[Xmca-l] Re: Spinoza on xmca

Tue Sep 16 09:54:09 PDT 2014

Peter-- I fully agree with the need for what you/Serres/Shannon-Weaver call
noise in the process of communication. However, I think it is a cardinal
error when he/you(?) write:

With the advent of information science, a new figure for representing
science becomes possible: this is the 'model' of communication.
Accordingly, we have three elements: a message, a channel for transmitting
it, and the noise, or interference, that accompanies the transmission.
Noise calls for decipherment; it makes a reading of the message more
difficult. And yet without it, there would be no message.

This form of information science is, overtly, a sender-receiver
TRANSMISSION model of communication. It assumes a linear temporal process.
Such a reduction is tolerable only under very carefully prescribed
constraints. The "third" part is noise, but the unidirectionality remains.

A different way of thinking about this is offered by John Shotter in the
piece that Rod sent around. He does not use the term, noise, but he does
focus our attention on the necessity of uncertainty and co-participation as
conditions of thought and action.

I am all on board with the need for cross-talk between disciplines as well
as theoretical traditions working within the same disciplines or with
common concern. I also think that the invocation of parasitism is quite
relevant to the way i have been thinking about human development, but
communication-as-transmission seems like a mistake.

Infected by George H. Mead in steamy san diego
mike

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 1:15 AM, peter jones <h2cmng@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

