viii Book: Bill Ross - 'Order and the Virtual'

 'The Philosophy and Science of Deleuzian Cosmology'

So much of what we experience is nuanced. What was conscious thought, becomes tacit knowledge and unconscious. Is that consciousness nullified as Ross writes on page 76? I wrote a note 'reflection as hesitation'; also prompted to think about intution (p.83) and our word uses in 'retardation' (which here is no problem at all - in physics and complex sciences/systems. Again the 'principle of least action' arises (p.82). With more physics and cosmology to follow, it helps a little that 'manifold' has landed begging to be understood across the contexts. Bill Ross notes how Delueze and Michel Serres used the game metaphor [Game analogy #1]. Again, lifting this to a scribble 'Health-Illness is quite a game'! This will be the subject of a post soon. In England at least the law and manifold on health (being productive) and illness has been utterly disrupted. The game-table has been kicked over, by those in society who still able? New spaces, and canvases are needed. Kantian thought and interpretations are added to Leibniz. A heady mix but clearly essential as Bill Ross's critique is developed. 

 

The book was a must-read, as in the contents: Complexity (with a presentation next month), cosmology, Serres, and Claude Shannon. In Game Analogy #2, "Communication is understood here to encompass much more than meaningful exchange; all phenomena 'communicate'". p.85. I couldn't agree more with with these 'games', this thought being 'situated within the purchase of information theory' (p.86). Bizarrely (or not), in the same year two papers:

Jones, P. (1996) Humans, Information, and Science, Journal of Advanced Nursing, 24(3),591-598.

Jones, P. (1996) An overarching theory of health communication? Health Informatics Journal,2,1,28-34. 

Ross explains the global view of Michel Serres when it comes to 'information'. This entranced me, and I only scratched the skin:

Jones, P. (2008) Exploring Serres’ Atlas, Hodges’ Knowledge Domains and the Fusion of Informatics and Cultural Horizons, IN Kidd, T., Chen, I. (Eds.) Social Information Technology Connecting Society and Cultural Issues, Idea Group Publishing, Inc. Chap. 7, pp. 96-109.

Here there's a pointer to the cosmology to follow - Ross is true to the title. I have let most of the Astronomy Yearbooks go, but retain a few. Not just for key birth-years, but articles that are well written and researched historical snapshots. Here, Bill Ross discusses the game of Cepheid variables and their significance in mapping the universe. Truly, fascinating. Weaver's three levels of salient action are listed. Threads are tied too, with conclusions offered. These rules are reappraised, physics ever present. In light of one of the above papers I should revisit Serres, and Leibniz; the search for 'overarching explanatory power' (p.91) is ongoing. This game draws on Serres invitation to imagine a diagram, a network of nodes, channels, and propositions. This tabular formulation and its relations for me, spans the history of economics (Quesnay's tableau), the current state of economics (human values), and next (mathematical?) steps for Hodges' model. So many questions here: surely node  can't be an axis? I felt like Hansel, picking up sweets, Cartesian lines, scalene forms, thresholds, coming across hoops to jump through through to terminal equilibri. As you walk the sound of the thalweg, downstream... where Bergson features once again.

 

Reading Ross, over several months coincided with several key themes gaining in personal coherence. Bayesian ideas as might be applied to Hodges' model, even if in a naïve way (c/o feedback on draft notes). The remainder of chapter 3 includes time (thought), percept (space), to close with Deleuze's Ideal Game. I looked up Cortázarian Hopscotch https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch_(Cort%C3%A1zar_novel), as the preface is titled. Ross reflects on the Ideal Game (does it exist, for Deleuze, only in thought?), and the distinction between 'domestic' chance (Baysian) and radical contingency belonging to the clinamen. In response to 'physical action and and the thought being on the same continuum', don't ask (please!), but I scribbled: 'corridor care' - a dangerous game, far from ideal. Plus, bird's using quantum entanglement to navigate. 'Kant's chaotic manifold', I will also investigate for next month(?).

