[Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively

[Wolff-Michael Roth]

David, I do not remember where I recently read about transaction and
Gibson, and that essay concluded that the Gibsonian was not transactional.
When I remember, I will share. Michael

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 7:41 AM, WEBSTER, DAVID S. <d.s.webster@durham.ac.uk
> wrote:

> The problem here is that you feel the need to put selects in scare quotes.
> I am all for Dewey but I am not sure you are right about Gibson not being
> transactional  but where Gibson had got to when he died was already a hard
> enough sell. A good topic to pursue through
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Wolff-Michael Roth
> Sent: 31 January 2018 15:26
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively
>
> But Gibson is not transactional in the way Bateson is. For Bateson (or
> Dewey or others), there is no "natural" affordance. In other words, the
> human also would be the affordance to the door knob, not merely the door
> knob an affordance to humans. The door knob "selects" humans over other
> animals... The environment "samples" the individual as much as the
> individual "samples" the environment...
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 7:14 AM, WEBSTER, DAVID S. <
> d.s.webster@durham.ac.uk
> > wrote:
>
> > The perception-action cycle has been a topic of debate in the
> > Gibsonian literature since the early -mid  1980s i.e. just after
> > Gibson died in 1979
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@
> > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> > Sent: 31 January 2018 14:56
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively
> >
> > I’m struck by the similarity between Bateson’s description and the
> > notion floating around in neuroscience of a “perception-action cycle,”
> > in which brain, body, and environment are each components in a circular
> process.
> >
> > The perception-action cycle is a circular cybernetic flow of
> > information processing between the organism and its environment in a
> > sequence of goal-directed actions. An action of the organism causes an
> > environmental change that will be processed by sensory systems, which
> > will produce signals to inform the next action, and so on. The
> > perception-action cycle is of prime importance for the adaptive
> > success of a temporally extended gestalt of behavior, where each
> > action is contingent on the effects of the previous one. The
> > perception-action cycle operates at all levels of the central nervous
> > system. Simple, automatic, and well rehearsed behaviors engage only
> > the lower levels of the perception-action cycle, whereas, for
> > sensorimotor integration, the cycle runs through the spinal cord and
> subcortical structures.
> >
> > To the extent that deliberate, reflexive planning becomes part of the
> > cycle on its highest levels, the sense of being the initiator of
> > action can be hard to resist. But it’s just the walnut on the cupcake.
> >
> > Here’s a diagram, though it’ll be probably be removed, so here’s the
> > link too…
> >
> > <http://willcov.com/bio-consciousness/sidebars/Perception--Action%20Cy
> > cle_
> > files/image295.jpg>
> >
> >
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Jan 31, 2018, at 9:38 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > Darned if I did not find that Bateson passage online! Amazing.
> > > Here it is from *Steps to an Ecology of Mind.*
> > >
> > > mike
> > > --------------\
> > >
> > > Consider a tree and a man and an axe. We observe that the axe flies
> > > through the air and makes certain gashes in a pre-existing cut in
> > > the side of the tree. If we now want to explain this set of
> > > phenomena, we shall be concerned with differences in the cut face of
> > > the tree, differences in the retina of the man, differences in the
> > > central nervous system, differences in his different neural
> > > messages, differences in the behaviour of his muscles, difference in
> > > how the axe flies, to the differences which the axe then makes on
> > > the face of the tree. Our explanation will go round and round that
> > > circuit. If you want to explain or understand anything in human
> > > behaviour, you are
> > always dealing with total circuits, completed circuits.
> > > (Bateson, 1972, p. 433)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Later in the same paper he writes about how difficult it is to adopt
> > > this
> > > epistemology:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I can stand here and I can give you a reasoned exposition of this
> > > matter; but if I am cutting down a tree, I still think ‘Gregory
> > > Bateson’ is cutting down a tree. I am cutting down the tree. ‘Myself’
> > > is to me still an excessively concrete object, different from the
> > > rest of what I have been calling ‘mind’.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > The step to realizing – to making habitual – the other way of
> > > thinking – so that one naturally thinks that way when one reaches
> > > out for a glass of water or cuts down a tree – that step is not an
> easy one.
> > >
> > >
> > > .... Once we have made this shift, our perspective fundamentally
> changes.
> > > We firstly start focusing on relationships, flows and patterns; and
> > > secondly realize that we are part of any field we are studying.
> >
> >
> >
>
>