>
>
> Michel Serres has written on these themes....
>
> Fifty
> Key Contemporary Thinkers by John Lechte, Routledge, 1994.
>
> With the recognition of the interrelation between different sciences
> and different forms of knowledge, as well as between science and different
> artistic practices, has come Serres's effort to plot the way that different
> knowledge domains interpenetrate. Even more: Serres has set himself the
> task of being a means of communication (a medium) between the sciences
> and the arts - the Hermes of modern scholarships. With the advent of
> information
> science, a new figure for representing science becomes possible: this is
> the 'model' of communication. Accordingly, we have three elements: a
> message,
> a channel for transmitting it, and the noise, or interference, that
> accompanies
> the transmission. Noise calls for decipherment; it makes a reading of the
> message more difficult. And yet without it, there would be no message.
> There is, in short, no message without resistance. What Serres initially
> finds intriguing about noise (rather than the message) is that it opens
> up such a fertile avenue of reflection. Instead of remaining pure noise,
> the latter becomes a means of transport. Thus in the first volume of the
> Hermes series noise is analysed as the third, empirical element of the
> message. Ideally, communication must be separated from noise. Noise is
> what is not communicated; it is just there as a kind of chaos, as the
> empirical
> third element of the message, the accidental part, the part of difference
> that is excluded. Every formalism (mathematics, for example) is founded
> on the exclusion of the third element of noise. Every formalism is a way
> of moving from one region of knowledge to another. To communicate is to
> move within a class of objects that have the same form. Form has to be
> extracted from the cacophony of noise; form (communication) is the
> exclusion
> of noise, an escape from the domain of the empirical.
>
>
> In his book, The Parasite, Serres recalls that 'parasite' also means
> noise (in French). A parasite is a noise in a channel. And so when
> describing
> the rats' meals in a story from the fables of La Fontaine - the meals of
> two parasites - Serres also refers to noise: 'The two companions scurry
> off when they hear a noise at the door. It was only a noise, but it was
> also a message, a bit of information producing panic: an interruption,
> a corruption, a rupture of information. Was this noise really a message?
> Wasn't it, rather, static, a parasite?
>
> see also:
>
> http://www.frieze.com/issue/article/joyeux-anniversaire/
>
>
> Peter Jones
> Lancashire, UK
> Blogging at "Welcome to the QUAD"
> http://hodges-model.blogspot.com/
> http://twitter.com/h2cm
>
>
> ________________________________
>  From: Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Sent: Tuesday, 16 September 2014, 8:43
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Spinoza on xmca
>
>
> Bahktin the trickster.
> In Greek mythology that was Hermes the messenger who brought messages
> between [mediated] the divine and the human realms. Bahktin definitely
> overlaps with Hermes [and hermeneutics]
> Larry
>
> On Sun, Sep 14, 2014 at 8:42 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Greg,
> > I'm convinced you are right. Like I say, Bakhtin just keeps popping up.
> > The trickster? Rebelais? What is that about?
> > Henry
> >
> > On Sep 14, 2014, at 8:49 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > One reason I mention him is because of resonances with ideas.
> > > But I also mention him as a kind of trickster figure as well as a
> student
> > > of the trickster in writing (his dissertation was on Rabelais).
> > > I also mention him as a writer who seems authentically engaged with
> > > meaningful/emotive aspects of human existence (e.g., Toward a
> Philosophy
> > of
> > > the Act, and Author and Hero in Aesthetic Activity).
> > > And finally, I mention Bakhtin because I'm still not convinced that the
> > > deep treasures of Bakhtin's work has yet been mined out.
> > > -greg
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Sat, Sep 13, 2014 at 8:13 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <
> > hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Greg,
> > >> Thank you for you good words and great question. I knew about Bakhtin,
> > but
> > >> have been finding him everywhere in the articles and chat of XMCA over
> > the
> > >> last week. Seriously.
> > >> Henry
> > >>
> > >> On Sep 13, 2014, at 2:26 PM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> >
> > >> wrote:
> > >>
> > >>> I would hope that a certain amount of irreverence would be dear to
> most
> > >>> people on this list!
> > >>> But seriously Henry, have you come across Bakhtin's work at all?
> > >>> Seems like another that you might want to throw in with the crowd of
> > >>> healthy irreverents.
> > >>> -greg
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 2:48 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <
> > hshonerd@gmail.com
> > >>>
> > >>> wrote:
> > >>>
> > >>>> Mike and David,
> > >>>> This is seriously getting to be a club that I, like Groucho,  won't
> > >> join,
> > >>>> if it takes me as a member. I think all of this seriously evokes
> > Andy's
> > >>>> contention, in his notes for the upcoming presentation at the ISCAR
> > >>>> conference (which XMCA has gotten) that, "Adults can grasp true
> > >> concepts,
> > >>>> and can change society, and a social theory has to treat adults as
> > >> adults,
> > >>>> and this is what the projects approach allows us to do. " If "adult"
> > >> means
> > >>>> the same as "serious", you can see why I have my doubts about
> joining
> > >> the
> > >>>> Unserious Scholar Club. On the other hand, if I can have some fun,
> as
> > in
> > >>>> the laughing warrior (forget gender stereotypes here, and dare me to
> > >> talk