Chapter 4 'Order as Complexity' proved most relevant. Every page is touched by graphite.

Deleuze has a 'blind spot' (p.111), something that Hodges' model seeks to ameloirate. But then of course at the model's center (nexus - as noted) that decussation of the axes invites a darkness of its own. If Hodges' model assists forethought and foresight  While inviting complexity, this interdisciplinary palette can also facilitate trandiscipinary sense-making. 'Magnitudes of intensity' reminded me of logarithmic thresholds within our perceptual apparatus. This is like reading Serres. A flow of punctum, simultaneity, delay (again) but its contribution to causal series, and Aionic time. I was taken (frequently)  to plane, person, personhood, chronicity, scales, local to global to glocal.

'BwO' (p.117)? That's 'body without organs: DELEUZE, GUATTARI a thousand plateaus - capitalism and s c h i z o p h r e n i a'.

There is a 'corner' amid those thousand plateaus. n.b. to self - 'triangulation always needs one other'. I cannot resolve the frameworks as yet, scientific - otherwise or otherwhere; but you can take flight from here. Physics takes it place as 'complexity begets complexity'. Bill Ross utilises well-recognized sources, Penrose, Kauffman, Kolmogorov and Bohm.

As with the frameworks internal and external complexity must be untangled 1-4 (p.124?). I can laugh now, did I really try to marry up Order  - Disorder :: Simple - Complex (complicated?) to the domains of Hodges' model? So often reading philosophy, you feel an imposter playing games with words, as in: 'different similarities' and 'similar differences' (p.125). But of course, this is serious scholarship. Especially, when it involves lines, a rough circle, segments and dimensions: disorder becomes different degrees of order. Page 126 delivers Deleuze in spades, Ross pulls his thoughts together. It is fitting for me that Ross closes chapter 4 with a nod to transdisciplinarity.

Chapter 5 deals with symmetry and disymmetry; indifference and difference; limits and non-locality. There is an argument to follow (p.133). With 'group theory' mentioned on p.131, I've a lot of things to 'look up' [topology too]. Despite appearances I recognise the lack of symmetry in Hodges' model. This is what the situation does (practice) and means (theory): 'There is no reason under the sun which can rely on perfect symmetry' (p.135).  Where do/can we locate 'spooky action at a distance' in Hodges' model (p.140)? 

The Higgs role! Who knew? 'the speed of light. It represents a retardation.' Thanks Bill Ross, fascinating pp. 135-174. Plus, axes too. Note to self: when we die do we 'simply' set sail on the Dirac Sea? Attending the Bill Ross Memorial Workshop – BSP Special Event 2025 last September:

https://hodges-model.blogspot.com/2025/09/bill-ross-memorial-workshop.html

the esteem .. and love .. that Bill Ross engendered in the people that knew him. The preface refers to chats in university cafes. How I wish. I wonder what Bill would have made of Hodges' model and the ongoing project here? Vitally, I get a distinct sense that he would have found time to listen ... 

'Bill Ross (1964 – 2022) had interests ranging widely across contemporary philosophy and culture, with a particular interest in the relations between science and philosophy. As managing editor, he was the driving force behind Clinamen Press, which in the early 2000s published new works by contemporary philosophers, and English translation of important works by continental philosophers such as Henri Bergson, Gaston Bachelard and Michel Serres. He completed his PhD in philosophy at Staffordshire University, where he taught on the MA in the Philosophy of Nature, Information, and Technology. Bill had a lifelong passion for the connections between science and philosophy, on which he had published several important articles. Bill was working on a monograph on the philosophy and science of Deleuzian cosmology, which was has been posthumously published by Edinburgh University Press. This event is to celebrate Bill’s book and his life, and to allow his friends, his colleagues, and anyone interested in his work or the topics and issues addressed by his work to continue the conversation that Bill’s work inspires.'

https://www.thebsp.org.uk/bill-ross-memorial-workshop-deleuzian-cosmologies/

 

Many thanks again to Edinburgh University Press for my copy - a keeper! Bill Ross RIP.

