- Nov 2022
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dougbelshaw.com dougbelshaw.com
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The erupting volcano represents Productive ambiguity. This is where the real work is done at scale. Concepts can be productively ambiguous through straight metaphor, or by mass (media) convergence on a particular term. It resonates with many people.
New, relatively well-formed ideas may have lost much of their ambiguity to their creators, but they're solid enough to be communicated at scale to others. The newness of the concepts as they're accepted and used by others provides a tremendous level of productive ambiguity as the ideas spread and further solidify and are combined with a broader field of pre-existing ideas.
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Creative ambiguity. This is where one part of an idea is fixed, but the other part has a lot of freedom of movement. A good example of this would be appending ‘digital’ or ‘e-‘ to existing ideas – such as ‘e-books’ or ‘digital literacy’. Others can begin to see what the person is getting at.
As portions of ideas begin to become clear and crystalize, they still maintain some creative ambiguity while the remaining portions aren't necessarily clearly defined. Creatively ambiguous ideas are better defined than generatively ambiguous ones.
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https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2015/01/22/volcanoes-and-ambiguity/
<small><cite class='h-cite via'>ᔥ <span class='p-author h-card'>Aaron Davis </span> in 📑 The Two Definitions of Zettelkasten | Read Write Collect (<time class='dt-published'>11/18/2022 19:54:00</time>)</cite></small>
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