[Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

[mike cole]

Hey Henry--- For another purposes I opened Herbert Simon's book on the
sciences of the artificial and guess what I encounter on page 2 of the
preface (he says re read the book he is quoting here 40 years earlier at
the beginning of his research, so this is from a book called Administrative
Behavior that is some 80 years old:

 *administration* *is* *not* *unlike* *play*-*acting*. The task of the good
actor is to know and play his role, although different roles may differ
greatly in content. The effec- tiveness of the performance will depend on
the effectiveness of the play and the effectiveness with which it is
played. *...*

serendipity?
mike

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:24 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:

> Your query, Henry, returns us to the discussion of LSV's article on the
> environment from a couple of months ago and the concept of perezhivanie,
> the translation of which several experts are certain they know the proper
> interpretation. Unfortunately, they are not in agreement. (This is true of
> both Russian and English-writing scholars within and between
> language/culture communities)
>
> Vasiliuk's book, "The psychology of experiencing" is floating around in
> pdf form somewhere. His focus there is on perezhivanie. More recently he
> has been focused on this concept with respect to psychotherapy. I believe
> this work is being translated now, and is about to appear in English, but
> am not sure.
>
> mike
>
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:05 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Too,
>> Annalisa has spilled some virtual ink pondering affect and feeling. I
>> have struggled with the same issue. Andy, through Academia, has just made
>> available his article. “The Germ Cell of Vygotsky’s Science”, from which
>> the following quote:
>>
>> "In each of the areas of psychological research into which Vygotsky went,
>> his aim was to establish a unit of analysis. He was not always successful,
>> and for example, his study of the emotions failed to arrive at a unit of
>> analysis before his death in 1934.”
>>
>> How and why did Vygotsky fail? This question may be off-thread, or not.
>>
>> Henry
>>
>> P.S. Annalisa, you use the term “repair”. Could you explain how that fits
>> with affect and feeling?
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> > On Mar 11, 2015, at 5:58 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
>> >
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > These examples of tape recorders in language labs verses automated
>> recordings on buses seem to say a lot about contexts to me. Specifically
>> environments (which include subject-objects, object-subjects, subjects, and
>> objects).
>> >
>> > But ALSO not just environments and others: Affects and feelings and
>> motivations, *too*.
>> >
>> > That all of these are exceptionally important to take into
>> consideration when reading, listening, judging, and comparing, and then
>> writing. Sometimes we skip steps, not intentionally, but also, not all the
>> time.
>> >
>> > (I am learning about affects lately, thanks to a book Paul Mocombe
>> recommended, BTW)
>> >
>> > Apparently an affect is like a wordless feeling; Something coming from
>> the environment (which can be from another person or people, though I
>> wonder if it's possible just from the environment without people, as well).
>> Affect seems to be something unconscious. Feeling, however is more
>> concrete, and therefore more conscious, and thus seated within our embodied
>> experience in a different way than affect is embodied, whereby for a
>> feeling, the affect has been transformed into a thought, but not a thought
>> in the sense of a cerebral-thought, but a feeling-thought. Unfortunately my
>> vocabulary fails me here.
>> >
>> > Hence: Affect + Transformation into thought = Feeling
>> >
>> > Trouble arises when affect isn't transformed. Perhaps tool use (such as
>> when speaking or writing or reading, or baking lasagna, running, raking
>> leaves, playing the saxophone) assists in this transformation.
>> >
>> > I can't help but include in this concept in this thread about the
>> impact of computers. That much of the profile of computer usage, just like
>> other tools, is how they transmit emotion to us, and how do we know (with
>> certainty) what is authentic emotion in something like an email or a list
>> serve post?
>> >
>> > Posts on listservs are not just words.
>> >
>> > Something does convey even if the sense is a shattered or muffled
>> sense. What is lacking in the profile of this tool called a computer, is
>> the means of repair that is usually done in the world without computers in
>> the middle. Likely because there is not a stable context or environment in
>> which to do that. Particularly where people are in different timezones.
>> >
>> > This feature is absent from the printing press and distribution of
>> books, because the feedback loop was entirely different with many
>> gatekeepers. Computers attached to a network has little friction (compared
>> to 1400 transmissions of words in books).
>> >
>> > Even we see something similar in the cameras as apparatus (apparati?) A
>> large format camera takes an entirely different photograph from a 35mm
>> camera from a 2-¼ format camera. This has to do with lenses, f-stops, film
>> speed, whether a tripod is required or not. One really understands this
>> concept after using different cameras. The comparison can be made for those
>> of us who used Instamatics and now use an iPhone to take pictures, so I
>> don't mean to privilege this to only committed photogs.
>> >
>> > Since computers and the manner that they transmit affect and feeling
>> can have such an impact on so many people, I'm not sure how that doesn't
>> make a difference.
>> >
>> > Certainly, television has made a difference to us. It fired all the
>> babysitters for example. Now the televisions are being fired in favor of
>> video games, youTube, and other various preoccupations on the digital wave.
>> >
>> > Some researchers are saying that kids brains are being rewired from
>> this ubiquitous use of computers. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but
>> it does seem that kids take to playing with them in an easier fashion than
>> their parents.
>> >
>> > I don't think we can therefore isolate words from our experience, but
>> as you point out David, they that must be contextualized in the wider
>> world. I am reading that as what you are saying.
>> >
>> > Of course I may have misunderstood your affect, feelings, and
>> motivations, or you may also misunderstand mine.
>> >
>> > And so we cast ourselves into the void and hope for the best, giving
>> the other the benefit of the doubt.
>> >
>> > We hope.
>> >
>> > Kind regards,
>> >
>> > Annalisa
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an
> object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
>
>
>


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