[Xmca-l] Re: units of analysis? LSV versus ANL

[Huw Lloyd]

On 19 October 2014 02:38, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
wrote:

> So many assumptions here that I don't share, Huw.
>

Quite so!  Why don't you share them?

Best,
Huw


>
> Martin
>
> On Oct 18, 2014, at 8:06 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > If one is going to attend to the notion of consciousness as
> attentiveness,
> > an "inner eye" etc, then it is germane to distinguish the genetic source
> > from the derived means.  The means for reflexivity is memory.  It so
> > happens that most of our memory is located in our heads, which is how
> we're
> > able to imagine doing something without concurrently doing it  -- or,
> what
> > might be more accurate, only partially doing it.
> >
> > Best,
> > Huw
> >
> > On 19 October 2014 01:49, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Greg,
> >>
> >> I'm certainly not suggesting we stop using the terms inside and outside.
> >> Material entities - including complex systems - can be inside other
> >> entities, including other systems. But "mind" can't be inside anything,
> >> because it occupies no space. At least that how the classical
> enlightenment
> >> philosophers defined mental entities - they have no extension, no
> spatial
> >> dimensions. Remember how Descartes tried to link mind to the pineal
> gland,
> >> because that was the smallest structure he could find in the brain?
> >>
> >> One of the indications that psychology is not, in fact, a study of the
> >> mind is that we are completely inconsistent in how we talk about it. I
> ask
> >> my students where their mind is. Most of them point at their heads. So I
> >> ask them what I asked Andy - "you mean if I look inside you skull I'll
> see
> >> your thoughts?" They tell me no. So I ask them again where their mind
> is,
> >> and they can't answer. I ask them how we can study something when we
> don't
> >> even know where it is.
> >>
> >> Your right, important stuff is inside the head. I have no trouble at all
> >> with the proposal that we study what is inside the  head. I used to be a
> >> computer programmer, so I know something about the important stuff
> inside
> >> the machine. I think it's important to understand the human brain; I
> would
> >> not like to try to think without mine. But we won't find the mind by
> >> looking at the brain; in both cases there are material processes going
> on
> >> in material entities - physical in one case, biological in the other. In
> >> the case of a human being, the brain is a necessary basis for
> psychological
> >> processes to occur. But also necessary are the rest of the body, and a
> >> culture to live in. Just because the brain is inside the skull doesn't
> mean
> >> that the mind is inside the brain. There are now many powerful arguments
> >> against the assumption central to Cog Sci, that psychological processes
> are
> >> like computational processes, which operate on non-semantic formal
> >> representations (look at Clark, Barsalou, Glenberg, Ingold). And what
> sense
> >> would it make to say that consciousness is *in* the brain?
> Consciousness is
> >> a process; it is an aspect of our ongoing involvement in the material
> >> world. Where is it? It is where that involvement is.
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >> On Oct 18, 2014, at 6:18 PM, greg.a.thompson@gmail.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> Martin, I wonder whether you think the notions of "inside" and "outside
> >> run into similar trouble of mental/material dualism?
> >>> I was thinking in particular of the notion of the "inside" of a system
> >> (this was how Jay Lemke once described the notion of "stance" as the
> >> insides if the system).
> >>> I can see trouble if we think of "Inside" solely in terms of "inside my
> >> head" as you mention. But I wonder if there isn't some possibility of
> >> working with this way of speaking that doesn't necessarily call in a
> >> mental/physical dualism? (I mean, "inside" and "outside are both ways of
> >> describing physical spaces, so it seems like as long as they aren't
> applied
> >> to a pre existing dualist if concept, then this shouldn't be a problem.)
> >>> And though I'm not fond of the brain-as-computer metaphor, it might be
> >> instructive as a way to think about this inside/outside distinction as
> the
> >> difference between watching the processor at work (outside) and watching
> >> the screens as a program runs (inside).
> >>> In principle the one can be reduced to the other, but in practice it
> >> can't anymore (I assume this is true with today's computers).
> >>> The degree of complexity can make it seem like the program running is
> an
> >> autonomous explanatory level of its own, but that doesn't mean that it
> is.
> >> Just that it is the "inside" of the system.
> >>> What do you think?
> >>> -Greg
> >>> Ps, apologies for not making more direct ties to lsv vs anl discussion.
> >> If this is too much of a sidetrack, I'm happy to take this up offline.
> But
> >> Martin, I find your position to be a very provocative one and would
> like to
> >> hear more about how it makes sense for you. It is a way of thinking
> that is
> >> very difficult to wrap one's Western language/mind/brain around!
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Sent from my iPhone
> >>>
> >>>> On Oct 18, 2014, at 3:38 PM, Martin John Packer <
> >> mpacker@uniandes.edu.co> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Hi Michael,
> >>>>
> >>>> LSV points out that no proper science sets out to study appearances.
> >> Every science studies entities that exist, in order to *explain*
> >> appearance. One of his examples is from the science of optics. When we
> >> place a burning candle in front of a mirror there *appears* to be a
> second
> >> candle burning behind the mirror, or 'in' the mirror. The scientist
> doesn't
> >> study that second candle. What he or she studies is the first candle,
> and
> >> the mirror, in order to discover principles by which to explain why an
> >> 'image' of a second candle appears, apparently located 'in' the mirror.
> >>>>
> >>>> It's the same with the mind. It *appears* to us (at least to those of
> >> us raised in western, scientific cultures) that our thoughts and
> feelings
> >> exist in a special, internal, subjective, hidden place that we call "the
> >> mind."  A scientific psychology, says LSV, needs to try to explain how
> that
> >> appearance is possible. It's not too difficult, in fact: our verbal
> >> thoughts, our private subvocal speech, is possible, first, because we
> can
> >> use vocal speech to direct our own actions and second, because a fibre
> >> bundle called the arcuate fasciculus forms between Broca's area and
> >> Wernicke's area (to considerably simply the neuroanatomy and
> >> neurofunctioning).  The appearance of a "mind in the head" is a *folk*
> >> psychology: it is simply one way, among several, in which people try to
> >> make sense of an experience that they have; it is the way our own
> >> psychological processes *appear* to us. Scientific psychology cannot
> study
> >> the mind, any more than it can study the second candle. It can, however,
> >> set out to *explain* the mind, and that is part of what LSV did.
> >>>>
> >>>> Martin
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Oct 18, 2014, at 8:11 AM, Glassman, Michael <glassman.13@osu.edu>
> >> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I sort of feel like (at this point) Vygotsky did open himself up for
> >> being critiqued for going inside the head.  It was a choice, I don't
> think
> >> he was willing to give up the idea of individual development (which I
> think
> >> you have to do if you are going to escape dualism - because what
> develops
> >> if you can't say there is something inside the head that develops
> (remember
> >> I am suggesting individual development here).
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>
>