From mcole@ucsd.edu Sat Sep 1 16:57:30 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sat, 1 Sep 2018 16:57:30 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [commfac] [communication] Penn State Sci Comm Job Opening 9/10/18 Review of Apps In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Another domain of possible interest among xmca readers mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- https://psu.jobs/job/79184 The Penn State Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications is expanding its programs in Science Communication and seeks 1 or 2 Assistant Professors with proven experience and/or strong interest in building collaborative research teams focused on the science of science communication (candidates with exceptional experience and credentials will be considered at higher rank). The College is a national leader in undergraduate and graduate communication education, and in theory-driven research faculty productivity. A new $30 million gift naming the college from Donald P. Bellisario will support even more ambitious and cutting-edge student and faculty investment in the years ahead. In addition to our Media Effects Research Lab, the College provides faculty with graduate student support and numerous opportunities for internal and external funding. More broadly, Penn State is a world leader in multiple disciplines now at the center of urgent public communications and policy discussions?energy, agricultural biotechnology, engineering, medicine and climatology, to name just a few. Building and supporting collaborative research teams with strong social science components is a top priority for the University, and the Bellisario College of Communications is uniquely positioned to play a central role in these initiatives. Preferred candidates will teach in one or more of the departments in the College (Advertising/Public Relations, Film/Video and Media Studies, Telecommunications, or Journalism) and have strong ability or interest in exploring multi-disciplinary research opportunities across the University. Applicants should include a cover letter, CV, and three or more references who may be contacted for letters of recommendation (references will not be contacted without prior approval of the applicant). For questions or additional information, please contact Jessica Myrick, Associate Professor of Media Studies, at jgm43@psu.edu. Review of applications will begin on September 10, 2018, and continue until filled. -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180901/030c673a/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Mon Sep 3 01:23:40 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2018 08:23:40 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1575483490.212334.1535963020033@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Annalisa-- I should preface this by saying that I've been sitting on this argument for years. I'd expected that this would be my academic work. But as I'm out of academia, except for the occasional paper someone specifically requests of me, I don't think I'll be going further with this. Someone should, I think, as the importance of mediated cognition is not growing of less interest. And it is not really as though any of this is neglected, fully. But from a CHAT point of view? I haven't seen the work, if it's being done.? In reference to dreams and mammalian memory, I ran into Jonathan Winson's book on dreaming early in my reading of Freud, in the period where I was saying to myself "No one knew much of anything about brain anatomy or function in 1900. So of course Freud is overreaching. But we know vastly more now. What do modern neuroscientists think about memory and dreams?" I read J. Allen Hobson's book "The Dreaming Brain", on dreams being garbage collection, more or less, and Winson's book "Brain and Psyche." The latter was far more convincing. REM sleep is measurable, and it is present in nearly all mammals. We can be highly certain that if we are mammals, and REM sleep is associated with dreams that something of our perception of dreaming is present in all mammals that show EEG patterns associated with human REM sleep are exhibiting something similar to human dreams. It is reasonable to assume that the functional purpose, and probably some of the same characteristics of that type of sleep are similar. So while we don't know what they are dreaming, we know that they dream. Moreover, while Winson's proposal that the hippocampus was central to memory formation was not fully supported in 1980, it certainly is now. How do memories take shape, are stored, and recalled? The details are still very much being worked out, but the empirical evidence so far confirms Winson, and disconfirms Hobson's hypothesis of dreams as a meaningless artifact.?It is logical that if you find something that is preserved across the entire phylum mammalia, and universally across all advanced mammals, then you are dealing with something essential to survival. It is logical that the mechanisms of dreaming, if they are evoked in dreams and in memory formation, and in memory recall, have an association that may be causal, rather than incidental. And with the case of Henry Molaison (HM), we have the forbidden experiment that manifests this hypothesis in history and physiology relating to memory formation and recall.? With Temple Grandin's insights, we now have a good idea of how animals dream: They dream in images. And this is also consistent with Freud's observation (and others) about the hegemony of images to words in dreams for humans. Words are a secondary artifact in memory formation. And memory itself is astonishingly plastic, and very much susceptible to modification through social interaction, and collective recall. I've experienced this myself with a story about a fishing trip, which I had heard so much in my life that I found myself one day reciting it as if it was my memory, from first-hand observation, and believing it to be so, though my father reminded me (and I confirmed later) that I was somewhere else when the event I was recalling occurred. Story-telling not only recalls experience, but can create it.? It is logical that if you find something that is preserved across the entire phylum mammalia, that you are dealing with something essential to survival. And it is logical that if you find something universally present in human experience (story-telling, as a form of personal and collective identity) that you are dealing with something essential to being human, which I think is built on this common mammalian basis of metaphor, metonymy, and sequence in the formation and recall of memory. Inner speech of social groups can be extremely abbreviated, but this always depends on at least a group of two (I recall that Tolsty reference too), and more commonly, large social groups. If I say "ruby slippers" or "every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings," or "we'll always have Paris," I evoke quite complex narratives of shared experience, just as the Dorze's Christian leopards (who fast on feast days and Sunday...but don't necessarily count on it) are narrative axioms of a specific culture that define and inform not just a shared experience, but literally perception, which may or may not be empirical. Our language is constantly reinforcing common canonical narratives of embodied interactions...and for the greater part--and this is where Lakoff and the Cog Linguistics people come into play--and before them, with less precision, Whorf-Sapir--these canonical narratives are not fully open to conscious perception, in that they are the means of perception and interaction, and not the medium: I can use a metaphor consciously, but as I say that I comprehend an idea (meaning, literally, I grasp it in my hand), that dead metaphor--or to put it another way, unconscious metaphor--while it informs the nature of the kinds of interactions I can imagine with the idea of comprehending something, is not consciously open to my scrutiny, unless I devote conscious effort to make it so.? "We could give moreexamples and show that for many Marxists, Freudians orstructuralists, their doctrine functions symbolically. They takeits theses to be true without knowing exactly what they imply.Empirical counterarguments, in so far as they concernthemselves with them, lead them not to reject these theses, butto modify their import. More generally, in our society a largenumber of symbolic statements are of the form of (26) wherescience plays the role of the ancestors:(26) 'p' is scientific.So-called symbolic statements figure in encyclopaedicknowledge not directly, but obliquely by conceptualrepresentations in quotes, in contexts of the type '"p" is true'." --Dan Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism So this is where it returns to me, as a person with a communication background: How do we know what the meaning is of the words that we say? How are the words in our head meaningful to ourselves and others? How do they correspond to a real world that is, in fact, real? What, ultimately, is reality?? Narratives are a kind of thinking in complexes. Memory cooperates in fixing shared complexes as the frames within which people perceive the world. And in this respect, we are unique: When we married, my wife had a cat. I went away to graduate school, but before I did, I was tasked with giving the cat flea-shampoos that, of course, the cat was less than thrilled with. After an absence of two years without a home visit, I returned. The cat (Nickleby, after Nicolas Nickleby--long story--treated me as a stranger: who was this person? Nickleby sniffed me--paused--and literally, the sclera became visible, and poor Nickleby dashed away, in terror. This was a terror that Nickleby never evinced while actually being given a flea bath, but I hypothesize that it was the distillation of feline distaste for water, fixed emotively in memory, in the form of a metonymic association "this human image and smell equals water bath," which was the strongest emotive imagistic fix he had on me. Nickleby, happily for both of us, recovered from his terror, and formed new narrative memories of me as a dispenser of cat treats and petting, so his narrative became more nuanced.? But there were no words that mediated the images. They were immediate and present for the cat, and personal. Human narratives, by contrast, are always a mixture of sensory experience and perception, and from my own personal experience, and from observation, I am reasonably sure that human memory is highly susceptible to symbolic transformation by social interaction and shared memory. The metaphors that we use, the canonical stories that we tell, (incidentally, jackalopes are based on a real fungal infection from Shope papiloma virus--but I digress...)? I'll need to find the article I ran into recently about memory recall being literally an effort of recreation, so that each time you recall a memory, you are literally reshaping it. The intriguing thing for me is collective memory--which is, again, a core human interaction technique. I think people, unlike other mammals, literally don't know what to think about the world, except when it is reshaped in the form of collective narratives. These canonoical narratives are largely formed through mass-mediated culture these days. The advantage is that they are shared very widely, and can coordinate shared experience and perception much more broadly than in the past. The disadvantage, of course, is the same thing: Dysfunctional, but widely shared narrative complexes--and again, because they are narratives, existing sometimes substantially on the level of images, evoked metonymies, metaphors, that are not fully reviewed consciously--are a real risk to a society based on more empirical perceptions of the world. This is, of course, suggesting that there are more empirical perception--I'm somewhat sympathetic to Feyerabend's argument that our perception is more shaped by appealing narratives than literal empiricism, as we are always underinformed about the nature of the certainty of the theories of reality we take as self-evident--but again, I'm digressing. ? Reading through Anthony Trollope's biography, I was quite struck by something that he had to say about novels. We take being surrounded by narratives for granted, but in Trollipe's time, the omnipresence of a narrated world was something quite new. The English magazines that serialized novels emerged within his lifetime. The popular audience for novels, though it had developed in the previous century, became a truly popular trend in Trollipe's time. And this is what he said of the novel: "I could well remember that, in my own young days, they had not taken that undisputed possession of drawing-rooms which they now hold. Fifty years ago (writing in the 1870s), when George IV was king, they were not indeed treated as Lydia had been forced to treat them in the preceding reign, when, on the approach of elders, Peregrine Pickle was hidden beneath the bolster, and Lord Aminworth put away under the sofa. But the families in which an unrestricted reading of novels were very few, and from many they were altogether banished. The high poetic genius and correct morality of Walter Scott had not altogether succeeded in making men and women understand the lessons which were good in poetry cold not be bad in prose. I remember that in those days an embargo lay upon novel-reading, as a pursuit, which was to the novelist a much heavier tax than that want of full appreciation of which I now complain.?? There is, as we all know, no such embargo now. May we not say that young people of an age to read have got too much power into their own hands to endure any very complete embargo? Novels are read right and left, above stairs and below, in town houses and in country.parsonages, by young countesses and by farmers' daughters, by old lawyers and by young students. it has not only come to pass that a special provision of them has to be made for the godly, but that the provision so made must now include books which a few years since the godly would have thought to be profane.... If such be the case--if the extension of novel-reading be so wide as I have described it--then very much good or harm must be done by novels. The amusement of the time can hardly be the only result of any book that is read, and certainly not so with a novel, which appeals especially to the imagination, and solicits the sympathy of the young. A vast proportion of the teaching of the day--greater probably than many of us have as yet acknowledged to themselves--comes from these books ,which are in the hands of all readers.? It is from them that girls learn what is expected from them, and what they are to expect when lovers come; and also from them that young men unconsciously learn what are, or should be, or may be, the charms of love, --though I fancy that few men will think so little of their natural instincts and powers as to believe that I am right in saying so. Many other lessons also are taught. In these times, when the desire to be honest is pressed so hard, is so violently assaulted, by the ambition to be great...." I will leave off here, as Trollople's particulars of media effects are a Victorian horror story. And of course mass-mediated narratives are only one strain of symbolic interactions. But I think it is fair to suggest that the mediated nature of social symbols--the metaphors, the canonic narratives, the themes of common interactions--are indeed much more shaped by social narratives than once they were. The Cro-Magnons created a mediated world with their cave art of hunts, and of the master animals to whom they appealed to yield themselves for the sustenance of humans. From what little we can see, these symbols of their real world of survival were central to the formation of tribal identity, and of initiation into the serious business of surviving as a human. The ancient Greek dithyrambs sung to Dionysius, the god of wine, of unity between the sensual and emotive bonds between humans that united them together as a collective unit, became the great tragedies of social identity and morality solemnly performed in the Dionysia as part of their worship. Our narratives are quite powerful too, though the degree of their influence is only fitfully measured, and the form that they take, in news reports, with or without narrative themes, and the more properly narrative forms of network and film cinematics, is vast beyond imagining, with effects that are surely as powerful, yet mostly neglected, as the novelists of Trollope's time.? But I've taken up a lot of time, so I'll leave it at that for now...not least of which because it is late again. And I may need to save my energy to see what is on TCM tomorrow... :) Regards,Doug -- On ?Friday?, ?August? ?31?, ?2018? ?11?:?12?:?07? ?PM? ?PDT, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Lovely thread spinning Douglas! (Am taking my time reading the Bates chapter Alfredo so generously added to this topic discussion.) I don't know if this is fair game, but I always got the sense that Lakoff has thought, perhaps too long, on the metaphor, with the idea that his tenure on the topic would mandate wrapping anyone else's exceptions into questions, just to not seem priggish. And Huw, we await the throwing of your exceptions into the ring; all 20 of them! Also to Douglas, I had an insight that perhaps is already obvious to some experienced thinkers about it (including yourself), whether percepts might be stored imagistically (as a base container of thought among all animals for it being an embodied copy, like a shadow is a copy of a thing in silhouette), except for humans who have developed language possess an alternative option to abbreviate a percept into a word-meaning, such that word-meaning becomes something of a jack-in-the-box upon usage, then to be packed up for the next usage (and may be why word-meanings change over time). Additionally, that metaphor works alongside word-meaning as an engine for economy so that instead of image to word-meaning to image, or word-meaning to image to word-meaning, the connection is image to image or, word-meaning to word-meaning, or word-meaning to image or image to word-meaning, which makes cognition more efficient (at least by a third). When I say "to" I mean more a mapping connection, rather than a 1:1 connection. Like a Venn diagram is a mapping (though overlap) a group with another group (like Late Wittgenstein's family resemblances), and that this is different than the connection extending between a trunk and a leaf connected with a branch. We wouldn't say that a trunk is a leaf, but that there is an association and their connection is via a branch. I'm not sure I'm making all that much sense and that's OK because I'm just thinking out loud. We know for example that inner speech can be abbreviated. Virginia Woolf would have very telegraphic writing as she developed her stories, and then she would elaborate to "unpack" this code she had captured through exercising her inner speech, to herself. Kind of like an algebra of storywriting/storythinking And so to be stored in memory, the percept is made fast with the image/word-meaning but then unpacked upon usage. And I'm also thinking that this isn't asymbol, because a metaphor is far richer than a symbol because a metaphor by its very nature has a lived context (otherwise, how could be map it?) whereas a symbol might not, just a representative or reference in a two-dimensional sense. And this may explain why analytical logic is so unpopular among the human beasts because the symbols appear to be so arbitrary. While a metaphor extends to the world, and so the cognitive load is offloaded to the environment (and not the mind, so much) so all that is required is the imagistic reference (or word reference) pointing to the world. Everything represented in a very small box. A firefly in a glass jar. This overlap (mapping) creates the layers of depth-of-meaning (with patterns) that might not so readily adhere to a logical symbol, which has a more mechanical interaction symbol to symbol. I also had an insight that this referential mapping to the world could explain why there are different forms of learning and different forms of cognition and conceptualization, which would explain different sorts of intelligences (no one intelligence being better than any other, just different). Then, with regard to dreams, I had always thought of dreaming as the brain's garbage collection during sleep, and that collection is based upon what the mind was preoccupied with during waking hours. Nightmares would be an instance of brain constipation, holding onto things too long that are best let go. It is fascinating that we can never dream about anything that we do not already know about in the waking world. We can make things up, like the horns of a rabbit, which do not exist, but such a thing is a complex of objects we have witnessed in the world. We don't tend to dream about things that have a strange logic, such as the son of a barren woman. Which sort of works with my hypothesis above about mapping and overlapping. I did also have to laugh, because how do we know whether animals dream? Did someone host an interview with Dick Cavett or something? Anyway, given that we have the basis of imagistic cognition (in the animal kingdom) and word-meaning cognition (in humans because of language), as a human, since a human is still an animal, though a very polluting one, could do both, one or neither, and this lends to add many variations of thinking across a population. Then a word more about the unconscious. Given what I've said so far, perhaps the unconscious is just like misplacing our keys. We record something and we know we've got it stored away in the same way we might distractedly set down our keys, but we've forgotten where we left them until such time we stumble across them while looking for something else. What is also intriguing is that cinema seems to go in reverse, because it is image to word-meaning to image as word-meaning, since there is more language-like structures, syntaxes, and grammars to cinema construction, which of course does also change over time. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180903/0579bed3/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Sep 3 12:44:07 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2018 20:44:07 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Doug, I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. Best, Huw On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: > Hi, Huw-- > > Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took > about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they > were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up > to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things > in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and > Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be > some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not > interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. > > Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of > the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address > themselves to Lakoff in particular? > > I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the > explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic > cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, > the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, > and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, > which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an > embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more > calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study > that is expanding its adherents, > > Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* > are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. > > And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- > I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that > embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of > all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese > cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the > awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is > evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered > for their symbolism. Find out the true m... > Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter > snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or > restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal > cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related > specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, unconsciously, > at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are > in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the > dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something > embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" > > Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, > Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams > And our desires. > > a common theme... > > Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? > Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) > > Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: > Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? > And this first Summer month that brings the Rose > Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) > > But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and > analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that > was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and > associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and > metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present > memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but > emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and > present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past > fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very > primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive > nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly > scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? > According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in > images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and > internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams > that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of > imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. > Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part > of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach > into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer > to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of > imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take > cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social > effects that are probably underexamined. > > For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, > it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic > thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey > implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own > embodied world of imagery. > > Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from > Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all > the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some > extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to > perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. > They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. > Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, > pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and > schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory > would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to > play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural > themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human > experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. > > But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less > interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to > dream... > > Regards, > Doug > > > On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We > Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books > the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems > to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, > I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of > homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by > Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". > > Best, > Huw > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) > > Alfredo > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, > > > Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: > > > Grass dies; > Men die; > Men are grass. > > > I would reply: > > > Grass dies; > Men die; > Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; > but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; > A mother who lives forever. > > Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. > > > However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I > had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully > (I hope). > > > For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied > thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating > myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we > are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my > fingertips right now to say more on that. > > > It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant > while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian > assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David > Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning > new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form > of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) > > > The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a > body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, > etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness > thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the > shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. > > > I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying > on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a > postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). > > > Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about > metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not > referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something > like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could > not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes > we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might > use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So > environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as > well. > > > How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and > without gravity and a horizon). > > > Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also > has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things > to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of > perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we > see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have > one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel > coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! > > > Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in > Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is > someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what > you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language > to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter > of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when > translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I > understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same > time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural > world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" > cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful > than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who > was French!) > > > I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want > of a plane to board. > > > With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is > aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, > so does a metaphor. > > > In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for > "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly > to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the > dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 > equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta > of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something > very hard to explain rationally. > > > It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron > might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that > moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for > one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the > roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, > and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness > belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically > differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart > into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts > adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the > self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the > self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, > "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure > that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if > used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of > consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a > useful tool. > > > One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, > especially if the screw is a nail. > > > I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course > there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another > way they can fail. > > > I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help > problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or > some other superhero. > > > Kind regards, > > > Annalisa > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180903/2667ffce/attachment.html From julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk Mon Sep 3 12:57:38 2018 From: julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk (Julian Williams) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2018 19:57:38 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> Huw/Doug This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! Julian From: on behalf of Huw Lloyd Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Doug, I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. Best, Huw On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams > wrote: Hi, Huw-- Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents, Mark Turner's More Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the mono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by the sakura, the cherry blossom. The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these things are humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. a common theme... Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined. For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery. Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream... Regards, Doug On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". Best, Huw On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. I would reply: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope). For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180903/8299c05f/attachment.html From julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk Mon Sep 3 13:10:37 2018 From: julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk (Julian Williams) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2018 20:10:37 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> Message-ID: Huw/Doug And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. Julian From: on behalf of Julian Williams Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Huw/Doug This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! Julian From: on behalf of Huw Lloyd Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Doug, I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. Best, Huw On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams > wrote: Hi, Huw-- Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents, Mark Turner's More Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the mono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by the sakura, the cherry blossom. The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these things are humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. a common theme... Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined. For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery. Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream... Regards, Doug On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". Best, Huw On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. I would reply: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope). For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180903/ff1319eb/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Sep 3 13:44:21 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 3 Sep 2018 21:44:21 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> Message-ID: Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best, Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams < julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote: > Huw/Doug > > > > And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we > wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school > activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in > particular: > > Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting > in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, > Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Huw/Doug > > > > This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his > analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following > the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Doug, > > > > I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? > > > > As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing > metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them > in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly > articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a > disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch > ?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on > "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in > the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". > > > > In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its > development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of > ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be > isomorphic across domains. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > > > Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took > about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they > were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up > to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things > in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and > Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be > some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not > interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. > > > > Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of > the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address > themselves to Lakoff in particular? > > > > I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the > explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic > cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, > the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, > and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, > which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an > embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more > calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study > that is expanding its adherents, > > > > Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* > are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. > > > > And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- > > I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that > embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of > all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese > cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the > awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is > evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. > > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered > for their symbolism. Find out the true m... > > Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter > snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or > restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal > cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related > specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, unconsciously, > at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are > in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the > dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something > embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" > > > > Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, > Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams > And our desires. > > > > a common theme... > > > > Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? > Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) > > > > Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: > Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? > And this first Summer month that brings the Rose > Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) > > > > But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and > analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that > was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and > associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and > metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present > memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but > emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and > present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past > fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very > primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive > nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly > scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? > According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in > images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and > internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams > that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of > imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. > Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part > of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach > into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer > to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of > imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take > cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social > effects that are probably underexamined. > > > > For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, > it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic > thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey > implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own > embodied world of imagery. > > > > Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from > Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all > the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some > extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to > perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. > They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. > Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, > pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and > schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory > would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to > play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural > themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human > experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. > > > > But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less > interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to > dream... > > > > Regards, > > Doug > > > > > > On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We > Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books > the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems > to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, > I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of > homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by > Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) > > Alfredo > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, > > > > Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass. > > > > I would reply: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; > > but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; > > A mother who lives forever. > > Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. > > > > However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I > had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully > (I hope). > > > > For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied > thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating > myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we > are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my > fingertips right now to say more on that. > > > > It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant > while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian > assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David > Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning > new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form > of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) > > > > The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a > body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, > etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness > thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the > shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. > > > > I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying > on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a > postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). > > > > Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about > metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not > referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something > like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could > not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we > want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use > a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So > environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as > well. > > > > How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and > without gravity and a horizon). > > > > Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also > has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things > to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of > perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we > see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have > one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel > coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! > > > > Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in > Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is > someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what > you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language > to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter > of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when > translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I > understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same > time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural > world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" > cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful > than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who > was French!) > > > > I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want > of a plane to board. > > > > With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is > aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, > so does a metaphor. > > > > In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for > "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly > to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the > dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 > equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta > of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something > very hard to explain rationally. > > > > It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron > might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that > moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for > one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the > roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, > and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness > belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically > differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart > into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts > adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the > self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the > self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, > "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure > that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if > used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of > consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a > useful tool. > > > > One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, > especially if the screw is a nail. > > > > I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course > there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another > way they can fail. > > > > I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help > problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or > some other superhero. > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Annalisa > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180903/023ab39c/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Mon Sep 3 17:51:29 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 00:51:29 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> , Message-ID: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? What are your 20 exceptions? Also, one of my reasons for accepting the metaphor as the basis for conceptual thought, though I also believe that it translates into additional methods or modes of conceptual thought, is because of economy. But also there is a Vygotskian connection as well. There is the everyday concept and the scientific concept, which I know are problematic now, but they were how he referenced it and so I defer to the original conception. Now we might say there is holistic and particular forms of thinking. I think that a metaphor is no intended to be precise and exact, but it does communicate holistically a concept that is intended to be conveyed. And we do this a lot in poetry, which I know you are a particular fan. Especially poems about Paris. But then to fulfill the failure of the metaphor, we must account for the particular in some fashion, so it may be that (which may be a crude way to put it) mathematical conception and rational thought was a way to deal with the ways that the metaphor fails. Of course, as we see even today, technological advance is always seen as "better" and we throw out the old and glorify the new. Then, in time we rethink that and say, well...maybe we *can* still use Netwonian physics after all, maybe it's just a matter of knowing when to apply certain tools for understanding. So just like everyday and scientific concepts, we can benefit from both and that together they unify making us richer, more experienced thinkers. It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best, Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams > wrote: Huw/Doug And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. Julian From: > on behalf of Julian Williams > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Huw/Doug This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! Julian From: > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Doug, I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. Best, Huw On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams > wrote: Hi, Huw-- Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents, Mark Turner's More Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the mono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by the sakura, the cherry blossom. The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these things are humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. a common theme... Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined. For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery. Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream... Regards, Doug On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd > wrote: After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". Best, Huw On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. I would reply: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope). For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/d8d7d6ae/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Tue Sep 4 02:02:52 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 10:02:52 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> Message-ID: On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > Huw, > > > One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because > animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to > respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I > just scanned the thread as of late. > > > If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case > that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that > everyone else accepts. > Yes. > > What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a > reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read > Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? > If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. > > What are your 20 exceptions? > Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] > > It is possible. > > > Kind regards, > > > Annalisa > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of > concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From > recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, > it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get > over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite > a bit and fudge the issue. > > Best, > Huw > > On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote: > > Huw/Doug > > > > And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we > wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school > activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in > particular: > > Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting > in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, > Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Huw/Doug > > > > This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his > analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following > the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Doug, > > > > I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? > > > > As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing > metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them > in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly > articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a > disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch > ?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on > "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in > the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". > > > > In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its > development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of > ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be > isomorphic across domains. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > > > Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took > about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they > were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up > to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things > in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and > Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be > some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not > interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. > > > > Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of > the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address > themselves to Lakoff in particular? > > > > I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the > explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic > cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, > the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, > and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, > which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an > embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more > calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study > that is expanding its adherents, > > > > Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* > are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. > > > > And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- > > I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that > embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of > all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese > cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the > awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is > evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. > > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered > for their symbolism. Find out the true m... > > Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter > snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or > restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal > cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related > specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, unconsciously, > at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are > in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the > dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something > embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" > > > > Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, > Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams > And our desires. > > > > a common theme... > > > > Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? > Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) > > > > Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: > Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? > And this first Summer month that brings the Rose > Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) > > > > But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and > analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that > was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and > associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and > metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present > memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but > emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and > present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past > fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very > primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive > nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly > scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? > According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in > images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and > internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams > that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of > imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. > Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part > of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach > into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer > to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of > imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take > cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social > effects that are probably underexamined. > > > > For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, > it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic > thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey > implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own > embodied world of imagery. > > > > Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from > Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all > the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some > extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to > perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. > They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. > Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, > pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and > schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory > would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to > play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural > themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human > experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. > > > > But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less > interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to > dream... > > > > Regards, > > Doug > > > > > > On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We > Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books > the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems > to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, > I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of > homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by > Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) > > Alfredo > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, > > > > Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass. > > > > I would reply: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; > > but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; > > A mother who lives forever. > > Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. > > > > However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I > had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully > (I hope). > > > > For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied > thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating > myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we > are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my > fingertips right now to say more on that. > > > > It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant > while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian > assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David > Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning > new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form > of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) > > > > The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a > body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, > etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness > thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the > shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. > > > > I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying > on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a > postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). > > > > Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about > metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not > referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something > like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could > not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we > want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use > a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So > environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as > well. > > > > How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and > without gravity and a horizon). > > > > Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also > has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things > to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of > perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we > see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have > one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel > coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! > > > > Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in > Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is > someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what > you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language > to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter > of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when > translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I > understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same > time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural > world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" > cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful > than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who > was French!) > > > > I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want > of a plane to board. > > > > With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is > aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, > so does a metaphor. > > > > In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for > "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly > to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the > dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 > equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta > of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something > very hard to explain rationally. > > > > It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron > might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that > moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for > one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the > roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, > and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness > belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically > differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart > into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts > adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the > self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the > self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, > "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure > that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if > used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of > consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a > useful tool. > > > > One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, > especially if the screw is a nail. > > > > I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course > there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another > way they can fail. > > > > I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help > problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or > some other superhero. > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Annalisa > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/4a8f7b11/attachment.html From a.j.gil@ils.uio.no Tue Sep 4 03:41:46 2018 From: a.j.gil@ils.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 10:41:46 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> , Message-ID: <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> Annalisa, Doug, all, just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking, ??they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions. Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework. Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention above. ? Cheers, Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar > wrote: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. Yes. What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. What are your 20 exceptions? Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best, Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams > wrote: Huw/Doug And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. Julian From: > on behalf of Julian Williams > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Huw/Doug This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! Julian From: > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Doug, I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. Best, Huw On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams > wrote: Hi, Huw-- Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents, Mark Turner's More Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the mono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by the sakura, the cherry blossom. The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these things are humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. a common theme... Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined. For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery. Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream... Regards, Doug On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd > wrote: After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". Best, Huw On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. I would reply: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope). For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/03c4bf91/attachment-0001.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Sheets-Johnstone 2015 Embodiment on trial.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 194585 bytes Desc: Sheets-Johnstone 2015 Embodiment on trial.pdf Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/03c4bf91/attachment-0001.pdf From a.j.gil@ils.uio.no Tue Sep 4 03:44:53 2018 From: a.j.gil@ils.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 10:44:53 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> , , <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> Message-ID: <1536057893538.75677@ils.uio.no> ?(I meant that "I am NOT talking for anyone else") ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 04 September 2018 12:41 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Annalisa, Doug, all, just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking, ??they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions. Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework. Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention above. ? Cheers, Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar > wrote: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. Yes. What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. What are your 20 exceptions? Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best, Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams > wrote: Huw/Doug And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. Julian From: > on behalf of Julian Williams > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Huw/Doug This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! Julian From: > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Doug, I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. Best, Huw On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams > wrote: Hi, Huw-- Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents, Mark Turner's More Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the mono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by the sakura, the cherry blossom. The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these things are humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. a common theme... Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined. For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery. Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream... Regards, Doug On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd > wrote: After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". Best, Huw On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. I would reply: Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope). For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/0e30d983/attachment.html From ulvi.icil@gmail.com Tue Sep 4 04:02:16 2018 From: ulvi.icil@gmail.com (=?UTF-8?B?VWx2aSDEsMOnaWw=?=) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 14:02:16 +0300 Subject: [Xmca-l] East York - Toronto Message-ID: Dear all, Anybody close to East York, Toronto please? Ulvi 4 Eyl 2018 Sal 13:46 tarihinde Alfredo Jornet Gil ?unu yazd?: > ?(I meant that "I am NOT talking for anyone else") > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil > *Sent:* 04 September 2018 12:41 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > Annalisa, Doug, all, > > > just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and > Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and > being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think > there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on > metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many > other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one > objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from > their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading > the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very > illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in > conceptual thinking, ??they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic > sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak > of metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part > of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with > an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of > matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which > was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers > to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But > then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and > Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to > account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. > > > But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," > then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to > understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing > theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world > is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with > abstract perceptions. > > > Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors > such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" > cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our > bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of > their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed > material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, > the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" > (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for > educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on > these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the > flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). > > More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been > inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it > is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity > that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work > in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the > larger framework. > > > Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the > metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to > concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors > forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a > means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps > on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. > > > As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your > beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" > that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and > whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I > mention above. > > ? > > Cheers, > Alfredo > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* 04 September 2018 11:02 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > >> Huw, >> >> >> One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because >> animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to >> respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I >> just scanned the thread as of late. >> >> >> If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the >> case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that >> everyone else accepts. >> > > Yes. > > >> >> What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a >> reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read >> Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? >> > > If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as > assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. > > >> >> What are your 20 exceptions? >> > > Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. > The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an > invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few > points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than > solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a > few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be > usefully applied in looking for yourself. > > Huw > > [...] >> >> It is possible. >> >> >> Kind regards, >> >> >> Annalisa >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Huw Lloyd >> *Sent:* Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM >> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of >> concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From >> recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, >> it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me >> get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss >> quite a bit and fudge the issue. >> >> Best, >> Huw >> >> On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams < >> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> Huw/Doug >> >> >> >> And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we >> wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school >> activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in >> particular: >> >> Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting >> in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, >> Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. >> >> >> >> Julian >> >> >> >> *From: * on behalf of Julian Williams < >> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> >> *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 >> *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> >> >> Huw/Doug >> >> >> >> This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his >> analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following >> the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! >> >> >> >> Julian >> >> >> >> *From: * on behalf of Huw Lloyd < >> huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> >> *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 >> *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> >> >> Doug, >> >> >> >> I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? >> >> >> >> As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing >> metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them >> in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly >> articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a >> disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch >> ?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on >> "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in >> the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". >> >> >> >> In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its >> development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of >> ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be >> isomorphic across domains. >> >> >> >> Best, >> >> Huw >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: >> >> Hi, Huw-- >> >> >> >> Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took >> about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they >> were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up >> to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things >> in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and >> Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be >> some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not >> interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. >> >> >> >> Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of >> the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address >> themselves to Lakoff in particular? >> >> >> >> I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the >> explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic >> cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, >> the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, >> and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, >> which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an >> embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more >> calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study >> that is expanding its adherents, >> >> >> >> Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* >> are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. >> >> >> >> And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- >> >> I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that >> embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of >> all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese >> cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the >> awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is >> evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. >> >> >> >> The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal >> >> >> The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal >> >> Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered >> for their symbolism. Find out the true m... >> >> Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter >> snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or >> restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal >> cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related >> specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, >> unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around >> the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind >> of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of >> something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" >> >> >> >> Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, >> Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams >> And our desires. >> >> >> >> a common theme... >> >> >> >> Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? >> Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) >> >> >> >> Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: >> Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? >> And this first Summer month that brings the Rose >> Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) >> >> >> >> But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and >> analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that >> was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and >> associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and >> metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present >> memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but >> emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and >> present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past >> fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very >> primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive >> nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly >> scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? >> According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in >> images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and >> internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams >> that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of >> imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. >> Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part >> of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach >> into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer >> to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of >> imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take >> cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social >> effects that are probably underexamined. >> >> >> >> For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or >> profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the >> imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often >> convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own >> embodied world of imagery. >> >> >> >> Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from >> Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all >> the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some >> extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to >> perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. >> They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. >> Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, >> pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and >> schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory >> would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to >> play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural >> themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human >> experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. >> >> >> >> But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less >> interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to >> dream... >> >> >> >> Regards, >> >> Doug >> >> >> >> >> >> On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < >> huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We >> Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books >> the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems >> to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, >> I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of >> homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by >> Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". >> >> >> >> Best, >> >> Huw >> >> >> >> On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil >> wrote: >> >> oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) >> >> Alfredo >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar >> *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 >> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> >> >> Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, >> >> >> >> Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: >> >> >> >> Grass dies; >> >> Men die; >> >> Men are grass. >> >> >> >> I would reply: >> >> >> >> Grass dies; >> >> Men die; >> >> Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; >> >> but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; >> >> A mother who lives forever. >> >> Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. >> >> >> >> However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and >> I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more >> thoughtfully (I hope). >> >> >> >> For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied >> thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating >> myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we >> are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my >> fingertips right now to say more on that. >> >> >> >> It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant >> while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian >> assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David >> Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning >> new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form >> of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) >> >> >> >> The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a >> body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, >> etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness >> thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the >> shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. >> >> >> >> I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her >> laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might >> just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). >> >> >> >> Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about >> metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not >> referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something >> like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could >> not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we >> want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use >> a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So >> environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as >> well. >> >> >> >> How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and >> without gravity and a horizon). >> >> >> >> Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also >> has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things >> to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of >> perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we >> see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have >> one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel >> coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! >> >> >> >> Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in >> Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is >> someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what >> you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language >> to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter >> of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when >> translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I >> understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same >> time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural >> world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" >> cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful >> than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who >> was French!) >> >> >> >> I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want >> of a plane to board. >> >> >> >> With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is >> aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, >> so does a metaphor. >> >> >> >> In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for >> "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly >> to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the >> dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 >> equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta >> of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something >> very hard to explain rationally. >> >> >> >> It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron >> might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that >> moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for >> one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the >> roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, >> and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness >> belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically >> differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart >> into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts >> adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the >> self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the >> self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, >> "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure >> that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if >> used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of >> consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a >> useful tool. >> >> >> >> One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, >> especially if the screw is a nail. >> >> >> >> I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course >> there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another >> way they can fail. >> >> >> >> I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help >> problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or >> some other superhero. >> >> >> >> Kind regards, >> >> >> >> Annalisa >> >> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/39d986fc/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Tue Sep 4 04:59:14 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 12:59:14 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> Message-ID: Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya Hasan's books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. Best, Huw On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: > Annalisa, Doug, all, > > > just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and > Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and > being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think > there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on > metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many > other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one > objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from > their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading > the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very > illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in > conceptual thinking, ??they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic > sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak > of metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part > of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with > an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of > matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which > was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers > to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But > then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and > Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to > account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. > > > But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," > then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to > understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing > theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world > is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with > abstract perceptions. > > > Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors > such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" > cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our > bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of > their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed > material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, > the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" > (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for > educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on > these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the > flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). > > More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been > inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it > is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity > that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work > in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the > larger framework. > > > Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the > metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to > concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors > forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a > means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps > on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. > > > As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your > beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" > that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and > whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I > mention above. > > ? > > Cheers, > Alfredo > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* 04 September 2018 11:02 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > >> Huw, >> >> >> One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because >> animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to >> respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I >> just scanned the thread as of late. >> >> >> If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the >> case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that >> everyone else accepts. >> > > Yes. > > >> >> What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a >> reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read >> Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? >> > > If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as > assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. > > >> >> What are your 20 exceptions? >> > > Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. > The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an > invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few > points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than > solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a > few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be > usefully applied in looking for yourself. > > Huw > > [...] >> >> It is possible. >> >> >> Kind regards, >> >> >> Annalisa >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Huw Lloyd >> *Sent:* Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM >> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of >> concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From >> recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, >> it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me >> get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss >> quite a bit and fudge the issue. >> >> Best, >> Huw >> >> On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams < >> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote: >> >> Huw/Doug >> >> >> >> And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we >> wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school >> activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in >> particular: >> >> Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting >> in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, >> Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. >> >> >> >> Julian >> >> >> >> *From: * on behalf of Julian Williams < >> julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> >> *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 >> *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> >> >> Huw/Doug >> >> >> >> This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his >> analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following >> the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! >> >> >> >> Julian >> >> >> >> *From: * on behalf of Huw Lloyd < >> huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> >> *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 >> *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" >> *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> >> >> Doug, >> >> >> >> I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? >> >> >> >> As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing >> metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them >> in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly >> articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a >> disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch >> ?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on >> "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in >> the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". >> >> >> >> In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its >> development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of >> ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be >> isomorphic across domains. >> >> >> >> Best, >> >> Huw >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> >> On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: >> >> Hi, Huw-- >> >> >> >> Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took >> about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they >> were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up >> to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things >> in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and >> Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be >> some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not >> interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. >> >> >> >> Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of >> the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address >> themselves to Lakoff in particular? >> >> >> >> I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the >> explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic >> cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, >> the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, >> and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, >> which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an >> embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more >> calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study >> that is expanding its adherents, >> >> >> >> Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* >> are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. >> >> >> >> And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- >> >> I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that >> embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of >> all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese >> cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the >> awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is >> evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. >> >> >> >> The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal >> >> >> The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal >> >> Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered >> for their symbolism. Find out the true m... >> >> Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter >> snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or >> restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal >> cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related >> specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, >> unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around >> the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind >> of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of >> something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" >> >> >> >> Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, >> Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams >> And our desires. >> >> >> >> a common theme... >> >> >> >> Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? >> Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) >> >> >> >> Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: >> Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? >> And this first Summer month that brings the Rose >> Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) >> >> >> >> But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and >> analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that >> was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and >> associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and >> metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present >> memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but >> emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and >> present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past >> fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very >> primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive >> nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly >> scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? >> According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in >> images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and >> internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams >> that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of >> imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. >> Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part >> of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach >> into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer >> to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of >> imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take >> cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social >> effects that are probably underexamined. >> >> >> >> For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or >> profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the >> imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often >> convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own >> embodied world of imagery. >> >> >> >> Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from >> Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all >> the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some >> extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to >> perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. >> They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. >> Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, >> pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and >> schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory >> would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to >> play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural >> themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human >> experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. >> >> >> >> But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less >> interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to >> dream... >> >> >> >> Regards, >> >> Doug >> >> >> >> >> >> On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < >> huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: >> >> >> >> >> >> After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We >> Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books >> the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems >> to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, >> I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of >> homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by >> Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". >> >> >> >> Best, >> >> Huw >> >> >> >> On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil >> wrote: >> >> oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) >> >> Alfredo >> >> >> >> >> ------------------------------ >> >> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar >> *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 >> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day >> >> >> >> Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, >> >> >> >> Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: >> >> >> >> Grass dies; >> >> Men die; >> >> Men are grass. >> >> >> >> I would reply: >> >> >> >> Grass dies; >> >> Men die; >> >> Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; >> >> but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; >> >> A mother who lives forever. >> >> Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. >> >> >> >> However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and >> I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more >> thoughtfully (I hope). >> >> >> >> For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied >> thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating >> myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we >> are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my >> fingertips right now to say more on that. >> >> >> >> It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant >> while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian >> assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David >> Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning >> new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form >> of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) >> >> >> >> The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a >> body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, >> etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness >> thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the >> shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. >> >> >> >> I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her >> laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might >> just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). >> >> >> >> Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about >> metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not >> referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something >> like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could >> not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we >> want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use >> a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So >> environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as >> well. >> >> >> >> How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and >> without gravity and a horizon). >> >> >> >> Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also >> has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things >> to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of >> perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we >> see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have >> one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel >> coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! >> >> >> >> Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in >> Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is >> someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what >> you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language >> to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter >> of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when >> translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I >> understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same >> time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural >> world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" >> cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful >> than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who >> was French!) >> >> >> >> I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want >> of a plane to board. >> >> >> >> With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is >> aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, >> so does a metaphor. >> >> >> >> In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for >> "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly >> to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the >> dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 >> equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta >> of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something >> very hard to explain rationally. >> >> >> >> It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron >> might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that >> moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for >> one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the >> roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, >> and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness >> belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically >> differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart >> into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts >> adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the >> self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the >> self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, >> "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure >> that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if >> used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of >> consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a >> useful tool. >> >> >> >> One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, >> especially if the screw is a nail. >> >> >> >> I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course >> there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another >> way they can fail. >> >> >> >> I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help >> problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or >> some other superhero. >> >> >> >> Kind regards, >> >> >> >> Annalisa >> >> >> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/ddea30c0/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Tue Sep 4 15:38:12 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 16:38:12 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> Message-ID: <93EEE38E-EDE0-4FF0-B656-C749F2FDCE83@gmail.com> I have been lurking. This series of interchanges has been excellent?not that I understand all of it, but it connects so many dots for me, including Langacker and Varela. The quote from Heidegger at the beginninng of the Roth book cited by Alfredo resonates beautifully with ideas from Brett Victor (or Victor Brett?) on the hand, and the imporverished computer interface with just the tip of the finger. The chat sometimes seems disconnected to me, undoubtedly due to my imporverished knowledge base, but this subject line has clarity for me. Thanks to all for hanging in. Henry > On Sep 4, 2018, at 5:59 AM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > > Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. > > The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya Hasan's books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. > > Best, > Huw > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > Annalisa, Doug, all, > > just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking, ??they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. > > > But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions. > > Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). > > More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework. > > > > Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. > > As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention above. > ? > Cheers, > Alfredo > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > > Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar > wrote: > Huw, > > One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. > > If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. > > Yes. > > > What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? > > If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. > > > What are your 20 exceptions? > > Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. > > Huw > > [...] > It is possible. > > Kind regards, > > Annalisa > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > > Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. > > Best, > Huw > > On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams > wrote: > Huw/Doug > > > > And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: > > Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. > > > > Julian > > > > From: > on behalf of Julian Williams > > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Huw/Doug > > > > This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! > > > > Julian > > > > From: > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > > Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > > Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 > To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Doug, > > > > I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? > > > > As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". > > > > In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams > wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > > > Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. > > > > Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular? > > > > I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents, > > > > Mark Turner's More Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. > > > > And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- > > I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the mono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by the sakura, the cherry blossom. > > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... > Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these things are humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" > > > > Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, > Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams > And our desires. > > > > a common theme... > > > > Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? > Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) > > > > Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: > Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? > And this first Summer month that brings the Rose > Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) > > > > But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined. > > > > For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery. > > > > Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. > > > > But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream... > > > > Regards, > > Doug > > > > > > On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > > > > > > After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) > > Alfredo > > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > > Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, > > Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass. > > > I would reply: > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; > > but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; > > A mother who lives forever. > > Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. > > However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope). > > For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. > > It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) > > The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. > > I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). > > Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. > > How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). > > Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! > > Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) > > I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. > > With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. > > In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. > > It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. > > One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. > > I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. > > I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. > > Kind regards, > > Annalisa > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/0535a6f3/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Tue Sep 4 16:13:58 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2018 23:13:58 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <1575483490.212334.1535963020033@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> , <1575483490.212334.1535963020033@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi Doug, Just finally getting the space to address your post. I'm also going to address something Alfredo mentioned, and I'm actually really grateful for this postive turn the thread has taken, which I think can still concern the original topic of Mr. Fred Rogers (with a nod to Carl Rogers). Let's see if I can do that. I wanted to reference Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, in a practice that Mr. Rogers would practice for every single show, and that was coming in and changing his jacket for a sweater, and changing his leather shoes for sneakers at the start of every show, and I'm not sure if this also included feeding the fish in the aquarium or not for each show, but I do remember fish feeding being a ritual. Then there is the transition of the living room and house and surrounding neighborhood to the Land of Make Believe. These are transitions that I think afford children a lot of room for metaphor and metonomy and I am wondering outloud if it might be possible to do a study of the show itself as an analysis of metaphor. Just the activity of creating a barrier of outside/inside and real world/imaginary world ties into the containment metaphor that Lakoff/Johnson brought up in Philosophy in the Flesh. Also, while I've brought the title up, and Alfredo's observation about no "flesh" being there, and the fact that I'm at a loss not having the book on my fingertips to reference, I'm doing a lot of this by recall, which isn't that good as I read it over 5 years ago now. But off the top of my head, I think that "flesh" itself was intended to be a metaphor. I do not think we can take the word "flesh" in the title as literal. Which I think is intentionally derived. But I again, as I cannot reference the book directly, please accept my offer to the discussion tentatively and not as any sort of well-formed argument. I do think that it is possible to cobble together a more fruitful theory to fulfill Alfredo's "flesh requirement" through referring to work on embodied cognition, as well as Hutchin's distributed cognition, and also J.J. Gibson's theory of affordances, along with Vygotskian theories of development. I wanted to add that one of the mis-steps of Western philosophy is the need to separate mind from body, which is an outgrowth from Descartes, and many philosophers have taken exception to this strange division, and the more time that goes by, I can see that it truly debilitates our investigation. One of the reasons that I value the cosmology of Vedanta is that is is able to penetrate this dual worldview of mind/body split, because it was never "tainted" by Cartesian theories. So there is intentionality that I bring Vedanta in to my discussion here on the list, as not to proselytize, which is an offputting practice that I do not adhere to, but to show a different worldview that ancients have already struggled with and possibly solved, long before Descartes was a gleam in his parents' eyes. Also, I am more of the mind that the division of mind/body was an historical necessity to avoid persecution of European intellectuals who did not abide in clericalism. Some may say that Leontiev did a similar practice out of political necessity. (I do not mean that as an inflammatory statement, so I hope readers of the post will just see my mention of that as a reference to that discussion and not that I am being in any manner flip about it). My own inquiry is that all of this has to do with the pattern, which would be my unit for analysis, as the generative unit for conceptual development. I have just begun the Bates chapter that Alfredo offered, so I'm not done, however, he does talk about difference as information. At that time, I think, that discussion used this phrase information largely because of the way computers took over the way we thought about thinking. Which is a metaphor that also gives a way of talking about thinking, but has also failed to deliver, because computers do not have bodies, they did not evolved over millions of years on a planet like ours. They are tools that were invented, and we are developing them while they are developing us. So I find his stance on this word "information" out of difference, is parallel to my view of patterns. Patterns are plastic enough entities that address a lot in I think a manner that is lightweight and evolutionary. They appeal to mathematical and analytical reasoning, but also to embodied cognition. Patterns are evident in both. And perhaps a closer investigation of patterns can offer a way to bridge from the mind to the body in a "fleshy" way. I think patterns are better than symbols because a symbol is parsed off as a disconnected entity, but patterns can evolve and change, they can overlap, then can disconnect, split apart, repeat, join, continue, and, well, just change and evolve. I think my suggestion for the pattern as a unit solves the problem that lined up with symbolic representation who dominated the discourse on cognition just a little while ago. You can't really take a symbol and make it embodied, unless you want to make a body part a symbol, but that doesn't really put the body before the symbol, but the symbol before the body. Also, we have to remember that finding a unified "universal" basis of thinking is not a new endeavor, as it goes back at least as far back as Leibniz, who was likely appropriating (or dumpster diving) Spinoza's reflections. Their motivations were different of course, because as an outgrowth of Decartes (he was of the generation before they were), one might argue that Spinoza sought the holistic, immanent worldview, while Leibniz was pre-occupied with a strange, perhaps solipsistic interpretation of monism. There seems to be three camps that have evolved from this inquiry, if I might group them as such. First, there are the dualists, who see that culture and language are the defining features of human cognition, and so the mind that grows up in the rainforest is entirely different than the mind that grows up in the city, and never the twain shall meet. And this means that we have very plural individuals that group into tribes and there will be nothing but struggle to understand one another, which can't really happen; there is only overlap that is accidental and historical, which is never predictable. Second, there are what I will call the universalists, who think that there is a single basis and that it just so happens to be the one that they culturally inherit and for which have facility. I think analytical philosophers fall into this group, but such a stance is problematic, because it means if your conception is "better" then it is the best. It becomes a festival melee of cheering for a sports team, and all that does is alienate, IMHO. Third, I would say that there are the holists, who see unity despite multiplicity. The basis being that the plastic nature of mind and body in an evolutionary model still works and does not detract from giftedness/disability or examples of what we call genius or impairment. It is also materialist because mind and body are of the same "material" and expresses themselves based upon environment, historical realities, and so on. Clay pots can be of many different forms, either made by a single pot-maker, or by many pot-makers of varying pot-making traditions. Additionally, these multitudes of clay pots can offer identical functions (of carrying water, for example), despite their different appearances. The truth of this has to do with the truth of clay's plasticity, and not the form or name or color or other specific or incidental properties of the clay. If mind is a "behavior" that arises from an individual within a particular environment with particular resources, but also arises from an individual within a differing particular environment with other particular resources, then the material must be a body inclusive of an environment (nature AND nurture) and not (nature OR nurture). It seems to me upon reflection this can be the only way to avoid a dualist split. You either say everything is ideas or everything is material. I'll side that everything is material, whereby mind is very subtle, and the body is gross, along a continuum of material. We just do not have a good measuring system for the most subtle nature of thought and thinking, but it does offer a way to bring it all together and see how mind and body connect and one can influence the other. On the other hand, by making everything an idea, I guess that would mean that we are just a thought in the mind of God (as being the total mental entity of which we are an object rendered as in a dream), and that we really don't have a physical leg to stand on, that we are merely an image in the matrix subject to annihilation when someone turns off the big switch in the sky to this very perplexing video game where only certain people seem to gain the most points to the detriment of others. I suppose that is another possibility, but it just doesn't seem to feel satisfying. But returning to the inside/outside that does help children identify differences, as per the example of taking outside shoes off and putting on sneakers, I think this is likely a far more profound form of embodied cognition than we might at first consider because it is something we easily take for granted. We are afterall adults and we have internalized the containment metaphor so well that it is second nature, so it seems absurd to consider it as one example of a building-block for cognition. I suggest that this building-block is similar to the building-block of pointing, which we know is a basis for language in the infant, thanks to Vygotsky's work (and others too). OK that's all for now, and my thanks for the rich discussion. Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Douglas Williams Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:23:40 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day Hi, Annalisa-- I should preface this by saying that I've been sitting on this argument for years. I'd expected that this would be my academic work. But as I'm out of academia, except for the occasional paper someone specifically requests of me, I don't think I'll be going further with this. Someone should, I think, as the importance of mediated cognition is not growing of less interest. And it is not really as though any of this is neglected, fully. But from a CHAT point of view? I haven't seen the work, if it's being done. In reference to dreams and mammalian memory, I ran into Jonathan Winson's book on dreaming early in my reading of Freud, in the period where I was saying to myself "No one knew much of anything about brain anatomy or function in 1900. So of course Freud is overreaching. But we know vastly more now. What do modern neuroscientists think about memory and dreams?" I read J. Allen Hobson's book "The Dreaming Brain", on dreams being garbage collection, more or less, and Winson's book "Brain and Psyche." The latter was far more convincing. REM sleep is measurable, and it is present in nearly all mammals. We can be highly certain that if we are mammals, and REM sleep is associated with dreams that something of our perception of dreaming is present in all mammals that show EEG patterns associated with human REM sleep are exhibiting something similar to human dreams. It is reasonable to assume that the functional purpose, and probably some of the same characteristics of that type of sleep are similar. So while we don't know what they are dreaming, we know that they dream. Moreover, while Winson's proposal that the hippocampus was central to memory formation was not fully supported in 1980, it certainly is now. How do memories take shape, are stored, and recalled? The details are still very much being worked out, but the empirical evidence so far confirms Winson, and disconfirms Hobson's hypothesis of dreams as a meaningless artifact. It is logical that if you find something that is preserved across the entire phylum mammalia, and universally across all advanced mammals, then you are dealing with something essential to survival. It is logical that the mechanisms of dreaming, if they are evoked in dreams and in memory formation, and in memory recall, have an association that may be causal, rather than incidental. And with the case of Henry Molaison (HM), we have the forbidden experiment that manifests this hypothesis in history and physiology relating to memory formation and recall. With Temple Grandin's insights, we now have a good idea of how animals dream: They dream in images. And this is also consistent with Freud's observation (and others) about the hegemony of images to words in dreams for humans. Words are a secondary artifact in memory formation. And memory itself is astonishingly plastic, and very much susceptible to modification through social interaction, and collective recall. I've experienced this myself with a story about a fishing trip, which I had heard so much in my life that I found myself one day reciting it as if it was my memory, from first-hand observation, and believing it to be so, though my father reminded me (and I confirmed later) that I was somewhere else when the event I was recalling occurred. Story-telling not only recalls experience, but can create it. It is logical that if you find something that is preserved across the entire phylum mammalia, that you are dealing with something essential to survival. And it is logical that if you find something universally present in human experience (story-telling, as a form of personal and collective identity) that you are dealing with something essential to being human, which I think is built on this common mammalian basis of metaphor, metonymy, and sequence in the formation and recall of memory. Inner speech of social groups can be extremely abbreviated, but this always depends on at least a group of two (I recall that Tolsty reference too), and more commonly, large social groups. If I say "ruby slippers" or "every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings," or "we'll always have Paris," I evoke quite complex narratives of shared experience, just as the Dorze's Christian leopards (who fast on feast days and Sunday...but don't necessarily count on it) are narrative axioms of a specific culture that define and inform not just a shared experience, but literally perception, which may or may not be empirical. Our language is constantly reinforcing common canonical narratives of embodied interactions...and for the greater part--and this is where Lakoff and the Cog Linguistics people come into play--and before them, with less precision, Whorf-Sapir--these canonical narratives are not fully open to conscious perception, in that they are the means of perception and interaction, and not the medium: I can use a metaphor consciously, but as I say that I comprehend an idea (meaning, literally, I grasp it in my hand), that dead metaphor--or to put it another way, unconscious metaphor--while it informs the nature of the kinds of interactions I can imagine with the idea of comprehending something, is not consciously open to my scrutiny, unless I devote conscious effort to make it so. "We could give more examples and show that for many Marxists, Freudians or structuralists, their doctrine functions symbolically. They take its theses to be true without knowing exactly what they imply. Empirical counterarguments, in so far as they concern themselves with them, lead them not to reject these theses, but to modify their import. More generally, in our society a large number of symbolic statements are of the form of (26) where science plays the role of the ancestors: (26) 'p' is scientific. So-called symbolic statements figure in encyclopaedic knowledge not directly, but obliquely by conceptual representations in quotes, in contexts of the type '"p" is true'." --Dan Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism So this is where it returns to me, as a person with a communication background: How do we know what the meaning is of the words that we say? How are the words in our head meaningful to ourselves and others? How do they correspond to a real world that is, in fact, real? What, ultimately, is reality? Narratives are a kind of thinking in complexes. Memory cooperates in fixing shared complexes as the frames within which people perceive the world. And in this respect, we are unique: When we married, my wife had a cat. I went away to graduate school, but before I did, I was tasked with giving the cat flea-shampoos that, of course, the cat was less than thrilled with. After an absence of two years without a home visit, I returned. The cat (Nickleby, after Nicolas Nickleby--long story--treated me as a stranger: who was this person? Nickleby sniffed me--paused--and literally, the sclera became visible, and poor Nickleby dashed away, in terror. This was a terror that Nickleby never evinced while actually being given a flea bath, but I hypothesize that it was the distillation of feline distaste for water, fixed emotively in memory, in the form of a metonymic association "this human image and smell equals water bath," which was the strongest emotive imagistic fix he had on me. Nickleby, happily for both of us, recovered from his terror, and formed new narrative memories of me as a dispenser of cat treats and petting, so his narrative became more nuanced. But there were no words that mediated the images. They were immediate and present for the cat, and personal. Human narratives, by contrast, are always a mixture of sensory experience and perception, and from my own personal experience, and from observation, I am reasonably sure that human memory is highly susceptible to symbolic transformation by social interaction and shared memory. The metaphors that we use, the canonical stories that we tell, (incidentally, jackalopes are based on a real fungal infection from Shope papiloma virus--but I digress...) I'll need to find the article I ran into recently about memory recall being literally an effort of recreation, so that each time you recall a memory, you are literally reshaping it. The intriguing thing for me is collective memory--which is, again, a core human interaction technique. I think people, unlike other mammals, literally don't know what to think about the world, except when it is reshaped in the form of collective narratives. These canonoical narratives are largely formed through mass-mediated culture these days. The advantage is that they are shared very widely, and can coordinate shared experience and perception much more broadly than in the past. The disadvantage, of course, is the same thing: Dysfunctional, but widely shared narrative complexes--and again, because they are narratives, existing sometimes substantially on the level of images, evoked metonymies, metaphors, that are not fully reviewed consciously--are a real risk to a society based on more empirical perceptions of the world. This is, of course, suggesting that there are more empirical perception--I'm somewhat sympathetic to Feyerabend's argument that our perception is more shaped by appealing narratives than literal empiricism, as we are always underinformed about the nature of the certainty of the theories of reality we take as self-evident--but again, I'm digressing. Reading through Anthony Trollope's biography, I was quite struck by something that he had to say about novels. We take being surrounded by narratives for granted, but in Trollipe's time, the omnipresence of a narrated world was something quite new. The English magazines that serialized novels emerged within his lifetime. The popular audience for novels, though it had developed in the previous century, became a truly popular trend in Trollipe's time. And this is what he said of the novel: "I could well remember that, in my own young days, they had not taken that undisputed possession of drawing-rooms which they now hold. Fifty years ago (writing in the 1870s), when George IV was king, they were not indeed treated as Lydia had been forced to treat them in the preceding reign, when, on the approach of elders, Peregrine Pickle was hidden beneath the bolster, and Lord Aminworth put away under the sofa. But the families in which an unrestricted reading of novels were very few, and from many they were altogether banished. The high poetic genius and correct morality of Walter Scott had not altogether succeeded in making men and women understand the lessons which were good in poetry cold not be bad in prose. I remember that in those days an embargo lay upon novel-reading, as a pursuit, which was to the novelist a much heavier tax than that want of full appreciation of which I now complain. There is, as we all know, no such embargo now. May we not say that young people of an age to read have got too much power into their own hands to endure any very complete embargo? Novels are read right and left, above stairs and below, in town houses and in country.parsonages, by young countesses and by farmers' daughters, by old lawyers and by young students. it has not only come to pass that a special provision of them has to be made for the godly, but that the provision so made must now include books which a few years since the godly would have thought to be profane.... If such be the case--if the extension of novel-reading be so wide as I have described it--then very much good or harm must be done by novels. The amusement of the time can hardly be the only result of any book that is read, and certainly not so with a novel, which appeals especially to the imagination, and solicits the sympathy of the young. A vast proportion of the teaching of the day--greater probably than many of us have as yet acknowledged to themselves--comes from these books ,which are in the hands of all readers. It is from them that girls learn what is expected from them, and what they are to expect when lovers come; and also from them that young men unconsciously learn what are, or should be, or may be, the charms of love, --though I fancy that few men will think so little of their natural instincts and powers as to believe that I am right in saying so. Many other lessons also are taught. In these times, when the desire to be honest is pressed so hard, is so violently assaulted, by the ambition to be great...." I will leave off here, as Trollople's particulars of media effects are a Victorian horror story. And of course mass-mediated narratives are only one strain of symbolic interactions. But I think it is fair to suggest that the mediated nature of social symbols--the metaphors, the canonic narratives, the themes of common interactions--are indeed much more shaped by social narratives than once they were. The Cro-Magnons created a mediated world with their cave art of hunts, and of the master animals to whom they appealed to yield themselves for the sustenance of humans. From what little we can see, these symbols of their real world of survival were central to the formation of tribal identity, and of initiation into the serious business of surviving as a human. The ancient Greek dithyrambs sung to Dionysius, the god of wine, of unity between the sensual and emotive bonds between humans that united them together as a collective unit, became the great tragedies of social identity and morality solemnly performed in the Dionysia as part of their worship. Our narratives are quite powerful too, though the degree of their influence is only fitfully measured, and the form that they take, in news reports, with or without narrative themes, and the more properly narrative forms of network and film cinematics, is vast beyond imagining, with effects that are surely as powerful, yet mostly neglected, as the novelists of Trollope's time. But I've taken up a lot of time, so I'll leave it at that for now...not least of which because it is late again. And I may need to save my energy to see what is on TCM tomorrow... :) Regards, Doug -- On ?Friday?, ?August? ?31?, ?2018? ?11?:?12?:?07? ?PM? ?PDT, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Lovely thread spinning Douglas! (Am taking my time reading the Bates chapter Alfredo so generously added to this topic discussion.) I don't know if this is fair game, but I always got the sense that Lakoff has thought, perhaps too long, on the metaphor, with the idea that his tenure on the topic would mandate wrapping anyone else's exceptions into questions, just to not seem priggish. And Huw, we await the throwing of your exceptions into the ring; all 20 of them! Also to Douglas, I had an insight that perhaps is already obvious to some experienced thinkers about it (including yourself), whether percepts might be stored imagistically (as a base container of thought among all animals for it being an embodied copy, like a shadow is a copy of a thing in silhouette), except for humans who have developed language possess an alternative option to abbreviate a percept into a word-meaning, such that word-meaning becomes something of a jack-in-the-box upon usage, then to be packed up for the next usage (and may be why word-meanings change over time). Additionally, that metaphor works alongside word-meaning as an engine for economy so that instead of image to word-meaning to image, or word-meaning to image to word-meaning, the connection is image to image or, word-meaning to word-meaning, or word-meaning to image or image to word-meaning, which makes cognition more efficient (at least by a third). When I say "to" I mean more a mapping connection, rather than a 1:1 connection. Like a Venn diagram is a mapping (though overlap) a group with another group (like Late Wittgenstein's family resemblances), and that this is different than the connection extending between a trunk and a leaf connected with a branch. We wouldn't say that a trunk is a leaf, but that there is an association and their connection is via a branch. I'm not sure I'm making all that much sense and that's OK because I'm just thinking out loud. We know for example that inner speech can be abbreviated. Virginia Woolf would have very telegraphic writing as she developed her stories, and then she would elaborate to "unpack" this code she had captured through exercising her inner speech, to herself. Kind of like an algebra of storywriting/storythinking And so to be stored in memory, the percept is made fast with the image/word-meaning but then unpacked upon usage. And I'm also thinking that this isn't a symbol, because a metaphor is far richer than a symbol because a metaphor by its very nature has a lived context (otherwise, how could be map it?) whereas a symbol might not, just a representative or reference in a two-dimensional sense. And this may explain why analytical logic is so unpopular among the human beasts because the symbols appear to be so arbitrary. While a metaphor extends to the world, and so the cognitive load is offloaded to the environment (and not the mind, so much) so all that is required is the imagistic reference (or word reference) pointing to the world. Everything represented in a very small box. A firefly in a glass jar. This overlap (mapping) creates the layers of depth-of-meaning (with patterns) that might not so readily adhere to a logical symbol, which has a more mechanical interaction symbol to symbol. I also had an insight that this referential mapping to the world could explain why there are different forms of learning and different forms of cognition and conceptualization, which would explain different sorts of intelligences (no one intelligence being better than any other, just different). Then, with regard to dreams, I had always thought of dreaming as the brain's garbage collection during sleep, and that collection is based upon what the mind was preoccupied with during waking hours. Nightmares would be an instance of brain constipation, holding onto things too long that are best let go. It is fascinating that we can never dream about anything that we do not already know about in the waking world. We can make things up, like the horns of a rabbit, which do not exist, but such a thing is a complex of objects we have witnessed in the world. We don't tend to dream about things that have a strange logic, such as the son of a barren woman. Which sort of works with my hypothesis above about mapping and overlapping. I did also have to laugh, because how do we know whether animals dream? Did someone host an interview with Dick Cavett or something? Anyway, given that we have the basis of imagistic cognition (in the animal kingdom) and word-meaning cognition (in humans because of language), as a human, since a human is still an animal, though a very polluting one, could do both, one or neither, and this lends to add many variations of thinking across a population. Then a word more about the unconscious. Given what I've said so far, perhaps the unconscious is just like misplacing our keys. We record something and we know we've got it stored away in the same way we might distractedly set down our keys, but we've forgotten where we left them until such time we stumble across them while looking for something else. What is also intriguing is that cinema seems to go in reverse, because it is image to word-meaning to image as word-meaning, since there is more language-like structures, syntaxes, and grammars to cinema construction, which of course does also change over time. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180904/c2f150e2/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Thu Sep 6 20:30:31 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2018 03:30:31 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> Message-ID: <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Huw-- I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind of sustaining research program that would develop it.? Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or memories)? puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through recall or performance--operate. I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with had nothing to do with me. This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing itself... Regards,Doug On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya?Hasan's books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. Best,Huw On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: Annalisa, Doug,?all, just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other?discussions on such a relevant topic.?But?I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking,???they seemed to remain?with a quite?formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way?they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation).?But then, as?I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image?schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence?of these metaphors.? But if it is the formation of bodily images?what makes flesh "flesh," then?this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation?that now "information" of the world is?being represented as?consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions.? Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime?Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their?concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with?a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of?embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial",?which I share for educational purposes only?in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach (?https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218?).? More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which?the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework.? Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world.?So,?I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff.? As per Doug on the central role of image?(by the way,?thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms),?I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual")?is?, and whether and?how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention?above.? ? Cheers, Alfredo From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day? On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. Yes.? What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point.? What are your 20 exceptions? Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day?Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best,Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams wrote: Huw/Doug ? And ..? I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.),?Metaphor and Thought:?2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Julian Williams Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Huw/Doug ? This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Huw Lloyd Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Doug, ? I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? ? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded.? Historically I have found?Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". ? In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. ? Best, Huw ? ? ? ? On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- ? Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least.? ? Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular?? ? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents,? ? Mark Turner'sMore Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint.? ? And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to themono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by thesakura, the cherry blossom.? ? The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal ? | | | | | | | | | | | The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... | | | Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these thingsare humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent? with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" ? Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. ? a common theme... ? Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon)? ? Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) ? But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined.? ? For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery.? ? Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture.? ? But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream...? ? Regards, Doug ? ? On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: ? ? After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". ? Best, Huw ? On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is?:)? Alfredo ? ? From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, ? Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. ? I would reply: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. ? However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope).? ? For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. ? It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) ? The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. ? I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). ? Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. ? How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). ? Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! ? Anyway, Bateson?was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) ? I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. ? With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. ? In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. ? It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. ? One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. ? I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger?if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. ? I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. ? Kind regards, ? Annalisa ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180907/026bfc07/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Thu Sep 6 21:01:03 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2018 04:01:03 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <1575483490.212334.1535963020033@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <529243700.913582.1536292863511@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Annalisa-- Of the categories, I think the whole CHAT project (and MCA in particular) is certainly in the holists camp of mind. As Sapir observes, language is heuristic: it builds on a framework of individual and cultural complexes, though the factual world of associations that are heuristic (when I can grasp something--in Latin, comprehend it--then I have control of it, and can use it as a tool) become capable of being used in methods that no longer have a direct link to the heuristic basis for the idea that I am evoking with physical control: I can "comprehend" nonmaterial things, like ideas. My comprehension expands in proportion to the heuristic perceptions and interactions that I can decontextualize into symbols detached from their embodied narrative. And thus a logic not tied directly to the physical interaction in time and space evoked by the heuristic can come into being. That is the kind of thing that the Cognitive Lingustics people would call a "dead metaphor." But for better or worse, the metaphor lurks, like Freud's id, ready to impose the ghost of the interaction into a symbol, turning it back again into metaphor, or metonymy, so that red objects become Dorothy's shoes, and we are chased by flying monkeys.? In Roger's case, I think he goes precisely the opposite way: We take off the world of adults, and put on the world of play and free association. We give ourselves permission to explore narratives, associate heuristically, experientially, with actions embedded in time and space--and to be grateful to experience each other in space and time, rather than trying to abstract from the person, the sound, the feeling, into an universal, abstract thing. And the ritual (a common thing to every religious practice I've looked at) is, as with yawning, animal mating rituals, and various other space-time rhythmic actions, surely itself a kind of method of providing a familiar context of actions to bring a group (individuals, viewers) in synch with the narrative space. "Once upon a time," the fairy tale begins; and with the familiar phrase, the familiar patterns of narratives and cultural frames of story-telling, a space is opened to step outside of the primary and secondary objects of our interactions with the world. With the ritual, we step out of the world of common habits, and step into the tertiary world of repurposing existing words, actions, images, sounds, and feelings, into new connections--and with these new connections, perhaps teaching, nurturing, and healing the individual, and the world. Regards, Doug On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:16:36 PM PDT, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Hi Doug, Just finally getting the space to address your post. I'm also going to address something Alfredo mentioned, and I'm actually really grateful for this postive turn the thread has taken, which I think can still concern the original topic of Mr. Fred Rogers (with a nod to Carl Rogers). Let's see if I can do that. I wanted to reference Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, in a practice that Mr. Rogers would practice for every single show, and that was coming in and changing his jacket for a sweater, and changing his leather shoes for sneakers at the start of every show, and I'm not sure if this also included feeding the fish in the aquarium or not for each show, but I do remember fish feeding being a ritual. Then there is the transition of the living room and house and surrounding neighborhood to the Land of Make Believe. These are transitions that I think afford children a lot of room for metaphor and metonomy and I am wondering outloud if it might be possible to do a study of the show itself as an analysis of metaphor. Just the activity of creating a barrier of outside/inside and real world/imaginary world ties into the containment metaphor that Lakoff/Johnson brought up in Philosophy in the Flesh. Also, while I've brought the title up, and Alfredo's observation about no "flesh" being there, and the fact that I'm at a loss not having the book on my fingertips to reference, I'm doing a lot of this by recall, which isn't that good as I read it over 5 years ago now. But off the top of my head, I think that "flesh" itself was intended to be a metaphor. I do not think we can take the word "flesh" in the title as literal. Which I think is intentionally derived. But I again, as I cannot reference the book directly, please accept my offer to the discussion tentatively and not as any sort of well-formed argument. I do think that it is possible to cobble together a more fruitful theory to fulfill Alfredo's "flesh requirement" through referring to work on embodied cognition, as well as Hutchin's distributed cognition, and also J.J. Gibson's theory of affordances, along with Vygotskian theories of development. I wanted to add that one of the mis-steps of Western philosophy is the need to separate mind from body, which is an outgrowth from Descartes, and many philosophers have taken exception to this strange division, and the more time that goes by, I can see that it truly debilitates our investigation. One of the reasons that I value the cosmology of Vedanta is that is is able to penetrate this dual worldview of mind/body split, because it was never "tainted" by Cartesian theories. So there is intentionality that I bring Vedanta in to my discussion here on the list, as not to proselytize, which is an offputting practice that I do not adhere to, but to show a different worldview that ancients have already struggled with and possibly solved, long before Descartes was a gleam in his parents' eyes. Also, I am more of the mind that the division of mind/body was an historical necessity to avoid persecution of European intellectuals who did not abide in clericalism. Some may say that Leontiev did a similar practice out of political necessity. (I do not mean that as an inflammatory statement, so I hope readers of the post will just see my mention of that as a reference to that discussion and not that I am being in any manner flip about it). My own inquiry is that all of this has to do with the pattern, which would be my unit for analysis, as the generative unit for conceptual development. I have just begun the Bates chapter that Alfredo offered, so I'm not done, however, he does talk about difference as information. At that time, I think, that discussion used this phrase information largely because of the way computers took over the way we thought about thinking. Which is a metaphor that also gives a way of talking about thinking, but has also failed to deliver, because computers do not have bodies, they did not evolved over millions of years on a planet like ours. They are tools that were invented, and we are developing them while they are developing us. So I find his stance on this word "information" out of difference, is parallel to my view of patterns. Patterns are plastic enough entities that address a lot in I think a manner that is lightweight and evolutionary. They appeal to mathematical and analytical reasoning, but also to embodied cognition. Patterns are evident in both. And perhaps a closer investigation of patterns can offer a way to bridge from the mind to the body in a "fleshy" way. I think patterns are better than symbols because a symbol is parsed off as a disconnected entity, but patterns can evolve and change, they can overlap, then can disconnect, split apart, repeat, join, continue, and, well, just change and evolve. I think my suggestion for the pattern as a unit solves the problem that lined up with symbolic representation who dominated the discourse on cognition just a little while ago. You can't really take a symbol and make it embodied, unless you want to make a body part a symbol, but that doesn't really put the body before the symbol, but the symbol before the body.? Also, we have to remember that finding a unified "universal" basis of?thinking is not a new endeavor, as it goes back at least as far back as Leibniz, who was likely appropriating (or dumpster diving) Spinoza's reflections. Their motivations were different of course, because as an outgrowth of Decartes (he was of the generation before they were), one might argue that Spinoza sought the holistic, immanent worldview, while Leibniz was pre-occupied with a strange, perhaps solipsistic interpretation of monism. There seems to be three camps that have evolved from this inquiry, if I might group them as such. First, there are the dualists, who see that culture and language are the defining features of human cognition, and so the mind that grows up in the rainforest is entirely different than the mind that grows up in the city, and never the twain shall meet. And this means that we have very plural individuals that group into tribes and there will be nothing but struggle to understand one another, which can't really happen; there is only overlap that is accidental and historical, which is never predictable. Second, there are what I will call the universalists, who think that there is a single basis and that it just so happens to be the one that they culturally inherit and for which have facility. I think analytical philosophers fall into this group, but such a stance is problematic, because it means if your conception is "better" then it is the best. It becomes a festival melee of cheering for a sports team, and all that does is alienate, IMHO. Third, I would say that there are the holists, who see unity despite multiplicity. The basis being that the plastic nature of mind and body in an evolutionary model still works and does not detract from giftedness/disability or examples of what we call genius or impairment. It is also materialist because mind and body are of the same "material" and expresses themselves based upon environment, historical realities, and so on. Clay pots can be of many different forms, either made by a single pot-maker, or by many pot-makers of varying pot-making traditions. Additionally, these multitudes of clay pots can offer identical functions (of carrying water, for example), despite their different appearances. The truth of this has to do with the truth of clay's plasticity, and not the form or name or color or other specific or incidental properties of the clay. If mind is a "behavior" that arises from an individual within a particular environment with particular resources, but also arises from an individual within a differing particular environment with other particular resources, then the material must be a body inclusive of an environment (nature AND nurture) and not (nature OR nurture). It seems to me upon reflection this can be the only way to avoid a dualist split. You either say everything is ideas or everything is material. I'll side that everything is material, whereby mind is very subtle, and the body is gross, along a continuum of material. We just do not have a good measuring system for the most subtle nature of thought and thinking, but it does offer a way to bring it all together and see how mind and body connect and one can influence the other. On the other hand, by making everything an idea, I guess that would mean that we are just a thought in the mind of God (as being the total mental entity of which we are an object rendered as in a dream), and that we really don't have a physical leg to stand on, that we are merely an image in the matrix subject to annihilation when someone turns off the big switch?in the sky to this very perplexing video game where only certain people seem to gain the most points to the detriment of others. I suppose that is another possibility, but it just doesn't seem to feel satisfying. But returning to the inside/outside that does help children identify differences, as per the example of taking outside shoes off and putting on sneakers, I think this is likely a far more profound form of embodied cognition than we might at first consider because it is something we easily take for granted. We are afterall adults and we have internalized the containment metaphor so well that it is second nature, so it seems absurd to consider it as one example of a building-block for cognition.? I suggest that this building-block is similar to the building-block of pointing, which we know is a basis for language in the infant, thanks to Vygotsky's work (and others too). OK that's all for now, and my thanks for the rich discussion. Kind regards, Annalisa From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Douglas Williams Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:23:40 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day?Hi, Annalisa-- I should preface this by saying that I've been sitting on this argument for years. I'd expected that this would be my academic work. But as I'm out of academia, except for the occasional paper someone specifically requests of me, I don't think I'll be going further with this. Someone should, I think, as the importance of mediated cognition is not growing of less interest. And it is not really as though any of this is neglected, fully. But from a CHAT point of view? I haven't seen the work, if it's being done.? In reference to dreams and mammalian memory, I ran into Jonathan Winson's book on dreaming early in my reading of Freud, in the period where I was saying to myself "No one knew much of anything about brain anatomy or function in 1900. So of course Freud is overreaching. But we know vastly more now. What do modern neuroscientists think about memory and dreams?" I read J. Allen Hobson's book "The Dreaming Brain", on dreams being garbage collection, more or less, and Winson's book "Brain and Psyche." The latter was far more convincing. REM sleep is measurable, and it is present in nearly all mammals. We can be highly certain that if we are mammals, and REM sleep is associated with dreams that something of our perception of dreaming is present in all mammals that show EEG patterns associated with human REM sleep are exhibiting something similar to human dreams. It is reasonable to assume that the functional purpose, and probably some of the same characteristics of that type of sleep are similar. So while we don't know what they are dreaming, we know that they dream. Moreover, while Winson's proposal that the hippocampus was central to memory formation was not fully supported in 1980, it certainly is now. How do memories take shape, are stored, and recalled? The details are still very much being worked out, but the empirical evidence so far confirms Winson, and disconfirms Hobson's hypothesis of dreams as a meaningless artifact.?It is logical that if you find something that is preserved across the entire phylum mammalia, and universally across all advanced mammals, then you are dealing with something essential to survival. It is logical that the mechanisms of dreaming, if they are evoked in dreams and in memory formation, and in memory recall, have an association that may be causal, rather than incidental. And with the case of Henry Molaison (HM), we have the forbidden experiment that manifests this hypothesis in history and physiology relating to memory formation and recall.? With Temple Grandin's insights, we now have a good idea of how animals dream: They dream in images. And this is also consistent with Freud's observation (and others) about the hegemony of images to words in dreams for humans. Words are a secondary artifact in memory formation. And memory itself is astonishingly plastic, and very much susceptible to modification through social interaction, and collective recall. I've experienced this myself with a story about a fishing trip, which I had heard so much in my life that I found myself one day reciting it as if it was my memory, from first-hand observation, and believing it to be so, though my father reminded me (and I confirmed later) that I was somewhere else when the event I was recalling occurred. Story-telling not only recalls experience, but can create it.? It is logical that if you find something that is preserved across the entire phylum mammalia, that you are dealing with something essential to survival. And it is logical that if you find something universally present in human experience (story-telling, as a form of personal and collective identity) that you are dealing with something essential to being human, which I think is built on this common mammalian basis of metaphor, metonymy, and sequence in the formation and recall of memory. Inner speech of social groups can be extremely abbreviated, but this always depends on at least a group of two (I recall that Tolsty reference too), and more commonly, large social groups. If I say "ruby slippers" or "every time a bell rings, an angel gets its wings," or "we'll always have Paris," I evoke quite complex narratives of shared experience, just as the Dorze's Christian leopards (who fast on feast days and Sunday...but don't necessarily count on it) are narrative axioms of a specific culture that define and inform not just a shared experience, but literally perception, which may or may not be empirical. Our language is constantly reinforcing common canonical narratives of embodied interactions...and for the greater part--and this is where Lakoff and the Cog Linguistics people come into play--and before them, with less precision, Whorf-Sapir--these canonical narratives are not fully open to conscious perception, in that they are themeans of perception and interaction, and not the medium: I can use a metaphor consciously, but as I say that I comprehend an idea (meaning, literally, I grasp it in my hand), that dead metaphor--or to put it another way, unconscious metaphor--while it informs the nature of the kinds of interactions I can imagine with the idea of comprehending something, is not consciously open to my scrutiny, unless I devote conscious effort to make it so.? "We could give more examples and show that for many Marxists, Freudians or structuralists, their doctrine functions symbolically. They take its theses to be true without knowing exactly what they imply. Empirical counterarguments, in so far as they concern themselves with them, lead them not to reject these theses, but to modify their import. More generally, in our society a large number of symbolic statements are of the form of (26) where science plays the role of the ancestors: (26) 'p' is scientific. So-called symbolic statements figure in encyclopaedic knowledge not directly, but obliquely by conceptual representations in quotes, in contexts of the type '"p" is true'." --Dan Sperber, Rethinking Symbolism So this is where it returns to me, as a person with a communication background: How do we know what the meaning is of the words that we say? How are the words in our head meaningful to ourselves and others? How do they correspond to a real world that is, in fact, real? What, ultimately, is reality?? Narratives are a kind of thinking in complexes. Memory cooperates in fixing shared complexes as the frames within which people perceive the world. And in this respect, we are unique: When we married, my wife had a cat. I went away to graduate school, but before I did, I was tasked with giving the cat flea-shampoos that, of course, the cat was less than thrilled with. After an absence of two years without a home visit, I returned. The cat (Nickleby, after Nicolas Nickleby--long story--treated me as a stranger: who was this person? Nickleby sniffed me--paused--and literally, the sclera became visible, and poor Nickleby dashed away, in terror. This was a terror that Nickleby never evinced while actually being given a flea bath, but I hypothesize that it was the distillation of feline distaste for water, fixed emotively in memory, in the form of a metonymic association "this human image and smell equals water bath," which was the strongest emotive imagistic fix he had on me. Nickleby, happily for both of us, recovered from his terror, and formed new narrative memories of me as a dispenser of cat treats and petting, so his narrative became more nuanced.? But there were no words that mediated the images. They were immediate and present for the cat, and personal. Human narratives, by contrast, arealways a mixture of sensory experience and perception, and from my own personal experience, and from observation, I am reasonably sure that human memory is highly susceptible to symbolic transformation by social interaction and shared memory. The metaphors that we use, the canonical stories that we tell, (incidentally, jackalopes are based on a real fungal infection from Shope papiloma virus--but I digress...)