 

Bill Ross (2024) Order and the Virtual: The Philosophy and Science of Deleuzian Cosmology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-order-and-the-virtual.html

ii Learn your lines and the hyperplanes will follow

With these lines, partitions, axes and domains in mind, when a clinical practitioner is presented with a new person, whether as a patient, client, or carer ... they can, using Hodges' model (and other tools!) approach their assessment in an open and receptive manner.

This means that the information provided by the 'patient' can be readily fielded, captured whatever the context and situation.

As noted previously, my study of Hodges' model began in the late 1980s. Application in my work as a community mental health nurse, with an interest in informatics followed quite naturally(?). Primed as I was, for various reasons to carry this forward, I also carried a mathematical learning disability. At the risk of getting bogged down in my thought, use and approach to Hodges' model I need a challenge.

Mathematics is the challenge for me. It's fascinating how we have in-built 'calculators' that can help us catch a ball, and judge fairly well where to throw a ball for interception. There seems then to be an informal or naïve  mathematics, at work unconsciously. Does the same apply to Hodges' model? If so, how can I isolate, and identify it?

• Is it represented somewhere, implicit in Hodges' model itself?
• Is it (once again) to be found in the user of the model?
• Is it (more likely, and obviously) a combination of these two?
• Or, is it a product of the system, or a series of systems? 

I was reminded of what is a Sober toy, several years ago:

Is Hodges' model a selection machine?

All four original purposes of Hodges' model:

1. Person-centred, integrated and holistic care;
2. To bridge the theory - practice gap;
3. To facilitate reflection and reflective practice;
4. To support curriculum development;

- are concerned with conjunction and choice, selection. So is life itself through distinction, difference, and differentiation.

Hodges' model is a selection machine, that is both fhuman and machine driven.

A clinician may obtain the referral information through an email, a history of previous contacts can be retrieved from a clinical information system; the context and purpose supporting access to the information.   

A whole series of blog posts describe the role of Hodges' model to help assure parity of esteem across mental and physical health. What does this mean in practice?

For the practitioner, they take selected data from the referral, a history - if available, an initial telephone contact, a conversation with a colleague who remembers the person re-referred and starts to populate Hodges' model. What are the psychological concepts that arise? What are the physical?

If a referral in whatever form, or a database record can be viewed as a bag-of-words, then Hodges' model is a collection of care concepts. Four bags then. Sets or classes. An experienced user of Hodges' model may position care concepts that throws attention on the INDIVIDUAL↔GROUP axis. Lying between the INTRA- INTERPERSONAL and SCIENCES domains, this axis (like all the others) earns its keep. There is work to be done that is also of interest in machine learning:

'A support vector machine (SVM) is a supervised machine learning algorithm that classifies data by finding an optimal line or hyperplane that maximizes the distance between each class in an N-dimensional space.

SVMs were developed in the 1990s by Vladimir N. Vapnik and his colleagues, and they published this work in a paper titled "Support Vector Method for Function Approximation, Regression Estimation, and Signal Processing"¹ in 1995.' 

https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/support-vector-machine

Strange to think that perhaps the VERTICAL axis and others in Hodges' model are not precisely S-N-E-W in their bearing? There may also be several vectors at work in fact?

Image: c/o https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/support-vector-machine

The word 'naïve' has been bubbling away for a good-many years. A close colleague Silvana Bettiol, Univ. of Tasmania kindly read my draft on Hodges' model as a mathematical object, and mentioned the introduction points to Bayes theorem even if informally. Even in those initial 'clinical' encounters (and social meetings, that attend to empathy, rapport and engagement...) complex judgements are being made, beliefs tested, from what is often partial and disparate sources of information.

Checking other leads led to Frequentist and Bayesian Approaches

'Statistical inference is a series of methods used to make decisions and draw conclusions based on available data. There are two primary approaches for inference: Frequentist and Bayesian. Each framework relies on a different philosophical perspective on probability and modeling, leading to different techniques and interpretations. Each has its own strengths and drawbacks, so understanding the distinctions between them is vital for researchers, data scientists, and statisticians who aim to choose the most suitable approach for their specific analysis.'
https://www.statology.org/comparing-frequentist-and-bayesian-approaches/

More reading required and threads to run.

