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

[greg.a.thompson@gmail.com]

Huw,
have you ever been unable to remember a phone number until you reach for a phone and as soon as your fingers touch the keys you remember it?
Seems like the number was in your head/fingers/phone, not just your brain.
No?
Greg

Sent from my iPhone

> On Oct 18, 2014, at 7:06 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> 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).
>> 
>> 
>>