[Xmca-l] Re: Imagination or Fantasy

[Ed Wall]

Mike

     This is helpful. At times the Riber edited version seems to read as if he did somewhat equate the two. Of course, fantasy is a complicated word also.

      I did look at what seemed to be a discussion around imagination in the archive, but it can sometimes be difficult to shift and it seemed better to ask.

       I think you could say there is concept development going on. However, what catches my attention is that on one side of a moment you have ‘pseudo-concepts’ (this doesn’t seem quite right) and on the other a concept. There is a leap and I am wondering about the make up of that leap. It is like saying intuition and describing the before and after.

       Anyway, as usual, all this is helpful and I will look into your pointers. There is clearly a sort of leap and I think one can make a case for it consisting, in part, of a sort of everyday imagination; however, there may be better ways to think about it.


Ed

> On Dec 4, 2015, at  5:28 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> 
> Hi Ed-- I share a lot of your questions. But one question i am more or less
> certain of, LSV did not equate imagination and fantasy. I know a couple of
> articles one of which
> is my own, which draws on LSV. The other is by the blind-deaf guy who
> finally got me to think more effectively about imagination which is
> currently a pre-occupation.
> 
> What is very important reading the article by Suvorov is to put the word
> "imagination" everywhere the word, "representation" is used. I discuss the
> issue in a forward, but I was both clearly mistaken and moving in the right
> direction.
> Perhaps an example of the development of concept development from a
> pseudo-concept to a true concept? I had not yet matured to the point where
> I could totally deconstruct "voobrazhenie" to be translated as
> "into-image-making" and start to use it productively. To understand it as
> the central to all processes of coming to know.  I even missed the fact
> that I was using a lousy dictionary because imagination was defined as
> perception or ideation (?sic?), not imagination.
> 
> The Peleprat and Cole paper shows the influence of teaching a course on
> mediational theories of mind for many years to juniors in a Communication
> department. We have had a thread on here called imagination that existed
> for a flicker in the past. Francine Smolucha is an actual expert in this
> field who, lets hope, is reading.
> 
> Happy to discuss imagination. :-)
> mike
> 
> I highly recommend *The Work of the Imagination" by Paul Harris and there
> is a handbook of the development of imagination in ebook form that is very
> useful.  I need to think more about your examples and will comment if I
> have anything potentially useful to say.
> 
> mike
> 
> 
> On Fri, Dec 4, 2015 at 2:04 PM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> Ed,
>> 
>> The title imagination (or) fantasy
>> Is different from
>> Imagination (equates) with fantasy.
>> To move from the physical concrete though a detour (a distanciation?) and
>> return to the mathematical concrete.
>> Is the same word (concrete) shift meaning in this transfer from the
>> physical to the mathematical?
>> If mathematics is actually a (system) that has emerged in historical
>> consciousness then is it reasonable to say that the physical (concrete)
>> which exists prior to the human understanding and the mathematical
>> (concrete) which is a cultural historical system emerging within the
>> imaginal are both (concrete) in identical ways?
>> It seems that systems (develop) and become concrete-like.
>> Is this the same meaning of concrete as the physical which originates as
>> concrete.
>> To (assume that or to let) involves the imaginal and fantasy.
>> Is there a clear demarcation between the imaginal and fantasy. Does one
>> imply it does not (actually) exist while the other implies the actual can
>> be mapped onto the physical with systems?
>> Is there a clear demarcation between systems and fantasy?
>> Larry
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: "Ed Wall" <ewall@umich.edu>
>> Sent: ‎2015-‎12-‎04 11:05 AM
>> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  Imagination or Fantasy
>> 
>> All
>> 
>>     For various reasons I have been thinking about a kind of imagination
>> that might be subsumed under statements like “assume that,” “let,” or
>> “Imagine that” (and these may be, in fact, very different statements
>> although, under certain circumstances, might be the same.” In doing so I
>> came across something written by Vygotsky in Imagination and Creativity in
>> the Adolescent (ed Rieber) p163: “It is characteristic for imagination that
>> it does not stop at this path, that for it, the abstract is only an
>> intermediate link, only a stage on the path of development, only a pass in
>> the process of its movement to the concrete. From our point of view,
>> imagination is a transforming, creative activity directed from a given
>> concrete toward a new concrete.”
>> 
>>    I find this quote very interesting in view of a previous discussion on
>> the list regarding Davydov’s mathematics curriculum in that I am wondering
>> whether part of what is going on is that children are being asked to
>> “imagine." I have other mathematical examples of this join the elementary
>> school that are possibly a little more obvious (if somebody is interested I
>> can give them off list). Anyway, one reason for my wondering is that for so
>> many people mathematics is not concrete; i.e. there is no stepping from
>> concrete to concrete; the sort of get stuck, so to speak, in the abstract.
>> So let me give two examples of what I am wondering about and then a
>> question.
>> 
>>   My first example:  It is possible that we would all agree that to see a
>> winged horse is imagine a winged horse as there is no such thing. In a
>> somewhat like manner, a simple proof that the square root of two is not a
>> fraction begins with “Assume that the square root of two is a fraction.”
>> This is not so thus, in sense, one must imagine that it is true and then
>> look at the consequences (the square root of -1 is perhaps another
>> example). This seems to be a case of concrete to concrete through
>> imagination and this type of proof (a proof through contradiction) seems to
>> be very hard for people to do.
>> 
>>   My second example: The teacher goes up to the blackboard and draws
>> something rather circular and says “This is a circle.” She then draws a
>> point somewhat towards the center of the planar object and says, "This is
>> its center.” She then says “Every point on this circle (waving her hand at
>> the object on the blackboard) is equidistant from the center.” None of this
>> is true, but somehow we are meant to behave as if it were. Each step here
>> seems to go through imagination from the concrete to the concrete. (Hmm , I
>> see that I am really saying from the physical concrete to the mathematical
>> concrete. Perhaps Vygotsky wouldn’t allow this?)
>> 
>> [I note by the way Poul Anderson took on the consequences of a winged
>> horse].
>> 
>>    So my question, as Vygotsky seems to identify imagination with fantasy
>> (this may be a fault of the translation), what would Vygotsky have called
>> my examples? A case of sheer conceivability or something else? There is, I
>> note, good reason to call it imagination, but I’m interested in your take
>> on what Vygotsky’s take might be.
>> 
>> Ed Wall
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> 
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch
> <ETMCimagination.pdf><Suvorov.formation.pdf>