The Sciences: Points, lines, angles and perspectives on Domains

In Hodges' model the axes are presented - by convention - as perpendicular. From this it follows that the resulting four domains, or quadrants appear as equivalent in terms of the space they each occupy. There are many posts on the blog that present a 2x2 table. When in template form Hodges' model is also a potential corpus, empty apart from its structure, then there must surely be a gross asymmetry in the SCIENCES domain compared with the others, including the SPIRITUAL. Discuss?

#simplicity #complexity #folktheory #humanities #arts #humanistic #emotion #balance

See also: https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2026/06/h2cm-domains-symmetry.html

Arriving at Hodges' model via guided discovery ...

Following Brian Hodges’ lead in his notes, I have engaged a great many learners with a guided discussion through the following questions:

Questions	Answers	Outcome/Significance
Who do we care for?	The person, individual, patient, client, carer.The group, family, community, national/global population. The 'duty of care'. The Planet.	It is the individual (guardian) who consents to care. The subject at the top of the vertical axis of Hodges’ model is first identified. It is the person who consents to care (or their guardian); then the group occupies the bottom of the vertical axis.
What do we do to help deliver care?	We attempt - complete tasks and interact in ways that are both mechanistic and humanistic. We use procedures, equipment, devices, technologies, physical interventions; and the self – empathy, rapport listening, being present. Team work with effective communication, coordination and collaboration are also essential.	To care is to act. The horizontal axis is added, with humanistic to the reader’s left; and mechanistic to the right. The axes are then complete, revealing the model’s ‘fixed’ structure. Interdisciplinary can be identified and further discussed.
What skills and knowledge do we need to care for the individual, family and populations?	Here we are concerned with the content of the given situation. This can encompass the whole curriculum and acknowledges experiential learning.	The epistemological and ontological scope and scale of health is revealed from self to planet. The importance of context and situation can be stressed. Including first-aid and its rules and risk assessment. Discussion visits and demonstrates the significance of each of the domains of Hodges’ model and the spiritual to participants. The relevance of Hodges' model to the 21st century, as a bio-psycho-socio-POLITICAL model is emphasised.

Previously: 'Hodges' model'.

Global health is ... c/o King & Koski (2020)

Use of the word 'global' in health care is common: from global assessment; global as in a pandemic, as per Covid which for a time closed down most human activity across the world; the global health workforce; and global health crises, that must include the climate crisis and pollution. Universal health coverage, allied with universal healthcare access, refers to (national and aspirational ...) global access to quality health services. 

Above, 'global health' has itself already occurred several times. I've posted about global health on a great many occasions on behalf of other parties.

Defining global health in the context of public health, King and Koski (2020) write:

'We propose the following definition:
global health is public health somewhere else.'

More specifically, they add: 

'Global health as a field is not distinguished by its aspirations, methods of research and practice, intervention strategies or even geographical area per se, but rather by a particular relationship between its practitioners and its recipients: a person engages in global health when they practise public health somewhere—a community, a political entity, a geographical space—that they do not call home.'

To apply Hodges' model to global health, there must be another definition.

King NB, Koski A. Defining global health as public health somewhere else. BMJ Global Health
2020;5:e002172. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2019-002172

Learn your lines and the hyperplane will follow i

Take an empty [rectangular] space (A4 paper in landscape)

Blank! Isn't it?

Take a line. Yes, call it that.

Divide the space vertically, and equally, in two. 

Do this again but horizontally.

You can call these lines, partitions if you wish?

Or, as per adopted convention here, axes.

Now, there are four empty spaces.

These spaces can be called quadrants, planes, or domains. The latter term usually adopted here.

Labels can be decided, and assigned to the axes and the resulting domains.

Given a purpose, in practice (initially) the 'empty' spaces have the ability to assign significance to what may be placed within them.

Such decisions are non-trivial, in the sense that context and situation determine what follows, influenced by objective and subjective considerations.

The domains can contain concepts, or keywords with decisions driven by categorical reasoning.

The content of the domains can also be viewed as classes and sub-classes.

ii to follow (with revision here?)

Hardy (1940) A Mathematician's Apology

A Mathematician's Apology

In Liverpool I came across G.H. Hardy's short book A Mathematician's Apology. At £2.00 - a pristine bargain and a  marvellous read, especially the latter sections.

From being taught and applying Hodges' model in a case study in 1987 through to online work since 1998; I have to ask myself. Do I need to write:

'A Nurse's Apology'?

Aware of Hardy in the history of mathematics, and having read his apology, I'm no Hardy. My antics are a lesson in addition, but this is more 'Laurel and Hardy' - with apologies to comic genius of course. 

