:

http://www.facebook.com/?sk=welcome#!/pages/Applied-dialectical-method-of-improving-participants-quality-of-life/137824809676592

And here is the department’s homepage

http://psychology.nmmu.ac.za/Home

PhD thesis

I should like to thank my PhD examiners – Prof. Andrew Stables of the University of Bath and Prof. Richard Smith of Durham University - for making the Viva Voce examination a very enjoyable educational experience for me and for enabling me to properly relax and gather myself, for really dialoguing with me and listening to me and for enabling me to learn from their wisdom and gain confidence, whilst in an intense examination process, and to convince them that there might be something here after all.

I should also like to thank here in this space to Prof. Karl Rogers of Cornwall (not England) and the University of Buenos Aires (UBA) and Dr Shlomo Kariv of Haifa University for their support, patience, and wisdom over the last decade and through the most anxious stages of this work and life.

The University of Bath chapter – a significant part of my life and growth – is reaching the end. I got my PhD and am preparing for the next chapter. I have produced this website in 2003. A lot of water has gone and flown through in the river of life and I am finding it very difficult to recognise the person I were then. I have a lot of disagreements with him on and over many issues and am happy he managed to learn, self-educate and progress and move on. Unless something drastic will happen over the next few months and my dedicated readers revolt and protest in Trafalgar square, the Computer Services of the University of Bath will remove this website from their server.

The plan is to continue these ideas as a proper educational work where I work with other people on their qualitative transformation and empowerment, well-being, healing, self-care and relationships with self and other people. I really had more than enough of me and am yearning to work with, help and support other people with their enquiries and co-enquire and engage with them, with the emphasis being on them and their well-being, education, psychology, ontology and empowerment and progress.

I am looking forward to working with, helping and supporting others as a matured and self-educated Doctor educator, ontologist and psychologist and am excited, energised and hopeful by and about these possibilities.

Written in November 2003

Please note that underlined text means you can click and access a paper/writing

Who am I? Who is Alon Serper? How have I become who I am/he/it is? Do I fulfil my values/ideas/ontological principles of whom I wish myself to become and be in my becoming/emergence in the world? How? I happen to be me/him/it so I ask those questions.

You can and should do the same. You are you. This means that you are not me. I ask those questions throughout my entire being here. I hope to benefit from it in my ambitions, desires, values, goals and objectives in regard to my journeys, quests and searches that accompany my existing in the world. And I feel condemned to ask it.

Is this question above rhetorical? Does it make sense? Is it purely academic? Is there a way to study it and account for it? Is there a practical way? Is there a way to have anything that does not end with a question mark in dealing with it and/or dealing with anything? What is the best fashion to deal with it?

Well, let me try. Questions are beautiful. They are real knowledge. The only knowledge that is available to us. Being able to formulate questions is a good source of self-pride, of authenticity and of coping with existing in the world.

Knowledge is all about confusion and chaos. To be wise and knowledgeable means to be able to show a valid system and order in the chaos and confusion by which to deal with them. Questions are an excellent way to do so.

Still, let me toy with some ideas and thoughts. Hopefully, those ideas will elicit questions and confusion. The more the better.

The object here is to have a practical heuristic tool and epistemology in the discipline/study of the human subject and human existence and the social and human sciences so as to tackle this question.

The aim is to do so in a manner that will give us gratification, meaning, authenticity, peace of mind, satisfaction, ontological security, sense-making, rigour, happiness and pleasure. As those are unique, dynamic and changing individualistic and personal features then it is up to each one of us to construct and find out what they mean for him/her and to follow his/her findings throughout every point of his/her being in the world.

I am a human subject in the world. I am a totality in the world.

This means the following assumptions:

1. I am not an object.

2. I am here.

3. I am here as me. I am here as my self.

4. There is nothing but me as far as I am concerned.

5. Thus, since there is nothing but me for me and I see and feel you there and should assume that you are there in the world too and that there is something there in the world that is not me, namely you, then I assume that there is nothing but you to you as far as you are concerned just as it is for me.

