[Xmca-l] Re: Rationalism and Imagination

[Lplarry]

Ed,
 I'll  focus then on the question of a stable image and its relation to how one feels as this image is (representated).
I wonder how this relates to mike's example that he had a stable representation of the concept (kraut) which he had emotionally formed and was attached to as a youth reading war stories. (which he loved and was immersed in). These meaningful experiences  formed his stable images and other alternative images of (kraut) became unavailable as this image had such stability (and emotionality).
I want to return to the article sent by mike on  December 5  by A V Suvorov focusing on  representation in deak-blind children
On page 17 he focuses on two principles.
* the holistic principle that first is the image as a whole (that becomes lived into.)
*the principle of emotionality. The image must be intrinsically interesting and motivating.
 
On page 16 Sukorov adds that (games) must develop out of our communicative situation. The teacher just begins the play and the children are taking part before they know it. In other words the image of the game is forming before a conscious decision to join the game. 
The child by living into the game is living into the image. 





-----Original Message-----
From: "Ed Wall" <ewall@umich.edu>
Sent: ‎2015-‎12-‎10 5:35 PM
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rationalism and Imagination

Larry

      I may misunderstand what you are saying, but it wasn’t the same story on the radio although it was a series with the same name. Also the experiences weren’t less or more moving. It was that I was faced with a ‘stable’ representation - i.e. visual images of characters and situations - that precluded the imagination I had brought to the radio. My inclination  is say that this has little to do with the condensing of experience and much to do with Mike’s insight.

Ed

> On Dec 10, 2015, at  7:22 PM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Ed
> The aspect of your hearing the story first on radio and then comparing to less [moving] experiences when seeing the narrative unfold.
> Is there a quality of {condensing} of experience. Vygotsky’s metaphor of [precipitation] as the condensing into droplets.
> This seems a quality that {moves} the person and I wonder if a similar quality {moves} cultural narratives.
> It cam apply to any of the 5 senses and other types of sense.
> 
> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
> 
> 
> 
> From: Huw Lloyd
> Sent: Thursday, December 10, 2015 5:04 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rationalism and Imagination
> 
> 
> Hi Ed,
> 
> Re your unknown book.  I would expect that there are web sites dedicated to
> that sort of thing by now.
> 
> Its not my cup of tea but I thought I'd put the idea here anyway:
> 
> How many 'chain-emails' would have to be forwarded before your book was
> found, would that be an index of its obscurity?  Would this be an
> interesting contrast between google search and facebook search?
> 
> Best,
> Huw
> 
> 
> On 10 December 2015 at 18:54, Ed Wall <ewall@umich.edu> wrote:
> 
>> Mike
>> 
>>     You wrote, reflecting on something Larry had written, about seeing
>> how "the connection between rationalism and the way that imagining gets
>> drained of its affectiveness in the process of becoming something stable
>> enough to call a representation. In musing about this, I thought of perhaps
>> some examples that might or might not illustrate what you are pointing at
>> and would be interested in your reaction:
>> 
>> 1. I grew up with radio and as a boy would listen spellbound to stories
>> and adventure programs. As I think back about it, this probably required
>> more than a bit of imagination. As time passed, my family finally got a
>> television. After my first viewing of a TV program that purported to be
>> identical in content with one of those radio programs I so loved, I,
>> underwhelmed, never again watched that program as seeing the characters ‘
>> finally’ ‘rationally' interpreted was unpleasant (and I really didn’t
>> imagine them on radio as having some sort of fixed image). I have had the
>> same experience, by the way, when seeing a movie that follows closely a
>> book I have read. Somehow, one might say, my imagination was stifled by
>> fixedness of those visual representations. I, to this day, still find TV,
>> for the most part, stifling in regards to imagination.
>> 
>> 2. A number of years ago I came across a web summary of book in somewhat
>> diary form written by a mathematician writing about the education of his
>> son - I have tried again and gain to locate that book (I seem to remember
>> the mathematician was either French or Polish) so if by some chance anybody
>> has run across the same let me know! One passage in particular stood out.
>> The mathematician was talking about his son struggling with some sort of
>> mathematics problem. He noted that he took the time to sit down with his
>> son and show him how to solve the problem. The mathematician continues in
>> his diary that he then reflected on how, in this early intervention, he had
>> ruined the pleasure of doing mathematics - perhaps forever - for his son.
>> [As a side note, as part of a research team of mathematics educators we
>> often traded mathematics problems around - abilities were varied from those
>> with, one might say, little mathematics to those who were well known
>> research mathematicians. - so the problems were doable by most.  A rule,
>> which I follow to this day, is you don’t spoil a problem for another by
>> telling them the solution. Research mathematicians are very bad about this
>> - mainly because they get excited - and I remember scolding one (smile)!]
>> 
>> Ed
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 
>