> > >>>> about Jihad), then that's what I'm talking about. Incidentally, I
> > loved
> > >>>> Andy's notes. I could so relate it to CG. The emergent character of
> > >> project
> > >>>> realization he talks about applies very well to discourse, as you
> can
> > >> see
> > >>>> in the articles by Langacker I have sent out. Discourse IS a project
> > and
> > >>>> its outcome is typically not entirely clear in the minds of the
> > >>>> interactants as they negotiate its waters. XMCA, of which this email
> > is
> > >> a
> > >>>> "turn",  is a prototypical "work in progress", as Andy puts it,
> since
> > we
> > >>>> clearly don't know where this will all end up. But I hope it can be
> > fun
> > >>>> along the way.
> > >>>> Henry
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>> On Sep 6, 2014, at 1:51 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > >>>>
> > >>>>> Hi Henry-- There goes my pile of books that need to be read before
> > bed
> > >>>> time!
> > >>>>> Spinoza goes up there right next to Dead Souls.
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> However, David having already claimed the mantle of unserious
> > scholar,
> > >>>> and
> > >>>>> you having made the same claim, I am afraid that I have to make
> > >> precisely
> > >>>>> the same claim on the unrefutable grounds that no one pays me any
> > >> longer
> > >>>>> for what I do so I get to be as unserious as i can seriously be!
> > >>>>> mike
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>> On Sat, Sep 6, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Henry G. Shonerd III <
> > >>>> hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > >>>>> wrote:
> > >>>>>
> > >>>>>> Hi Mike,
> > >>>>>> All I can say now is that Spinoza is famously quoted as having
> said,
> > >>>> "The
> > >>>>>> more clearly you understand yourself and your emotions, the more
> you
> > >>>> become
> > >>>>>> a lover of what is." This quote happens to appear in the
> > introduction
> > >>>> to a
> > >>>>>> very popular self help book, Loving What Is, by Byron Katie
> (2002).
> > I
> > >>>>>> bought the book , obviously, because I thought I needed help. It
> > did,
> > >>>> but
> > >>>>>> it also introduced me to Spinoza. And that has been a deeper
> "help".
> > >> So,
> > >>>>>> from a personal perspective, I can totally understand how Spinoza
> > and
> > >>>>>> periizhvanie would be connected. For all of you ESL teachers out
> > >> there,
> > >>>> who
> > >>>>>> doesn't remember Krashen on the "affective filter" and I have been
> > >>>> seeing a
> > >>>>>> lot on character and education lately. Oh yes, and how failing is
> > >>>> important
> > >>>>>> to eventual success. Teasing out issues in the education of
> > >>>>>> non-mainstreamers, and recognizing how the current system is toxic
> > for
> > >>>>>> everyone, I think Spinoza's analysis and the narrative of his life
> > are
> > >>>>>> powerful. Vygotsky hits me the same way. Cantor, the
> mathematician,
> > >> and
> > >>>>>> Pierce, the philosopher/logician/semiotician, also constantly come
> > up
> > >>>> for
> > >>>>>> me. They were ridiculed by the received cognoscenti of the time,
> so
> > >>>> much so
> > >>>>>> that the suffered mental breakdowns. But they pushed on to develop
> > >>>> tools in
> > >>>>>> math and semiotics that seem to me are complementary with
> Vygotsky.
> > >>>> Again I
> > >>>>>> get to take the role of unserious scholar here, so think of my
> > >> thoughts
> > >>>> as
> > >>>>>> gaming on line and don't take the game too seriously.
> > >>>>>> Henry
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>> On Sep 5, 2014, at 6:42 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Hi David and Henry--
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> David-- I was intrigued by your comment that Spinoza is a
> > >> controversial
> > >>>>>>> topic on xmca. I googled Spinoza on the main web page and came up
> > >> with
> > >>>> 4K
> > >>>>>>> plus hits (!!). My own impression is that few on this list, me
> > >>>> included,
> > >>>>>>> have engaged in serious study of Spinoza let alone the imprint of
> > >>>> Spinoza
> > >>>>>>> on Vygotsky.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> What is the nature of the controversy? What is at stake? The
> topic
> > is
> > >>>> of
> > >>>>>>> particular interest to me at present because I have been part of
> > >>>>>>> discussions with people who are focused on Vygotsky's use of
> > >>>> perezhivanie
> > >>>>>>> in his later work, where the relation of emotion and cognition
> is a
> > >>>>>> central
> > >>>>>>> concern and Spinoza is clearly relevant.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> Henry and anyone interested in chasing down what has been written
> > >> about
> > >>>>>>> various topics in xmca chatter, take advantage of the nice google
> > >>>> search
> > >>>>>> at
> > >>>>>>> lchc.ucsd.edu.
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> mike
> > >>>>>>>
> > >>>>>>> (who enmeshed in the sense/meaning distinction in all of its
> > >>>> multilingual
> > >>>>>>> confusifications at present)
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>>
> > >>>
> > >>>
> > >>> --
> > >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > >>> Assistant Professor
> > >>> Department of Anthropology
> > >>> 882 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > >>> Brigham Young University
> > >>> Provo, UT 84602
> > >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Department of Anthropology
> > > 882 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > > Brigham Young University
> > > Provo, UT 84602
> > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
> >
> >
> >
>

-- 

Development and Evolution are both ... "processes of construction and re-
construction in which heterogeneous resources are contingently but more or
less reliably reassembled for each life cycle." [Oyama, Griffiths, and
Gray, 2001]