6. Hence, we are all totalities, very much different, unique, personalised beings in the world.

7. This is my existence. This is my being in the world. This is my consciousness. This is my perception. This is my conception.

8. You are part of my consciousness, of my internal world, of me. I am part of your world, of your consciousness, of your being in the world.

9. We can merely relate to each other through our acknowledgement of our totality, mine, your’s, his’, her’s and their’s. This acceptance would enable us to tolerate and accept ourselves and the social others unconditionally (Carl Rogers) without totalising the other. This acknowledgement and awareness will enable learning from and interrelating to/with others and with/to ourselves.

Hence, I am here and cannot be reduced to anything but myself. I should assume the same for you. Naturally, this means I (assuming you/us) cannot be generalised, theorised, categorised and collectivised to anything else. I (assuming us/you) cannot be mechanised, objectified and defined/determined by anything or anyone but myself, assuming us/you.

I construct myself and become whoever/whatever I wish myself to become and be by being/existing here and living here, acting, choosing, constructing, reconstructing myself accordingly.

I become and am by being susceptible, receiving and absorbing, engaging, relating and interrelating in the world to and with both myself and the social others in creating, constructing and reconstructing myself in the world accordingly.

I am active. I take responsibility. I initiate and devise a very personalised, dynamic process of being in the world to firmly determine my totality in the world. I am this process. And this process is me. Without this I am nothing. Without this I am not me.

I, thus, constantly observe, analyse, assess, reflect, dereflect and select. I constantly change, modify, create and become different versions of myself in accordance with whatever I sense/feel/believe is the most appropriate being in the world for me to become and be at that specific tempo-spatial moment of my existence in the world.

I have values I try to fulfil. I have goals I strive to achieve. I have objectives I wish to actualise. I have meanings I endeavour to construct and act out. I have ambitions I wish to live and try out. I constantly create those in accordance with whom/what I wish to become and be at that specific point of my existence in the world and live according to them so as to create and construct whom/what I wish myself to become and be.

Because I live and act, take initiative and responsibility for myself and constantly choose and select I make mistakes. I endeavour to learn from those. I wish to improve. If I am already here then I ought to go forward and progress rather than backwards. As I emerge and become I wish to learn from my experiences of being here. I also wish to learn from the others’ (those totalities who are not me) experiences of their own process of being here in the world.

I have constructed and attained flaws I wish to eliminate and modify. Perhaps I have achieved some strengths. I wish to strengthen and reinforce them in and throughout my being here in the world.

I assume my existence by living, acting and existing, by being conscious, by being conscious of my consciousness. As a living/existing/conscious being in the world I am certain of my death. I am aware of the fact that I am a finite being in the world. It will all end at some point. At some point I shall cease to be.

Death is the only thing that can reduce and mechanise me. It does so into nothing. I am because I am alive here.

I wish to do everything within my power so that a second prior to my death, I would be able to look back and say to myself that it was all worthwhile. I wish to be able to say to myself that I have indeed, done my utmost, my very best, to construct the most appropriate, the most fulfilling, the most gratifying version of myself that I could have done for myself.

As I have no clue when my existence would terminate I must be and make sure that I leave no chances and that every second of my being in the world, every decision I take and implement, every choice I make, is the most authentic, meaningful and beneficial to myself and my process of becoming and being me, or in other words the best version of me that I can be in those circumstances and at that specific point of my existence.

I have to be completely sure that I have actualised and fulfilled the best potentialities available to me at that specific moment of my being in the world to their fullest extent. I have to be certain that I have done my very best so as to do so.

I think I owe it to myself. I did not choose to be here. I was launched into this existence (Heidegger’s Being and Time). This was the only time in my existence where I have been and will ever be passive. This was the only decision/choice that was and will ever be made, carried out and implemented for me throughout the course of my entire existence.

This decision to exist was chosen for me by two individuals who are not me, namely the others, other totalities in the world. They took responsibility for/of my initial being here. They put me here. They turned me from a non-being into a being in the world. Then, everything else became up to me.

