[Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA

[mike cole]

That is a very useful reminder/suggestion, peg. I will look for the figure
and post it, perhaps with a little text for con-text.

thanks!
mike

On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 8:24 AM, Peg Griffin <Peg.Griffin@att.net> wrote:

> Mike, do you recall the juxtaposed triangles we used when we were
> analyzing Alejandro and Benny's reading with an adult?
> Here's how I recall it:
> Each figure had two incomplete equilateral triangles sharing a baseline,
> one with the apex up and the other with the apex down. The whole came out
> kind of like a diamond shape but, on the right side of the page, it was the
> sides didn't meet -- leaving the future open.
> The author, the teacher and the child put in what they could but where it
> went no-one could know...
>
> Another tidbit for the stone soup of ideas:  you wrote "a difference that
> does not make a difference" -- briding form linguistics terminology we
> might call it "allo-meanings"  (see allophones as the model).
> Peg
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces+peg.griffin=att.net@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces+peg.griffin=att.net@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike
> cole
> Sent: Wednesday, October 14, 2015 10:51 AM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA
>
> Alfredo
>
> Might it be that words are NEVER enough? That all comprehension of
> another's words require imagination? Its just that sometimes the gap to be
> filled falls within a kind of normative range that is a difference that
> does NOT make a difference, while others require sufficient discontinuity
> to require intentional/conscious effort to bridge in a *satisficing* way.
>
> mike
>
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 7:44 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> > Huw,
> > thanks for the reflection, it brings a very interesting distinction.
> > The software developers case that I mentioned is more on the contained
> > sense of "unknown", as you mentioned, not involving a shift of computing
> paradigm.
> > Yet I could observe lots of work performed by the developers for them
> > to be able to do intelligible enough reference to the feature thereby
> > being designed. This work, which I glossed as "naming", included not
> > just (technical, specialized) names already familiar to them, but also
> > drawings, gesturing, and performance. So, the words were not enough,
> > and there was some form of imagination going on. So the distinction
> > you introduced makes me wonder how the situated work taking place
> > during a shift of
> > (computational) paradigm would differ with respect to the one that I
> > am observing, that is, involving only a "minor" innovation.
> >
> > Henry's connection with the moving from verb to noun that we reported
> > with respect to boundary objects is interesting here because it brings
> > attention to objects (materials) and their relation to our
> > sensitivities (bodies). I am thinking if this connection might be of
> > help to understand the differences between the work that minor
> > innovations involve and the work of producing major paradigm shifts.
> > Perhaps, more than a shift in the kind of situated social interactions
> > that we observe, we should (again) attend to Latour's discussion on
> > inter-objectivity, and see how the material-historical arrangements in
> > the setting set the conditions for those shifts to occur. At the level
> > of interaction, I can imagine (!) that both going through a minor
> > innovation and going through a major shift involve some movement from
> > not being aware of a possibility to orienting towards that very
> > possibility. Studying differences there would be interesting. But I
> > guess that the key lies in the prior historical conditions for the
> > innovation/shift to emerge. Imagination may, in this account, be a
> > form of perceiving things that, to be so perceived, need to lend
> > themselves to those perceptions and apprehensions. If imagination
> > takes place first as performative work, and not as mental operation
> > alone, it needs to rely upon the possibilities of manipulation that
> > the materials offer. And those possibilities, of course, include
> possibilities of naming, of using words.
> >
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
> > HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > Sent: 14 October 2015 01:38
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA
> >
> > Do I recall (and understand) correctly Alfredo’s and Rod’s article (on
> > boundary objects and building museum spaces) that gesture preceded
> naming?
> > I mean that the boundary object started as collaborative/coordinated
> > movement. It was a perfomance before it was a thing that could be
> > named. A verb before it was a noun. And does this have anything to do
> > with Huw’s conjecture about a continuum of kinds of projects, at one
> > end those that replicate (with minimal creativity) and, at the other,
> > those that “get outside the box”? Academic discourse tends to be very