Earlier this week I posted re. Cromer's book -

Cromer, A. (1997) Connected Knowledge: Science, Philosophy, and Education, Oxford: Oxford University Press

Before passing the book on, p.198, Chapter 8 notes, #4:

'"Understanding" is a commonly used English word which has no precise meaning. It's sometimes taken to mean the ability to apply knowledge to new situations. In this sense, it is a very high-level skill. Benchmarks for Science Literacy says, "Learning to solve problems in a variety of subject-matter contexts, if supplemented on occasion by explicit reflection on that experience, may result in the development of a generalized problem-solving ability that can be applied in new contexts' (American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1993)." The key word here is "may." 'We really don't know how to help students develop a generalized problem-solving ability, or whether there is such an ability apart from mere knowledge of many different problem-solving strategies. Whatever the case, since we do know how to teach students to solve specific, problems. this should be the primary focus of science education' p.198.

Ack. IBM.

The naïve approach ii - Seeking / Avoiding a Catastrophe

In addition to Dodson's book I borrowed:

Zeeman, E.C. (1977) Catastrophe Theory-Selected Papers 1972–1977, Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley.

From the mid-1970s I remember catastrophe theory rather bursting on to the science scene. Articles in New Scientist (in a box somewhere?), Scientific American plus a BBC TV episode of Horizon (seeking details - originally aired July 28, 1975, 60 minutes 'Happy Catastrophe')*, that highlighted potential for new insights into the behaviour inside prisons. and other applications in the social sciences.

The CONTENTS reads:

GENERAL INTRODUCTORY PAPERS 

1. Catastrophe theory : Draft for a Scientific American article 1

2. Levels of structure in catastrophe theory 65

 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES 80

3. Differential equations for the heartbeat and nerve impulse 81 

4. Primary and secondary waves in developmental biology 141 

5. A clock and wavefront model for the control of repeated structures during animal morphogenesis (with J.Cooke) 235

6. Gastrulation and formation of somites in amphibia and birds (Addendum by R. Bellairs.) 257 

7. Dialogue between a Biologist and a Mathematician 267 

8. Brain modelling 287 

9. Duffing's equation in brain modelling 293

 SOCIAL SCIENCES 302

10. Some models in the social sciences (with C.A.Isnard) 303 

11. On the unstable behaviour of stock exchanges 361 

12. Conflicting judgements caused by stress 373 

13. A model for institutional disturbances (with C.S.Hall, P.J.Harrison, G.H.Marriage, P.H.Shapland) 387

14. Prison disturbances 403 

PHYSICAL SCIENCES 408 

15. A catastrophe machine 409

16. Euler buckling 417 

17. Stability of ships 441

MATHEMATICS 496

18. The classification of elementary catastrophes of codimension <= 5 (with D.J.A.Trotman) 497

19. The umbilic bracelet and the double-cusp catastrophe 563 

DISCUSSION 604

20. Research ancient and modern 605 

21. Catastrophe theory : its present state and future perspectives (with R.Thom) 615

22. Afterthought 651 

As an area of contention the subject of catastrophe theory (CT) possibly presents(?) a dual-cusp of contention. Firstly, CT brought with it controversy within academia and mathematics. The book was reviewed by T. W. Barrett, Department of Physiology and Biophysics, University of Tennessee Center for the Health Sciences, Memphis, TN 38163: 

'Catastrophe theory (CT), as a new field in mathematics with many possible ramifications for both the physical and biological sciences, has recently been the subject of much controversy (see [1]-[5]). This controversy, in this reviewer's opinion, has served a valuable purpose insofar as it has stimulated the theory's proponents to refine and delineate their concepts more clearly. Catastrophe theory was developed by the Field prize winner, Rene Thom; but much work has been accomplished by E. C. Zeeman and his group, especially with respect to applications.' pp.609-610. IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SYSTEMS, MAN, AND CYBERNETICS, VOL. SMC-9, NO. 9, SEPTEMBER 1979. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=4310286 