I did not choose to be here. Yet I choose to emerge and become and be whatever/whoever I am and will be. I have to be accountable for this choice and take responsibility for it.

Fine, I am here then. I have to assume this fact and live with it. I now have to be sure that I do it rightly, in the best, most fulfilling manner for myself that I can. This is my only ‘job’. This is my sole duty. This is my only obligation. This is my sole responsibility. I owe nothing to anyone but myself. No one owes me anything. I have to become and be. That’s all there is to it.

I use the social others, their totalities and the external world in fulfilling myself and whom/what I desire for myself to become and be. I sincerely hope the social other does the same with me. I am available for him/her to do so.

I share the world I am found in with the social others. One of the manners I can define and interrelate to/with myself is through the way I interrelate with the others. It reflects upon me. It reflects upon how I perceive myself and my goals/ambitions. I do so for me not him/her/them.

The social others are part of my being and becoming in the world. This is their role as far as I am concerned. I sincerely hope I play the same role for them/you.

The world will be such a better place if we would focus and concentrate upon ourselves and our beings/becoming in the world, upon improving ourselves as individum/s and our own, personalised, being/becoming here in the world.

All those collectives, groupings and categories destroy us and our common, shared world. They give us an opportunity to escape and become alienated from ourselves and our responsibilities, in general and towards ourselves, in particular, that are the same.

The only truth is an individualistic and personalised one of what is good/true/authentic/meaningful for myself/ourselves. As such, it is wholly irrational and passionate and very much subjective.

There is no universal, objective and collective truth. We can share truth as individualised and personalised truth. We cannot synthesise and generalise/collectivise truth.

Hence, the only truth for me is my own truth. I create, construct and reconstruct it and live, construct and reconstruct my being in the world accordingly.

Each individum is a total whole in the world. The whole is extremely complex. The whole is much greater than the sums of its parts. The whole is the only thing that there is.

I enclose some writings below that can give some sort of an idea of what I strive to achieve, whom/what I wish to be and become, whom I was when I wrote the final version of this writing, my values and desires, my internal conflicts, my living contradictions, my objectives and my ambitions.

Those writings are the parts that make up the totality that is far greater than them. I am greater than everything. I am greater than all the attempts to analyse and understand me. I am greater than all my endeavours to explicate and analyse myself. I am much greater than all my writings about myself. I am greater than all the words that can be uttered about me.

On the other hand, I am just me. I exist here in the world. That’s all. I am the product of my own life and being/becoming. This is all there is to it. I need to be considered and studied as such. If not, then what are the alternatives? And I expect an answer for I have no answers and I really wish to know.

I am well aware that most of those ideas I have been putting here are well worn out as a philosophy of existence. It can be considered as the saying of a flower boy from the 1960s who rebels and protests against the establishment. Yet I am very much part of the establishment. I am the establishment. I derive my power and strength from the establishment.

I feel that as a theory I have very little more to originate and say. A lot of it is already internalised and is common sense. Therapists act it out by virtue of being human beings and their own personas. Post-moderna has lost its youth and vitality. It has pretty much become like a mature middle-aged person.

I, therefore, try to engage with those ideas as heuristic tools for the creation of a well-structured, integrative constructive/ing critical empirical psychology as the discipline/structure/framework of the human subject/existence in the world and their studies. I try to implement those ideas in a very practical manner within the empirical framework.

I wish to turn a counter movement of a critic of mainstream establishment into a contribution towards a well-structured, integrative construction of a mainstream establishment, along with other epistemologies and heuristic tools. Enough of critics just for the sake of criticising. They lead nowhere on their own. The thing to do is to construct and create alternatives, based upon ideas/thoughts/values/acts/interrelationships, not so much to critic.

Hence, I try to devise and form a whole epistemology for the ontology of the human existence and human subject in the social and human sciences. It will be made available along side other relevant epistemologies and heuristic tools.

I wish to create an area of study completely dedicated to this conception of the human subject and human existence as I displayed here. I endeavour to create a post-positivistic alternative to radical constructionism, both social and cognitive, in the social and human sciences.

