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Literally or figuratively, we all stumble and fall many times in our lives, often simply through misdirected attention. If we were omniscient and completely self-sufficient (i.e., if we could track unerringly and always shoot straight) we wouldn't need gods, guns, or other aids. We can all use a bit of help, maybe more than just once in a while. This site is devoted to giving that bit of help. You can think of it as another facet of assistive technology, because the idea is to make it easier to learn skills.

Skills are the driving force of these explorations. They are sensory-motor processes formed by technological mechanisms that characterize the environment in which they are displayed. There are no skills without the context in which they take their meaning. Bicycle skills, for instance, require bicycles together with the physical environment that provides the pathway and the bio-mechanisms of the driver who powers them. Tennis skills require the tennis court, tennis equipment, and the biological characteristics that make it possible to track and hit the ball. Trading in stocks and bonds, too, require such structures. It is the dynamics of skills about which we are concerned, and all skills are amenable to study and training.

We are always trying to learn something, taking aim on something -- isn't that so? We are either taking classes, reading books, magazines, or newspapers, getting information from family, friends, or neighbors, or watching television or video clips for news. Generally, we do whatever we can to understand and deal with one or another of our many problems, to try to get to the truth of some concern or other. The idea of course is to come to grips with the problems, to make our way in the world, to see the target for what it is. In short, all of us want to improve our skills and we are forever looking for ways to do it. To that end we need to understand the dynamics of the skills.

One of the characteristics of this business we call living is that there are many more ways to be off target than to be on. While it's absolutely amazing that we have the ability to know things, learning can at times be more a matter of eliminating errors than going directly for perfect, though you can't really tell what's incorrect until you have a good idea of what's correct. In fact, you need ideas in order to take meaningful action. It's a matter of diagnostics, as in medicine, and that's the approach I take here, drawing largely from tennis -- you get well by ridding yourself of your ills. To do so, you need both concepts and experience working together, each helping the other. One way to trigger the ideas is to use science-oriented target-shooting games, in simulation, as I do for tennis. And I suggest the use of group-based training, involving lots of feedback in situ i.e., at the court.

The Cave is dedicated to the construction of computer-based synthetic environments in the form of games for your self-oriented diagnostics of the dynamics of skills and to the group approach with cinematographic and other property-measuring techniques for feedback to the training of those skills. With make-believe you can test your skills the way we test rockets. The bottom line is that computer simulations help you to see what is correct and what is not correct. They provide science-based ideas as guides and make it easier to learn skills.

You get the potential for training when you add feedback tools to the real context of your studies. The effect is to combine the theoretical and empirical approaches to learning, interactively. Learning involves invention (creativity). Theory serves as a guide to proper training, and practice puts a check on theory and adds a personal, creative element. The former provides standards of operation and the latter provides tests of the standards. All skills involve science and technology. Practice needs theory (ideas) as a direction finder (guide), and theory needs practice as a test of its potency. Together there is a better chance of getting at the truth of a situation.

Many questions have yet to be answered, particularly in representation theory, the nature of complex systems or information, pattern recognition, and personal management. Human perception and movement are core topics. I focus particularly on Tennis Target-Shooting Games, with its empowerment sciences and technologies. A major application is the Stock Market, with emphasis on Trading in Gold Stocks. An important support topic is neural network technology, because it models the brain and is linked to pattern recognition.

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Seniors in particular can find support in dealing with the problems that arise with aging. Flowers we are all. And flowers tend to wilt without nourishment. They need more watering and TLC.

For science teachers: experiments too dangerous to be performed in a school laboratory could safely be done in simulation. A program to do the job would be more expensive than the experiment itself. But once written, it would be available to help all students -- via CD-ROMs or the Web.

Trainers and planners could find it useful to devise models of company operations, both to train personnel in current practices and study new operational techniques. More attention has to be given to building human resources. Computer simulation is ideal for this. For maximum effect, the simulations should be aimed at nasty problem interactions that need to be solved. The task is to identify the elements bearing on the dynamics of the skills (either positively or negatively), spell out the interaction dynamics, and express them in the form of equations or heuristic rules.

Gamers, too, have their challenges, designing and developing game simulations that are fun to play, artistically satisfying, and don't make you cringe with their ridiculously unrealistic actions.

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My objectives are to:

• Understand the dynamics of skills -- particularly reading skills -- and their settings.
• Develop artificial contexts (using representation theory) to study and train skills.
• Apply make-believe techniques for stand-alone and/or Web-based instruction.
• Apply the techniques to individual or to organizational training.
• Improve our ability to read our skills settings.
• Sharpen our ability to react to our readings.
• Optimize our solutions to problems and enhance empowerment

The simulated environment is the centerpiece of a study package that provides problem-solving practice potential using What if...? conditions, with feedback, together with instructions and a skills-study capability.

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