Musings - The Caring Tableau: there's a method in conceptual overloading

[Still trying to figure some things out. ... ]

... Our foundation and scaffold must serve two purposes then. On the one hand it must facilitate conceptual modelling, and on the other hand it must be able to reflect the real world, the real time experiences we encounter.

Our models are built using words, specifically concepts. A minimalistic-holistic approach for the foundation [of h2cm] helps achieve balance, neutrality, agnostic credentials and avoids the additional danger of conceptual overloading.

In computer programming languages conceptual overloading has a specific meaning and application. It refers to the facility of some programming languages – Java for example (Bergel, 2011) – to have methods that have the same name. Methods are re-usable pieces of code that process data in a specific way. In conceptual overloading methods that share a common name are differentiated by different number and types of data specified as parameters. From a minimalist point we can readily expand the model thereby introducing conceptual overloading. The care domains can be viewed as methods, each with their own parameters. In the case of health care the parameters whilst indicated are not fixed. They are instantiated when invoked through a specific context, event or process. This is the challenge facing new recruits as they learn, and the expert as they continue to re-learn, forget, re-learn.

[If we continue the overloading process here, we arrive at the inevitable(?) philosophical junction of truth. In the health career domains model we can look upon the model with its domains as being filled with pebbles. I have frequently described the model as a mental means to turn over the cognitive – conceptual - pebbles and check their relevance. It is as if we have to include all concepts. Then many pebbles are automatically excluded by the very act of the initialization referred to above. This reduction, the emergence of conceptual dimensions is critical, it also reduces conceptual overload. What we have in effect then is a truth table – a care tableau.]

Bergel, A. (2011). Reconciling method overloading and dynamically typed scripting languages. Computer Languages, Systems & Structures. 37, 3, 132-150.

Musings... axes in hand and mind