My goal and primary academic objective is to switch things around and for the human subject to control and determine his/her own study as him/her. Such accounts will be shared and interrelated to show firsthand what it is to be/become a human subject in the world.

I am giving a voice to the human subject to speak out, say and shout his piece to everything that has attempted/attempts to speak on his/her own behalf. I still have to establish what gave it (this ‘everything’) the right to try and do this, who has placed it in such a position if anyone did at all?

I expect this ‘everything’ to be silenced and listen to the human subject in the world. And believe me, this human subject knows best. He/she is strong, powerful, smart, wise and capable. More importantly, he/she is there and lives his/her life and being in the world. I know. I am one. So are you. So is he/she. So are they.

I endeavour to do so in a well-structured, rigorous, valid, standardised, reliable, scholarly, focused academic fashion. I wish this manner to be differentiated and distanced as much as possible from folk psychology.

Final Draft of Bath Ph.D. Thesis

§ My Blogging Thesis

§ Four examples of cathartic, self-dialectical and auto-phenomenological enquiring-within-writing&b/logging into the question, how do I lead a more meaningful existence in the world for myself?

§ THE LAPIDUS – CREATIVE WORDS FOR HEALTH AND WELL-BEING ETHICAL CODE

§ My Webpages at the Arts and Health South West

§ My first attempt at working out practical workshop for my suggested heuristic tool

§ My first attempt at working out an electronic platform for my suggested heuristic tool

§ My future after getting the doctorate

§ Who am I

§ Where I am in June 2007

§ Working on a succinct manuscript June 2007

§ My Academic/Scholarly Research Interests

§ Human Existence

§ Presentation at the International Conference of Critical Psychology- 31^st of August 2003

§ Slides Presented at the Presentation at the International Conference of Critical Psychology- 31^st of August 2003

§ Abstract of Presentation at the International Conference of Critical Psychology- 31^st of August 2003: Kindly Search for me in the Data Base

§ Proposal for an Action Research Living Theory

The above paper has been successfully refereed and accepted: It can now be accessed with my Biographical details alongside the other accepted submissions at Boog, B. and Slagter, M. (Eds.). (2006). WCAR 2006 proceedings: on a CD: Copyright Hanze University of Professional Education. I am sincerely hoping to follow the correct practice, ethics, etiquette and ethos here, though not sure what it is

§ General Proposal for a Project in Constructive Critical Psychology Study

§ My Contribution to the British Educational Research Association Practitioner-Research Special Interest Group Seminar in Bath, 19^th of June, 2004 and to the Fifth International Conference of the Self-Study of Teacher Education Practices, Herstmonceaux Castle, UK, 27 June - 1 July 2004: Autoethnographical, Ontologically/Phenomenologically Analysed Explanation of Who Am I and What I am proposing and doing.

§ Presenting my Work, Ideas and Passion to the Education Department at the University of Bath: Giving a Departmental Seminar 14^th of July, 2004

§ Slides for My Departmental Seminar: 14/07/2004

§ Locating My Work, Explaining it and Systematically Illustrating It In A Literature Review, Critical Discussion and Analytical Case-Study

§ How this Work Came Into Being

§ Abstract to my wholly theoretical thesis (Serper, 1999)

§ Abbreviated Thesis (Serper, 1999) - A Study of the Conception of Man in Empirical Psychology by Using Textual Analysis – This thesis was accepted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem as part of the requirement for the completion of a unique Interdisciplinary Individual Graduate Programme – by research, residence and interdisciplinary taught courses/seminars – 1994-1999. Members of this programme devise their own area of study, rather than engaging in research within an existing discipline/area. The 2003 research report, below, summarised this part of my work/project.