Stephen Smale also reviewed Zeeman's book; BULLETIN OF THE AMERICAN MATHEMATICAL SOCIETY Volume 84, Number 6, November 1978. 1360-1368. 

https://www.ams.org/journals/bull/1978-84-06/S0002-9904-1978-14580-7/S0002-9904-1978-14580-7.pdf

'To write a review in this environment has a very personal side for me. On one hand my own work on dynamical systems is closely connected to the origins of CT. I have had a long and close personal and professional relationship with both Thorn and Zeeman. More than 20 years ago I was discussing singularities of maps, transversality, and immersions with René Thom. Thom tried to interest me in an early draft of chapters of his book Structural stability and morphogenesis in 1966.

On the other hand I have remained skeptical and aloof from CT, perhaps due to my conservatism in science. While my colleagues and students were showing enthusiasm for CT, I gave critical lectures, one at the University of Chicago in 1974, one at the Aspen Institute of Physics in 1975. More recently I have been quoted negatively in the "Science" and New York Times references above. This is the first time I have written on the subject, and I should warn the reader of this negative bias, far from shared by many of my fellow mathematicians.' p.1360.

Some defenders of CT may accuse me of discussing very special examples not characteristic of the literature of the subject. I feel that the problem of lack of justification discussed above, is also found in Zeeman's other models. Furthermore Thorn's models are even less specific and less developed. On the other hand, Thorn's work in CT covers many subjects; in this connection Zeeman writes in his Scientific American article, April 1976, p. 65: "The method has the potential for describing the evolution of form in all aspects of nature, and hence it embodies a theory of great generality."' p.1366.

The book's introductory papers are somewhat confusing in content, as drawn to 'SOCIAL SCIENCES' it is the introductory section (and Part Two) that includes  'Anorexia nervosa', Example 9 pp.33-52. 

This is the second 'cusp' as the assessment, diagnosis, intervention, outcomes, skilled staff, access to specialised mental health services remains contentious to this day. As a charge nurse on a female acute admission mental health ward in the early 1980s, eating disorders have always presented a 'clinical' challenge. Often within a staff group and for individual staff members too.

Twitter/X is hardly an objective record but it appears today, that people and families affected by eating disorder continue to advocate for appropriate service provision, treatment and recognition. Recognition that can also develop evidence-based interventions. As discussed by Dr. Agnes Ayton, consultant psychiatrist and others in the video below:

A related paper:

Ibrahim, A., Ryan, S., Viljoen, D. et al. Integrated enhanced cognitive behavioural (I-CBTE) therapy significantly improves effectiveness of inpatient treatment of anorexia nervosa in real life settings. J Eat Disord 10, 98 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40337-022-00620-y [ My source: @AgnesAyton ]

The Zeeman chapter on anorexia nervosa is interesting graphically and conceptually ...

Page 42. Figure 20. The effect of the butterfly factor, d>0.
(Sorry for the image quality)

- but is of course 'from another time' and is clearly not person-centred. Eating disorders affect many people in the UK and are a cause of trauma, distress, disrupted life-chances and mortality. Referring to Hodges' model, such graphics, reinforce the idea that 'solutions' are to be found in the mechanistic and quantitative domains of the sciences and politics (choice, power, services, safety..). Here, maths and theories (seemingly) provide an explanation for people who are ill, and need treatment. As a teenager for most of the 1970s, Hodges' model was not yet a reality. As I have found since 1987-8 looking at the POLITICAL care/knowledge domain, the model's relevance has increased since the start of my nursing career in 1977. Consider for example, the politics of:

• the global phenomena of famine
• - whether or not associated with economic crisis, drought, other natural disaster, or conflict, political crisis
• ultra-processed foods
• obesity pandemic
• weight loss drugs
• appetite stimulants
• appetite suppressants
• eating disorder (anorexia and bulimia) across care sectors - primary, secondary, specialist
• community / in-patient care
• person-centred care
• user involvement in service design
• the availability of treatment modalities - psychotherapy (as in the video)
• the impact on family relationships and peer group (estranged - loss of friends)
• diagnostic blurring - psychosis, borderline personality disorder - the rise of 'anti-psychiatry'

Here then is the purpose of this post, what potential is there to look at nutrition from a situated individual and collective (global) perspective? This could be focussed on nutrition, or eating disorder; or alternately take a collective stance to encompass the global food supply and the industry. Discovering the diffeomorphism, I wonder if there are others, and their respective properties and character? 

INDIVIDUAL

|

INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES              

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

GROUP

COGNITIVE THERAPY EMPATHY&RAPPORT LISTENING - MUTUAL ENGAGEMENT MENTAL HEALTH DIAGNOSIS TRAINED / SKILLED STAFF EVIDENCE-BASED INTERVENTIONS* MOTIVATION MOOD MULTIMORBIDITY	RESEARCH EATING DIET NUTRITION NUTRITIONAL VALUE WEIGHT BMI IN-PATIENT UNIT place of safety
PUBLIC HEALTH SOCIETY FAMILY CARERS	Developed nations are collectively and increasingly 'eating disordered' and exporting this 'lifestyle'.

Before I return the book, I will revisit the discussion section.

See also:

Jones P, Wirnitzer K. Hodges’ model: the Sustainable Development Goals and public health – universal health coverage demands a universal framework. BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health 2022;5:doi: 10.1136/bmjnph-2021-000254

*I could not find on BBC website. I have contacted the Open University. I did find - 'In this Horizon episode, Rene Thom's mathematical discovery of the catastrophe theory is investigated.' at  https://thetvdb.com/series/horizon/episodes/1385431

The naïve approach

Categories, Bundles and
Spacetime Topology  

'First steps' are by their nature plagued by uncertainty of intent and direction, ungainliness, missteps, stumbles and ('finally') possibly falls.

Finding a starting point can be difficult.

Where to find a hand-hold, place one's foot, or other anchor?

At Lancaster University library I came across this book, first published in 1980. The cover displayed is from the 1988 edition.

In order of appeal I read:

applications, categories, spacetime and topology.

Section I starts with Preliminaries: Notation and Abbreviations; always useful (reminder).

The next, Section II Naïve Category Theory, had my immediate attention. We often speak of learners as being naïve. As lifelong learners we all meet this descriptor. I keep revisiting this word, concept - 'naïve'.

Naivety is a starting point for practitioners in health and social care too. Hence the need for supervision, mentors, the tokens of probationary (driver) and 'newly qualified'. 

Many posts on W2tQ stress the diagrammatic quality of Hodges' model. It is visibly a 2x2 matrix, (once again..) beloved of management consultants, psychologists and change agents. In Section II Dodson recognizes the London Underground map as a graph. A small example is developed, explained and illustrated on p.6. 

Graph example, drawing on the London Underground. p.6.

Section II may be a small part of the overall book but it is invaluable to me. As the photo above suggests, the book is old, especially as 1st edition. I will try to access the 2nd edition. If this work is a project with which you can (more ably!) assist, I would greatly appreciate your input. The aim is to signpost Hodges' model as a potential focus for all researchers. Especially researchers interested in trying to conjoin the sciences and humanities and develop visualization in the latter. 

C.T.J. Dodson. Categories, Bundles and Spacetime Topology. 1st Edition, Shiva, Kent. 1980.

Previously: 'math'

'Diagram' resources listed on former, now archived website.

(ii) Hodges' model? Ah! You mean the naïve conceptual framework that ...

... thinks it's a theory!

Apparently, the support of computers, through computer proof assistants, to help test and generate proofs in mathematics is creating confusion for mathematicians. 

"When you see “2 + 2 = 4”, what does “=” mean? It turns out that’s a complicated question, because mathematicians can’t agree on the definition of what makes two things equal. ... 

