[Xmca-l] Re: Connecting and stability

[Peter Smagorinsky]

Marty Nystrand (in 1986) wrote about reciprocity between readers and writers, with the idea of them being "in tune" seeming to apply here?

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces+smago=uga.edu@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Sunday, December 13, 2015 8:08 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Connecting and stability

Two comments on this interesting discussion.

1. Maybe the meaning as communicated is between the words, not in them, the sharedness in the senses they make of this moment of joint mediated activity.

2. An appropriate poem for the occasion with lots to think about and within in it.

The Unicorn by Ranier Maira Rilke



This is the creature there never has been.

They never knew it, and yet, none the less,

they loved the way it moved, its suppleness,

its neck, its very gaze, mild and serene.



Not there, because they loved it, it behaved

as though it were. They always left some space.

And in that clear unpeopled space they saved

it lightly reared its head with scarce a trace



of not being there. They fed it, not with corn,

but only with the possibility

of being. And that was able to confer



such strength, its brow put for a horn. One horn.

Whitely it stole up to a maid, -- to *be*

within the silver mirror and in her.


On Sun, Dec 13, 2015 at 4:29 PM, Lplarry <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Annalisa,
> What held my attention was the notion that speech be understood for 
> the quality it gives to the listener of the speech .
> The meaning resides in how the speaker appeals to the listener to 
> stabilize THIS meaning the speaker is sharing.
> In other words the meaning resides in the manner the listener or 
> hearer takes up and stabilizes what the speaker is inviting the 
> listener to notice and focus on..
> With this notion the intension shifts to the hearer stabilizing what 
> the speaker projects.
> The verb's meaning resides in how the listener takes up the speaker's 
> use of language which is intended in order for the listener to realize 
> stable meaning.
> The focus is no longer on self-identifying expression, but shifts to 
> how the speaker intends the listener to grasp meaning as that embodied 
> in the space of shared language.
> The focus shifts to the listener taking up the others language game 
> and coming to realize  shared meaning..
> I am indicating a different location where meaning resides.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Annalisa Aguilar" <annalisa@unm.edu>
> Sent: ‎2015-‎12-‎13 4:00 PM
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Connecting and stability
>
> Hi Larry and others,
>
> Is, as a verb is not like other verbs, which have to do with action. 
> I'm not a linguist, but off the top, I don't think there is a verb 
> that doesn't have to do with action other than "to be." At least in 
> English. We use "becoming" to signify change, but the infinitive "to 
> be" is a pointer to Existence. We don't say I become an eater, or I 
> become a sleeper, or I become a writer, even though that has some 
> truth to it (i'm not born a writer), it's not how we speak. I am an 
> eater, I am a sleeper, I am a writer. Become is its own verb, isn't 
> it? "to become," is a marriage of the word Be and Come. If Become 
> where the word for Be, then that would make the game here really 
> different. But Be comes before Become, linguistically and 
> existentially! :)
>
> So with that in mind, Is is more of a signifier of existence and the 
> noun that accompanies Is takes the particular shape that reflects 
> Is-ness. Like the pot depends upon clay for its existence. If you 
> remove the clay from the pot, the pot no longer exists. If you smash 
> the pot, the clay remains, thus the pot depends upon clay to exist. I depend upon Being to exist.
>
> Of course I've been thinking also about unicorns! I believe I can 
> explain why this definition of Being works even in the imaginary 
> sense. (Which is to say Being is not a category of the mind in the 
> absolute sense of Being, that all there is to Being is a cognitive 
> category, therefore there is nothing to Being but a logical or 
> categorical container in speech and thought, which is the same as 
> saying Being arises from Mind, "I think, therefore I am").
>
> Getting back to unicorns! We can say that the is-ness of the horse and 
> the is-ness of the horn combine in the imagination, and thus unicorn 
> is. Thus the material of the unicorn, which does not exist in the 
> world we live in, is identical to the material of the imagination, 
> which is the material of the Mind.
>
> But this does not stop at the Mind. Because the material of the 
> unicorn is no different than the material of the memory of what I ate 
> for dinner last night, or imagining walking on the boardwalk right now 
> while I'm sitting in front of this screen. Just like other 
> imaginations, for imaginary objects, the Is-ness is as-if borrowed 
> from horse-ness and horn-ness, which do exist in the world. It is not 
> possible to create an imagination of things we do not know about. 
> Imaginations (and dreams) are always of the things we have known 
> before, even if it is superficial knowledge. So the existence of 
> unicorns depends upon the material of all imaginary objects, the material of the mind.
>
> This still supports the notion that Being comes before Mind. And that 
> Mind is dependent upon Being, not the other way around.
>
> Also, Being is not something limited to sentient creatures, but is 
> unlimited, the entire world sits in existence. That is why we can 
> experience the existence of inanimate or insentient objects: the 
> mountain is, the sky is, the ocean is, and since mind is in the world, 
> the unicorn is.
>
> The problem is that we can't know what that Being is that makes 
> existence possible for everything else. It's not knowable. And this 
> has nothing to do with believing in a God or not believing, but that 
> there is a limit to what we as humans can know, and that Being, that 
> which pervades all beingness, all names and forms, responsible for the 
> existence all that is here, is one of those things we will never be able to know explicitly.
>
> If we were to assert that Being is a product (a category) of Mind, 
> then we are back to Decartes's dualism. When you say that "in the end" 
> there is a final division (of two) and "that's just the way it is", 
> then we can justify hierarchies, we can justify slavery, we can 
> justify class, and so on. "Slavery is just the way it is." "Inequality 
> is just the way it is." I just can't accept that. If we say really 
> that all that is here is Existence, but the multiplicity of objects we 
> experience are just different forms and manifestations of 
> Existence(Being), then we can find the commonality among us despite 
> differences, we can justify our feelings of oneness with Nature, Love 
> for another, Compassion for strangers, etc. I prefer the latter over 
> the former: Difference in this case becomes incidental and ornamental, while similarities are fundamental.
>
> So I think there is a fundamental ethical reason to see Being before 
> Mind from this standpoint.
>
> Kind regards,
>
> Annalisa
>
> P.S. I've pulled out On the Soul by Aristotle from my shelf, because I 
> am curious about his take on the Soul, because it is quite apparent 
> that he does not see Soul as limited to Mind, like Hegel did. The Soul 
> for Aristotle is the life-force, or sentiency. In Vedic thought there 
> is the concept of Prana, which is also identical to life-force, 
> something entering from the outside of the gross body, Prana is an 
> aspect of the subtle body, but what gives life to the gross body and 
> which leaves at death. This not analogously different from electricity 
> passing through a lightbulb and when the electricity is there, the 
> light shines, when it is absent the bulb is dark. The electricity is like the subtle body, the bulb the gross body.
>



-- 

It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object that creates history. Ernst Boesch