The document outlines a course on discipline-independent transdisciplinarity aimed at those interested in interdisciplinary studies and doctoral degrees. It covers course content that includes understanding methodologies, recognizing general factors, and developing a universal conceptual model using a graphic outline format for enhanced comprehension. Additionally, students are required to engage in rigorous expository writing that avoids common pitfalls to ensure clear communication across disciplines.

1. (5) Course: Foundations of
Discipline-Independent-Transdisciplinarity
Achieving Breadth and Depth of Understanding
Vincent Vesterby
Conference theme: Educating the next generation

2. Who Might be Interested In this Course?
1. Disciplinarians within a single subject area that are
interested in viewing their discipline in a focused pattern-of-
organization mode that enhances accuracy of observation
and understanding.
2. People working in an interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, or
transdisciplinary manner.
3. People seeking an introductory course for a curriculum
leading to a doctoral degree in modern-generalist-discipline-
independent-transdisciplinarity.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 2

3. Course Content ...1
The course provides understanding of the fundamentals of the
generalist mode of discipline-independent-transdisciplinarity.
The fundamentals are the physical basis of the methodology, the
methodology itself, and the language of transdisciplinarity as
introduced in digital posters 529, 530, and 539.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 3

4. Course Content ...2
Some topics the course will contain:
•Recognizing general-factors in the areas of interest of those
taking the course.
•Using general-factors as conceptual-tools of qualitative analysis.
•Diagramming patterns-of-organization.
•Mapping the stages of the process of emergence.
•List-mapping.
•Spreading out the development.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 4

5. Course Content ...3
• Development.
• Foundational-development-of-reality.
• Universals.
• General-development-of-reality.
• Intrinsic nature of change.
• Intrinsic nature of emergence.
• Hierarchic-organization-of-material-reality.
• Existential-pathway-development.
• Development-of-origin.
• Factor-development.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 5

6. Course Structure
Study materials are read before class.
Class time is for questions and discussion.
Students learn the general universal-conceptual-model from
study materials.
Students then identify and describe general-factors within their
areas of interest.
Gathered discoveries are integrated into each student’s
individual version of the universal-conceptual-model.
All student’s models are integrated together to create a whole-
class model, which all the students then adopt.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 6

7. Graphic Outline ...1
Much of the content of the course is presented as
graphic outlines.
Why graphic outlines?
A transdisciplinarian needs to see as much of a situation as
simultaneously as possible.
The outline format visually aids the identification of conceptual
relations, increases the rate of comprehension, and enables the
overview.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 7

8. The Graphic Outline ...2
In prose, the relations between the written concepts are
disguised by the block form of the paragraphs.
The next slide will have an example of text in paragraph format.
The following slide after that will show the same material in a
graphic outline.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 8

9. 9
Modern Generalist Intellectual Tool Kit
1.Biological epistemology.
The modern generalist mode of exploration, analysis, understanding, and description
is based entirely on epistemological factors – on factors of mind. The mind is based
entirely on neurological factors – the brain, the nervous system, and the sensory
systems. The brain, the nervous system, and the sensory systems are all biological
factors – their origins, structure, and processes are all biological in nature.
To use, in a realistic and effective manner, the knowledge and understanding that are
the products of the modern generalist mode, it is necessary to understand what
knowledge and understanding are and why they exist. It is necessary to understand
that they are epistemological factors, biological factors, consequences of biological
evolution, which is itself a factor of both the intrinsic biological self-organization of
organisms and the ecological interrelations between those organisms and their biotic
and abiotic environments. It is necessary to understand, then, that knowledge,
understanding, and their neurological bases, in their roles of enhancing the ongoing
survival of the organisms that possess them, have been honed for millions of years to
be tools of particular effectiveness in detecting, analyzing, and interrelating with the
biotic and abiotic ecological conditions in which those organisms lived.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course

10. 10Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course

11. The Graphic Outline ...3
The graphic outline uses a variety of visual aids to leave the mind
free to focus on significance, on meaning:
•Hierarchic organization.
•Connecting lines.
•Dendritic organization.
•Box outline for each sentence or concept.
•Line thickness.
•Color.
•Color shade.
•Numbering.
•Font color.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 11

12. The Graphic Outline ...4
The graphic outline provides the overview that gives as much
information as possible as simultaneously as possible.
It enables the eyes to quickly roam over the entire chart relating
various parts one with another.
The big picture and the details are seen simultaneously.
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 12

13. The Graphic Outline ...5
There are hyperlinks in the graphic outline that connect to
additional graphic outlines, resulting in multiple pathways of
investigation into deeper levels of details.
These pathways of outline links also have a dendritic
organization of connections, similar to that of the graphic
outlines themselves.
There are also Reference, Essay, and Illustration links connecting
to supplementary material.
General Systems Essentials: An Introductory Course for a Modern Generalist Curriculum
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 13

14. The Course Will Require Expository Writing
This expository writing will be rigorously accurate, avoiding the use of:
•Metaphor.
•Teleology.
•Hypothesis treated as fact.
•Assumptions.
•Anthropomorphism.
•Anthropocentrism.
•Excessive jargon.
A characteristic of this form of writing is that it is accessible to specialists
from any discipline.
Vincent Vesterby
http//:www.themoderngeneralist.com Thegeneralist@theModernGeneralist.com
Vincent Vesterby Transdisciplinarity Foundations Course 14