Tiny Paper: Mental Platform

In this part of the Tiny Paper series, we introduce Oliver Ding's concept of the "Mental Platform" as an "Evolving Concept System," which is a personal or private concept system contrasted with public, established "Theoretical Platforms."

This evolving system is characterized by "Continuous Objectification" across three components: Mental Platform (how one thinks), Behavioral Network (how one does or acts), and Material Container (what one creates, like a product).

Ding draws heavily on developmental psychologists like Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky to distinguish between Spontaneous Concepts (everyday concepts) and Scientific/Defined Concepts and uses Robert Kegan's "Five Orders of Consciousness" framework to model the structural evolution of concept systems.

Finally, the development process is framed as a "Self-referential Activity" involving four types of personal knowledge: S-knowledge (self-management), O-knowledge (understanding the object), M-knowledge (tools/methods), and T-knowledge (transforming O-knowledge into S-knowledge).

At Possible Press, we are collaborating with several knowledge centers to publish a series of Tiny Papers.