§ Examples of Self in the world

§ Practical Activities in the World – Windows Channels of Communication (1)

§ Practical Activities in the World – Windows Channels of Communication (2)

§ Practical Activities in the World – Windows Channels of Communication (3)

§ An Example of A piece of Poetry and Explanation

§ Three Examples of Interesting Empirical/Experimental Work in Psychology/Psychiatry

§ William James (1890) on Consciousness: 1995

§ Why Thermostat Has No Consciousness?: Beginning of 1996

§ Short Conversation

§ What is it that I am trying to actually do, in short conversations

§ Writing Notes to Myself As for Why I am doing A Specially and Purposely Devised Version of Living Action Research and How: February, 2004: Why my close affiliation and tie/connection with LAR

§ Example of Dialectical Conversations/Engagements

§ Another Example of Dialectical Engagement/Conversation

§ Nietzsche and Freud: Writings from 1994

§ A Brief Acquaintance with Gibson: 1995

§ Notes on Hutchins’ Applied Distributed Cognition

§ Examples of Letters

§ A Soliloquy on soliloquy

§ Examples of Pure, Passionate and Raw Reflections and Writings

§ Brief Presentation at the University of Bath 2002

§ Initial Broad and Brief Outline of My Research Interests: Summer 2001

§ Research Report – Summer, 2003

§ Research Report – Summer, 2006

§ Applied Cognition

§ Beginning of this Research

§ Writing Notes for A Communicable Refereed Paper

§ Just a Tale: A fairytale: What in Yiddish is called tale of the grandmother: Bubbe ma’asses

§ Twenty-five Analysed Auto-ethnographical Accounts of my ontological/phenomenological existence/being in the world are currently sitting in my personal drive and are awaiting ethical and self-embodied morality (of being and/or wanting to be a decent human being) clarification and assurance, self-assurance. They will be posted here, in the public domain as soon as this issue is cleared. I do acknowledge my social others’ feelings and existence in my being/becoming in the world, especially those social others who are close to my heart.

§ British Educational Research Association Revised Ethical Guidelines for Educational Research (2004) and Code of Good Conduct Or in PDF Format

§ My List of My Self-Study Research Questions or

§ A Review of an Empirical Study of Socio-Cognition: Using Illustrations and discussions

§ A Study and Critical Review of An Empirical/Experimental Study of Human Processes (Cognitive and Social)

§ And Another Similar Exercise

§ A Case of A Confused Thinker of Human Existence Endeavouring to carry out A Rigorous, Thoughtful Empirical Study to show his theories of the study human existence - Due to recent events, this account is temporarily withdrawn and negotiated. The events are discussed here and a debate and discussion is called for.

§ Apparatus for A Socio-Cognitive Empirical Study

§ Engagement with Others: A Book Review of Dennet (1996) Toward an Understanding of Consciousness: Automn1996

§ What is it to Know: Thoughts/Reflections from 1994

§ Ethnomethodology

§ Levy-Bruhl and Empirical Psychology: January 1996

§ Article: Cry My Beloved Country - Haaretz – Taken and retrieved from ‘Haaretz’ on Sunday, 11^th of January, 2004. - The article talks about the fight of the Self with the self. And discusses the dilemmas, problems and contradictions in calling for external, outside assistance. ‘Who is going to save us from ourselves’? Asks the author. And goes on to conclude “when the beloved country does not cry out itself, only curls inwardly in indifference, there is no choice but to turn to the world, so that it cries out instead.”

§ Self in the World - Me, Me and Me – The fight of the Self with the Self for progress. And the role of the ‘you’

§ Thoughts about a way of integrating the explicit and implicit as a heuristics in a truly living cognition, logic and psychology of human existence

§ Interests

§ Objectives

§ My Current life – This research is everything to me. I live it. I eat it. I smell it. I sleep it. I make love to it. I interrelate it. I am it. It is me. I am condemned to it. I am a possessed man. There is no escape from it. I apologise to all of those whose lives have been affected. I must do it.

A Confused Me trying to do many things simultaneously: Going beyond words and text into Multimedia: Having a hearty discussion with myself and a soliloquy in a room full of people.
Voice and Heuristics of Human Existence

§ Questions for a discussion of my work with the Bath Living-Action-Research Monday Group- 1^st of March, 2004

§ Prompt and Short thanking letter to the Bath Living-Action-Research Group following the meeting of the 1^st of March, 2004 which was dedicated to my work.