It was the late 19th century when things began to change, with the development of set theory, which provides the logical foundations for most modern mathematics.

To understand why, take the sets {1, 2, 3} and {a, b, c}. Clearly, the elements of each set are different, so the sets aren't equal. But there are also ways of mapping between the two sets, by identifying each letter with a number. Mathematicians call this an isomorphism. In this case, there are multiple isomorphisms because you have a choice of which number to assign to each letter, but in many cases, there is only one clear choice, called the canonical isomorphism. ...

Because a canonical isomorphism of two sets is the only possible way to link them, many mathematicians now take this to mean they are equal, even though it isn't technically the same concept of equality that most of us are used to."

Does this create an 'opening' for others? Others, whose commute also falls between the cold-logic of the hard sciences, and the fuzzy fields of the humanities? Others who may find the threshold as daunting, as it is (truly!?) tantalising.

Alex Wilkins, Confusion over what 'equals’ means. New Scientist, 262: 3495: 15 June 2024. pp.10-11.

Many thanks to Alex Wilkins for a pdf copy.

Hodges' model? Ah! You mean the naïve conceptual framework that ...

... thinks it's a theory! (i)

Yes, I suppose it is naïve, now you mention it. It's naïve in a number of ways:

1. The assumed state of students - new learners; although of course, in healthcare and other professions for many years mature students - far from naïve - can make up a notable proportion;
2. When a patient assessment begins, especially upon initial (and first) referral, the data gathering, our knowledge should then be assumed to be naïve.
3. The quest for a theoretical underpinning of Hodges' model, may display naïve associations between concepts that are misplaced, misunderstood and wholly inappropriate.

Worth noting in #1, that policy-makers and recruitment specialist hope to increase the number of mature entrants, given demographic pressures.

If you consider the way nursing as a profession has received 'nursing theory', or in a similar vein, consider the status of nursing theory, and models of care in nurse (and healthcare) curricula today, then the approach is pragmatically naïve? From the 1970's -

Vinner, S. (1976). The Naive Concept of Definition in Mathematics. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 7(4), 413–429. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3481947

Vinner writes:

"As a matter of fact, all of us start to deal with definitions at a very young age when we start to leam our mother tongue. At this stage, various types of definition occur and the subject is too complicated to be dealt with here. After several years, especially at school, one type of definition becomes dominant; the lexical definition. In a lexical definition, the meaning of a certain word (or words) is explained by means of other words (we shall deal here only with the case in which the word and its definition are at the same language). This type of definition generally occurs in mono-lingual dictionaries." p.425.

"The sentence: 'A rectangle is a quadrangle that has four right angles' does not have in it any underlying assumptions about the role of definition in mathematics. It can be interpreted in any of the following three ways:

1. We (math teachers and math students) hereby agree that instead of saying, "a quadrangle that has four right angles" we will say: "a rectangle" (The formalistic approach).
2. In the mathematical community the meaning of the word rectangle is a quadrangle that has four right angles (The lexical approach from the expert's point of view).
3. The object denoted by the word 'rectangle' is a quadrangle that has four right angles (The lexical approach from the naive standpoint). 

Thus, not adding anything to definitions like the above we let the student choose his own interpretation out of the three mentioned (or even possibly more) interpretations. We claim that in most cases the student's choice will be the third one." pp.427-428.

Does the diaeresis here point to forms of parity of esteem, oppositions, polarities, dichotomy?

Emphasising 'naivety' and collections of things: The Serving Library

individual
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES

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

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL

group

NAÏVE SET THEORY
by Anthony Huberman

1. A total absence of information about a given subject usually solicits no curiosity: without an awareness of its existence, we can’t possibly care about it.

....

7. Eventually, we have a dictionary definition.

See the pdf below and the title link for many other items within this journal:
http://www.dextersinister.org/MEDIA/PDF/NaiveSetTheory.pdf

My source: Visit to The Serving Library exhibition at Tate Liverpool

Image source: Goodreads.com