> > nouny, Latinate, loaded with bound morphemes. Such discourse serves
> > important purposes when operating on the generalization and
> > abstraction side of things, amongst the experts. But boundary objects
> > (as observed by Alfredo and Rod) assume the project members are
> > strangers to one another’s way of generalizing and abstracting. Could
> > gesture then be “rising to the concrete” in discourse generally? That
> would provide nice praxis.
> >
> > Respectfully,
> > Henry
> >
> > > On Oct 13, 2015, at 4:45 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > > Alfredo,
> > >
> > > I suspect the quality of the unknown thing here would need
> qualification.
> > > Experienced practitioners in software are often dealing with
> > to-be-designed
> > > artefacts, although these mostly fall into a more minor category of
> > things
> > > conforming to well-known conceptions or abstractions, hence they are
> > > usually only unknown in a rather contained sense (a bit like roughly
> > > knowing what kind of model you need to build out of lego).
> > >
> > > Contrary to this, computing problems entailing a new computational
> > paradigm
> > > would certainly throw such programmers into a genuine unknown (the
> > dawning
> > > realisation that one is working with a different kind of kit).
> > > Also,
> > with
> > > respect to requirements, the real unknowns are usually the soft
> > > requirements on agreeing what the problem is in the first place,
> > > which
> > will
> > > be largely governed by the social situation of said programmers, i.e.
> > being
> > > paid to get something built.
> > >
> > > Naming is very important in software in order to try to communicate
> > > functional intent, hence practitioners would no doubt be comfortable
> > > establishing agreement about naming before moving on.  Nonetheless
> > > you
> > may
> > > well be identifying some form of design mediation at play too.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Huw
> > >
> > > On 13 October 2015 at 23:08, Alfredo Jornet Gil
> > > <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> > wrote:
> > >
> > >> Henry, all,
> > >>
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> I am at this moment going through a video database on design work
> > >> in a software development company, and, observing a discussion
> > >> between two developers who talk about features of the software that
> > >> are not yet developed, but which could be, ??the insight came upon
> > >> me that, to
> > possibly
> > >> create anything together (and there is no other way to do it since
> > >> one alone has not the tools/competence to do it), they had to name
> > >> it. So,
> > the
> > >> developers were talking about something that does not yet exist but
> > which
> > >> nonetheless needs to be referred to in order for them to even begin
> > working
> > >> on it. And naming something that does not yet exits does not happen
> > >> immediately, because they do not have a name for it. Naming it
> > >> takes
> > time
> > >> and space, that is, work. So, I think the notion of "displacement"
> > >> that
> > you
> > >> mention, if it captures this work that talking does to the
> > >> imagining,
> > very
> > >> relevant to what I am witnessing in my data. And, given the
> > >> salience of "place making" in the thread, the term "disPLACEment"
> > >> may be timely
> > here.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> Alfredo
> > >>
> > >> ________________________________
> > >> From: HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> > >> Sent: 13 October 2015 23:34
> > >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > >> Cc: Alfredo Jornet Gil; Rolf Steier; Geoffrey C. Bowker
> > >> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA
> > >>
> > >> Mike,
> > >> In your original post on Oct 10, you  suggested that we might
> > >> "...come
> > up
> > >> with a deeper understanding of the interlocking issues involved".
> > >> As you say, each chatter will have their own response to that. Mine
> > >> is that I
> > can
> > >> relate the three issues to displacement, which is arguably the most
> > >> important property of language as a semiotic system. It is the
> > >> ability
> > of
> > >> with language to refer to and construe aspects of the world removed
> > >> in
> > time
> > >> and place (from the here and now) and to the "make believe"
> > ("irrealis").
> > >> I was reminded of this on re-reading an article by Bruno Latour on
> > >> Interobjectivity that Greg Thompson posted back on Aug 18. Most
> > >> people,
> > if
> > >> asked, think of language primarily as something for communication.
> > Animals
> > >> communicate, but, as far as we know, do not displace. (Though It
> > >> might
> > be
> > >> argued that animals do a better job of communicating than people.!)
> > >> I
> > would
> > >> like to emphasize the importance of the temporal domain, as well as
> > >> the spatial, with displacement.
> > >>
> > >> Henry
> > >>
> > >>
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
>
> 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