§ Communicating My Inner World of My Work and Ideas to the Living Action Research Monday Conversation Group

§ Thinking, Contemplating and Writing My Ideas: My Inner World

§ Dali

§ The case against self-contemplation – International Herald Tribute 30/12/2005

Your thoughts and inputs (in the form of electronic mails) are crucial to me in my process of becoming and being myself in the world, in constructing and reconstructing my self. Your thoughts and reflections will become a property of my inner world and self. They will become available to my inner world.

I shall interrelate with them as parts of the external inputs that nourish and enrich the internal world. I thrive on these external inputs, perspectives and insights. They provide me with other ways of interrelating to similar questions and dilemmas, with different beings in the world.

I shall interrelate with the interrelationship between my self and your external perspective, insights inputs. Your insights and viewpoints help me become and be. They assist me to construct and reconstruct myself. They help me in my internal struggles with myself. They will provide me with some of the materials with which I construct myself.

They are beneficial to me precisely because they are derived from a world and totality that are not my own. They are external to my own. They provide me with an external perspective and insight in my internal wars and struggles with myself.

They serve as heuristics in the relationship I am having with my self. They assist me with the dilemmas I am having with myself in my construction, becoming and being. They help me in my self constructed contradictions, paradoxes and questions. They help me in my construction and assessment of values and meanings.

I have created an email forum community in which we can enrich the totality of ourselves and the other and through this enrichment enrich ourselves.

§ My community’s email forum is

alonserper@jiscmail.ac.uk

§ The Archives of the emails may be reviewed at

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/alonserper.html

Some of my ideas, comments, thoughts, interactions, interrelationships, dereflections, characteristics, values, ambitions, feelings and reflections are displayed in the Living-Action-Research email forum (from July/2003 onwards), either on their own or in the context of others’ ideas and dialectical engagement and conversations with them. This writing to the forums displays and reveals several aspects/beings of ‘me’, which are different and autonomous and progressing according to and in the here and now.

§ http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/living-action-research.html

My work and ideas will be presented and discussed at the British Educational Research Association Practitioner-Researcher Workshop/Seminar, to be held at the University of Bath, England, on the 19^th of June, 2004. In this Seminar/Workshop Living-Action-Researchers and Practitioner Researchers will meet to interrelate and discuss their own project and to contribute to one another.

This endeavour is discussed, in details, at

http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/wa.exe?A0=bera-practitioner-researcher&T=0

It is recommended to start with the month of February and to move onward from there.

And by either emailing myself or/and Dr. Jack Whitehead mailto:A.J.Whitehead@bath.ac.uk; http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/

§ The British Educational Research Association Practitioner Research Special Interest Group, of which myself and my work are part of, is described here.

§ As I said earlier, we have met on the 19^th of June, 2004. The members are sending their remarks to the designated electronic mail forum, above, and at

§ My personal email is

a.serper@bath.ac.uk

§ Examples of Comments to the writings above

§ and their usage:

§ And

§ By Others

The link to the present web pages is found in the award winning (2000) web site for Action Research www.actionresearch.net.

The web site www.actionresearch.net was a Links2Go Award Winner in 2000 and is widely acknowledged as one of the most influential sites for worldwide developments in action research.

The link to my Web pages is found at www.actionresearch.net/otherpages.shtml or http://www.bath.ac.uk/~edsajw/otherpages.shtml.

This can give a good feel of what is going on within the domains of Action Research, Living Action Research, Self-Study and Practitioner Research and theories of Logic.

I am in constant interrelationships with the Living Educational Theory Approach to Research and Action Research to which I try to complement, add and contribute my own passion and life project

A photograph of a self-study ontologist (circled) and self-educator (probably because no one else can educate me) with self-study teachers of others. Or

http://educ.queensu.ca/~ar/sstep5/castle5r.bmp

An Original Copy of My Grandmother’s Birth Certificate: Bendin (1909)

pc-quote.html. All rights reserved to Shlomit Shuster.

"The Devil take me if I really know who I am"