By their nature professions seek to maintain, and assure their continuity. A professional body can point to a definable body of theory, practice (curricula), that carries social and political status, if not patronage. There is national agreement that the NHS needs reform; radical reform no-less. The new Labour government is drawing lines to negotiate with the BMA, other professional bodies and unions. Specificity, specialisation is key. In healthcare people have suggested to me that Hodges' model invites genericism. Any suggestion of genericism is to be shunned. There seems an almost allergic reaction such is the threat to professional identity; unless, of course, you are a 'General Nurse', or General Practitioner - GP family doctor). Even Hardy warns:

"'GENERALITY' is an ambiguous and rather dangerous word, and we must be careful not to allow it to dominate our discussion too much." p.105.

This also applies to the quality and solidity of professional agencies and bodies whose role is to provide governance and set standards. The NMC has stumbled? Life and death is made up of details AND big pictures. How do you provide for - balance both? Curricula are another concern. Is the future of mental health nursing guaranteed as a profession? 

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2016/08/future-of-mental-health-nurse-training.html

The instrumental potential of Hodges' model is obvious. It invites a checkbox approach. One-to-one clinical encounters and interactions reduced to a tick-box exercise. This reduces any sense of specialist knowledge, training and education needed to assess, plan, deliver and evaluate high quality, effective, sustainable healthcare.

'THE second quality which I demanded in a significant idea was depth, and this is still more difficult to define. It has something to do with difficulty; the deeper? ideas are usually the harder to grasp: but it is not at all the same.' p.109.

Hardy's thoughts (and no doubt similarly expressed by other mathematicians and logicians) can be 'found' in Hodges' model; with an addition. Depth and difficulty rests on the uniqueness of  the 'one'. 

Here, Hardy is comparing between 'real mathematics' and chess:

'A chess problem also has unexpectedness, and a certain economy ; it is essential that the moves should be surprising, and that every piece on the board should play its part. But the aesthetic effect is cumulative. It is essential also (unless the problem is too simple to be really amusing) that the key-move should be followed by a good many variations, each requiring its own individual answer. 'If P-B5 then Kt-R6; if .... then if .... then ...., ....' - the effect would be spoilt if there were not a good many different replies. All this is quite genuine mathematics, and has its merits; but it is just that 'proof by enumeration of cases'  (and of cases which do not, at bottom, differ at all profoundly*) which a real mathematician tends to despise.' p.114.

*I believe it is now regarded as a merit in a problem that there should be many variations of the same type. (footnote)

While Kings, and Queens et al. undoubtedly have their own unique personalities, in healthcare effective clinicians make a concerted effort not to merely enumerate cases. The professional emphasis is (idealistically, professionally, purely and in application to) person-centredness; with the compassion, complexity, cussedness, and (sometimes literal) complications this brings. From 1-1 interaction, the clinical encounter, the therapeutic relationship, and alliance are the reason for practitioners achieving and sustaining intra- and interpersonal communication skills. Our attitudes towards knowledge, what is thoughts affects what we feel individually and collectively. Science should be neutral. It might be concluded that this question is for the philosophers and ethicists to wrestle with. In healthcare ethics are central: 'Do no harm'. Whether the practitioner, theorist, manager, policy maker is a nurse, scientist or mathematician such questions impact upon the person. As they are social, cultural and political. Revisiting Bronowski's Ascent of Man, this question arose in Archive on 4.

'It seems that mathematical ideas are arranged somehow in strata, the ideas in each stratum being linked by a complex of relations both among themselves and with those above and below. The lower the stratum, the deeper (and in general the more difficult) the idea.' p.110.

(my emphasis)

individual

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

|

group

logical & mathematical reasoning depth of reasoning (memory) mathematical aptitude intelligence(s) pure maths identity	vector relations mathematics logic depth of analysis, complexity Cricket! pure - applied maths "1" problem per visit
patient - health practitioner  relationship Watching cricket - conversation	reports - outcomes enumeration of cases

Back-tracking to page 104, Hardy:

'The relations revealed by the proof should be such as connect many different mathematical ideas.'

Our proof is person-centredness, placing the person at the center (in this case - of Hodges' model). The proof can be quantitative and qualitive. There are a great many ideas at work. Critically, the ideas that might be called upon (even improvised) are not all health-related, but can extend beyond to encompass the four care (knowledge) domains of Hodges' model. In healthcare as in Hardy's life the spiritual is encountered. So, the determinants of health are ALL available to us - as required. Well not available as a resource might be, they are available in the hope they will be seen as factors. Hardy would approve I think of the direction of travel, not just as a vector, but a model of multidimensional vectors - reaching for relations.

Hardy, G.H. (1940) A Mathematician's Apology, Cambridge: Canto.

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/mathematicians-apology/B90D81A8E28674119781863988A3E11B