? I'll need to find the article I ran into recently about memory recall being literally an effort of recreation, so that each time you recall a memory, you are literally reshaping it. The intriguing thing for me is collective memory--which is, again, a core human interaction technique. I think people, unlike other mammals, literally don't know what to think about the world, except when it is reshaped in the form of collective narratives. These canonoical narratives are largely formed through mass-mediated culture these days. The advantage is that they are shared very widely, and can coordinate shared experience and perception much more broadly than in the past. The disadvantage, of course, is the same thing: Dysfunctional, but widely shared narrative complexes--and again, because they are narratives, existing sometimes substantially on the level of images, evoked metonymies, metaphors, that are not fully reviewed consciously--are a real risk to a society based on more empirical perceptions of the world. This is, of course, suggesting that there are more empirical perception--I'm somewhat sympathetic to Feyerabend's argument that our perception is more shaped by appealing narratives than literal empiricism, as we are always underinformed about the nature of the certainty of the theories of reality we take as self-evident--but again, I'm digressing. ? Reading through Anthony Trollope's biography, I was quite struck by something that he had to say about novels. We take being surrounded by narratives for granted, but in Trollipe's time, the omnipresence of a narrated world was something quite new. The English magazines that serialized novels emerged within his lifetime. The popular audience for novels, though it had developed in the previous century, became a truly popular trend in Trollipe's time. And this is what he said of the novel: "I could well remember that, in my own young days, they had not taken that undisputed possession of drawing-rooms which they now hold. Fifty years ago (writing in the 1870s), when George IV was king, they were not indeed treated as Lydia had been forced to treat them in the preceding reign, when, on the approach of elders, Peregrine Pickle was hidden beneath the bolster, and Lord Aminworth put away under the sofa. But the families in which an unrestricted reading of novels were very few, and from many they were altogether banished. The high poetic genius and correct morality of Walter Scott had not altogether succeeded in making men and women understand the lessons which were good in poetry cold not be bad in prose. I remember that in those days an embargo lay upon novel-reading, as a pursuit, which was to the novelist a much heavier tax than that want of full appreciation of which I now complain.?? There is, as we all know, no such embargo now. May we not say that young people of an age to read have got too much power into their own hands to endure any very complete embargo? Novels are read right and left, above stairs and below, in town houses and in country.parsonages, by young countesses and by farmers' daughters, by old lawyers and by young students. it has not only come to pass that a special provision of them has to be made for the godly, but that the provision so made must now include books which a few years since the godly would have thought to be profane.... If such be the case--if the extension of novel-reading be so wide as I have described it--then very much good or harm must be done by novels. The amusement of the time can hardly be the only result of any book that is read, and certainly not so with a novel, which appeals especially to the imagination, and solicits the sympathy of the young. A vast proportion of the teaching of the day--greater probably than many of us have as yet acknowledged to themselves--comes from these books ,which are in the hands of all readers.? It is from them that girls learn what is expected from them, and what they are to expect when lovers come; and also from them that young men unconsciously learn what are, or should be, or may be, the charms of love, --though I fancy that few men will think so little of their natural instincts and powers as to believe that I am right in saying so. Many other lessons also are taught. In these times, when the desire to be honest is pressed so hard, is so violently assaulted, by the ambition to be great...." I will leave off here, as Trollople's particulars of media effects are a Victorian horror story. And of course mass-mediated narratives are only one strain of symbolic interactions. But I think it is fair to suggest that the mediated nature of social symbols--the metaphors, the canonic narratives, the themes of common interactions--are indeed much more shaped by social narratives than once they were. The Cro-Magnons created a mediated world with their cave art of hunts, and of the master animals to whom they appealed to yield themselves for the sustenance of humans. From what little we can see, these symbols of their real world of survival were central to the formation of tribal identity, and of initiation into the serious business of surviving as a human. The ancient Greek dithyrambs sung to Dionysius, the god of wine, of unity between the sensual and emotive bonds between humans that united them together as a collective unit, became the great tragedies of social identity and morality solemnly performed in the Dionysia as part of their worship. Our narratives are quite powerful too, though the degree of their influence is only fitfully measured, and the form that they take, in news reports, with or without narrative themes, and the more properly narrative forms of network and film cinematics, is vast beyond imagining, with effects that are surely as powerful, yet mostly neglected, as the novelists of Trollope's time.? But I've taken up a lot of time, so I'll leave it at that for now...not least of which because it is late again. And I may need to save my energy to see what is on TCM tomorrow... :) Regards,Doug -- On ?Friday?, ?August? ?31?, ?2018? ?11?:?12?:?07? ?PM? ?PDT, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Lovely thread spinning Douglas! (Am taking my time reading the Bates chapter Alfredo so generously added to this topic discussion.) I don't know if this is fair game, but I always got the sense that Lakoff has thought, perhaps too long, on the metaphor, with the idea that his tenure on the topic would mandate wrapping anyone else's exceptions into questions, just to not seem priggish. And Huw, we await the throwing of your exceptions into the ring; all 20 of them! Also to Douglas, I had an insight that perhaps is already obvious to some experienced thinkers about it (including yourself), whether percepts might be stored imagistically (as a base container of thought among all animals for it being an embodied copy, like a shadow is a copy of a thing in silhouette), except for humans who have developed language possess an alternative option to abbreviate a percept into a word-meaning, such that word-meaning becomes something of a jack-in-the-box upon usage, then to be packed up for the next usage (and may be why word-meanings change over time). Additionally, that metaphor works alongside word-meaning as an engine for economy so that instead of image to word-meaning to image, or word-meaning to image to word-meaning, the connection is image to image or, word-meaning to word-meaning, or word-meaning to image or image to word-meaning, which makes cognition more efficient (at least by a third). When I say "to" I mean more a mapping connection, rather than a 1:1 connection. Like a Venn diagram is a mapping (though overlap) a group with another group (like Late Wittgenstein's family resemblances), and that this is different than the connection extending between a trunk and a leaf connected with a branch. We wouldn't say that a trunk is a leaf, but that there is an association and their connection is via a branch. I'm not sure I'm making all that much sense and that's OK because I'm just thinking out loud. We know for example that inner speech can be abbreviated. Virginia Woolf would have very telegraphic writing as she developed her stories, and then she would elaborate to "unpack" this code she had captured through exercising her inner speech, to herself. Kind of like an algebra of storywriting/storythinking And so to be stored in memory, the percept is made fast with the image/word-meaning but then unpacked upon usage. And I'm also thinking that this isn't asymbol, because a metaphor is far richer than a symbol because a metaphor by its very nature has a lived context (otherwise, how could be map it?) whereas a symbol might not, just a representative or reference in a two-dimensional sense. And this may explain why analytical logic is so unpopular among the human beasts because the symbols appear to be so arbitrary. While a metaphor extends to the world, and so the cognitive load is offloaded to the environment (and not the mind, so much) so all that is required is the imagistic reference (or word reference) pointing to the world. Everything represented in a very small box. A firefly in a glass jar. This overlap (mapping) creates the layers of depth-of-meaning (with patterns) that might not so readily adhere to a logical symbol, which has a more mechanical interaction symbol to symbol. I also had an insight that this referential mapping to the world could explain why there are different forms of learning and different forms of cognition and conceptualization, which would explain different sorts of intelligences (no one intelligence being better than any other, just different). Then, with regard to dreams, I had always thought of dreaming as the brain's garbage collection during sleep, and that collection is based upon what the mind was preoccupied with during waking hours. Nightmares would be an instance of brain constipation, holding onto things too long that are best let go. It is fascinating that we can never dream about anything that we do not already know about in the waking world. We can make things up, like the horns of a rabbit, which do not exist, but such a thing is a complex of objects we have witnessed in the world. We don't tend to dream about things that have a strange logic, such as the son of a barren woman. Which sort of works with my hypothesis above about mapping and overlapping. I did also have to laugh, because how do we know whether animals dream? Did someone host an interview with Dick Cavett or something? Anyway, given that we have the basis of imagistic cognition (in the animal kingdom) and word-meaning cognition (in humans because of language), as a human, since a human is still an animal, though a very polluting one, could do both, one or neither, and this lends to add many variations of thinking across a population. Then a word more about the unconscious. Given what I've said so far, perhaps the unconscious is just like misplacing our keys. We record something and we know we've got it stored away in the same way we might distractedly set down our keys, but we've forgotten where we left them until such time we stumble across them while looking for something else. What is also intriguing is that cinema seems to go in reverse, because it is image to word-meaning to image as word-meaning, since there is more language-like structures, syntaxes, and grammars to cinema construction, which of course does also change over time. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180907/7b0940ab/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Fri Sep 7 12:42:50 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2018 20:42:50 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi Doug, At first I thought you were talking about Bernshtein with respect to embodied expression in action. It is nice to hear of Eisenstein taking a theoretical interest beyond surface details. This seems quite reasonable from my position, in which orientation can be considered as a concern for the pragmatics aspect of semiotic categories. There is nothing amiss in associative thinking itself, but rather there are broader and more coherent circuits of thought that may be realised beyond such. Through employing more sophisticated and layered perspectives, one can interpret differently, hence re-construe content. A change in the background -- perspective or orientation -- can change the contents or meaning of the foreground. On metaphoric linkage, one would need to be careful to distinguish association in simple action from linking by outcome and from linking by process in the contextual extension of a word, phrase or term (to point to three of potentially many forms of extension). Each form of cognition can introduce further forms of extension (or displacement). I will send you the draft which is about these differing perspectives and ideas concerning how shifts can be realised through "conversation" (Pask's term) and orientation. In addition to deliberate displacement/extension there is also the displacements that arise across levels of sophistication, such as the child's concretised apprehension of abstract phrases. No doubt much more can be said. Huw On Fri, 7 Sep 2018 at 04:36, Douglas Williams wrote: > Hi, Huw-- > > I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably > most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, > influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific > understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies > in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, > emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the > late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell > apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and > in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind > of sustaining research program that would develop it. > > Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually > present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over > time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or > collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as > purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific > events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or > memories) puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the > pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which > mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and > other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through > recall or performance--operate. > > I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This > is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up > closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later > turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which > is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small > victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with > had nothing to do with me. > > This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own > version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is > there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing > itself... > > Regards, > Doug > > On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some > technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of > cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few > sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this > explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as > being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. > > The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya Hasan's > books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial > constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was > interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning > around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally > identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms > of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. > > Best, > Huw > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > Annalisa, Doug, all, > > > just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and > Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and > being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think > there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on > metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many > other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one > objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from > their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading > the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very > illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in > conceptual thinking, they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic sphere. > As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of > metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part of > living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an > account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of > matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which > was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers > to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But > then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and > Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to > account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. > > > But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," > then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to > understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing > theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world > is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with > abstract perceptions. > > > Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors > such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" > cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our > bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of > their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed > material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, > the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" > (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for > educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on > these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the > flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). > > More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been > inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it > is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity > that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work > in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the > larger framework. > > > Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the > metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to > concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors > forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a > means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps > on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. > > > As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your > beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" > that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and > whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I > mention above. > > > Cheers, > Alfredo > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* 04 September 2018 11:02 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > > Huw, > > > One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because > animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to > respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I > just scanned the thread as of late. > > > If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case > that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that > everyone else accepts. > > > Yes. > > > > What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a > reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read > Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? > > > If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as > assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. > > > > What are your 20 exceptions? > > > Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. > The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an > invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few > points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than > solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a > few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be > usefully applied in looking for yourself. > > Huw > > [...] > > It is possible. > > > Kind regards, > > > Annalisa > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of > concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From > recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, > it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get > over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite > a bit and fudge the issue. > > Best, > Huw > > On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote: > > Huw/Doug > > > > And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we > wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school > activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in > particular: > > Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting > in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, > Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Huw/Doug > > > > This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his > analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following > the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Doug, > > > > I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? > > > > As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing > metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them > in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly > articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a > disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch > ?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on > "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in > the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". > > > > In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its > development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of > ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be > isomorphic across domains. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > > > Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took > about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they > were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up > to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things > in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and > Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be > some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not > interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. > > > > Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of > the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address > themselves to Lakoff in particular? > > > > I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the > explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic > cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, > the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, > and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, > which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an > embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more > calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study > that is expanding its adherents, > > > > Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* > are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. > > > > And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- > > I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that > embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of > all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese > cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the > awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is > evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. > > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered > for their symbolism. Find out the true m... > > Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter > snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or > restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal > cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related > specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, unconsciously, > at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are > in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the > dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something > embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" > > > > Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, > Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams > And our desires. > > > > a common theme... > > > > Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? > Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) > > > > Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: > Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? > And this first Summer month that brings the Rose > Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) > > > > But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and > analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that > was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and > associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and > metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present > memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but > emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and > present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past > fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very > primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive > nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly > scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? > According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in > images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and > internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams > that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of > imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. > Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part > of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach > into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer > to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of > imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take > cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social > effects that are probably underexamined. > > > > For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, > it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic > thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey > implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own > embodied world of imagery. > > > > Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from > Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all > the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some > extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to > perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. > They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. > Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, > pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and > schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory > would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to > play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural > themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human > experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. > > > > But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less > interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to > dream... > > > > Regards, > > Doug > > > > > > On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We > Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books > the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems > to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, > I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of > homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by > Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) > > Alfredo > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, > > > > Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass. > > > > I would reply: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; > > but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; > > A mother who lives forever. > > Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. > > > > However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I > had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully > (I hope). > > > > For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied > thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating > myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we > are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my > fingertips right now to say more on that. > > > > It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant > while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian > assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David > Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning > new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form > of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) > > > > The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a > body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, > etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness > thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the > shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. > > > > I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying > on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a > postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). > > > > Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about > metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not > referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something > like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could > not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we > want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use > a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So > environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as > well. > > > > How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and > without gravity and a horizon). > > > > Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also > has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things > to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of > perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we > see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have > one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel > coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! > > > > Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in > Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is > someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what > you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language > to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter > of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when > translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I > understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same > time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural > world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" > cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful > than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who > was French!) > > > > I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want > of a plane to board. > > > > With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is > aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, > so does a metaphor. > > > > In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for > "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly > to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the > dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 > equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta > of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something > very hard to explain rationally. > > > > It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron > might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that > moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for > one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the > roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, > and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness > belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically > differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart > into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts > adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the > self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the > self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, > "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure > that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if > used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of > consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a > useful tool. > > > > One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, > especially if the screw is a nail. > > > > I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course > there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another > way they can fail. > > > > I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help > problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or > some other superhero. > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Annalisa > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180907/dd081b68/attachment.html From simangele.mayisela@wits.ac.za Fri Sep 7 23:31:03 2018 From: simangele.mayisela@wits.ac.za (Simangele Mayisela) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2018 06:31:03 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Books for out library Message-ID: <136A8BCDB24BB844A570A40E6ADF5DA80109E56483@Elpis.ds.WITS.AC.ZA> Dear Colleagues Our Department of Psychology has received a reasonable budget from out Faculty office to purchase some books for our library. It will be great honour to have the books that you have authored or edited at our disposal. You are also at liberty to suggest other books, which may be related to CHAT, AT and psychotherapy, learning and development, transformation and higher educations, mental functioning/transformation and technology . I therefore request you to send me a list of books you recommend and suggest. Best regards, Simangele Mayisela This communication is intended for the addressee only. It is confidential. If you have received this communication in error, please notify us immediately and destroy the original message. You may not copy or disseminate this communication without the permission of the University. Only authorised signatories are competent to enter into agreements on behalf of the University and recipients are thus advised that the content of this message may not be legally binding on the University and may contain the personal views and opinions of the author, which are not necessarily the views and opinions of The University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg. All agreements between the University and outsiders are subject to South African Law unless the University agrees in writing to the contrary. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180908/19176c79/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Fri Sep 7 23:46:56 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2018 06:46:56 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <529243700.913582.1536292863511@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <1575483490.212334.1535963020033@mail.yahoo.com> , <529243700.913582.1536292863511@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: Hi Doug and venerable others, Yours is a very beautifully written explanation, and very dense to unpack. One question I have is that, yes, given that meaning can extend beyond the heuristic framework of complexes from which it arises ? or am I making a mistake by saying meaning rather than language? I am forced to consider how a symbol becomes anchored, as you use the concept of symbol. How does that work? It can't just float in the air at the moment I comprehend it. Were it so, then I could have endless numbers of mentalist symbols stored in a "shelving system" whereby one symbol could reside disconnected from all the rest. And perhaps I would require some kind of Dewey decimal system or registry in order to retrieve the symbol at which time I could utilize it. This doesn't seem to carry any economy. It does borrow the mechanics of computer memory access though, and so again we are borrowing a metaphor that as you say has become dead. The problem is when the metaphor limits our ability to reason in the world, "in the world" being the most important aspect to emphasize. I contend that the metaphor of the computer for human cognition is a dead end, because it just doesn't make sense to limit our thinking based upon units of a machine that did not exist even a hundred years ago, where human cognition has been around a lot longer. That's like trying to use a yardstick to measure the sun. On the other hand, there has been some utility to employ the computer as a metaphor for thinking, because it may have relinquished us from a behaviorist model of stimulus/response without knowing what is inside the black box. With the computer metaphor, we could start to imagine what was in the black box. And that is the power of the metaphor, that we can map one thing to another and try it out, play and experiment. Is this like that? How much is it like that? How different is it from that? etc. What fails is how much we don't want to let the metaphor go when the aspects of cognition fail to be effectively represented by the computer metaphor. Some would rather deny the aspects of cognition than give up the darn metaphor. If the only requirement for the symbols I (as-if) carry around in my head was that I could comprehend them to use them, perhaps like identifying a philips screwdriver from a flathead screwdriver because I know that they are each useful based upon what type of screw I'm trying to negotiate from a hinge, let's say, there is still in my memory a recollection (re-hyphen-collection) of the context of these tools and their utility. The point being that the tool can never be decontextualized. Even to use the word "tool" means it is to be used for a particular application, it implies a context. Sure, any tool can be used in a different and innovative way, but this doesn't negate how the tool got to be a tool in the first place. There is a difference between a tool and an object, in this regard. Because the tool is unified with a context (of utility), an object on the other hand, is removed from its context. It is an abstraction and just like an item discovered in an archeological dig, after hundreds of years in the ground, the only way we can come to understand it is by trying to suss out the context, like the scene of a crime, what happened to make this dead body dead? What is it like that we already know about? etc. But context doesn't reside inside the metaphor, but pervades the metaphor as embodied meaning, and extends beyond it, so to speak, connecting or mapping the metaphor to its environment in the world. This environmental aspect that I'm referencing assists in economy, but it has the sense of being "invisible" because of our human attentional focus upon utility and meaning, rather than holding the entire contextual view in our heads. A symbol, as an object, becomes harder to utilize the more it extends away from its more-grounded locii (within a context), but those who are familiar with the symbol still carry the contextual framework. It is a framework not the entire world, after all. One example of this (which tests my cobwebby math memory) is the formula of 2?r equaling the circumference of the circle. (2?r) is a complex of (2) multiplied by (3.14...) multiplied by (the radius of the circle), where each of these number values are symbols in their own right, but behind this economic and compact formula, which is a handy tool, is a context that need not be unpacked every time we invoke the formula, such that 2?r comes to be seen as a single unit of meaning, that is (2?r) references -> (the circumference of a circle). That reference only appears to be removed from its heuristic framework (and not just because I used parentheses), still the connection remains because the world of circles shows the merit of the formula every time, and this is not because of the formula, which is just a description of circles, but because the circumference of all circular items in the world do indeed have this proportion in relation to their radii fairly predictably. That reality is located in the immanent world, not inside the symbol. The symbol is a reference to the world itself, but we can't remove the world for the sake of the symbol. Just try. But the tricky thing here is that it is our attention that *does* (as-if) remove the world, and this is for economy, because the world doesn't have to be uploaded into the mind in order to use the formula or to utilize the symbol, because we are inside the world and it remains, but instead our attention is what morphs with the affordances that the world presents to us, in this case the affordance of a circle. I would say that our attention becomes fragmented by the symbol, so we can streamline our cognitive resources for economy's sake. Just experience (2?r) versus (2) multiplied by (3.14...) multiplied by (the radius of the circle) We need less attention for the first symbol than the second one, both signifying the circumference of a circle. Nothing changed about circles in the world in the process. I am doubtful whether comprehension of the tool, as I understand you to describe a symbol, can ever be disconnected from the world, because then wouldn't it be the case that we would never be able to explain the meaning of 2?r to another person once we comprehended it? The framework would be completely lost and the symbol un-anchored. We would know what the symbol could represent, but we wouldn't know why, it would be an ahistorical object. Perhaps we might forget momentarily, but then the world is there with its circles for us to reference, like reading the world as a dictionary, to remind us, re-anchor us. When we peel a banana, our attention is on the peel for a short time, until it is removed, and then we throw it away and enjoy the fruit, but the peel only disappears from our attention, not from the world. In fact the entire world may drop away as we focus upon the banana and the sensual experience of its smell, texture, and flavor, etc. I suggest that it is the same with what you deem symbols. Another "inverted" aspect of this might be seen in the palace memory, and how spatial imaginings (contexts) can help the capacity of memory, but that is because there is such a thing as a framework of a conceptual house, a context that resides in the embodied world. We had to know and experience a house-in-the-world to imagine one. Here is a framework erected so that memories can be "put inside" for later access. Some folks using this method can forget about the item because they recollect the room first and survey what is in it, based upon location in this imaginary room, to retrieve it again. Like knowing I have all my books on cognitive science on the third shelf from the top, but I might not know exactly their names until I stand in front of the shelf to examine them. This is a perfect example of the economy of context. That's why it must be that these "symbols," as in a memory palace, are not mental apparitions in the head, but something embodied, because of knowing up and down, right from left, as one travels the memory palace, room by room, can only happen with a body. This doesn't mean that a person has identical associations or contexts or what have you for each word or symbol as another person, it just means that for each word or symbol there is a history behind it and that history continues to grow and develop with every use in a context-in-the-world, making that "meaning" unique, uniquely developed, and uniquely appreciated by that person. I believe the same can be said of rituals. They are enactments of the world through symbols that reference the world in some capacity, and we just unpack rituals to relive an attentional aspect of the world in order to keep their coherency and currency alive in us. In a certain way, rituals can be a way of garbage collection, in that they clear away the cruft that might have settled from the last time we had the ritual. Re-enactment affords an opportunity for reorganizing our meaning-making, for re-anchoring our connection to the past, to family, to any embodied connection-in-the-world. I realize that there may be some things I'm missing in my argument above, but I am counting upon others to point that out for me, and to them I say, in advance, thank you. :) Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180908/deeecab7/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Sat Sep 8 00:18:20 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2018 07:18:20 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <93EEE38E-EDE0-4FF0-B656-C749F2FDCE83@gmail.com> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> , <93EEE38E-EDE0-4FF0-B656-C749F2FDCE83@gmail.com> Message-ID: Henry! To the happy lurker. :) Did Alfredo mention Langacker and Varela? I think I missed this. Please remind if you are so motivated. It's funny because I do not know these references, and I would love if you might reconnect them for me, as you experienced it. Including an unpacking or Bret Victor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Victor if you like. Would you mind sharing the Heidegger quote. I must be daft that I don't recall reference that either. I would say that you have a very rich knowledge base. And last, how does the subject line (of "Rogers Day") figure for you? Just curious. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180908/c3dc234f/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Sat Sep 8 08:45:07 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Sat, 8 Sep 2018 09:45:07 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> <93EEE38E-EDE0-4FF0-B656-C749F2FDCE83@gmail.com> Message-ID: Annalisa, I think it was Doug who mentioned Langacker, logical given the connection between Langacker?s cognitive grammar and Lakoff?s work on metaphor. Here?s the quote from Heidegger from the forward to Roth?s book: It was also Doug, I think, who mentioned Varela, along with Rosch, who has done great work on prototype theory. Rosch, you probably know, is deeply into Buddhism and has been writing a lot on mindfullness (especially how popularisations are superficial). Henry > On Sep 8, 2018, at 1:18 AM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > > Henry! > > To the happy lurker. :) > > Did Alfredo mention Langacker and Varela? I think I missed this. Please remind if you are so motivated. > > It's funny because I do not know these references, and I would love if you might reconnect them for me, as you experienced it. > > Including an unpacking or Bret Victor > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Victor > if you like. > > Would you mind sharing the Heidegger quote. I must be daft that I don't recall reference that either. > > I would say that you have a very rich knowledge base. > > And last, how does the subject line (of "Rogers Day") figure for you? Just curious. > > Kind regards, > > Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180908/6ee1c2b8/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Heidegger on the hand.docx Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document Size: 66237 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180908/6ee1c2b8/attachment.bin -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180908/6ee1c2b8/attachment-0001.html From annalisa@unm.edu Sat Sep 8 17:17:58 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2018 00:17:58 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Pleroma and Creatura Message-ID: Greetings, Alfredo, I'm very much savoring the chapter you posted by Bateson. There are a few things however that I disagree in it, but it's by a matter of degree. I disagree with the notion of an "interface" between Pleroma and Creatura (P & C, respectively). Because P extends and pervades C, and in fact P is the very substance of C. If you doubt this, then why is it 96% of the human body is water? I presume water is an element assigned to P and not C. I would also suggest that knowledge, K, is also located in P, not as an object, but as awareness. And that the awareness that pervades, pervades not only us but through everything and everywhere in space and in time. If we consider what it would look like to say that, consider this. Let's say we have universe A (ua) and universe B (ub). In (ua) Ka pervades the entire universe like space pervades the universe. All objects in the universe therefore would possess or contain or constitute Ka in some capacity. Some might call this information, but I think Knowledge is better because Knowledge implies awareness, whereas information is dead, a closed book until such time one opens it. Hold on to that for just a bit, before objecting (or objectifying :) !!) Now, in (ub) let's say that Kb does not pervade the universe, and only resides inside sentient beings, like bubbles of consciousness interspersed throughout Pb. And anywhere Pb is Cb isn't, and vice versa. This sets up a strange scenario of dualism, by which Pb does not "know" Cb, but Cb "knows" Pb. Let me continue in this thought experiment. In (ua), given that Ka is pervasive in this universe (ua), all that would be required of Ca is the ability to reflect aspects of Pa, which would be very economical. If Ka were in constant movement and perpetual change, there would be no limit to the unfolding of the Ka as it pervades the Pa and Ca, since Ca is basically a subset residing within Pa. Ka would be unemcumbered and would not require any form of interface, because the Pa and Ca have no separation and are basically share the same substrate, just in multifarious forms and presentations that pervade time and space. Additionally, in (ua), there could be two classes of perspectives, since Ka possess awareness which pervades throughout (ua). One from the standpoint of Pa and another from the standpoint of Ca, one being the total the other the particular, in an aspectual sense. Now let's take a wormhole through to (ub). In that universe, Kb resides inside Cb and Pb has no connection and never will have connection to Kb inside Cb, because Pb is only a dead material to be consumed by Cb. And Cb constructs Kb much like a house or a combustible engine. Kb from the standpoint of Pb is non-existent. And that also implies that Kb in essence depends upon Cb for its existence, because Pb is like a void, in terms of knowledge, it is just empty, dead material. It becomes hard to explain how awareness can manifest from dead material, seeing as we are in this universe, like the other universe, are also "made up" of 96% water, how can the awareness arise from dead material. Water might animate, like a waterfall, or like the sea or a stream, but at what point does awareness and knowledge spontaneously combust (or manifest) into the bubbles of awareness within the Cb? If Knowledge were products of the Creatura alone, as incidental and arbitrary accidents over time and through space, then it would mean that Creatura are accidental machines producing knowledge like little knowledge factories, and randomness would not explain how knowledge has an appearance of continuity from one bubble of knowledge to another. (I think that this is where Leibniz had to pack it up and go home, actually) Kb1 in Cb1 located in one part of Ub would have and should have no connection to Kb2 in Cb2 located in another part of Ub. As they would manifest singularly with no connection to one another. Furthermore, if per chance Kb1 were to collide with Kb2 because there is meeting at a Creatura convention between Cb1 and Cb2, then I suppose Kb1 and Kb2 would then become Kb3. Additionally, Kb3 would be lost to Ub if both entities Cb1 and Cb2 died and could not disperse Kb1, 2, or 3 to other Creaturabn. Because Kb1, 2, or 3 resides "inside" the awareness bubbles of Cb1 and Cb2 it would be impossible for knowledge to be passed down at all unless there were positive contact and knowledge exchange between Cbn and Cbn+1. But knowledge doesn't really work like that. Culture and language might work like that but not knowledge. >From the aspectual point of Cb in ub, Kb lives in Cb and only Cb; Pb has no equivalent for situated knowledge, there is no Kb from the aspect of Pb, because Pb cannot know, it is dead, non-awareful matter, and there is no aspect possible. Pb is like a mine whose matter that is consumed, as it were, by Cb, and because Kb only exists in Cb, Kb is limited by the limitations of Cb, which is limited by the limitations of dead-like matter in Pb that it consumes in an arbitrary and accidental manner. OK, thanks for staying with it. Let's return to Ua. There, Kac1 in Ca is no different from Kap in Pa, because actually, Kac1 is a reflection of Kap, and if Ca1 were to meet with Ca2 at a Creatura convention, Kac1 and Kac2 colliding wouldn't actually create a Kac3, but instead they would be testable by how well Kac1 and Kac2 holds up to Kap, which pervades through the Pa, uninhibited. This interaction is actually more like what we experience when it comes to science, actually. OK. Let's say that in Ub, Cb1 and Cb2 strongly believe that Kb only resides within them, and not in Pb. And when they look out upon Pb through the lens of Kb1 and Kb2, they are convinced that the location of Kb1 and Kb2, and even Kb3 and Kbn and n+1 can only reside inside Cbn and n+1. Then, in Ua, Ca1 and Ca2 strongly believe that Ka only resides within them, and not in Pa. But in reality, the truth is that Ka pervades Pa which includes Can and n+1. And in fact this reality does not depend at all on Ca1 and Ca2's belief of where Ka resides at all. Ka's location is in Pa; it just is that way, independent of Ca understanding. Now here's the kicker: >From the aspect of Ca looking upon Ka in Ua; and the aspect of Cb looking upon Kb in Ub; how would it be possible to tell the difference between the perceived location of Ka and the perceived location of Kb? From the aspects of Ca and Cb, the appearance of Ka and Kb, respectively, would look identical to each other. Ka is a reflection of Kp residing in Pa, while Kb is the object residing as Kc within Cb. Furthermore, to test the hypothesis that Kb resides only in Cb and not in Pb we would have to eliminate the entire Pb to test that Kb only resides in Cb, which is impossible. And we do happen to know that the universe abhors a vacuum. But how would we test if Ka is pervasive through Pa of which Ca is a subset? That is your homework, maties. Given that our experience of Knowledge from our perspective has an appearance of being constructed because we work with knowledge, construct it, etc., there is an illusion of authorship arising from Creatura. There is also an experience of continuity and overlap that couldn't exist for Knowledge if it were limited to the boundaries of Creatura, and not only Creatura, but a particular kind of Creatura called Humans. Other Creatura residing in the Pleroma where Knowledge exists only in small consciousness bubbles inside Humans, don't possess one iota of Knowledge, because there is some special unknown entity or property within Humans, that we haven't yet discovered, or uncovered, put our finger upon, to explain coherently and economically why knowledge is something located in us, but no where else. This story resembles pre-copernicus views of the universe, which asserted that the earth was the center of the universe (because we live on it). So if humans are not at the center of our solar system, but also the galaxy and the universe, why should humans be the center of knowledge and awareness? We do know that awareness resides in other Creatura than ourselves (think Koko), and we do have a Gaia-sense about Nature in the world, which isn't just a projection or anthropomorphizing ourselves upon the world, because we do have a sense that worlds (and natural systems) can exist without us, and that there is an ordered way about them, not an arbitrary collection of matter that looks like an abandoned basement of discarded items or a garbage heap 4000 years old. Indeed, when we learn about something really disruptive or novel in the Pleroma, we say it is a "discovery". Knowledge has been uncovered, or revealed. The Aha moment is one of light and recognition, and not about a totally original creation of something that did not exist ever before in a vacuum. All things that we create, we create from something that existed before, even if it is just dumb wood, or stone. Material is beginningless and endless, like knowledge is beginningless and endless. I think I can safely assert, though I'm not sure at this point, that Knowledge's location is in the Pleroma, not in us. Indeed just like our attentional focus can zero in on particular aspects of the Pleroma, our knowledge also reflects particular aspects of the Pleroma, and we need not "store" the knowledge in our heads, we only need to reflect it, which is extremely economical. It means then, that the effectiveness of the knowledge we do as-if possess has a basis upon the nature and health of our minds, and how well we might reflect this knowledge. The "cleaner" the mind, the "cleaner" the reflection, the brighter the flame of knowledge appears in the individual. The words "cleaner" are relative and not absolute, because just as in the physical world, there are elements that possess different properties of reflectivity, such as the difference between silver and the surface of water, or a surface of white marble compared to one black marble; they reflect differently, but what they reflect is the same light. Additionally, no single member of Creatura can claim ownership of knowledge, unless they can claim possession of the Pleroma. OK, perhaps this could be better rendered, but that is my take upon it. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180909/ff95dd8d/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 11 14:58:34 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 14:58:34 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Assistant Teaching Professor, UCSD Department of Psychology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A different kind of job, again for the right person. mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Emma Geller Date: Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 1:30 PM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Assistant Teaching Professor, UCSD Department of Psychology To: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org Dear colleagues, The Department of Psychology invites application for an Assistant Teaching Professor (Lecturer with Potential Security of Employment, LPSOE). This position is equivalent in level to other assistant professor positions, but with emphasis upon excellence in teaching and instruction-related activities. Teaching Professors are expected to provide more than excellent teaching. They have leadership responsibility, not only as teachers, but as facilitators and initiators of instructional development, curriculum design, teaching methods new instructional technologies, and department-wide coordination of teaching activities. Teaching Professors are expected to provide outstanding teaching, as well as to engage in professional activity (such as research on pedagogy) and service related to the pedagogical mission of the department and university (such as community outreach). This appointment confers membership in the Academic Senate, and, contingent upon promotion, tenure-paralleling security of employment. Candidates will be favored who (1) have teaching expertise in any area of the psychological sciences, (2) have demonstrated superlative accomplishment in the classroom or other instructional milieu, (3) show potential for or demonstrated educational leadership in areas contributing to diversity, equity, and inclusion, and (4) will contribute to instruction-related activities (e.g., conducting TA training, curriculum development, creation of instructional materials including on-line instruction, employ new technologies) at the campus, statewide and national level. Applicants must have a Ph.D. or ABD in psychology, cognitive science, or a closely allied field. Authorization to work in the US is required before employment. Salary: Salary is commensurate with qualifications and based on University of California pay scales. Closing Date: Review of applications will begin October 15, 2018 and will continue until the position is filled. To Apply: Candidates should submit a cover letter, curriculum vitae, teaching statement, links to any documentation of teaching excellence (including instructional materials developed by the candidate, summaries of teaching evaluations, on-line instructional segments, reprints of scholarly articles particularly with a pedagogical focus), and a personal statement that summarizes their past or potential contributions to diversity (see http://facultyequity.ucsd.edu/Faculty-Applicant-C2D-Info.asp for further information). The candidate should also provide the names of three to five referees and request letters commenting on the candidate?s pedagogical skills, among other attributes. All materials should be submitted electronically via UCSD's Academic Personnel On-Line RECRUIT at https://apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/apply/JPF01881. Please apply to the following job posting: Assistant Teaching Professor ? Lecturer with Potential Security of Employment The University of California is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer. All qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, national origin, disability, age or protected veteran status. -- Emma H. Geller, Ph.D. Assistant Teaching Professor Department of Psychology University of California San Diego (858) 822-2555 _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180911/682d3ef3/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 11 14:57:15 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 11 Sep 2018 14:57:15 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Assistant Professor Position at University of Maryland, College Park In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: a topic of interest for the proper job candidate mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Tracy Riggins Date: Tue, Sep 11, 2018 at 12:22 PM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Assistant Professor Position at University of Maryland, College Park To: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org The Department of Psychology (www.psychology.umd.edu) at the University of Maryland seeks candidates for a tenure-track position in social psychology with a *specialization in racial prejudice, racial discrimination, and/or racial stereotyping. *The appointment will be made at the Assistant Professor level with an expected start date of Fall 2019. The ideal candidate will have advanced quantitative skills and be able to teach undergraduate and graduate courses in social psychology, specialty courses on prejudice and discrimination, and quantitative methods. For full details please see: https://ejobs.umd.edu/postings/61559 Candidates will have many opportunities to collaborate with faculty members conducting related research on diversity science within Psychology and across multiple other departments and colleges (e.g., Sociology, African American Studies, Criminology, Public Health, Education, Business). Located in the Washington DC metropolitan area, faculty benefit from an array of other resources including close collaborative ties with neighboring institutions (e.g., Children?s National Medical Center; National Institutes of Health; Walter Reed National Military Medical Center; University of Maryland School of Medicine; Mental Illness Research, Education and Clinical Center/Baltimore VAMC). The Department of Psychology is committed to increasing the diversity of the campus community and promoting inclusion across campus. Candidates who have experience working with a diverse range of faculty, staff, and students, and who can contribute to the climate of inclusivity are encouraged to identify their experiences in these areas. The Department embraces the values of open and reproducible science, and candidates are encouraged to address (in their statements and/or cover letter) how they have pursued and/or plan to pursue these goals in their work. Candidates should have a strong publication record related to racial prejudice, racial discrimination, and/or racial stereotyping, and promise for, or an established record of, external funding. Candidates should have a demonstrated commitment to teaching and mentorship at both undergraduate and graduate levels, including working with students and groups from underrepresented backgrounds. A PhD in Psychology or related field, with a specialization in social or social/personality psychology is required at the time of appointment. For best consideration, materials should be submitted by October 1, 2018. Review of applications will begin following this date and continue until the position is filled. Applicants should submit all application materials through eTerp. Application material should include a CV, cover letter, statement of current and future research, and statement of teaching philosophy and experience (including evidence of teaching excellence, if available). Applicants should also provide email addresses for 3 letters of recommendation. Applicants may provide an optional sample research manuscript or journal article (recommended) in the Supplemental Document 1 field in eTerp. The University of Maryland, College Park, an equal opportunity/affirmative action employer, complies with all applicable federal and state laws and regulations regarding nondiscrimination and affirmative action; all qualified applicants will receive consideration for employment. The University is committed to a policy of equal opportunity for all persons and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, physical or mental disability, protected veteran status, age, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation, creed, marital status, political affiliation, personal appearance, or on the basis of rights secured by the First Amendment, in all aspects of employment, educational programs and activities, and admissions. Tracy Riggins, Ph.D. Associate Professor Secretary, Cognitive Development Society Department of Psychology 4094 Campus Drive Biology/Psychology Building Room 2147J University of Maryland College Park, MD 20742 (301) 405-5905 http://ncdl.umd.edu riggins@umd.edu _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180911/5c9eeea1/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Thu Sep 13 09:11:08 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2018 09:11:08 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: Update: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology Message-ID: an interesting glance into the business of academic publishing. Now the publisher outsources to the authors in a new way to get out and flog their work to increase sales and presumably their own visibility. mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: ZUCCA, Damon Date: Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 5:29 AM Subject: Update: Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology To: "taabraha@uoguelph.ca" , "jabramowitz@unc.edu" < jabramowitz@unc.edu>, "achenbaum@gmail.com" , " adamsg@ku.edu" , "Carolyn.Aldwin@oregonstate.edu" < Carolyn.Aldwin@oregonstate.edu>, "alma.au@polyu.edu.hk" < alma.au@polyu.edu.hk>, "dalmeida@psu.edu" , " Neil.Anderson@brunel.ac.uk" , "caa@iastate.edu" , "jandrewshanna@email.arizona.edu" < jandrewshanna@email.arizona.edu>, "ASANG@ntu.edu.sg" , " daniel.ansari@uwo.ca" , "saulo.araujo@ufjf.edu.br" < saulo.araujo@ufjf.edu.br>, "saayaca@gmail.com" , " arvinenb@uwm.edu" , "N.ashkanasy@business.uq.edu.au" < N.ashkanasy@business.uq.edu.au>, "j.atkinson@ucl.ac.uk" < j.atkinson@ucl.ac.uk>, "christopher.bader@colorado.edu" < christopher.bader@colorado.edu>, "madrono1@psi.ucm.es" , "JBARBER@ADELPHI.EDU" , "scott.barnicle@mail.wvu.edu" < scott.barnicle@mail.wvu.edu>, "talyab@sba.pdx.edu" , " sherryb@stanford.edu" , "ddbecker@brynmawr.edu" < ddbecker@brynmawr.edu>, "sylvie.belleville@umontreal.ca" < sylvie.belleville@umontreal.ca>, "regine.bendl@wu.ac.at" < regine.bendl@wu.ac.at>, "leb237@psu.edu" , "mberan1@gsu.edu" , "lbeutler@paloaltou.edu" , " sbhar@swin.edu.au" , "boker@virginia.edu" < boker@virginia.edu>, "jeff@bondconsulting.com.au" < jeff@bondconsulting.com.au>, "s.boutcher@unsw.edu.au" < s.boutcher@unsw.edu.au>, "skylar_brannon@utexas.edu" < skylar_brannon@utexas.edu>, "mbray@austin.utexas.edu" < mbray@austin.utexas.edu>, "bbrewer@springfieldcollege.edu" < bbrewer@springfieldcollege.edu>, "S.Bright@exchange.curtin.edu.au" < S.Bright@exchange.curtin.edu.au>, "peyball@yahoo.com" , " e.broadbent@auckland.ac.nz" , " adrian.c.brock@gmail.com" , "Jennifer.Brunet@uOttawa.ca" , " d.bunce@leeds.ac.uk" , "hana.burianova@swansea.ac.uk" < hana.burianova@swansea.ac.uk>, "j.t.burman@rug.nl" , " deborahc@oslc.org" , "h_carpintero@yahoo.com" < h_carpintero@yahoo.com>, "cmcarr@stvincent.org" , " carl.castro@usc.edu" , "Pradeep.Chakkarath@rub.de" < Pradeep.Chakkarath@rub.de>, "chasteen@psych.utoronto.ca" < chasteen@psych.utoronto.ca>, "cychiu@cuhk.edu.hk" , " h.christensen@blackdog.org.au" , " stiliani.chroni@inn.no" , "achronis@umd.edu" < achronis@umd.edu>, "xeniachryssochoou@gmail.com" < xeniachryssochoou@gmail.com>, "l.clare@exeter.ac.uk" , "margaret.clark@yale.edu" , " s.g.clarke@manchester.ac.uk" , "mcole@ucsd.edu" , "a.collins@lancaster.ac.uk" , " corrigan@iit.edu" , "jc46@queensu.ca" , " tristan.coulter@qut.edu.au" , " pcroce@stetson.edu" , "SCzaja@med.miami.edu" < SCzaja@med.miami.edu>, "liesbet.dekock@ugent.be" , "silvia.degni@unicusano.it" , " jeffrey.derevensky@mcgill.ca" , " F.Didymus@leedsbeckett.ac.uk" , " manfred.diehl@colostate.edu" , " n.dissanayaka@uq.edu.au" , "John.Dovidio@yale.edu" , "j.l.duda@bham.ac.uk" , " robin.dunbar@psy.ox.ac.uk" , "meby@challiance.org" , "barry.edelstein@mail.wvu.edu" < barry.edelstein@mail.wvu.edu>, "mehrhart@mail.sdsu.edu" < mehrhart@mail.sdsu.edu>, "ekkekaki@iastate.edu" , " erobert@admin.fsu.edu" , "ellingl@iastate.edu" < ellingl@iastate.edu>, "vesses@uwo.ca" , "jletnier@uncg.edu" < jletnier@uncg.edu>, "Edward.Etzel@mail.wvu.edu" , "meys@wlu.ca" , "sfestini@ut.edu" , " lfisher2@utk.edu" , "D.Fletcher@lboro.ac.uk" < D.Fletcher@lboro.ac.uk>, "focht.10@osu.edu" , " bf450@georgetown.edu" , "matt.fritz@unl.edu" < matt.fritz@unl.edu>, "mfry@ku.edu" , "hhlfung@psy.cuhk.edu.hk" , "amber.gaffney@humboldt.edu" < amber.gaffney@humboldt.edu>, "sportpsych@xsinet.co.za" < sportpsych@xsinet.co.za>, "gajewski@ifado.de" , " c.gallois@uq.edu.au" , "benjamin.gardner@kcl.ac.uk" < benjamin.gardner@kcl.ac.uk>, "gaug0015@umn.edu" , " gibbs.1@osu.edu" , "s.gibson@yorksj.ac.uk" < s.gibson@yorksj.ac.uk>, "dlgill@uncg.edu" , " annie_ginty@baylor.edu" , "ante.glavas@gmail.com" < ante.glavas@gmail.com>, "sglazer@ubalt.edu" , " Vicente.Glez-Roma@uv.es" , "j.m.m.good@durham.ac.uk" , "r.gould@ucl.ac.uk" , " vgranito@lorainccc.edu" , "demond.grant@okstate.edu" , "jeff@email.arizona.edu" , "kjgrimm@asu.edu" , "igrossmann@uwaterloo.ca" < igrossmann@uwaterloo.ca>, "ggrote@ethz.ch" , " david.guest@kcl.ac.uk" , " horst.gundlach@alumni.uni-heidelberg.de" < horst.gundlach@alumni.uni-heidelberg.de>, "thackney@med.unc.edu" < thackney@med.unc.edu>, "hallmh@upmc.edu" , "hammerl@pdx.edu" , "sarah@ori.org" , "jutley@usa.edu" < jutley@usa.edu>, "trevor.harley@mac.com" , " helle.harnisch@gmail.com" , " jharwood@email.arizona.edu" , " drhays@theperformingedge.com" , " r.hayward@qmul.ac.uk" , "allisonrheid@gmail.com" < allisonrheid@gmail.com>, "heimberg@temple.edu" , " christopher.hertzog@psych.gatech.edu" , "thomas_hess@ncsu.edu" , "hheyck@ou.edu" < hheyck@ou.edu>, "hilton@univ-tlse2.fr" , " geropsychgah@aol.com" , "helge.hoel@manchester.ac.uk" , "m.holmes@bbk.ac.uk" , " hhoneycu@bridgewater.edu" , " hookerk@oregonstate.edu" , "choppmann@psych.ubc.ca" , "chuang5@fau.edu" , " george.huber@mccombs.utexas.edu" , " gizem.hueluer@psychologie.uzh.ch" , " shayke@wincol.ac.il" , "imai@sfc.keio.ac.jp" < imai@sfc.keio.ac.jp>, "kerstin.isaksson@mdh.se" , " ishii@lit.kobe-u.ac.jp" , "mary.jacobsdodson2@va.gov" , "ljames@uccs.edu" , " eric.jarvis1@mcgill.ca" , "ivo.jirasek@upol.cz" < ivo.jirasek@upol.cz>, "scott.johnson@ucla.edu" , " a9johnson@stthomas.edu" , "johnston@uncg.edu" < johnston@uncg.edu>, "RobertJones@MissouriState.edu" < RobertJones@missouristate.edu>, "sk29@aub.edu.lb" , " Alan.Kazdin@yale.edu" , " Heidi.Keller@uni-osnabrueck.de" , " michael.kellmann@rub.de" , "kyungmin.kim@umb.edu" < kyungmin.kim@umb.edu>, "hroar.klempe@ntnu.no" , " akontos@pitt.edu" , "jerzy.kosiewicz@awf.edu.pl" < jerzy.kosiewicz@awf.edu.pl>, "Kurt.Kraiger@colostate.edu" < Kurt.Kraiger@colostate.edu>, "zkrizan@iastate.edu" , " jane.kroger@uit.no" , "rskudesia@wustl.edu" < rskudesia@wustl.edu>, "tuomas.laine-frigren@jyu.fi" < tuomas.laine-frigren@jyu.fi>, "lamiellj@georgetown.edu" < lamiellj@georgetown.edu>, "peter.lamont@ed.ac.uk" , " plarson@thechicagoschool.edu" , " latham@rotman.utoronto.ca" , " barbil@nipissingu.ca" , "changhan.lee@usc.edu" < changhan.lee@usc.edu>, "michael.leiter@deakin.edu.au" < michael.leiter@deakin.edu.au>, "xdxl@purdue.edu" , " Irene.Leopoldoff@unige.ch" , " angelaleung@smu.edu.sg" , "Karen.Li@concordia.ca" < Karen.Li@concordia.ca>, "Johnson.Li@umanitoba.ca" , "slilien@emory.edu" , "lockman@tulane.edu" < lockman@tulane.edu>, "andres.losada@urjc.es" , " lunbeck@fas.harvard.edu" , "alluttrell@bsu.edu" < alluttrell@bsu.edu>, "mlyons@bu.edu" , "davidpm@asu.edu" < davidpm@asu.edu>, "david.madden@duke.edu" , " d.madigan@yorksj.ac.uk" , " fernando.maestu@ctb.upm.es" , " Maio@cardiff.ac.uk" , "Lydia.Manning@cuchicago.edu" < Lydia.Manning@cuchicago.edu>, "jmarece1@swarthmore.edu" < jmarece1@swarthmore.edu>, "rm226@columbia.edu" , " martensmp@missouri.edu" , "aa3975@wayne.edu" < aa3975@wayne.edu>, "robin.martin@manchester.ac.uk" < robin.martin@manchester.ac.uk>, "vicente.martinez-tur@uv.es" < vicente.martinez-tur@uv.es>, "katy.martinfernandez@gmail.com" < katy.martinfernandez@gmail.com>, "dmarx@sdsu.edu" , " mmassimi3@yahoo.com" , "b.mast@louisville.edu" < b.mast@louisville.edu>, "matthew.masucci@sjsu.edu" , "saramcc@umich.edu" , "C.Mcgarty@westernsydney.edu.au" < C.Mcgarty@westernsydney.edu.au>, "j.mcgowan.12@ucl.ac.uk" < j.mcgowan.12@ucl.ac.uk>, "rmcintosh@research.baycrest.org" < rmcintosh@research.baycrest.org>, "s.michie@ucl.ac.uk" , "jmikels@depaul.edu" , "mironenko.irina1@gmail.com" < mironenko.irina1@gmail.com>, "misragirishwar@gmail.com" < misragirishwar@gmail.com>, "vmolinari@usf.edu" , " zella.moore@manhattan.edu" , "WhitneyMoore@Wayne.edu" , "aidan.moran@ucd.ie" < aidan.moran@ucd.ie>, "T.Morgenroth@exeter.ac.uk" , "giorgia.morgese@uniroma1.it" , " alexandre.morin@concordia.ca" , "nmoro@hse.ru" , "morrow-howell@wustl.edu" , " john.morss@deakin.edu.au" , " cmorten2@msudenver.edu" , "gbm4@lehigh.edu" < gbm4@lehigh.edu>, "g.moyle@qut.edu.au" , "munduate@us.es" , "chandler@uwindsor.ca" , " elizabeth.murray@ucl.ac.uk" , " neimeyer@memphis.edu" , " serge.nicolas@parisdescartes.fr" , " fnoce@hotmail.com" , "bame@thehdrc.org" , "Nikos.Ntoumanis@curtin.edu.au" , " harry.oosterhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl" < harry.oosterhuis@maastrichtuniversity.nl>, "oswald@em.uni-frankfurt.de" < oswald@em.uni-frankfurt.de>, "dario.paez@ehu.es" , " dpainter@sun.ac.za" , "ross.parke@ucr.edu" < ross.parke@ucr.edu>, "sharon.parker@uwa.edu.au" , "Philip.Parker@acu.edu.au" , "parkscd@wsu.edu" < parkscd@wsu.edu>, "adam.pearson@pomona.edu" , " rpeterson@antioch.edu" , "Trent.Petrie@unt.edu" < Trent.Petrie@unt.edu>, "petruzze@illinois.edu" , " pettigr@ucsc.edu" , "mpettit@yorku.ca" , "christopher.phillipson@manchester.ac.uk" < christopher.phillipson@manchester.ac.uk>, "k.pichora.fuller@utoronto.ca" < k.pichora.fuller@utoronto.ca>, "petteri.pietikainen@oulu.fi" < petteri.pietikainen@oulu.fi>, "pascale.piolino@parisdescartes.fr" < pascale.piolino@parisdescartes.fr>, "mjpitts@email.arizona.edu" < mjpitts@email.arizona.edu>, "npizarroso@psi.uned.es" , "steve@iperformanceconsultants.com" , " karyna.pryiomka@gmail.com" , " christine.purdon@uwaterloo.ca" , " squalls@uccs.edu" , "david.rast@ualberta.ca" < david.rast@ualberta.ca>, "ratliff@ufl.edu" , " kyle.ratner@psych.ucsb.edu" , " a.rebar@cqu.edu.au" , "Peter.Rendell@acu.edu.au" < Peter.Rendell@acu.edu.au>, "vr53@cornell.edu" , " rhodes@uvic.ca" , "nicky.ridgers@deakin.edu.au" < nicky.ridgers@deakin.edu.au>, "michaela.riediger@uni-jena.de" < michaela.riediger@uni-jena.de>, "c.robazza@unich.it" , " glyn.roberts@nih.no" , "g.robinson@psy.uq.edu.au" < g.robinson@psy.uq.edu.au>, "drobinso@truman.edu" , " erodkey@gmail.com" , "roesch@sfu.ca" , " shaynar@yorku.ca" , "ricardo@k-state.edu" < ricardo@k-state.edu>, "jwr2108@columbia.edu" , " nora.ruck@sfu.ac.at" , "gruiz@us.es" , " Andrew.Ryder@concordia.ca" , "kikusk@gmail.com" < kikusk@gmail.com>, "salanova@uji.es" , " Eduardo.salas@rice.edu" , "jesus.salgado@usc.es" < jesus.salgado@usc.es>, "psayegh@psych.ucla.edu" , " dls@wjh.harvard.edu" , "dtschmit@stkate.edu" < dtschmit@stkate.edu>, "bschneider@executiveboard.com" < bschneider@executiveboard.com>, "s.g.l.schruijer@uu.nl" < s.g.l.schruijer@uu.nl>, "Birgit.schyns@neoma-bs.fr" < Birgit.schyns@neoma-bs.fr>, "fscogin@as.ua.edu" , " stacey.scott@stonybrook.edu" , " gilda.sensales@uniroma1.it" , " ss2994@cornell.edu" , "ius14@psu.edu" , " ashankar@sgul.ac.uk" , "lshapiro@wisc.edu" < lshapiro@wisc.edu>, "slshapiro@scu.edu" , " rsheese@yorku.ca" , "ksheese@gmail.com" , "Shrestha@bcm.edu" , "linda.siegel@ubc.ca" < linda.siegel@ubc.ca>, "resmith@uw.edu" , " simon.smith@uq.edu.au" , "glennsmith@phhp.ufl.edu" < glennsmith@phhp.ufl.edu>, "J.R.Smith@exeter.ac.uk" , "stam@ucalgary.ca" , "stangor@umd.edu" , "wsteinel@fsw.leidenuniv.nl" , " dirk.steiner@unice.fr" , "jesstein@indiana.edu" < jesstein@indiana.edu>, "rjs487@cornell.edu" , " b.j.m.steverink@rug.nl" , "estocks@uttyler.edu" < estocks@uttyler.edu>, "billy.strean@ualberta.ca" , "brendon.stubbs@kcl.ac.uk" , "jsuitor@purdue.edu" , "louiselu@frontiernet.net" , "Swann@utexas.edu" , "katherine.tamminen@utoronto.ca" < katherine.tamminen@utoronto.ca>, "gtenenbaum@fsu.edu" , "Clemens.Tesch-Roemer@dza.de" , " a.l.smith@bath.ac.uk" , "rtindal@luc.edu" < rtindal@luc.edu>, "D.A.Tod@ljmu.ac.uk" , " mtoplak@yorku.ca" , "sandra.torres@soc.uu.se" < sandra.torres@soc.uu.se>, "d_touron@uncg.edu" , " J.Trollor@unsw.edu.au" , "Robert.Trotter@nau.edu" < Robert.Trotter@nau.edu>, "truxillod@pdx.edu" , " martin.turner@staffs.ac.uk" , " michael.valenzuela@sydney.edu.au" , " b.van.alphen@mondriaan.eu" , " fons.vandevijver@tilburguniversity.edu" < fons.vandevijver@tilburguniversity.edu>, "k.vandenbos@uu.nl" < k.vandenbos@uu.nl>, "veer@fsw.leidenuniv.nl" , " Kimberly_Vanorden@URMC.Rochester.edu" , "jvanraal@springfieldcollege.edu" , " m.van.zomeren@rug.nl" , "donna.varga@msvu.ca" < donna.varga@msvu.ca>, "julia.vassilieva@monash.edu" < julia.vassilieva@monash.edu>, "marga.vicedo@utoronto.ca" < marga.vicedo@utoronto.ca>, "vickers@ucalgary.ca" , " a.videler@ggzbreburg.nl" , "c.wagner@ucl.ac.uk" < c.wagner@ucl.ac.uk>, "wolfgang.wagner@ut.ee" , " wagoner@hum.aau.dk" , "waijon@hotmail.com" < waijon@hotmail.com>, "wangmo2008@gmail.com" , " E.Ward@mdx.ac.uk" , "Jack.Watson@mail.wvu.edu" < Jack.Watson@mail.wvu.edu>, "jweese1@uwo.ca" , " martin.wieser@sfu-berlin.de" , " jwerker@psych.ubc.ca" , "robertwest@depauw.edu" < robertwest@depauw.edu>, "g.j.westerhof@utwente.nl" , "markus.wettstein@dza.de" , " swhitbo@psych.umass.edu" , "dwiese@umn.edu" < dwiese@umn.edu>, "Stephanie.Wilson2@osumc.edu" , "wingfiel@brandeis.edu" , "awinston@uoguelph.ca" < awinston@uoguelph.ca>, "heather.wolffram@canterbury.ac.nz" < heather.wolffram@canterbury.ac.nz>, "t.woodman@bangor.ac.uk" < t.woodman@bangor.ac.uk>, "wrzus@uni-mainz.de" , " Paul.Wylleman@vub.ac.be" , "lyaldiz@pdx.edu" < lyaldiz@pdx.edu>, "p.yates@qut.edu.au" , " gwenyeo@stanford.edu" , "jeremy_yorgason@byu.edu" < jeremy_yorgason@byu.edu>, "byoung@uottawa.ca" , " hannes.zacher@uni-leipzig.de" , "raz@utk.edu" , "jiayingz@psych.ubc.ca" , " szizzi@mail.wvu.edu" Cc: "ANDERSON, Haley" , "BRUNSTEIN, Ada" < Ada.Brunstein@oup.com> Dear Author, I write from OUP where I am the publisher overseeing the Scholarly Reference Division. I?m contacting you today with news about the next stage of the *Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology*, to which you have contributed. Over the course of the past several years, the *Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology* has grown into a significant publishing program. More than 400 scholars have signed on to write. We have published approximately 120 peer-reviewed articles onto the website, and new articles are added every month. If you have not visited the website recently I encourage you to have another look. *With the publishing now well under way, on 26 September this Research Encyclopedia will be making a transition from its initial free development period to availability by subscription.* What does this mean? OUP is looking to library subscriptions to sustain the ongoing editorial development of this dynamic, living resource for many decades to come. After the transition takes place, many full text articles will remain free, as will all of the article summaries. We remain committed to OUP?s mission to further education by publishing globally, and to that end, our Developing Countries Initiative will offer reduced or gratis subscription rates to institutions in developing countries. Every month, hundreds of thousands of researchers access articles published through the Oxford Research Encyclopedias, and site traffic is increasing exponentially. We have seen that transitioning to subscription mode actually increases site use because subscribing libraries serve as a powerful intermediary to researchers on campus. We hope to build on this momentum and develop an even wider audience for the excellent work being published through the program. *The best thing you can do to amplify the impact of OUP?s promotional efforts is to recommend the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology to your institution?s library.* We would be happy to provide a template letter or you can use this form . Thank you for your contribution to the project. Please do feel free to contact me at any point with questions or comments about the program. With best wishes, Damon Damon Zucca Publisher | Scholarly Reference Oxford University Press 198 Madison Ave | New York 10016 212-726-6412 -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180913/4096294d/attachment-0001.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Fri Sep 14 09:58:29 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2018 09:58:29 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Tenure Track Position - University of Illinois at Chicago - Human Development in Community Contexts In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Another relevant job mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Zinsser, Kate Date: Thu, Sep 13, 2018 at 11:57 AM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Tenure Track Position - University of Illinois at Chicago - Human Development in Community Contexts To: "cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org" *TENURE TRACK POSITION IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT IN COMMUNITY CONTEXTS ? THE DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY ? UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO* The Department of Psychology in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago invites applications for an Assistant Professor level tenure-track faculty position in the Community and Prevention Research program within the Psychology Department to begin August 2019. The successful candidate will have a promising program of research and will contribute to teaching and student success at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. Competitive applicants will conduct research focused on contexts of human development (e.g., urban schools, communities, families). Potential content areas of interest could include: (a) the promotion of physical and mental health in children and adolescents, (b) fostering positive developmental outcomes in young people and families (c) empowering disenfranchised communities, or (d) developing and implementing innovative, evidence-based programming and services. Candidates who have methodological and/or community engagement expertise are strongly encouraged to apply. For additional information about the Psychology department and the community psychology program see https://psch.uic.edu/psychology/programs/community-prevention. Final authorization of the position is subject to availability of funding. UIC is a well-resourced, research-intensive university with a commitment to supporting community-engaged research. Salary is competitive and there are extensive opportunities for collaboration on campus and across the vibrant city of Chicago. Applicants must electronically submit an online application at https://jobs.uic.edu (click on the job board and then click on the position) and upload a cover letter, CV, research statement, teaching statement, and diversity statement. In the online application there will be fields for you to enter the email addresses of three individuals who can provide letters of reference. Questions about the application process should be directed to Shenise Cook at shenisec@uic.edu. Application deadline is November 1, 2018. Questions about the position should be directed to the search committee co-chair, Kate Zinsser, at kzinsser@uic.edu. Qualifications: Candidates must have a Ph.D. by the time of their appointment and demonstrate scholarly productivity and the potential for obtaining grant support. UIC is an equal opportunity, affirmative action employer, and is committed to providing employment opportunities to all qualified applicants without regard to race, color, religion, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, disability or protected veteran status. The University of Illinois may conduct background checks on all job candidates upon acceptance of a contingent offer. Background checks will be performed in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act. *Kate Zinsser, Ph.D. * *Assistant Professor of Psychology* *The University of Illinois at Chicago* Phone: (312) 996-5494 kzinsser@uic.edu Website: setllab.com Twitter: @SETLLab [image: CYCF logo] _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180914/11046124/attachment.html -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 12183 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180914/11046124/attachment.png From mcole@ucsd.edu Fri Sep 14 15:08:56 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Fri, 14 Sep 2018 15:08:56 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Assistant/Associate Professor Position in HDFS at Purdue In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: another relevant job mike ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: David Purpura Date: Fri, Sep 14, 2018 at 12:35 PM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Assistant/Associate Professor Position in HDFS at Purdue To: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org Dear Colleagues, Please see below for an assistant/associate professor position focused on early childhood development and learning in Human Development and Family Studies at Purdue. Please share with individuals who you think may be interested. Best, David *Early Childhood Development and Learning* *EC Posting #003917-2018* The Department of Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) at Purdue University is searching for an Assistant or Associate Professor with expertise in early childhood development and early learning (birth through 8 yrs.). Candidates must have a Ph.D. in Human Development and Family Studies, Psychology, Education or a comparable degree by the start of the position. Expertise in early literacy would complement existing strengths in the department but candidates with other specializations in this field are encouraged to apply. The successful candidate will be responsible for initiating, conducting, and publishing research, including procuring internal and external funding; teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in the early childhood licensure program and other areas of the department, mentoring students; and engaging in service at the campus, community, state, and/or national level. We are seeking a faculty member with a strong research program that is capable of attracting external funding. HDFS is located in the College of Health and Human Sciences, affording many opportunities to develop interdisciplinary collaborative research. Other research foci in the department include health & well-being, interpersonal relations, culture & diversity, and military families. HDFS maintains spacious and well-equipped research facilities and centers, including the Ben & Maxine Miller Laboratory Preschool, the Center for Families, Cooperative Extension, and the Military Family Research Institute. *Applications* Applicants should send a cover letter summarizing their research and teaching, a curriculum vitae, and representative publications to: HDFS-Faculty-Search@purdue.edu. Applicant should arrange for three letters of recommendation to be sent to the same address. Review of applications will begin October 5, 2018 and continue until the position is filled. Questions about the position may be directed to Dr. David Purpura ( purpura@purdue.edu) chair of the search committee. Preliminary inquiries are welcome. Purdue University?s Department of Human Development and Family Studies is committed to advancing diversity in all areas of faculty effort, including scholarship, instruction, and engagement. Candidates should address at least one of these areas in their cover letter, indicating their past experiences, current interests or activities, and/or future goals to promote a climate that values diversity and inclusion. Purdue University?s Department of Human Development and Family Studies is committed to advancing diversity in all areas of faculty effort, including scholarship, instruction, and engagement. Candidates should address at least one of these areas in their cover letter, indicating their past experiences, current interests or activities, and/or future goals to promote a climate that values diversity and inclusion. Purdue University is an EOE/AA employer. All individuals, including minorities, women, individuals with disabilities, and veterans are encouraged to apply. Approved by Ethics and Compliance (ck 9/12/18) -- David J. Purpura, Ph.D. Associate Professor Human Development and Family Studies Purdue University 1202 W. State Street, Rm 231 West Lafayette, IN 47907-2055 (email) purpura@purdue.edu (phone) 617-283-1266 _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180914/a272c604/attachment.html From anamshane@gmail.com Sat Sep 15 03:23:56 2018 From: anamshane@gmail.com (Ana Marjanovic-Shane) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 10:23:56 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] =?windows-1252?q?_=5BDPJ=5D_Proposal_for_a_DPJ_Special_issue_abo?= =?windows-1252?q?ut_=93Issues_of_Dialogic_pedagogy_and_democratic_?= =?windows-1252?q?education=94?= Message-ID: Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal Call for papers for a Special Issue of DPJ in 2019 ?Issues of Dialogic Pedagogy and Democratic Education? DPJ is planning a special issue in 2019 dedicated to the Issues of dialogic pedagogy and democratic education form pre-school to higher education. We are happy to announce a call for manuscripts for this special issue we are planning to publish in 2019. We loosely define ?dialogic pedagogy? as any scholarship and pedagogical practice, from educational researchers, philosophers, and practitioners, which values and gives priority to ?dialogue? in learning/teaching/educating across a wide range of institutional and non-institutional learning settings. At this point, a variety of approaches to dialogic pedagogy have emerged. This includes, but is not limited to instrumental, interactional, epistemological, ecological, and ontological approaches to dialogue in education. In many of these diverse approaches to dialogic pedagogy, the relationships among the participants and educational ecology tend to differ from the contemporary conventional education that is largely rooted in monologic, hierarchical and authoritarian educational governance. In contrast, dialogic pedagogy is frequently assuming and/or striving toward diverse forms of democracy, democracy which permeates educational practice in many different ways. In this special issue of Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal, we want to explore interesting and complex issues of the relationship between diverse forms of democracy in education and dialogic pedagogy in its various interpretations and practices. For instance: * Is democracy in education a necessary condition for dialogic pedagogy? * Is dialogic approach to education necessary for democratic education? * What are possible contradictions between democratic and dialogic education? * What is the status of different values, practices, relationships and ecologies that support dialogic pedagogy in democratic education? * Dialogic components in democracy - Democratic components in dialogue; * What are the concerns in democratic education regarding engagement of children into critical and creative dialogues? * What are the teachers? roles in democratic education and in dialogic pedagogy? * The status of the pedagogical assessment in democratic education and in dialogic pedagogy: its purposes, ownership and types; * The status of ?knowledge? in democratic education and in dialogic pedagogy; * Meaning and status of ?agency? in democratic and dialogic education; * Kantian dilemma ? Only rational, reasonable people can participate in making decisions about their lives; those who are not rational cannot be full members of the democratic decision making ? they must be ruled by imposition until they are educated and become rational. However, if children/students are not involved in important decision making from the very beginning of their lives, what are they taught and when will they be able to take responsibilities? How does Kantian dilemma impact the following: a) Open and closed educational environments ? possibilities for children/students to be authors of their own educational praxis ? practices which constantly evolve and transcend their own meaning, significance and values; and b) Different non-educational interests of the society that impact education: physical safety, needs based education as a servant of personal-professional and societal needs; * Democracy, dialogue and human rights issues; * Relation of democracy and dialogue in education to the emerging new cultural practices, in particular those related to the new technologies (iPhones, tablets, laptops, presence of the Internet in and out of the classroom), and the abundance of information and social media ? all of which are transforming educational boundaries, its openness to diversity and plurality of values and possibilities, while at the same time causing greater and greater tensions with the conventional education. Indeed, what are the students? academic rights regarding these new cultural practices and technological possibilities in democratic education and dialogic pedagogy? Are you interested in joining our project to publish this special issue? If so, we invite you to contact us, DPJ Main Editors (Eugene, Ana, Jim, Mikhail and/or Silviane) with your critical ideas and propose forms of collaboration: co-editing the issue, authoring manuscripts and/or participating in peer reviews of the submitted manuscripts, something else? Please contact us by December 31, 2018. We also invite you to submit manuscripts dealing with diverse important issues of democracy and dialogic pedagogy to the Dialogic Pedagogy: An International Online Journal ? https://dpj.pitt.edu buy December 31, 2018. The manuscripts will be peer reviewed. Eugene, Ana, Jim, Mikhail and Silviane ____________ Eugene Matusov (ematusov@udel.edu) Ana Marjanovic-Shane (anamshane@gmail.com) James Cresswell (jamesdcresswell@gmail.com) Mikhail Gradovski (mikhail.gradovski@hit.no) Silviane Barbato (barbato.silviane@gmail.com) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180915/53cf9af4/attachment.html From a.j.gil@ils.uio.no Sat Sep 15 13:43:15 2018 From: a.j.gil@ils.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 20:43:15 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Pleroma and Creatura In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <1537044195462.9701@ils.uio.no> ?Dear Analissa, I haven't yet been able to find the time to pay due attention and respond to your post, but I wanted to let you know that I am aware of it, looking forward to get the window of time to be able to respond to it sensibly. Glad to see that the literature shared was productive to more thinking/knowledge/difference. ? Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 09 September 2018 02:17 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Pleroma and Creatura Greetings, Alfredo, I'm very much savoring the chapter you posted by Bateson. There are a few things however that I disagree in it, but it's by a matter of degree. I disagree with the notion of an "interface" between Pleroma and Creatura (P & C, respectively). Because P extends and pervades C, and in fact P is the very substance of C. If you doubt this, then why is it 96% of the human body is water? I presume water is an element assigned to P and not C. I would also suggest that knowledge, K, is also located in P, not as an object, but as awareness. And that the awareness that pervades, pervades not only us but through everything and everywhere in space and in time. If we consider what it would look like to say that, consider this. Let's say we have universe A (ua) and universe B (ub). In (ua) Ka pervades the entire universe like space pervades the universe. All objects in the universe therefore would possess or contain or constitute Ka in some capacity. Some might call this information, but I think Knowledge is better because Knowledge implies awareness, whereas information is dead, a closed book until such time one opens it. Hold on to that for just a bit, before objecting (or objectifying :) !!) Now, in (ub) let's say that Kb does not pervade the universe, and only resides inside sentient beings, like bubbles of consciousness interspersed throughout Pb. And anywhere Pb is Cb isn't, and vice versa. This sets up a strange scenario of dualism, by which Pb does not "know" Cb, but Cb "knows" Pb. Let me continue in this thought experiment. In (ua), given that Ka is pervasive in this universe (ua), all that would be required of Ca is the ability to reflect aspects of Pa, which would be very economical. If Ka were in constant movement and perpetual change, there would be no limit to the unfolding of the Ka as it pervades the Pa and Ca, since Ca is basically a subset residing within Pa. Ka would be unemcumbered and would not require any form of interface, because the Pa and Ca have no separation and are basically share the same substrate, just in multifarious forms and presentations that pervade time and space. Additionally, in (ua), there could be two classes of perspectives, since Ka possess awareness which pervades throughout (ua). One from the standpoint of Pa and another from the standpoint of Ca, one being the total the other the particular, in an aspectual sense. Now let's take a wormhole through to (ub). In that universe, Kb resides inside Cb and Pb has no connection and never will have connection to Kb inside Cb, because Pb is only a dead material to be consumed by Cb. And Cb constructs Kb much like a house or a combustible engine. Kb from the standpoint of Pb is non-existent. And that also implies that Kb in essence depends upon Cb for its existence, because Pb is like a void, in terms of knowledge, it is just empty, dead material. It becomes hard to explain how awareness can manifest from dead material, seeing as we are in this universe, like the other universe, are also "made up" of 96% water, how can the awareness arise from dead material. Water might animate, like a waterfall, or like the sea or a stream, but at what point does awareness and knowledge spontaneously combust (or manifest) into the bubbles of awareness within the Cb? If Knowledge were products of the Creatura alone, as incidental and arbitrary accidents over time and through space, then it would mean that Creatura are accidental machines producing knowledge like little knowledge factories, and randomness would not explain how knowledge has an appearance of continuity from one bubble of knowledge to another. (I think that this is where Leibniz had to pack it up and go home, actually) Kb1 in Cb1 located in one part of Ub would have and should have no connection to Kb2 in Cb2 located in another part of Ub. As they would manifest singularly with no connection to one another. Furthermore, if per chance Kb1 were to collide with Kb2 because there is meeting at a Creatura convention between Cb1 and Cb2, then I suppose Kb1 and Kb2 would then become Kb3. Additionally, Kb3 would be lost to Ub if both entities Cb1 and Cb2 died and could not disperse Kb1, 2, or 3 to other Creaturabn. Because Kb1, 2, or 3 resides "inside" the awareness bubbles of Cb1 and Cb2 it would be impossible for knowledge to be passed down at all unless there were positive contact and knowledge exchange between Cbn and Cbn+1. But knowledge doesn't really work like that. Culture and language might work like that but not knowledge. From the aspectual point of Cb in ub, Kb lives in Cb and only Cb; Pb has no equivalent for situated knowledge, there is no Kb from the aspect of Pb, because Pb cannot know, it is dead, non-awareful matter, and there is no aspect possible. Pb is like a mine whose matter that is consumed, as it were, by Cb, and because Kb only exists in Cb, Kb is limited by the limitations of Cb, which is limited by the limitations of dead-like matter in Pb that it consumes in an arbitrary and accidental manner. OK, thanks for staying with it. Let's return to Ua. There, Kac1 in Ca is no different from Kap in Pa, because actually, Kac1 is a reflection of Kap, and if Ca1 were to meet with Ca2 at a Creatura convention, Kac1 and Kac2 colliding wouldn't actually create a Kac3, but instead they would be testable by how well Kac1 and Kac2 holds up to Kap, which pervades through the Pa, uninhibited. This interaction is actually more like what we experience when it comes to science, actually. OK. Let's say that in Ub, Cb1 and Cb2 strongly believe that Kb only resides within them, and not in Pb. And when they look out upon Pb through the lens of Kb1 and Kb2, they are convinced that the location of Kb1 and Kb2, and even Kb3 and Kbn and n+1 can only reside inside Cbn and n+1. Then, in Ua, Ca1 and Ca2 strongly believe that Ka only resides within them, and not in Pa. But in reality, the truth is that Ka pervades Pa which includes Can and n+1. And in fact this reality does not depend at all on Ca1 and Ca2's belief of where Ka resides at all. Ka's location is in Pa; it just is that way, independent of Ca understanding. Now here's the kicker: From the aspect of Ca looking upon Ka in Ua; and the aspect of Cb looking upon Kb in Ub; how would it be possible to tell the difference between the perceived location of Ka and the perceived location of Kb? From the aspects of Ca and Cb, the appearance of Ka and Kb, respectively, would look identical to each other. Ka is a reflection of Kp residing in Pa, while Kb is the object residing as Kc within Cb. Furthermore, to test the hypothesis that Kb resides only in Cb and not in Pb we would have to eliminate the entire Pb to test that Kb only resides in Cb, which is impossible. And we do happen to know that the universe abhors a vacuum. But how would we test if Ka is pervasive through Pa of which Ca is a subset? That is your homework, maties. Given that our experience of Knowledge from our perspective has an appearance of being constructed because we work with knowledge, construct it, etc., there is an illusion of authorship arising from Creatura. There is also an experience of continuity and overlap that couldn't exist for Knowledge if it were limited to the boundaries of Creatura, and not only Creatura, but a particular kind of Creatura called Humans. Other Creatura residing in the Pleroma where Knowledge exists only in small consciousness bubbles inside Humans, don't possess one iota of Knowledge, because there is some special unknown entity or property within Humans, that we haven't yet discovered, or uncovered, put our finger upon, to explain coherently and economically why knowledge is something located in us, but no where else. This story resembles pre-copernicus views of the universe, which asserted that the earth was the center of the universe (because we live on it). So if humans are not at the center of our solar system, but also the galaxy and the universe, why should humans be the center of knowledge and awareness? We do know that awareness resides in other Creatura than ourselves (think Koko), and we do have a Gaia-sense about Nature in the world, which isn't just a projection or anthropomorphizing ourselves upon the world, because we do have a sense that worlds (and natural systems) can exist without us, and that there is an ordered way about them, not an arbitrary collection of matter that looks like an abandoned basement of discarded items or a garbage heap 4000 years old. Indeed, when we learn about something really disruptive or novel in the Pleroma, we say it is a "discovery". Knowledge has been uncovered, or revealed. The Aha moment is one of light and recognition, and not about a totally original creation of something that did not exist ever before in a vacuum. All things that we create, we create from something that existed before, even if it is just dumb wood, or stone. Material is beginningless and endless, like knowledge is beginningless and endless. I think I can safely assert, though I'm not sure at this point, that Knowledge's location is in the Pleroma, not in us. Indeed just like our attentional focus can zero in on particular aspects of the Pleroma, our knowledge also reflects particular aspects of the Pleroma, and we need not "store" the knowledge in our heads, we only need to reflect it, which is extremely economical. It means then, that the effectiveness of the knowledge we do as-if possess has a basis upon the nature and health of our minds, and how well we might reflect this knowledge. The "cleaner" the mind, the "cleaner" the reflection, the brighter the flame of knowledge appears in the individual. The words "cleaner" are relative and not absolute, because just as in the physical world, there are elements that possess different properties of reflectivity, such as the difference between silver and the surface of water, or a surface of white marble compared to one black marble; they reflect differently, but what they reflect is the same light. Additionally, no single member of Creatura can claim ownership of knowledge, unless they can claim possession of the Pleroma. OK, perhaps this could be better rendered, but that is my take upon it. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180915/5db6a568/attachment.html From a.j.gil@ils.uio.no Sat Sep 15 13:46:23 2018 From: a.j.gil@ils.uio.no (Alfredo Jornet Gil) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 20:46:23 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Pleroma and Creatura In-Reply-To: <1537044195462.9701@ils.uio.no> References: , <1537044195462.9701@ils.uio.no> Message-ID: <1537044383265.68097@ils.uio.no> Sorry, I just realise that I misspelled your name (again!), Annalisa. Sorry about that, back soon, Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 15 September 2018 22:43 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Pleroma and Creatura ?Dear Analissa, I haven't yet been able to find the time to pay due attention and respond to your post, but I wanted to let you know that I am aware of it, looking forward to get the window of time to be able to respond to it sensibly. Glad to see that the literature shared was productive to more thinking/knowledge/difference. ? Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 09 September 2018 02:17 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Pleroma and Creatura Greetings, Alfredo, I'm very much savoring the chapter you posted by Bateson. There are a few things however that I disagree in it, but it's by a matter of degree. I disagree with the notion of an "interface" between Pleroma and Creatura (P & C, respectively). Because P extends and pervades C, and in fact P is the very substance of C. If you doubt this, then why is it 96% of the human body is water? I presume water is an element assigned to P and not C. I would also suggest that knowledge, K, is also located in P, not as an object, but as awareness. And that the awareness that pervades, pervades not only us but through everything and everywhere in space and in time. If we consider what it would look like to say that, consider this. Let's say we have universe A (ua) and universe B (ub). In (ua) Ka pervades the entire universe like space pervades the universe. All objects in the universe therefore would possess or contain or constitute Ka in some capacity. Some might call this information, but I think Knowledge is better because Knowledge implies awareness, whereas information is dead, a closed book until such time one opens it. Hold on to that for just a bit, before objecting (or objectifying :) !!) Now, in (ub) let's say that Kb does not pervade the universe, and only resides inside sentient beings, like bubbles of consciousness interspersed throughout Pb. And anywhere Pb is Cb isn't, and vice versa. This sets up a strange scenario of dualism, by which Pb does not "know" Cb, but Cb "knows" Pb. Let me continue in this thought experiment. In (ua), given that Ka is pervasive in this universe (ua), all that would be required of Ca is the ability to reflect aspects of Pa, which would be very economical. If Ka were in constant movement and perpetual change, there would be no limit to the unfolding of the Ka as it pervades the Pa and Ca, since Ca is basically a subset residing within Pa. Ka would be unemcumbered and would not require any form of interface, because the Pa and Ca have no separation and are basically share the same substrate, just in multifarious forms and presentations that pervade time and space. Additionally, in (ua), there could be two classes of perspectives, since Ka possess awareness which pervades throughout (ua). One from the standpoint of Pa and another from the standpoint of Ca, one being the total the other the particular, in an aspectual sense. Now let's take a wormhole through to (ub). In that universe, Kb resides inside Cb and Pb has no connection and never will have connection to Kb inside Cb, because Pb is only a dead material to be consumed by Cb. And Cb constructs Kb much like a house or a combustible engine. Kb from the standpoint of Pb is non-existent. And that also implies that Kb in essence depends upon Cb for its existence, because Pb is like a void, in terms of knowledge, it is just empty, dead material. It becomes hard to explain how awareness can manifest from dead material, seeing as we are in this universe, like the other universe, are also "made up" of 96% water, how can the awareness arise from dead material. Water might animate, like a waterfall, or like the sea or a stream, but at what point does awareness and knowledge spontaneously combust (or manifest) into the bubbles of awareness within the Cb? If Knowledge were products of the Creatura alone, as incidental and arbitrary accidents over time and through space, then it would mean that Creatura are accidental machines producing knowledge like little knowledge factories, and randomness would not explain how knowledge has an appearance of continuity from one bubble of knowledge to another. (I think that this is where Leibniz had to pack it up and go home, actually) Kb1 in Cb1 located in one part of Ub would have and should have no connection to Kb2 in Cb2 located in another part of Ub. As they would manifest singularly with no connection to one another. Furthermore, if per chance Kb1 were to collide with Kb2 because there is meeting at a Creatura convention between Cb1 and Cb2, then I suppose Kb1 and Kb2 would then become Kb3. Additionally, Kb3 would be lost to Ub if both entities Cb1 and Cb2 died and could not disperse Kb1, 2, or 3 to other Creaturabn. Because Kb1, 2, or 3 resides "inside" the awareness bubbles of Cb1 and Cb2 it would be impossible for knowledge to be passed down at all unless there were positive contact and knowledge exchange between Cbn and Cbn+1. But knowledge doesn't really work like that. Culture and language might work like that but not knowledge. From the aspectual point of Cb in ub, Kb lives in Cb and only Cb; Pb has no equivalent for situated knowledge, there is no Kb from the aspect of Pb, because Pb cannot know, it is dead, non-awareful matter, and there is no aspect possible. Pb is like a mine whose matter that is consumed, as it were, by Cb, and because Kb only exists in Cb, Kb is limited by the limitations of Cb, which is limited by the limitations of dead-like matter in Pb that it consumes in an arbitrary and accidental manner. OK, thanks for staying with it. Let's return to Ua. There, Kac1 in Ca is no different from Kap in Pa, because actually, Kac1 is a reflection of Kap, and if Ca1 were to meet with Ca2 at a Creatura convention, Kac1 and Kac2 colliding wouldn't actually create a Kac3, but instead they would be testable by how well Kac1 and Kac2 holds up to Kap, which pervades through the Pa, uninhibited. This interaction is actually more like what we experience when it comes to science, actually. OK. Let's say that in Ub, Cb1 and Cb2 strongly believe that Kb only resides within them, and not in Pb. And when they look out upon Pb through the lens of Kb1 and Kb2, they are convinced that the location of Kb1 and Kb2, and even Kb3 and Kbn and n+1 can only reside inside Cbn and n+1. Then, in Ua, Ca1 and Ca2 strongly believe that Ka only resides within them, and not in Pa. But in reality, the truth is that Ka pervades Pa which includes Can and n+1. And in fact this reality does not depend at all on Ca1 and Ca2's belief of where Ka resides at all. Ka's location is in Pa; it just is that way, independent of Ca understanding. Now here's the kicker: From the aspect of Ca looking upon Ka in Ua; and the aspect of Cb looking upon Kb in Ub; how would it be possible to tell the difference between the perceived location of Ka and the perceived location of Kb? From the aspects of Ca and Cb, the appearance of Ka and Kb, respectively, would look identical to each other. Ka is a reflection of Kp residing in Pa, while Kb is the object residing as Kc within Cb. Furthermore, to test the hypothesis that Kb resides only in Cb and not in Pb we would have to eliminate the entire Pb to test that Kb only resides in Cb, which is impossible. And we do happen to know that the universe abhors a vacuum. But how would we test if Ka is pervasive through Pa of which Ca is a subset? That is your homework, maties. Given that our experience of Knowledge from our perspective has an appearance of being constructed because we work with knowledge, construct it, etc., there is an illusion of authorship arising from Creatura. There is also an experience of continuity and overlap that couldn't exist for Knowledge if it were limited to the boundaries of Creatura, and not only Creatura, but a particular kind of Creatura called Humans. Other Creatura residing in the Pleroma where Knowledge exists only in small consciousness bubbles inside Humans, don't possess one iota of Knowledge, because there is some special unknown entity or property within Humans, that we haven't yet discovered, or uncovered, put our finger upon, to explain coherently and economically why knowledge is something located in us, but no where else. This story resembles pre-copernicus views of the universe, which asserted that the earth was the center of the universe (because we live on it). So if humans are not at the center of our solar system, but also the galaxy and the universe, why should humans be the center of knowledge and awareness? We do know that awareness resides in other Creatura than ourselves (think Koko), and we do have a Gaia-sense about Nature in the world, which isn't just a projection or anthropomorphizing ourselves upon the world, because we do have a sense that worlds (and natural systems) can exist without us, and that there is an ordered way about them, not an arbitrary collection of matter that looks like an abandoned basement of discarded items or a garbage heap 4000 years old. Indeed, when we learn about something really disruptive or novel in the Pleroma, we say it is a "discovery". Knowledge has been uncovered, or revealed. The Aha moment is one of light and recognition, and not about a totally original creation of something that did not exist ever before in a vacuum. All things that we create, we create from something that existed before, even if it is just dumb wood, or stone. Material is beginningless and endless, like knowledge is beginningless and endless. I think I can safely assert, though I'm not sure at this point, that Knowledge's location is in the Pleroma, not in us. Indeed just like our attentional focus can zero in on particular aspects of the Pleroma, our knowledge also reflects particular aspects of the Pleroma, and we need not "store" the knowledge in our heads, we only need to reflect it, which is extremely economical. It means then, that the effectiveness of the knowledge we do as-if possess has a basis upon the nature and health of our minds, and how well we might reflect this knowledge. The "cleaner" the mind, the "cleaner" the reflection, the brighter the flame of knowledge appears in the individual. The words "cleaner" are relative and not absolute, because just as in the physical world, there are elements that possess different properties of reflectivity, such as the difference between silver and the surface of water, or a surface of white marble compared to one black marble; they reflect differently, but what they reflect is the same light. Additionally, no single member of Creatura can claim ownership of knowledge, unless they can claim possession of the Pleroma. OK, perhaps this could be better rendered, but that is my take upon it. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180915/33f43beb/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Sat Sep 15 19:37:50 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 12:37:50 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] anachronism Message-ID: Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. Is there a word for "out of culture"? Andy -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180916/c1a0c3bf/attachment.html From helenaworthen@gmail.com Sat Sep 15 19:48:57 2018 From: helenaworthen@gmail.com (Helena Worthen) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 19:48:57 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Can a person be an anachronism? Can a thing be ?out of culture?? If not, then we have lots of words for being out of culture? stranger, barbarian, alien, foreigner, visitor, ambassador, missionary, guest, invader, etc. H Helena Worthen helenaworthen@gmail.com Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 Blog US/ Viet Nam: helenaworthen.wordpress.com skype: helena.worthen1 > On Sep 15, 2018, at 7:37 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. > > Is there a word for "out of culture"? > > Andy > > -- > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180915/e1850924/attachment.html From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sat Sep 15 21:25:27 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 13:25:27 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Vygotsky uses the term "primitive", which he distinguishes from an organic defect. But like "defect", the term has received more than its fair share of moralistic effluvia. From our point of view, Vygotsky's terminology is primitive. But our point of view is anachronistic. David Kellogg Sangmyung University New in *Early Years*, co-authored with Fang Li: When three fives are thirty-five: Vygotsky in a Hallidayan idiom ? and maths in the grandmother tongue Some free e-prints available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/7I8zYW3qkEqNBA66XAwS/full On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 11:48 AM, Helena Worthen wrote: > Can a person be an anachronism? Can a thing be ?out of culture?? > > If not, then we have lots of words for being out of culture? stranger, > barbarian, alien, foreigner, visitor, ambassador, missionary, guest, > invader, etc. > > H > > Helena Worthen > helenaworthen@gmail.com > Berkeley, CA 94707 510-828-2745 > Blog US/ Viet Nam: > helenaworthen.wordpress.com > skype: helena.worthen1 > > > > > > > > On Sep 15, 2018, at 7:37 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. > > Is there a word for "out of culture"? > > Andy > > -- > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180916/b8f92112/attachment.html From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sat Sep 15 22:21:13 2018 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Sat, 15 Sep 2018 23:21:13 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Andy, Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No need to get into the battles over the word as anthropology has over the past 30 years but it would be worth knowing what you mean. For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very fashionable (yes, at that time...) term "primitive" relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's title Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in the sense of an idea before its time) because, on this common understanding of these terms, "primitive culture" was an oxymoron. I assume that you mean culture in the sense that anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as they used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? -greg On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden wrote: > Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. > > Is there a word for "out of culture"? > > Andy > > -- > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180915/cc811913/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Sat Sep 15 22:30:56 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 15:30:56 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first used it in the plural - "cultures". I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have for people who don't belong to the relevant culture, but I mean a word to describe ideas, claims, beliefs which are "blind" to the incongruity of the idea with the relevant cultural context. This is often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US cultural norms were used to judge an action in an Oz cultural context. ... That drew my attention to the lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss the issue itself on this list. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > Andy, > Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No > need to get into the battles over the word as anthropology > has over the past 30 years but it would be worth knowing > what you mean. > > For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very > fashionable (yes, at that time...) term "primitive" relies > on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture as > "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's title > Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in the sense of an > idea before its time) because, on this common > understanding of these terms, "primitive culture" was an > oxymoron. > > I assume that you mean culture in the sense that > anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as they > used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? > > -greg > > On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" > so to speak. > > Is there a word for "out of culture"? > > Andy > > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180916/b3d83518/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Sun Sep 16 14:49:48 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 21:49:48 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Pleroma and Creatura In-Reply-To: <1537044383265.68097@ils.uio.no> References: , <1537044195462.9701@ils.uio.no>,<1537044383265.68097@ils.uio.no> Message-ID: Thank you, Alfredo! ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: Saturday, September 15, 2018 2:46 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Pleroma and Creatura Sorry, I just realise that I misspelled your name (again!), Annalisa. Sorry about that, back soon, Alfredo ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Alfredo Jornet Gil Sent: 15 September 2018 22:43 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Pleroma and Creatura Dear Analissa, I haven't yet been able to find the time to pay due attention and respond to your post, but I wanted to let you know that I am aware of it, looking forward to get the window of time to be able to respond to it sensibly. Glad to see that the literature shared was productive to more thinking/knowledge/difference. Alfredo -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180916/1b8f9a7a/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Sun Sep 16 15:26:46 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 22:26:46 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> References: , <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: Hi Andy, It's always great to discover the hole in a language, which I would call the realization of not having a word for something meaningful. I looked up "aculture" and the dictionary found "acculture" which is actually to bring someone up to speed in their knowledge of a culture, but I don't think that is what you are looking for. I found these words when I looked up "what is the opposite of culture": ignorance inability inexperience uncouthness bad manners clumsiness coarseness crudeness harm hurt impoliteness incompetence inelegance ineptness roughness rudeness tactlessness Even though I know that you are not talking about opposites but outside of, what I noticed about this list is the emotionality I associate to many of the words, except maybe for "ignorance," which seems neutral and descriptive, though no one likes to be called ignorant, and that word is best used as a self-descriptor if I'm willing to call myself that. There is also "clueless" but that is also pejorative. Maybe "unsophisticated"? These words below came up when I looked for synonyms for "clueless" and also have a pejorative color: brainless childlike clueless crude dumb feeble-minded idiotic ignorant moronic naive slow stupid uncomplicated unschooled unstudied untutored unworldly "Unworldly" might be OK. All in all? great observation. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180916/eeb1fa1d/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Sun Sep 16 15:35:28 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 15:35:28 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: Interesting that the list of opposites of culture does not include the word, nature. mike On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > Hi Andy, > > > It's always great to discover the hole in a language, which I would call > the realization of not having a word for something meaningful. > > > I looked up "aculture" and the dictionary found "acculture" which is > actually to bring someone up to speed in their knowledge of a culture, but > I don't think that is what you are looking for. > > > I found these words when I looked up "what is the opposite of culture": > > > ignorance > inability > inexperience > uncouthness > bad manners > clumsiness > coarseness > crudeness > harm > hurt > impoliteness > incompetence > inelegance > ineptness > roughness > rudeness > tactlessness > > Even though I know that you are not talking about opposites but outside > of, what I noticed about this list is the emotionality I associate to many > of the words, except maybe for "ignorance," which seems neutral and > descriptive, though no one likes to be called ignorant, and that word is > best used as a self-descriptor if I'm willing to call myself that. > > > There is also "clueless" but that is also pejorative. > > > Maybe "unsophisticated"? > > > These words below came up when I looked for synonyms for "clueless" and > also have a pejorative color: > > > brainless > childlike > clueless > crude > dumb > feeble-minded > idiotic > ignorant > moronic > naive > slow > stupid > uncomplicated > unschooled > unstudied > untutored > unworldly > > "Unworldly" might be OK. > > All in all? great observation. > > Kind regards, > > Annalisa > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180916/b970f88f/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Sun Sep 16 17:20:40 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 00:20:40 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> , Message-ID: What about "desultory"? or "cursory"? or "solecism"? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/375acb61/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Sun Sep 16 17:29:11 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 10:29:11 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: All these opposites, Annalisa, are opposites of "culture" in the sense of liking opera or reading a book instead of watching TV, referring to a hierarchy *within* a culture. As Greg alerted us to, "culture" is a very polysemous word. The ana-culturalism I am looking for refers to "culture" which is *different* rather than *more or less*. Like offering a tip to the waitress in the local greasy spoon in London, or a boss sacking a worker on the spot in an Australian company. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 8:26 AM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > > Hi Andy, > > > It's always great to discover the hole in a language, > which I would call the realization of not having a word > for something meaningful. > > > I looked up "aculture" and the dictionary found > "acculture" which is actually to bring someone up to speed > in their knowledge of a culture, but I don't think that is > what you are looking for. > > > I found these words when I looked up "what is the opposite > of culture": > > > ignorance > inability > inexperience > uncouthness > bad manners > clumsiness > coarseness > crudeness > harm > hurt > impoliteness > incompetence > inelegance > ineptness > roughness > rudeness > tactlessness > > Even though I know that you are not talking about > opposites but outside of, what I noticed about this list > is the emotionality I associate to many of the words, > except maybe for "ignorance," which seems neutral and > descriptive, though no one likes to be called ignorant, > and that word is best used as a self-descriptor if I'm > willing to call myself that. > > > There is also "clueless" but that is also pejorative. > > > Maybe "unsophisticated"? > > > These words below came up when I looked for synonyms for > "clueless" and also have a pejorative color: > > > brainless > childlike > clueless > crude > dumb > feeble-minded > idiotic > ignorant > moronic > naive > slow > stupid > uncomplicated > unschooled > unstudied > untutored > unworldly > > "Unworldly" might be OK. > > All in all? great observation. > > Kind regards, > > Annalisa > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/a67ffe84/attachment.html From greg.a.thompson@gmail.com Sun Sep 16 20:03:16 2018 From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com (Greg Thompson) Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 21:03:16 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: I'm stumped. Can't think of a *single* word. There are phrases like culturally tone-deaf or culturally insensitive but they are not quite on point. -greg On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 6:31 PM Andy Blunden wrote: > All these opposites, Annalisa, are opposites of "culture" in the sense of > liking opera or reading a book instead of watching TV, referring to a > hierarchy *within* a culture. As Greg alerted us to, "culture" is a very > polysemous word. The ana-culturalism I am looking for refers to "culture" > which is *different* rather than *more or less*. Like offering a tip to > the waitress in the local greasy spoon in London, or a boss sacking a > worker on the spot in an Australian company. > > > Andy > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 17/09/2018 8:26 AM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > > Hi Andy, > > > It's always great to discover the hole in a language, which I would call > the realization of not having a word for something meaningful. > > > I looked up "aculture" and the dictionary found "acculture" which is > actually to bring someone up to speed in their knowledge of a culture, but > I don't think that is what you are looking for. > > > I found these words when I looked up "what is the opposite of culture": > > > ignorance > inability > inexperience > uncouthness > bad manners > clumsiness > coarseness > crudeness > harm > hurt > impoliteness > incompetence > inelegance > ineptness > roughness > rudeness > tactlessness > > Even though I know that you are not talking about opposites but outside > of, what I noticed about this list is the emotionality I associate to many > of the words, except maybe for "ignorance," which seems neutral and > descriptive, though no one likes to be called ignorant, and that word is > best used as a self-descriptor if I'm willing to call myself that. > > > There is also "clueless" but that is also pejorative. > > > Maybe "unsophisticated"? > > > These words below came up when I looked for synonyms for "clueless" and > also have a pejorative color: > > > brainless > childlike > clueless > crude > dumb > feeble-minded > idiotic > ignorant > moronic > naive > slow > stupid > uncomplicated > unschooled > unstudied > untutored > unworldly > > "Unworldly" might be OK. > > All in all? great observation. > > Kind regards, > > Annalisa > > > > > -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180916/eb018ce2/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Sun Sep 16 22:35:05 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 15:35:05 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: <72cba3ef-5d2b-ff5a-fef3-49d163b08282@marxists.org> Well, I've found an expression, if not a word: "cultural faux pas." https://travel.usnews.com/gallery/10-cultural-faux-pas-to-avoid-while-visiting-10-countries Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 1:03 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > I'm stumped. Can't think of a /single/ word. > There are phrases like culturally tone-deaf or culturally > insensitive but they are not quite on point. > -greg > > > > On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 6:31 PM Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > All these opposites, Annalisa, are opposites of > "culture" in the sense of liking opera or reading a > book instead of watching TV, referring to a hierarchy > *within* a culture. As Greg alerted us to, "culture" > is a very polysemous word. The ana-culturalism I am > looking for refers to "culture" which is *different* > rather than *more or less*. Like offering a tip to the > waitress in the local greasy spoon in London, or a > boss sacking a worker on the spot in an Australian > company. > > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 17/09/2018 8:26 AM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: >> >> Hi Andy, >> >> >> It's always great to discover the hole in a language, >> which I would call the realization of not having a >> word for something meaningful. >> >> >> I looked up "aculture" and the dictionary found >> "acculture" which is actually to bring someone up to >> speed in their knowledge of a culture, but I don't >> think that is what you are looking for. >> >> >> I found these words when I looked up "what is the >> opposite of culture": >> >> >> ignorance >> inability >> inexperience >> uncouthness >> bad manners >> clumsiness >> coarseness >> crudeness >> harm >> hurt >> impoliteness >> incompetence >> inelegance >> ineptness >> roughness >> rudeness >> tactlessness >> >> Even though I know that you are not talking about >> opposites but outside of, what I noticed about this >> list is the emotionality I associate to many of the >> words, except maybe for "ignorance," which seems >> neutral and descriptive, though no one likes to be >> called ignorant, and that word is best used as a >> self-descriptor if I'm willing to call myself that. >> >> >> There is also "clueless" but that is also pejorative. >> >> >> Maybe "unsophisticated"? >> >> >> These words below came up when I looked for synonyms >> for "clueless" and also have a pejorative color: >> >> >> brainless >> childlike >> clueless >> crude >> dumb >> feeble-minded >> idiotic >> ignorant >> moronic >> naive >> slow >> stupid >> uncomplicated >> unschooled >> unstudied >> untutored >> unworldly >> >> "Unworldly" might be OK. >> >> All in all? great observation. >> >> Kind regards, >> >> Annalisa >> >> >> > > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/6cfa6100/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Mon Sep 17 00:00:01 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 07:00:01 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: <72cba3ef-5d2b-ff5a-fef3-49d163b08282@marxists.org> References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> , <72cba3ef-5d2b-ff5a-fef3-49d163b08282@marxists.org> Message-ID: Andy, Isn't that what "solecism" means essentially? noun 1. a nonstandard or ungrammatical usage, as "unflammable" and "they was." 2. a breach of good manners or etiquette. 3. any error, impropriety, or inconsistency. Related words to solecism are: impropriety blunder abuse error barbarism mistake incongruity blooper slip misusage cacology Now "cacology" is interesting. it means "a bad choice of words; faulty speech." which derives from the Greek "kakologia" which means "ill report." I also delved into the word meaning for "impropriety" and from there found "indecorous" which means: 1. not decorous; violating generally accepted standards of good taste or propriety; unseemly. "gaffe" means "a social blunder; faux pas." That might be a good one as it uses "faux pas" in its definition. It is a social blunder, but that doesn't really have the same specific meaning for someone who is outside the culture, but I'd say "gaffe" is pretty good. Or "indecorous" but that seems and act done with intent, whereas a "gaffe" is unintentional. Also this word cloud: goof fault lapse indiscretion blooper inaccuracy error gaffe oversight bumble bungle err flounder fluff solecism impropriety flub trip muff slip or another word cloud: miscue lapse recklessness error gaffe misjudgment goof folly imprudence foolishness thoughtlessness hastiness stupidity slips tumble rashness gaucherie crudeness excitability foul-up I also thought about the opposite of "diplomacy" and came up with "maladroit" or "klutzy" or "impolitic" or "brash" or "vacuous" or "doltish" or "oafish" or even "graceless" or "lumpish" Which of course circles us back to "lumpen" and you would know where that word has been showcased, Andy. ? Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden Sent: Sunday, September 16, 2018 11:35:05 PM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism Well, I've found an expression, if not a word: "cultural faux pas." https://travel.usnews.com/gallery/10-cultural-faux-pas-to-avoid-while-visiting-10-countries Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 1:03 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: I'm stumped. Can't think of a single word. There are phrases like culturally tone-deaf or culturally insensitive but they are not quite on point. -greg On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 6:31 PM Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote: All these opposites, Annalisa, are opposites of "culture" in the sense of liking opera or reading a book instead of watching TV, referring to a hierarchy within a culture. As Greg alerted us to, "culture" is a very polysemous word. The ana-culturalism I am looking for refers to "culture" which is different rather than more or less. Like offering a tip to the waitress in the local greasy spoon in London, or a boss sacking a worker on the spot in an Australian company. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 8:26 AM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Hi Andy, It's always great to discover the hole in a language, which I would call the realization of not having a word for something meaningful. I looked up "aculture" and the dictionary found "acculture" which is actually to bring someone up to speed in their knowledge of a culture, but I don't think that is what you are looking for. I found these words when I looked up "what is the opposite of culture": ignorance inability inexperience uncouthness bad manners clumsiness coarseness crudeness harm hurt impoliteness incompetence inelegance ineptness roughness rudeness tactlessness Even though I know that you are not talking about opposites but outside of, what I noticed about this list is the emotionality I associate to many of the words, except maybe for "ignorance," which seems neutral and descriptive, though no one likes to be called ignorant, and that word is best used as a self-descriptor if I'm willing to call myself that. There is also "clueless" but that is also pejorative. Maybe "unsophisticated"? These words below came up when I looked for synonyms for "clueless" and also have a pejorative color: brainless childlike clueless crude dumb feeble-minded idiotic ignorant moronic naive slow stupid uncomplicated unschooled unstudied untutored unworldly "Unworldly" might be OK. All in all? great observation. Kind regards, Annalisa -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/45d42cb1/attachment.html From Anne-Nelly.Perret-Clermont@unine.ch Mon Sep 17 00:43:06 2018 From: Anne-Nelly.Perret-Clermont@unine.ch (PERRET-CLERMONT Anne-Nelly) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 07:43:06 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> , Message-ID: <1CE477D2-C205-4DDB-9330-A275D288728C@unine.ch> yes, Mike, and "wild" seems to be missing too Anne-Nelly Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont University of Neuch?tel Le 17 sept. 2018 ? 00:37, mike cole > a ?crit : Interesting that the list of opposites of culture does not include the word, nature. mike On Sun, Sep 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Annalisa Aguilar > wrote: Hi Andy, It's always great to discover the hole in a language, which I would call the realization of not having a word for something meaningful. I looked up "aculture" and the dictionary found "acculture" which is actually to bring someone up to speed in their knowledge of a culture, but I don't think that is what you are looking for. I found these words when I looked up "what is the opposite of culture": ignorance inability inexperience uncouthness bad manners clumsiness coarseness crudeness harm hurt impoliteness incompetence inelegance ineptness roughness rudeness tactlessness Even though I know that you are not talking about opposites but outside of, what I noticed about this list is the emotionality I associate to many of the words, except maybe for "ignorance," which seems neutral and descriptive, though no one likes to be called ignorant, and that word is best used as a self-descriptor if I'm willing to call myself that. There is also "clueless" but that is also pejorative. Maybe "unsophisticated"? These words below came up when I looked for synonyms for "clueless" and also have a pejorative color: brainless childlike clueless crude dumb feeble-minded idiotic ignorant moronic naive slow stupid uncomplicated unschooled unstudied untutored unworldly "Unworldly" might be OK. All in all? great observation. Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/7fe0ad07/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Sep 17 02:41:12 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 10:41:12 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: Andy, I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than "out(side) of a culture". So anachronism refer in this context to an utterance that is from a different time (and culture) applied to the contemporary. So I think the sense that you are looking for is "projection", or "cultural projection". Huw On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden wrote: > Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first used it in the plural > - "cultures". > > I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have for people who > don't belong to the relevant culture, but I mean a word to describe ideas, > claims, beliefs which are "blind" to the incongruity of the idea with the > relevant cultural context. This is often a kind of anachronism, but not > always. The lack of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US > cultural norms were used to judge an action in an Oz cultural context. ... > That drew my attention to the lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss > the issue itself on this list. > > Andy > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: > > Andy, > Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No need to get into > the battles over the word as anthropology has over the past 30 years but it > would be worth knowing what you mean. > > For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very fashionable (yes, at > that time...) term "primitive" relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of > culture as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's title > Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in the sense of an idea before its > time) because, on this common understanding of these terms, "primitive > culture" was an oxymoron. > > I assume that you mean culture in the sense that anthropologists use it > today (or, I should say, as they used to use it not so long ago). Is that > right? > > -greg > > On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden < > andyb@marxists.org> wrote: > >> Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. >> >> Is there a word for "out of culture"? >> >> Andy >> >> -- >> ------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> > > > -- > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. > Assistant Professor > Department of Anthropology > 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower > Brigham Young University > Provo, UT 84602 > WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/24036149/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Mon Sep 17 02:48:45 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 19:48:45 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: Yes, that's right, Huw, so "solecism" and "wild" mean "un-cultured," not "other-cultured." Of course, the unsophisticated native easily mistakes the other-cultured as being un-cultured. "Cultural faux pas" actually carries the implication that the relevant act belongs to another culture. So it is the right term, except it requires 3 words, two of them French, so it is in a sense itself a cultural faux pas. But non-self-referential words are a problem. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 7:41 PM, Huw Lloyd wrote: > Andy, > > I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than > "out(side) of a culture". So anachronism refer in this > context to an utterance that is from a different time (and > culture) applied to the contemporary. So I think the sense > that you are looking for is "projection", or "cultural > projection". > > Huw > > On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first > used it in the plural - "cultures". > > I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have > for people who don't belong to the relevant culture, > but I mean a word to describe ideas, claims, beliefs > which are "blind" to the incongruity of the idea with > the relevant cultural context. This is often a kind of > anachronism, but not always. The lack of a word arose > in a controversy here in Oz when US cultural norms > were used to judge an action in an Oz cultural > context. ... That drew my attention to the lack of a > word, but I don't want to discuss the issue itself on > this list. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >> Andy, >> Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". >> No need to get into the battles over the word as >> anthropology has over the past 30 years but it would >> be worth knowing what you mean. >> >> For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very >> fashionable (yes, at that time...) term "primitive" >> relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture >> as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's >> title Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in the >> sense of an idea before its time) because, on this >> common understanding of these terms, "primitive >> culture" was an oxymoron. >> >> I assume that you mean culture in the sense that >> anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as >> they used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? >> >> -greg >> >> On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden >> > wrote: >> >> Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of >> time" so to speak. >> >> Is there a word for "out of culture"? >> >> Andy >> >> >> -- >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> >> >> -- >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/666a37fa/attachment.html From robsub@ariadne.org.uk Mon Sep 17 02:58:27 2018 From: robsub@ariadne.org.uk (robsub@ariadne.org.uk) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 10:58:27 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: <446f8854-e4a3-2922-14cd-09d8255b2976@ariadne.org.uk> "Fish out of water"? On 17/09/2018 10:41, Huw Lloyd wrote: > Andy, > > I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than "out(side) of > a culture". So anachronism refer in this context to an utterance that > is from a different time (and culture) applied to the contemporary. So > I think the sense that you are looking for is "projection", or > "cultural projection". > > Huw > > On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first used it in > the plural - "cultures". > > I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have for people > who don't belong to the relevant culture, but I mean a word to > describe ideas, claims, beliefs which are "blind" to the > incongruity of the idea with the relevant cultural context. This > is often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack of a word > arose in a controversy here in Oz when US cultural norms were used > to judge an action in an Oz cultural context. ... That drew my > attention to the lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss the > issue itself on this list. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >> Andy, >> Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No need to >> get into the battles over the word as anthropology has over the >> past 30 years but it would be worth knowing what you mean. >> >> For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very fashionable >> (yes, at that time...)?term "primitive" relies on a rather old >> fashioned meaning of culture as "refinement" and "development." >> Thus E. B. Tylor's title Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in >> the sense of an idea before its time) because, on this common >> understanding of these terms, "primitive culture" was an oxymoron. >> >> I assume that you mean culture in the sense that anthropologists >> use it today (or, I should say, as they used to use it not so >> long ago). Is that right? >> >> -greg >> >> On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden > > wrote: >> >> Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to >> speak. >> >> Is there a word for "out of culture"? >> >> Andy >> >> >> -- >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> >> >> -- >> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >> Assistant Professor >> Department of Anthropology >> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >> Brigham Young University >> Provo, UT 84602 >> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/80e9e03c/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Mon Sep 17 03:03:50 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 20:03:50 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: <446f8854-e4a3-2922-14cd-09d8255b2976@ariadne.org.uk> References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> <446f8854-e4a3-2922-14cd-09d8255b2976@ariadne.org.uk> Message-ID: Nice one, Rob, a ever. But that is an explanation for a cultural faux pas, not the act itself. A fish out of water can still behave correctly, andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 7:58 PM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk wrote: > "Fish out of water"? > > On 17/09/2018 10:41, Huw Lloyd wrote: >> Andy, >> >> I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than >> "out(side) of a culture". So anachronism refer in this >> context to an utterance that is from a different time >> (and culture) applied to the contemporary. So I think the >> sense that you are looking for is "projection", or >> "cultural projection". >> >> Huw >> >> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden >> > wrote: >> >> Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first >> used it in the plural - "cultures". >> >> I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we >> have for people who don't belong to the relevant >> culture, but I mean a word to describe ideas, claims, >> beliefs which are "blind" to the incongruity of the >> idea with the relevant cultural context. This is >> often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack >> of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US >> cultural norms were used to judge an action in an Oz >> cultural context. ... That drew my attention to the >> lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss the issue >> itself on this list. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>> Andy, >>> Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". >>> No need to get into the battles over the word as >>> anthropology has over the past 30 years but it would >>> be worth knowing what you mean. >>> >>> For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very >>> fashionable (yes, at that time...) term "primitive" >>> relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture >>> as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. >>> Tylor's title Primitive Culture was anachronistic >>> (in the sense of an idea before its time) because, >>> on this common understanding of these terms, >>> "primitive culture" was an oxymoron. >>> >>> I assume that you mean culture in the sense that >>> anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as >>> they used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? >>> >>> -greg >>> >>> On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden >>> > wrote: >>> >>> Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of >>> time" so to speak. >>> >>> Is there a word for "out of culture"? >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> >>> -- >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/2074ba04/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Mon Sep 17 08:41:52 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 09:41:52 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> <446f8854-e4a3-2922-14cd-09d8255b2976@ariadne.org.uk> Message-ID: What if someone intentionally violates some one elses decorum, knows full well it will rankle, even enrage? This happens these days a lot on the internet, especially anonymously. Henry > On Sep 17, 2018, at 4:03 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > Nice one, Rob, a ever. But that is an explanation for a cultural faux pas, not the act itself. A fish out of water can still behave correctly, > andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 17/09/2018 7:58 PM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk wrote: >> "Fish out of water"? >> >> On 17/09/2018 10:41, Huw Lloyd wrote: >>> Andy, >>> >>> I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than "out(side) of a culture". So anachronism refer in this context to an utterance that is from a different time (and culture) applied to the contemporary. So I think the sense that you are looking for is "projection", or "cultural projection". >>> >>> Huw >>> >>> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden > wrote: >>> Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first used it in the plural - "cultures". >>> >>> I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have for people who don't belong to the relevant culture, but I mean a word to describe ideas, claims, beliefs which are "blind" to the incongruity of the idea with the relevant cultural context. This is often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US cultural norms were used to judge an action in an Oz cultural context. ... That drew my attention to the lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss the issue itself on this list. >>> Andy >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>>> Andy, >>>> Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No need to get into the battles over the word as anthropology has over the past 30 years but it would be worth knowing what you mean. >>>> >>>> For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very fashionable (yes, at that time...) term "primitive" relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's title Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in the sense of an idea before its time) because, on this common understanding of these terms, "primitive culture" was an oxymoron. >>>> >>>> I assume that you mean culture in the sense that anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as they used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? >>>> >>>> -greg >>>> >>>> On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden < andyb@marxists.org > wrote: >>>> Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. >>>> >>>> Is there a word for "out of culture"? >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> >>>> -- >>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>> Assistant Professor >>>> Department of Anthropology >>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>> Brigham Young University >>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/c40a9ea5/attachment.html From robsub@ariadne.org.uk Mon Sep 17 09:14:06 2018 From: robsub@ariadne.org.uk (robsub@ariadne.org.uk) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 17:14:06 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> <446f8854-e4a3-2922-14cd-09d8255b2976@ariadne.org.uk> Message-ID: <8e8b10ff-b528-9797-750e-20e83d7a9822@ariadne.org.uk> There is a word for that: trolling. On 17/09/2018 16:41, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > What if someone intentionally violates some one elses decorum, knows > full well it will rankle, even enrage? This happens these days a lot > on the internet, especially anonymously. > Henry > >> On Sep 17, 2018, at 4:03 AM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: >> >> Nice one, Rob, a ever. But that is an explanation for a cultural faux >> pas, not the act itself. A fish out of water can still behave correctly, >> >> andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 17/09/2018 7:58 PM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk wrote: >>> "Fish out of water"? >>> >>> On 17/09/2018 10:41, Huw Lloyd wrote: >>>> Andy, >>>> >>>> I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than "out(side) >>>> of a culture". So anachronism refer in this context to an utterance >>>> that is from a different time (and culture) applied to the >>>> contemporary. So I think the sense that you are looking for is >>>> "projection", or "cultural projection". >>>> >>>> Huw >>>> >>>> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden >>> > wrote: >>>> >>>> Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first used it in >>>> the plural - "cultures". >>>> >>>> I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have for >>>> people who don't belong to the relevant culture, but I mean a >>>> word to describe ideas, claims, beliefs which are "blind" to >>>> the incongruity of the idea with the relevant cultural context. >>>> This is often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack >>>> of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US cultural >>>> norms were used to judge an action in an Oz cultural context. >>>> ... That drew my attention to the lack of a word, but I don't >>>> want to discuss the issue itself on this list. >>>> >>>> Andy >>>> >>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>>>> Andy, >>>>> Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No need to >>>>> get into the battles over the word as anthropology has over >>>>> the past 30 years but it would be worth knowing what you mean. >>>>> >>>>> For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very fashionable >>>>> (yes, at that time...)?term "primitive" relies on a rather old >>>>> fashioned meaning of culture as "refinement" and >>>>> "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's title Primitive Culture was >>>>> anachronistic (in the sense of an idea before its time) >>>>> because, on this common understanding of these terms, >>>>> "primitive culture" was an oxymoron. >>>>> >>>>> I assume that you mean culture in the sense that >>>>> anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as they used >>>>> to use it not so long ago). Is that right? >>>>> >>>>> -greg >>>>> >>>>> On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden >>>>> wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so >>>>> to speak. >>>>> >>>>> Is there a word for "out of culture"? >>>>> >>>>> Andy >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> -- >>>>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>>>> Assistant Professor >>>>> Department of Anthropology >>>>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>>>> Brigham Young University >>>>> Provo, UT 84602 >>>>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>>>> >>>>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >>>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/74f0a566/attachment.html From annalisa@unm.edu Mon Sep 17 09:47:07 2018 From: annalisa@unm.edu (Annalisa Aguilar) Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2018 16:47:07 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> , Message-ID: Hi Andy, "Gaffe" may very well be the word that you want, if you want a single word. A gaffe is a SOCIAL blunder. Rather than say "cultural faux pas" you could say "cultural gaffe" just as well. That you must put "cultural" in front of "faux pas" means "faux pas" doesn't do the job you intend, wouldn't you say? "Faux pas" literally means "false step" so if you want it to be English then say "false step," or "cultural false step." Still not quite effective, is it. Also, what you've brought up pertains to a point of view. Do you mean to look from the cultural standpoint of those who are offended? or from those who offend? Or from a more neutral standpoint? Also, "solecism" doesn't mean "un-cultured". One of the definitions is a mistake in the context of etiquette. Etiquette is a cultural construct. Solecism means an error but a particular kind of error. It seems to be what you are talking about. It just doesn't refer to "culture" in the way that you want, perhaps because "etiquette" is the defining concept standing between "solecism" and "culture." "Etiquette" has a color of class and has to do with manners, and I suppose that anthropologists don't breezily throw around the word "etiquette" when analyzing their own gaffes while studying a culture in the field. Or maybe they do? I'm not sure why you would be against the use of "solecism." (I might point out that "etiquette" is also a French word, and French has been called the language of diplomacy, maybe this is an indication why. Those French, why have a word for everything!!!) Additionally, as seen here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solecism there is a beneficial aspect to this word because it is also used in terms of grammar, from where it derives from the Greek. I support the word because what you are talking about is "cultural grammar" and what do you call it when someone pushes an incorrect usage into a cultural context. Seems descriptive and less loaded. It's more likely that we are just not used to using such a word, because if we live in a hegemonic culture and we are not in a minority, we are comfortable making solecisms with impunity and never have to give pause for self-reflection when we have made a gaffe. I actually like the word "gaffe," because it is also neutral and sounds more like an everyday word; it is accessible, as in "Who hasn't ever made a gaffe?" rather than "Who hasn't ever made a solecism?" I'd suggest "solecism" as the scientific counterpart to an everyday "gaffe." Kind regards, Annalisa ________________________________ From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Andy Blunden Sent: Monday, September 17, 2018 3:48:45 AM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism Yes, that's right, Huw, so "solecism" and "wild" mean "un-cultured," not "other-cultured." Of course, the unsophisticated native easily mistakes the other-cultured as being un-cultured. "Cultural faux pas" actually carries the implication that the relevant act belongs to another culture. So it is the right term, except it requires 3 words, two of them French, so it is in a sense itself a cultural faux pas. But non-self-referential words are a problem. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 7:41 PM, Huw Lloyd wrote: Andy, I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than "out(side) of a culture". So anachronism refer in this context to an utterance that is from a different time (and culture) applied to the contemporary. So I think the sense that you are looking for is "projection", or "cultural projection". Huw On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org> wrote: Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first used it in the plural - "cultures". I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have for people who don't belong to the relevant culture, but I mean a word to describe ideas, claims, beliefs which are "blind" to the incongruity of the idea with the relevant cultural context. This is often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US cultural norms were used to judge an action in an Oz cultural context. ... That drew my attention to the lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss the issue itself on this list. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: Andy, Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No need to get into the battles over the word as anthropology has over the past 30 years but it would be worth knowing what you mean. For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very fashionable (yes, at that time...) term "primitive" relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's title Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in the sense of an idea before its time) because, on this common understanding of these terms, "primitive culture" was an oxymoron. I assume that you mean culture in the sense that anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as they used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? -greg On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden > wrote: Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. Is there a word for "out of culture"? Andy -- ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180917/5215f5a7/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Mon Sep 17 17:34:10 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 10:34:10 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> Message-ID: "Cultural gaffe" exists: https://www.instyle.com/news/prince-william-cultural-gaffe-japan-china so it appears that the concept exists, but a word for it is not yet readily available. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 18/09/2018 2:47 AM, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > > Hi Andy, > > > "Gaffe" may very well be the word that you want, if you > want a single word. A gaffe is a SOCIAL blunder. Rather > than say "cultural faux pas" you could say "cultural > gaffe" just as well. That you must put "cultural" in front > of "faux pas" means "faux pas" doesn't do the job you > intend, wouldn't you say? > > > "Faux pas" literally means "false step" so if you want it > to be English then say "false step," or "cultural false > step." Still not quite effective, is it. > > > Also, what you've brought up pertains to a point of view. > Do you mean to look from the cultural standpoint of those > who are offended? or from those who offend? Or from a more > neutral standpoint? > > > Also, "solecism" doesn't mean "un-cultured". One of the > definitions is a mistake in the context of etiquette. > Etiquette is a cultural construct. Solecism means an error > but a particular kind of error. It seems to be what you > are talking about. It just doesn't refer to "culture" in > the way that you want, perhaps because "etiquette" is the > defining concept standing between "solecism" and "culture." > > > "Etiquette" has a color of class and has to do with > manners, and I suppose that anthropologists don't breezily > throw around the word "etiquette" when analyzing their own > gaffes while studying a culture in the field. Or maybe > they do? > > > I'm not sure why you would be against the use of "solecism." > > > (I might point out that "etiquette" is also a French word, > and French has been called the language of diplomacy, > maybe this is an indication why. Those French, why have a > word for everything!!!) > > > Additionally, as seen here: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solecism > > > there is a beneficial aspect to this word because it is > also used in terms of grammar, from where it derives from > the Greek. I support the word because what you are talking > about is "cultural grammar" and what do you call it when > someone pushes an incorrect usage into a cultural context. > Seems descriptive and less loaded. > > > It's more likely that we are just not used to using such a > word, because if we live in a hegemonic culture and we are > not in a minority, we are comfortable making solecisms > with impunity and never have to give pause for > self-reflection when we have made a gaffe. > > > I actually like the word "gaffe," because it is also > neutral and sounds more like an everyday word; it is > accessible, as in "Who hasn't ever made a gaffe?" rather > than "Who hasn't ever made a solecism?" > > > I'd suggest "solecism" as the scientific counterpart to an > everyday "gaffe." > > > Kind regards, > > > Annalisa > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Andy > Blunden > *Sent:* Monday, September 17, 2018 3:48:45 AM > *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism > > > Yes, that's right, Huw, so "solecism" and "wild" mean > "un-cultured," not "other-cultured." Of course, the > unsophisticated native easily mistakes the other-cultured > as being un-cultured. > > "Cultural faux pas" actually carries the implication that > the relevant act belongs to another culture. So it is the > right term, except it requires 3 words, two of them > French, so it is in a sense itself a cultural faux pas. > But non-self-referential words are a problem. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 17/09/2018 7:41 PM, Huw Lloyd wrote: >> Andy, >> >> I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than >> "out(side) of a culture". So anachronism refer in this >> context to an utterance that is from a different time >> (and culture) applied to the contemporary. So I think the >> sense that you are looking for is "projection", or >> "cultural projection". >> >> Huw >> >> On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden >> > wrote: >> >> Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first >> used it in the plural - "cultures". >> >> I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we >> have for people who don't belong to the relevant >> culture, but I mean a word to describe ideas, claims, >> beliefs which are "blind" to the incongruity of the >> idea with the relevant cultural context. This is >> often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack >> of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US >> cultural norms were used to judge an action in an Oz >> cultural context. ... That drew my attention to the >> lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss the issue >> itself on this list. >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: >>> Andy, >>> Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". >>> No need to get into the battles over the word as >>> anthropology has over the past 30 years but it would >>> be worth knowing what you mean. >>> >>> For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very >>> fashionable (yes, at that time...) term "primitive" >>> relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture >>> as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. >>> Tylor's title Primitive Culture was anachronistic >>> (in the sense of an idea before its time) because, >>> on this common understanding of these terms, >>> "primitive culture" was an oxymoron. >>> >>> I assume that you mean culture in the sense that >>> anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as >>> they used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? >>> >>> -greg >>> >>> On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden >>> > wrote: >>> >>> Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of >>> time" so to speak. >>> >>> Is there a word for "out of culture"? >>> >>> Andy >>> >>> >>> -- >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. >>> Assistant Professor >>> Department of Anthropology >>> 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower >>> Brigham Young University >>> Provo, UT 84602 >>> WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu >>> >>> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180918/eba8b010/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Mon Sep 17 23:54:43 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 06:54:43 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <796069456.6694972.1537253683646@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Huw--I will look forward to seeing the draft. I'm very much interested in thought and interaction as a layered, complex interaction (in both V and the normal sense of the word), so look forward to learning more.? Regards,Doug On ?Friday?, ?September? ?7?, ?2018? ?12?:?46?:?55? ?PM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Hi Doug, At first I thought you were talking about Bernshtein with respect to embodied expression in action. It is nice to hear of Eisenstein taking a theoretical interest beyond surface details. This seems quite reasonable from my position, in which orientation can be considered as a concern for the pragmatics aspect of semiotic categories. There is nothing amiss in associative thinking itself, but rather there are broader and more coherent circuits of thought that may be realised beyond such. Through employing more sophisticated and layered perspectives, one can interpret differently, hence re-construe content. A change in the background -- perspective or orientation -- can change the contents or meaning of the foreground. On metaphoric linkage, one would need to be careful to distinguish association in simple action from linking by outcome and from linking by process in the contextual extension of a word, phrase or term (to point to three of potentially many forms of extension). Each form of cognition can introduce further forms of extension (or displacement). I will send you the draft which is about these differing perspectives and ideas concerning how shifts can be realised through "conversation" (Pask's term) and orientation. In addition to deliberate displacement/extension there is also the displacements that arise across levels of sophistication, such as the child's concretised apprehension of abstract phrases. No doubt much more can be said. Huw On Fri, 7 Sep 2018 at 04:36, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind of sustaining research program that would develop it.? Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or memories)? puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through recall or performance--operate. I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with had nothing to do with me. This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing itself... Regards,Doug On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya?Hasan's books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. Best,Huw On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: Annalisa, Doug,?all, just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other?discussions on such a relevant topic.?But?I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking,?they seemed to remain?with a quite?formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way?they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation).?But then, as?I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image?schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence?of these metaphors.? But if it is the formation of bodily images?what makes flesh "flesh," then?this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation?that now "information" of the world is?being represented as?consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions.? Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime?Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their?concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with?a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of?embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial",?which I share for educational purposes only?in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach (?https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218?).? More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which?the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework.? Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world.?So,?I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff.? As per Doug on the central role of image?(by the way,?thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms),?I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual")?is?, and whether and?how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention?above.? Cheers, Alfredo From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day? On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. Yes.? What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point.? What are your 20 exceptions? Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day?Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best,Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams wrote: Huw/Doug ? And ..? I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.),?Metaphor and Thought:?2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Julian Williams Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Huw/Doug ? This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Huw Lloyd Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Doug, ? I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? ? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded.? Historically I have found?Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". ? In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. ? Best, Huw ? ? ? ? On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- ? Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least.? ? Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular?? ? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents,? ? Mark Turner'sMore Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint.? ? And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to themono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by thesakura, the cherry blossom.? ? The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal ? | | | | | | | | | | | The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... | | | Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these thingsare humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent? with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" ? Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. ? a common theme... ? Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon)? ? Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) ? But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined.? ? For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery.? ? Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture.? ? But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream...? ? Regards, Doug ? ? On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: ? ? After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". ? Best, Huw ? On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is?:)? Alfredo ? ? From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, ? Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. ? I would reply: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. ? However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope).? ? For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. ? It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) ? The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. ? I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). ? Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. ? How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). ? Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! ? Anyway, Bateson?was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) ? I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. ? With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. ? In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. ? It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. ? One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. ? I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger?if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. ? I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. ? Kind regards, ? Annalisa ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180918/c7a6da32/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Mon Sep 17 23:51:50 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 06:51:50 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <1575483490.212334.1535963020033@mail.yahoo.com> <529243700.913582.1536292863511@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1741414237.4555455.1537253510389@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Annalisa I'll respond inline, but preface responses with an asterisk to separate them.? While I'm making various assertions here, I would suggest you and others treat them as...suggestions, not assertions. The benefit of an interaction on XMCA is (to my mind at least) less to speak in the form of knowing, but rather in the form of seeking...so treat these words as sentences that do not mean fully what they say, and require elaboration and development. Keep in mind that I am, as it were, at this point, a hobbyist, and you are the professionals.? On ?Friday?, ?September? ?7?, ?2018? ?11?:?49?:?33? ?PM? ?PDT, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Hi Doug and venerable others, Yours is a very beautifully written explanation, and very dense to unpack. One question I have is that, yes, given that meaning can extend beyond the heuristic framework of complexes from which it arises ? or am I making a mistake by saying meaning rather than language? I am forced to consider how a symbol becomes anchored, as you use the concept of symbol. How does that work? It can't just float in the air at the moment I comprehend it.? * Coming back to this after a few days, I'm not sure if I fully identify what is (I suppose) my own context. But as for anchoring, I think it is shared experience: In shared actions; in Vygotsky's words, external speech condensed into predicates, which leads me back to Biomechanics, Meyerhold, Eisenstein, and the search for a language of action that can be represented in language or in imagery, but may have its roots, ultimately, in gestures.? *Richard Boleslavsky, who is of a different theater group (Moscow Art Theater) than Meyerhold--and Mayerhold went out of his way, as everyone in Russia seems to have done about every other intellectual school, of criticizing Boleslavsky's theater as a group of impudent puppies who were misguided, nevertheless probably reflects a common theatrical concern of the time when Boleslavsky writes this in Acting: The First Six Lessons: *"It helps a student of the theatre to notice everything unusual and out of the ordinary in everyday life. It builds his memory, his storage memory, with all the visible manifestations of the human spirit. It makes him sensitive to sincerity and to make-believe. It develops his sensory and muscular memory, and facilitates his adjustment to any business he may be required to do in a part. It opens his eyes to the full extent in appreciation of different personalities and values in people and works of art. And lastly, Madame, it enriches his inner life by full and extensive consumption of everything in outward life."? *And that only works in a community of shared experiences...and because this was the object of at least part of Eisenstein's search, maybe even common innate gestures of communication. That is at least what Meyerhold hinted at, though I suspect, as Eisenstein ended up with Meyerhold's notes in the end (another common trope: he hid Meyerhold's private papes in his dacha, and I suppose Elena Luria ended up with them in hers), Meyerhold had intuition without evidence.? *But the evidence emerges: A Cross-Species Study of Gesture and Its Role in Symbolic Development: Implications for the Gestural Theory of Language Evolution | | | | | | | | | | | A Cross-Species Study of Gesture and Its Role in Symbolic Development: I... Using a naturalistic video database, we examined whether gestures scaffolded the symbolic development of a langu... | | | Were it so, then I could have endless numbers of mentalist symbols stored in a "shelving system" whereby one symbol could reside disconnected from all the rest.? *I don't think so, because in social species, the ultimate purpose of symbols evoking memory is to share an interaction or a perception with another member of one's species. It's certainly possible (Luria, Mind of a Mnemonist), but then it is an We appropriate new concepts--new perceptions--only to the extent that they are communicated within the range of symbols that we understand partially, so that we are in a zone of proximal development for perceiving the perceptions of another. Action predates speech, gesture predates word, but while gesture perhaps--for I suspect that was what Eisenstein, and Mayerhold, were after--is an innate means of communication that can be evoked across language and experience boundaries, language added to it is agglutinative: It adds and expands the sense of gesture, and because we are social creatures, we? And perhaps I would require some kind of Dewey decimal system or registry in order to retrieve the symbol at which time I could utilize it. This doesn't seem to carry any economy. It does borrow the mechanics of computer memory access though, and so again we are borrowing a metaphor that as you say has become dead.? *That is where memory consolidation comes in to play. As Milman Parry and Albert Lord found in their studies of epic storytellers, (oral-formulaic theory), we build memory palaces from our shared experiences, and construct socially preserved frameworks of memory consolidation and communication. The "wine-dark sea" may be a dead metaphor, in the sense that it is fixed in shared experience (though that one is more dead than most), just as many words (rule, reign count, reckon, rechnung, rekening, rechenunga, regning) have a common root in the metonymy of the things that rulers do--namely count, keep records, require accounting--but that doesn't change the common basis of the words in shared experience, and, though the origins may be less fully visible to us now, the ghost of the action of accounting is preserved in the senses of words derived from the action.? The problem is when the metaphor limits our ability to reason in the world, "in the world" being the most important aspect to emphasize.? *That puts us back in the world of Whorf/Sapir, most famously of Sapir's blower, which forced his insured clients to burn down their hide drying warehouse because they were trapped by the metaphor. But this is the least active sense of shared experience. More interesting is the Anna Karenina case that Vygotsky cites, of "Way:icnb,dy", Icnaot, stymfwh (p 237), in which alignment of action and feeling uses language as a shorthand.? *In short, I think that once a shared experience is established, the whole direction of human communication evolution is to increase the capability of human communication to be more abbreviated and complex than I suspect we usually perceive. We take for granted shared physiological embodiment (Cog Linguistics), shared primate gestures, presumably also derived largely from embodiment, shared sociocultural interactions (which makes the foreigner's gestures foreign). combined with other rules, systems of hierarchy, and other contexts in which communication takes place. These are part of the message, but they are not IN the message, but rather the CONTEXT in which the message takes place.? I contend that the metaphor of the computer for human cognition is a dead end, because it just doesn't make sense to limit our thinking based upon units of a machine that did not exist even a hundred years ago, where human cognition has been around a lot longer. That's like trying to use a yardstick to measure the sun. On the other hand, there has been some utility to employ the computer as a metaphor for thinking, because it may have relinquished us from a behaviorist model of stimulus/response without knowing what is inside the black box. With the computer metaphor, we could start to imagine what was in the black box. And that is the power of the metaphor, that we can map one thing to another and try it out, play and experiment. Is this like that? How much is it like that? How different is it from that? etc. What fails is how much we don't want to let the metaphor go when the aspects of cognition fail to be effectively represented by the computer metaphor. Some would rather deny the aspects of cognition than give up the darn metaphor.? *That is why I think Don Norman (UC San Diego Cog Psy) was cautious about skeumorphism. To think of computer files literally as physical objects placed in a file room would limit what you could imagine you could do with them. (How can one search for one world in hundreds of thousands of pieces of paper in file folders?) Metaphor gives and takes.? * But that is where language comes in, I think: A hand has a physical limitation to what I can grasp. However, I can comprehend a great deal more than I can grasp. And this, as Sarah Boysen has so elegantly shown, is something that chimpanzees no less can do immediately as soon as one abstracts a physical object into a symbol: Chimp Cognition | in Chapter 08: Animal Behavior and Cognition | | | | Chimp Cognition | in Chapter 08: Animal Behavior and Cognition Russell A. Dewey, PhD Chimps are known for complex cognitive abilities | | | If the only requirement for the symbols I (as-if) carry around in my head was that I could comprehend them to use them, perhaps like identifying a philips screwdriver from a flathead screwdriver because I know that they are each useful based upon what type of screw I'm trying to negotiate from a hinge, let's say, there is still in my memory a recollection (re-hyphen-collection) of the context of these tools and their utility. The point being that the tool can never be decontextualized. Even to use the word "tool" means it is to be used for a particular application, it implies a context. Sure, any tool can be used in a different and innovative way, but this doesn't negate how the tool got to be a tool in the first place.? *And that is where I think I disagree. The moment you separate an object out of a string of metonymic sequences--a pictogramic story of actions recalled--and turn it into a symbol one step removed from the action, at that moment--or so Boysen's experiments with chimpanzees seem to show-- you have created a mind-tool that enables you to escape the tyranny of actions and consequences, and have opened up a tertiary area in which one is free to imagine a world of (as yet) impossible reality. Imagination is created by the symbol.? *There is a difference between a tool and an object, in this regard. Because the tool is unified with a context (of utility), an object on the other hand, is removed from its context. It is an abstraction and just like an item discovered in an archeological dig, after hundreds of years in the ground, the only way we can come to understand it is by trying to suss out the context, like the scene of a crime, what happened to make this dead body dead? What is it like that we already know about? etc.? But context doesn't reside inside the metaphor, but pervades the metaphor as embodied meaning, and extends beyond it, so to speak, connecting or mapping the metaphor to its environment in the world. This environmental aspect that I'm referencing assists in economy, but it has the sense of being "invisible" because of our human attentional focus upon utility and meaning, rather than holding the entire contextual view in our heads. A symbol, as an object, becomes harder to utilize the more it extends away from its more-grounded locii (within a context), but those who are familiar with the symbol still carry the contextual framework. It is a framework not the entire world, after all.? *Yes, to the extent that we want to capture the original meaning of the object in its own lifeworld. But I very much doubt that we read Jane Austin's novels in the same sense that Jane Austin wrote them. We see Jane Austin's damsels in economic distress, for want of marriageable young men with 10,000 Pounds per annum from the family estate and funds (a ridiculously, literally rent-seeking form of life that has no analog in most people's lives today) with our own precarious economic situations, and with our own romantic engagements. We project our own contexts into symbols, into language and narrative, and recast them to fit our own socioeconomic concerns. our actions are bound in their times. Our symbols, because they are disassociated from direct links with actions, are, or can be, timeless. And at least dating back to Alfred North Whitehead, and certainly the Cog Linguistics people believe this, with evidence, we are able to evoke quite complex implicit narratives without being aware we do so. Whorf/Sapir, G.H. Mead, Kenneth Burke and John Dewey seem also to propose the same, as of course does Vygotsky: "A word in context means both more and less than the same word in isolation: More, because it acquires new context: Less, because its meaning is limited and narrowed by the context."? One example of this (which tests my cobwebby math memory) is the formula of 2?r equaling the circumference of the circle. (2?r) is a complex of (2) multiplied by (3.14...)?multiplied by (the radius of the circle), where each of these number values are symbols in their own right, but behind this economic and compact formula, which is a handy tool, is a context that need not be unpacked every time we invoke the formula, such that2?r comes to be seen as a single unit of meaning, that is (2?r) references -> (the circumference of a circle). That reference only appears to be removed from its heuristic framework (and not just because I used parentheses), still the connection remains because the world of circles shows the merit of the formula every time, and this is not because of the formula, which is just a description of circles, but because the circumference of all circular items in the world do indeed have this proportion in relation to their radii fairly predictably. That reality is located in the immanent world, not inside?the symbol. The symbol is a reference to the world itself, but we can't remove the world for the sake of the symbol.? * Ah, but now you are in the world of science, and reason, with statements that can be falsified and out of the world of complexes, in which random events of experience can combine with sociocultural memes, and new tentative reconceptualizations of experience can be formed out of even the most activity-restricted objects. That, to me, is the magic of communication, and the potential of symbolic narrative. If you've read my paper on romantic comedy (as I recall you mentioning), and perhaps on Star Wars, then you can see the degree to which recombinant experience is the agent, ultimately, not just of cultural conveyance through paradigmatic narratives, but literally the means of human freedom, and the agents of cultural reconstruction--the very thing that Plato, with his somewhat totalitarian oligarchy in The Republic, rightly feared, so long ago, could be the agency of dissent and rebellion.? Just try.? *OK: http://static.nautil.us/4676_ea6979872125d5acbac6068f186a0359.png But the tricky thing here is that it is our attention that *does* (as-if) remove the world, and this is for economy, because the world doesn't have to be uploaded into the mind in order to use the formula or to utilize the symbol, because we are inside the world and it remains, but instead our attention is what morphs with the affordances that the world presents to us, in this case the affordance of a circle. *But affordances offer (to borrow a term from Freud) channels of meaning, to which we naturally tend. But because we are sociocultural creatures,. who these days have to struggle (unlike animals, as Temple Grandin points out) to see the world as it IS, as opposed to the sociocultural filters through which we see the world, we are constantly inclined toward the channels that our social interactions incline us to perceive. One of Gibson's own examples of an affordance--the redness of fruit to indicate its wholesomeness for consumption--was misread by Europeans, confronted with an alien fruit, as a sign of its potential for being poisonous. Hemlock had red spots, and a few other poisonous things; God made things to communicate their purpose, and red was a warning. Confronted with a hitherto unknown reddish fruit, quickly named the wolf-peach, the tomato became an object of fear and surreptitious hope for a couple centuries before becoming a staple ingredient in cooking, and even then, in hotter countries, where its self-evidently dangerous qualities were tempered by the heat of Italian summers.? I would say that our attention becomes fragmented by the symbol, so we can streamline our cognitive resources for economy's sake. Just experience? *I think I'd say concentrated and abstracted--the complexity of human communication is what strikes me, its evocativeness, its depth--so that we can mean so much more than we realize we mean. But perhaps that's the poet in me.? (2?r)? versus (2) multiplied by (3.14...)?multiplied by (the radius of the circle) We need less attention for the first symbol than the second one, both signifying the circumference of a circle. Nothing changed about circles in the world in the process.? I am doubtful whether comprehension of the tool, as I understand you to describe a symbol, can ever be disconnected from the world, because then wouldn't it be the case that we would never be able to explain the meaning of 2?r to another person once we comprehended it? The framework would be completely lost and the symbol un-anchored. We would know what the symbol could represent, but we wouldn't know why, it would be an ahistorical object. Perhaps we might forget momentarily, but then the world is there with its circles for us to reference, like reading the world as a dictionary, to remind us, re-anchor us.? *It is one tool, learned within a specific community of practice. A tennis racket, by itself, is a totally inexplicable object. In action, in a community of practice, it takes its meaning, and its form becomes action.? When we peel a banana, our attention is on the peel for a short time, until it is removed, and then we throw it away and enjoy the fruit, but the peel only disappears from our attention, not from the world. In fact the entire world may drop away as we focus upon the banana and the sensual experience of its smell, texture, and flavor, etc. I suggest that it is the same with what you deem symbols. Another "inverted" aspect of this might be seen in the palace memory, and how spatial imaginings (contexts) can help the capacity of memory, but that is because there is such a thing as a framework of a conceptual house, a context that resides in the embodied world. We had to know and experience a house-in-the-world to imagine one. Here is a framework erected so that memories can be "put inside" for later access. Some folks using this method can forget about the item because they recollect the room first and survey what is in it, based upon location in this imaginary room, to retrieve it again. Like knowing I have all my books on cognitive science on the third shelf from the top, but I might not know exactly their names until I stand in front of the shelf to examine them. This is a perfect example of the economy of context. That's why it must be that these "symbols," as in a memory palace, are not mental apparitions in the head, but something embodied, because of knowing up and down, right from left, as one travels the memory palace, room by room, can only happen with a body. This doesn't mean that a person has identical associations or contexts or what have you for each word or symbol as another person, it just means that for each word or symbol there is a history behind it and that history continues to grow and develop with every use in a context-in-the-world, making that "meaning" unique, uniquely developed, and uniquely appreciated by that person. I believe the same can be said of rituals. They are enactments of the world through symbols that reference the world in some capacity, and we just unpack rituals to relive an attentional aspect of the world in order to keep their coherency and currency alive in us.? In a certain way, rituals can be a way of garbage collection, in that they clear away the cruft that might have settled from the last time we had the ritual. Re-enactment affords an opportunity for reorganizing our meaning-making, for re-anchoring our connection to the past, to family, to any embodied connection-in-the-world.? * I think I agree with this, though not in the form of garbage collection. I think more in terms of re-creation, repurposing. There is nothing wrong with reading Jane Austin in the specific context of a 19th Century woman's socioeconomic positioning in a semi-feudal society. But that, I submit, is not what makes Jane Austin popular today. Narratives evolve with the interactions their audiences bring to them.? I realize that there may be some things I'm missing in my argument above, but I am counting upon others to point that out for me, and to them I say, in advance, thank you. :)? * I suspect there are a thousand things I'm overstating, understating, or neglecting. But that is what I would hope to learn by laying out my bits of string and broken glass before those who, I trust, can look upon them and shape such mosaics as I might have dreamed of, and forgotten upon awakening.? *Regards, *Doug Kind regards, Annalisa -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180918/36e67497/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Mon Sep 17 23:59:57 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 06:59:57 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: anachronism In-Reply-To: <8e8b10ff-b528-9797-750e-20e83d7a9822@ariadne.org.uk> References: <9b7495d8-f6d3-64e3-996f-23750d3209de@marxists.org> <446f8854-e4a3-2922-14cd-09d8255b2976@ariadne.org.uk> <8e8b10ff-b528-9797-750e-20e83d7a9822@ariadne.org.uk> Message-ID: <880307686.6711457.1537253997658@mail.yahoo.com> I feel the need to say something like "I'm totally owning the libs," and use emojis It is interesting that as we move to more hostile forms of speech, they often seem to demand a more gestural, to borrow a phrase, "primitive" form of expression. Emotional engagement literally seems to leave us in a world disempowered of speech.? Regards,Doug On ?Monday?, ?September? ?17?, ?2018? ?09?:?17?:?52? ?AM? ?PDT, robsub@ariadne.org.uk wrote: There is a word for that: trolling. On 17/09/2018 16:41, HENRY SHONERD wrote: What if someone intentionally violates some one elses decorum, knows full well it will rankle, even enrage? This happens these days a lot on the internet, especially anonymously.? Henry On Sep 17, 2018, at 4:03 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: Nice one, Rob, a ever. But that is an explanation for a cultural faux pas, not the act itself. A fish out of water can still behave correctly, andy Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 17/09/2018 7:58 PM, robsub@ariadne.org.uk wrote: "Fish out of water"? On 17/09/2018 10:41, Huw Lloyd wrote: Andy, I think you mean "from a different culture" rather than "out(side) of a culture". So anachronism refer in this context to an utterance that is from a different time (and culture) applied to the contemporary. So I think the sense that you are looking for is "projection", or "cultural projection". Huw On Sun, 16 Sep 2018 at 06:33, Andy Blunden wrote: Yes, I mean it in the sense Boas meant when he first used it in the plural - "cultures". I liked Helena's observation, of all the words we have for people who don't belong to the relevant culture, but I mean a word to describe ideas, claims, beliefs which are "blind" to the incongruity of the idea with the relevant cultural context. This is often a kind of anachronism, but not always. The lack of a word arose in a controversy here in Oz when US cultural norms were used to judge an action in an Oz cultural context. ... That drew my attention to the lack of a word, but I don't want to discuss the issue itself on this list. Andy Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 16/09/2018 3:21 PM, Greg Thompson wrote: Andy, Yes, it might depend on what you mean by "culture". No need to get into the battles over the word as anthropology has over the past 30 years but it would be worth knowing what you mean.? For example, David's reference to Vygotsky's very fashionable (yes, at that time...)?term "primitive" relies on a rather old fashioned meaning of culture as "refinement" and "development." Thus E. B. Tylor's title Primitive Culture was anachronistic (in the sense of an idea before its time) because, on this common understanding of these terms, "primitive culture" was an oxymoron.? I assume that you mean culture in the sense that anthropologists use it today (or, I should say, as they used to use it not so long ago). Is that right? -greg On Sat, Sep 15, 2018 at 8:40 PM Andy Blunden wrote: Everyone knows what "anachronism" means. "Out of time" so to speak. Is there a word for "out of culture"? Andy -- Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm -- Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Department of Anthropology 880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower Brigham Young University Provo, UT 84602 WEBSITE: greg.a.thompson.byu.edu? http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180918/a89145c6/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Tue Sep 18 10:50:07 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Tue, 18 Sep 2018 18:50:07 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <796069456.6694972.1537253683646@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> <796069456.6694972.1537253683646@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I sent it 11 days ago, Doug. On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 at 07:57, Douglas Williams wrote: > Hi, Huw-- > I will look forward to seeing the draft. I'm very much interested in > thought and interaction as a layered, complex interaction (in both V and > the normal sense of the word), so look forward to learning more. > > Regards, > Doug > > On ?Friday?, ?September? ?7?, ?2018? ?12?:?46?:?55? ?PM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi Doug, > > At first I thought you were talking about Bernshtein with respect to > embodied expression in action. It is nice to hear of Eisenstein taking a > theoretical interest beyond surface details. This seems quite reasonable > from my position, in which orientation can be considered as a concern for > the pragmatics aspect of semiotic categories. > > There is nothing amiss in associative thinking itself, but rather there > are broader and more coherent circuits of thought that may be realised > beyond such. Through employing more sophisticated and layered perspectives, > one can interpret differently, hence re-construe content. A change in the > background -- perspective or orientation -- can change the contents or > meaning of the foreground. > > On metaphoric linkage, one would need to be careful to distinguish > association in simple action from linking by outcome and from linking by > process in the contextual extension of a word, phrase or term (to point to > three of potentially many forms of extension). Each form of cognition can > introduce further forms of extension (or displacement). I will send you the > draft which is about these differing perspectives and ideas concerning how > shifts can be realised through "conversation" (Pask's term) and > orientation. In addition to deliberate displacement/extension there is also > the displacements that arise across levels of sophistication, such as the > child's concretised apprehension of abstract phrases. No doubt much more > can be said. > > Huw > > > > On Fri, 7 Sep 2018 at 04:36, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably > most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, > influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific > understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies > in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, > emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the > late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell > apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and > in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind > of sustaining research program that would develop it. > > Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually > present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over > time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or > collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as > purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific > events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or > memories) puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the > pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which > mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and > other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through > recall or performance--operate. > > I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This > is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up > closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later > turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which > is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small > victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with > had nothing to do with me. > > This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own > version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is > there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing > itself... > > Regards, > Doug > > On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some > technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of > cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few > sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this > explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as > being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. > > The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya Hasan's > books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial > constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was > interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning > around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally > identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms > of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. > > Best, > Huw > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > Annalisa, Doug, all, > > > just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and > Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and > being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think > there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on > metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many > other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one > objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from > their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading > the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very > illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in > conceptual thinking, they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic sphere. > As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of > metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part of > living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an > account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of > matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which > was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers > to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But > then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and > Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to > account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. > > > But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," > then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to > understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing > theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world > is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with > abstract perceptions. > > > Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors > such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" > cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our > bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of > their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed > material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, > the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" > (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for > educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on > these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the > flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). > > More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been > inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it > is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity > that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work > in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the > larger framework. > > > Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the > metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to > concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors > forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a > means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps > on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. > > > As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your > beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" > that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and > whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I > mention above. > > > Cheers, > Alfredo > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* 04 September 2018 11:02 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > > Huw, > > > One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because > animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to > respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I > just scanned the thread as of late. > > > If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case > that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that > everyone else accepts. > > > Yes. > > > > What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a > reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read > Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? > > > If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as > assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. > > > > What are your 20 exceptions? > > > Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. > The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an > invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few > points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than > solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a > few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be > usefully applied in looking for yourself. > > Huw > > [...] > > It is possible. > > > Kind regards, > > > Annalisa > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of > concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From > recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, > it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get > over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite > a bit and fudge the issue. > > Best, > Huw > > On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote: > > Huw/Doug > > > > And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we > wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school > activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in > particular: > > Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting > in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, > Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Huw/Doug > > > > This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his > analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following > the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Doug, > > > > I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? > > > > As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing > metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them > in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly > articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a > disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch > ?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on > "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in > the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". > > > > In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its > development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of > ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be > isomorphic across domains. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > > > Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took > about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they > were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up > to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things > in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and > Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be > some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not > interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. > > > > Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of > the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address > themselves to Lakoff in particular? > > > > I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the > explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic > cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, > the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, > and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, > which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an > embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more > calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study > that is expanding its adherents, > > > > Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* > are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. > > > > And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- > > I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that > embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of > all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese > cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the > awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is > evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. > > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered > for their symbolism. Find out the true m... > > Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter > snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or > restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal > cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related > specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, unconsciously, > at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are > in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the > dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something > embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" > > > > Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, > Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams > And our desires. > > > > a common theme... > > > > Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? > Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) > > > > Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: > Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? > And this first Summer month that brings the Rose > Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) > > > > But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and > analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that > was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and > associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and > metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present > memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but > emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and > present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past > fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very > primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive > nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly > scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? > According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in > images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and > internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams > that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of > imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. > Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part > of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach > into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer > to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of > imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take > cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social > effects that are probably underexamined. > > > > For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, > it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic > thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey > implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own > embodied world of imagery. > > > > Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from > Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all > the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some > extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to > perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. > They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. > Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, > pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and > schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory > would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to > play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural > themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human > experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. > > > > But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less > interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to > dream... > > > > Regards, > > Doug > > > > > > On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We > Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books > the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems > to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, > I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of > homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by > Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) > > Alfredo > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, > > > > Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass. > > > > I would reply: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; > > but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; > > A mother who lives forever. > > Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. > > > > However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I > had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully > (I hope). > > > > For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied > thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating > myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we > are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my > fingertips right now to say more on that. > > > > It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant > while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian > assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David > Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning > new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form > of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) > > > > The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a > body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, > etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness > thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the > shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. > > > > I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying > on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a > postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). > > > > Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about > metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not > referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something > like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could > not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we > want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use > a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So > environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as > well. > > > > How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and > without gravity and a horizon). > > > > Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also > has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things > to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of > perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we > see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have > one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel > coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! > > > > Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in > Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is > someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what > you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language > to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter > of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when > translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I > understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same > time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural > world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" > cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful > than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who > was French!) > > > > I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want > of a plane to board. > > > > With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is > aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, > so does a metaphor. > > > > In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for > "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly > to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the > dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 > equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta > of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something > very hard to explain rationally. > > > > It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron > might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that > moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for > one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the > roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, > and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness > belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically > differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart > into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts > adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the > self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the > self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, > "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure > that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if > used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of > consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a > useful tool. > > > > One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, > especially if the screw is a nail. > > > > I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course > there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another > way they can fail. > > > > I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help > problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or > some other superhero. > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Annalisa > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180918/f72507ce/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Sep 19 08:18:19 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2018 08:18:19 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Developmental Cognitive Psychology Fac Job- U. Geneva, Switzerland In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: work ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Daphne Bavelier Date: Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 11:25 PM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Developmental Cognitive Psychology Fac Job- U. Geneva, Switzerland To: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org Hello, May I ask you to post the following ad for an Open-Rank Faculty Job at the University of Geneva, Switzerland in Developmental Cognitive Psychology. The information is as follows: _________________________________________ The Faculty of Psychology and Education at the University of Geneva has an opening for *a Professor, Associate Professor or tenure track Assistant Professor * *in **Developmental Cognitive Psychology* *Job description* This is a full time position. Duties include teaching at the bachelor, graduate and post-graduate levels in the field of Developmental Cognitive Psychology (with a focus on childhood and adolescence), as well as directing master?s and doctoral theses. The successful candidate will be required to develop research programs at a national and international level in the domain of Developmental Cognitive Psychology and to obtain external funding. She/He will also participate in administrative duties at the level of the Section of psychology and the Faculty. *Requirements* PhD in psychology, or equivalent. The successful candidate will show extensive research experience in the field of Developmental Cognitive Psychology (with a focus on childhood and adolescence), certified by high level scientific publications. She/He will have ample experience in teaching university courses in the field of the domain for this position, as well as the ability to manage research teams and academic units. *STARTING DATE*: *August 1st, 2020, or as agreed.* Applications should be done *exclusively *on-line, submitted by *November 4th, 2018 *on the University website https://jobs.unige.ch/www/wd_ portal.show_job?p_web_site_id=1&p_web_page_id=36281 which contains additional information. Please note that it is not mandatory to speak French at the beginning of employment and that the entire application procedure can be done in English. However, since the working language is French, the successful candidate must be ready to learn French within two years. Women are encouraged to apply. For questions, feel free to contact Matthias Kliegel (Matthias Kliegel ), the chair of the search committee. -- ******************************************************************* Daphne Bavelier, Professor WEB Address - http://cms.unige.ch/fapse/people/bavelier/ Swiss Address: FPSE, University of Geneva, 40 Boulevard du Pont d'Arve, 1211 Gen?ve 4, Switzerland ******************************************************************* _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180919/4adbb782/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Sep 19 08:59:49 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2018 08:59:49 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Posting at Illinois State University In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Trabajo ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Hund, Alycia Date: Wed, Sep 19, 2018 at 8:31 AM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Job Posting at Illinois State University To: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org We are pleased to announce that Illinois State University is hiring an Assistant Professor in Developmental Psychology with demonstrated research expertise in Latino/a psychological development. www.jobs.ilstu.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=75628 Inquiries regarding the position can be directed to Dr. Jef Kahn at psychsearch@ilstu.edu or by phone at (309) 438-7939 or fax: (309) 438-5789. Thanks in advance for your interest and circulation. -- Alycia M. Hund, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology Illinois State University Campus Box 4620 Normal, IL 61790-4620 309-438-7863 https://about.illinoisstate.edu/amhund _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180919/7c8c476d/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Wed Sep 19 20:02:28 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 03:02:28 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> <796069456.6694972.1537253683646@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1007440196.134037.1537412548958@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Huw--I missed the attachment. I'll go back and have a look.?Thanks,D On ?Tuesday?, ?September? ?18?, ?2018? ?10?:?52?:?31? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: I sent it 11 days ago, Doug. On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 at 07:57, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw--I will look forward to seeing the draft. I'm very much interested in thought and interaction as a layered, complex interaction (in both V and the normal sense of the word), so look forward to learning more.? Regards,Doug On ?Friday?, ?September? ?7?, ?2018? ?12?:?46?:?55? ?PM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Hi Doug, At first I thought you were talking about Bernshtein with respect to embodied expression in action. It is nice to hear of Eisenstein taking a theoretical interest beyond surface details. This seems quite reasonable from my position, in which orientation can be considered as a concern for the pragmatics aspect of semiotic categories. There is nothing amiss in associative thinking itself, but rather there are broader and more coherent circuits of thought that may be realised beyond such. Through employing more sophisticated and layered perspectives, one can interpret differently, hence re-construe content. A change in the background -- perspective or orientation -- can change the contents or meaning of the foreground. On metaphoric linkage, one would need to be careful to distinguish association in simple action from linking by outcome and from linking by process in the contextual extension of a word, phrase or term (to point to three of potentially many forms of extension). Each form of cognition can introduce further forms of extension (or displacement). I will send you the draft which is about these differing perspectives and ideas concerning how shifts can be realised through "conversation" (Pask's term) and orientation. In addition to deliberate displacement/extension there is also the displacements that arise across levels of sophistication, such as the child's concretised apprehension of abstract phrases. No doubt much more can be said. Huw On Fri, 7 Sep 2018 at 04:36, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind of sustaining research program that would develop it.? Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or memories)? puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through recall or performance--operate. I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with had nothing to do with me. This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing itself... Regards,Doug On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya?Hasan's books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. Best,Huw On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: Annalisa, Doug,?all, just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other?discussions on such a relevant topic.?But?I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking,?they seemed to remain?with a quite?formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way?they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation).?But then, as?I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image?schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence?of these metaphors.? But if it is the formation of bodily images?what makes flesh "flesh," then?this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation?that now "information" of the world is?being represented as?consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions.? Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime?Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their?concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with?a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of?embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial",?which I share for educational purposes only?in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach (?https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218?).? More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which?the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework.? Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world.?So,?I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff.? As per Doug on the central role of image?(by the way,?thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms),?I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual")?is?, and whether and?how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention?above.? Cheers, Alfredo From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day? On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. Yes.? What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point.? What are your 20 exceptions? Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day?Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best,Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams wrote: Huw/Doug ? And ..? I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.),?Metaphor and Thought:?2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Julian Williams Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Huw/Doug ? This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Huw Lloyd Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Doug, ? I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? ? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded.? Historically I have found?Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". ? In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. ? Best, Huw ? ? ? ? On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- ? Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least.? ? Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular?? ? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents,? ? Mark Turner'sMore Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint.? ? And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to themono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by thesakura, the cherry blossom.? ? The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal ? | | | | | | | | | | | The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... | | | Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these thingsare humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent? with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" ? Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. ? a common theme... ? Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon)? ? Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) ? But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined.? ? For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery.? ? Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture.? ? But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream...? ? Regards, Doug ? ? On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: ? ? After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". ? Best, Huw ? On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is?:)? Alfredo ? ? From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, ? Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. ? I would reply: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. ? However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope).? ? For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. ? It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) ? The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. ? I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). ? Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. ? How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). ? Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! ? Anyway, Bateson?was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) ? I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. ? With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. ? In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. ? It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. ? One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. ? I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger?if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. ? I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. ? Kind regards, ? Annalisa ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180920/63a318cf/attachment-0001.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Wed Sep 19 20:10:06 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 03:10:06 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> <796069456.6694972.1537253683646@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1180646897.154305.1537413006538@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Huw--No, still don't see it. According to Yahoo's attachment sorter, the last document that I have from you in email is July 26. Perhaps I didn't get that email?? Regards,D On ?Tuesday?, ?September? ?18?, ?2018? ?10?:?52?:?31? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: I sent it 11 days ago, Doug. On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 at 07:57, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw--I will look forward to seeing the draft. I'm very much interested in thought and interaction as a layered, complex interaction (in both V and the normal sense of the word), so look forward to learning more.? Regards,Doug On ?Friday?, ?September? ?7?, ?2018? ?12?:?46?:?55? ?PM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Hi Doug, At first I thought you were talking about Bernshtein with respect to embodied expression in action. It is nice to hear of Eisenstein taking a theoretical interest beyond surface details. This seems quite reasonable from my position, in which orientation can be considered as a concern for the pragmatics aspect of semiotic categories. There is nothing amiss in associative thinking itself, but rather there are broader and more coherent circuits of thought that may be realised beyond such. Through employing more sophisticated and layered perspectives, one can interpret differently, hence re-construe content. A change in the background -- perspective or orientation -- can change the contents or meaning of the foreground. On metaphoric linkage, one would need to be careful to distinguish association in simple action from linking by outcome and from linking by process in the contextual extension of a word, phrase or term (to point to three of potentially many forms of extension). Each form of cognition can introduce further forms of extension (or displacement). I will send you the draft which is about these differing perspectives and ideas concerning how shifts can be realised through "conversation" (Pask's term) and orientation. In addition to deliberate displacement/extension there is also the displacements that arise across levels of sophistication, such as the child's concretised apprehension of abstract phrases. No doubt much more can be said. Huw On Fri, 7 Sep 2018 at 04:36, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind of sustaining research program that would develop it.? Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or memories)? puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through recall or performance--operate. I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with had nothing to do with me. This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing itself... Regards,Doug On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya?Hasan's books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. Best,Huw On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: Annalisa, Doug,?all, just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other?discussions on such a relevant topic.?But?I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking,?they seemed to remain?with a quite?formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way?they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation).?But then, as?I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image?schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence?of these metaphors.? But if it is the formation of bodily images?what makes flesh "flesh," then?this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation?that now "information" of the world is?being represented as?consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions.? Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime?Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their?concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with?a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of?embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial",?which I share for educational purposes only?in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach (?https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218?).? More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which?the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework.? Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world.?So,?I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff.? As per Doug on the central role of image?(by the way,?thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms),?I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual")?is?, and whether and?how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention?above.? Cheers, Alfredo From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day? On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. Yes.? What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point.? What are your 20 exceptions? Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day?Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best,Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams wrote: Huw/Doug ? And ..? I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.),?Metaphor and Thought:?2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Julian Williams Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Huw/Doug ? This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Huw Lloyd Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Doug, ? I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? ? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded.? Historically I have found?Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". ? In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. ? Best, Huw ? ? ? ? On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- ? Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least.? ? Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular?? ? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents,? ? Mark Turner'sMore Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint.? ? And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to themono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by thesakura, the cherry blossom.? ? The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal ? | | | | | | | | | | | The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... | | | Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these thingsare humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent? with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" ? Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. ? a common theme... ? Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon)? ? Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) ? But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined.? ? For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery.? ? Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture.? ? But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream...? ? Regards, Doug ? ? On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: ? ? After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". ? Best, Huw ? On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is?:)? Alfredo ? ? From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, ? Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. ? I would reply: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. ? However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope).? ? For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. ? It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) ? The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. ? I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). ? Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. ? How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). ? Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! ? Anyway, Bateson?was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) ? I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. ? With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. ? In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. ? It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. ? One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. ? I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger?if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. ? I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. ? Kind regards, ? Annalisa ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180920/c3dde344/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Wed Sep 19 23:59:35 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2018 07:59:35 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day In-Reply-To: <1180646897.154305.1537413006538@mail.yahoo.com> References: <1534121857228.33038@ils.uio.no> <1534154956936.24314@ils.uio.no> <327924767.1354073.1535009422886@mail.yahoo.com> <1535262216939.29766@ils.uio.no> <1535437116303.13701@ils.uio.no> <165250840.1351931.1535702274150@mail.yahoo.com> <6741CA70-4EC8-4707-9259-48FA253F3602@manchester.ac.uk> <1536057705619.28106@ils.uio.no> <1447519438.890460.1536291031968@mail.yahoo.com> <796069456.6694972.1537253683646@mail.yahoo.com> <1180646897.154305.1537413006538@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: I've sent it again. I wouldn't trust yahoo mail for reliability. As per my earlier note, I am required to fish out your emails from spam due to address verification issues. Huw On Thu, 20 Sep 2018 at 04:12, Douglas Williams wrote: > Hi, Huw-- > No, still don't see it. According to Yahoo's attachment sorter, the last > document that I have from you in email is July 26. Perhaps I didn't get > that email? > > Regards, > D > > On ?Tuesday?, ?September? ?18?, ?2018? ?10?:?52?:?31? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd > wrote: > > > I sent it 11 days ago, Doug. > > On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 at 07:57, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > I will look forward to seeing the draft. I'm very much interested in > thought and interaction as a layered, complex interaction (in both V and > the normal sense of the word), so look forward to learning more. > > Regards, > Doug > > On ?Friday?, ?September? ?7?, ?2018? ?12?:?46?:?55? ?PM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Hi Doug, > > At first I thought you were talking about Bernshtein with respect to > embodied expression in action. It is nice to hear of Eisenstein taking a > theoretical interest beyond surface details. This seems quite reasonable > from my position, in which orientation can be considered as a concern for > the pragmatics aspect of semiotic categories. > > There is nothing amiss in associative thinking itself, but rather there > are broader and more coherent circuits of thought that may be realised > beyond such. Through employing more sophisticated and layered perspectives, > one can interpret differently, hence re-construe content. A change in the > background -- perspective or orientation -- can change the contents or > meaning of the foreground. > > On metaphoric linkage, one would need to be careful to distinguish > association in simple action from linking by outcome and from linking by > process in the contextual extension of a word, phrase or term (to point to > three of potentially many forms of extension). Each form of cognition can > introduce further forms of extension (or displacement). I will send you the > draft which is about these differing perspectives and ideas concerning how > shifts can be realised through "conversation" (Pask's term) and > orientation. In addition to deliberate displacement/extension there is also > the displacements that arise across levels of sophistication, such as the > child's concretised apprehension of abstract phrases. No doubt much more > can be said. > > Huw > > > > On Fri, 7 Sep 2018 at 04:36, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably > most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, > influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific > understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies > in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, > emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the > late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell > apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and > in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind > of sustaining research program that would develop it. > > Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually > present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over > time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or > collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as > purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific > events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or > memories) puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the > pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which > mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and > other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through > recall or performance--operate. > > I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This > is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up > closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later > turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which > is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small > victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with > had nothing to do with me. > > This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own > version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is > there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing > itself... > > Regards, > Doug > > On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some > technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of > cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few > sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this > explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as > being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. > > The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya Hasan's > books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial > constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was > interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning > around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally > identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms > of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. > > Best, > Huw > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > Annalisa, Doug, all, > > > just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and > Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and > being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think > there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on > metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many > other discussions on such a relevant topic. But I mentioned that one > objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from > their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading > the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very > illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in > conceptual thinking, they seemed to remain with a quite formalistic sphere. > As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of > metaphors we live by, but not of the way they come to be formed as part of > living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an > account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of > matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which > was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers > to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation). But > then, as I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and > Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image schemata" as a way to > account for the formation and prevalence of these metaphors. > > > But if it is the formation of bodily images what makes flesh "flesh," > then this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to > understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing > theories, besides the observation that now "information" of the world > is being represented as consistent with bodily actions rather than with > abstract perceptions. > > > Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors > such as Maxime Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" > cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our > bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of > their concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed > material container with a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, > the all-purpose lexical band-aid of embodiment and its lexical derivatives" > (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial", which I share for > educational purposes only in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on > these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the > flesh" approach ( https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218 ). > > More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been > inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it > is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity > that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work > in which the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the > larger framework. > > > Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the > metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to > concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors > forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a > means of and for intelligently acting in the world. So, I hope this helps > on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff. > > > As per Doug on the central role of image (by the way, thanks for your > beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms), I wonder what an "image" > that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual") is , and > whether and how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I > mention above. > > > Cheers, > Alfredo > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* 04 September 2018 11:02 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: > > Huw, > > > One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because > animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to > respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I > just scanned the thread as of late. > > > If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case > that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that > everyone else accepts. > > > Yes. > > > > What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a > reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read > Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? > > > If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as > assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point. > > > > What are your 20 exceptions? > > > Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. > The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an > invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few > points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than > solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a > few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be > usefully applied in looking for yourself. > > Huw > > [...] > > It is possible. > > > Kind regards, > > > Annalisa > > > > ------------------------------ > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Huw Lloyd > *Sent:* Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of > concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From > recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, > it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get > over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite > a bit and fudge the issue. > > Best, > Huw > > On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> wrote: > > Huw/Doug > > > > And .. I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we > wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school > activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in > particular: > > Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting > in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.), Metaphor and Thought: 2nd Edition, > Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Julian Williams < > julian.williams@manchester.ac.uk> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Huw/Doug > > > > This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his > analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following > the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! > > > > Julian > > > > *From: * on behalf of Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> > *Reply-To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Date: *Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 > *To: *"eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" > *Subject: *[Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Doug, > > > > I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? > > > > As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing > metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them > in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly > articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a > disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded. Historically I have found Sch > ?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on > "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in > the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". > > > > In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its > development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of > ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be > isomorphic across domains. > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > > > > > > > On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: > > Hi, Huw-- > > > > Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took > about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they > were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up > to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things > in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and > Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be > some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not > interesting questions for him, at the time, at least. > > > > Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of > the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address > themselves to Lakoff in particular? > > > > I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the > explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic > cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, > the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, > and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, > which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an > embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more > calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study > that is expanding its adherents, > > > > Mark Turner's *More Than Cool Reason* and *Death is the Mother of Beauty* > are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint. > > > > And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- > > I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that > embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of > all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese > cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to the *mono no aware*--the > awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is > evoked by the *sakura*, the cherry blossom. > > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > > The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal > > Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered > for their symbolism. Find out the true m... > > Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter > snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or > restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal > cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related > specifically to humans--so that these things *are* humans, unconsciously, > at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are > in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the > dead, and consistent with much more wordy expressions of something > embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" > > > > Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, > Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams > And our desires. > > > > a common theme... > > > > Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? > Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon) > > > > Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: > Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? > And this first Summer month that brings the Rose > Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) > > > > But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and > analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that > was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and > associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and > metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present > memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but > emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and > present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past > fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very > primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive > nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly > scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? > According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in > images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and > internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams > that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of > imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. > Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part > of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach > into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer > to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of > imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take > cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social > effects that are probably underexamined. > > > > For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, > it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic > thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey > implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own > embodied world of imagery. > > > > Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from > Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all > the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some > extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to > perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. > They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. > Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, > pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and > schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory > would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to > play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural > themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human > experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture. > > > > But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less > interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to > dream... > > > > Regards, > > Doug > > > > > > On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd < > huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote: > > > > > > After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We > Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books > the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems > to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, > I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of > homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by > Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". > > > > Best, > > Huw > > > > On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil > wrote: > > oh yes, the chapter! Here it is :) > > Alfredo > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar > *Sent:* 28 August 2018 07:05 > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day > > > > Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, > > > > Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass. > > > > I would reply: > > > > Grass dies; > > Men die; > > Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; > > but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; > > A mother who lives forever. > > Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. > > > > However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I > had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully > (I hope). > > > > For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied > thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating > myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we > are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my > fingertips right now to say more on that. > > > > It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant > while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian > assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David > Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning > new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form > of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) > > > > The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a > body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, > etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness > thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the > shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. > > > > I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying > on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a > postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). > > > > Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about > metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not > referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something > like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could > not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we > want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use > a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So > environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as > well. > > > > How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and > without gravity and a horizon). > > > > Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also > has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things > to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of > perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we > see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have > one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel > coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! > > > > Anyway, Bateson was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in > Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is > someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what > you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language > to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter > of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when > translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I > understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same > time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural > world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" > cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful > than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who > was French!) > > > > I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want > of a plane to board. > > > > With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is > aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, > so does a metaphor. > > > > In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for > "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly > to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the > dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 > equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta > of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something > very hard to explain rationally. > > > > It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron > might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that > moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for > one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the > roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, > and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness > belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically > differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart > into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts > adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the > self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the > self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, > "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure > that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if > used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of > consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a > useful tool. > > > > One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, > especially if the screw is a nail. > > > > I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course > there is danger if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another > way they can fail. > > > > I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help > problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or > some other superhero. > > > > Kind regards, > > > > Annalisa > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180920/bce33a8b/attachment.html From jgregmcverry@gmail.com Fri Sep 21 07:57:35 2018 From: jgregmcverry@gmail.com (Greg Mcverry) Date: Fri, 21 Sep 2018 10:57:35 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie Message-ID: Hello all, I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180921/06e52fc3/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Fri Sep 21 18:45:36 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2018 11:45:36 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: A few comments Greg. It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an *artefact *not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > Hello all, > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the > concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on > identify of funds. > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for > feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be > reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but > I am trying to think this through to inform my design. > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in > other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the > meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at > "growing from one's misery" or another person said > "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you > who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering > the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays > out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create > online spaces. > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not > appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to > tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing > as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180922/f9074193/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Sat Sep 22 02:04:20 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2018 10:04:20 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Some notes from my browse through, Greg: 1. An elaboration of what "checkout" pertains to would be useful. I understand this to be a process akin to withdrawing a book from a library, but in this case it concerns "withdrawing" a domain, with a play on "checkout" as "come and see". 2. Presently I do not see any elaboration upon the collaborative audience, nature of participation or any particular focus. E.g. are you taking the notion of "checking out" literally, as per file control, in which people can add to "domains" and then "return" them? 3. It seems to me more attention needs to be given to the motives of your audience. 4. Contrary to an open-canvas medium, a more focused study on, say, the deliberate production of fake news might be more rewarding, i.e. applying some theory about learning processes in particular contexts upfront to design a particular project. As it stands there is no agreed project, not even an ostensible one. I assume the idea is that the subscribers come up with their own. But this puts into question the real substance of participation and the basis for developmental processes/experiences. Offering some correction to Andy's distinction of digital and analog, analog computation entails "circuitry" that may not involve any electronics at all, and it need not be an abstraction either (other than the sense of nested wholes). One can attend to the analog within the digital if one wishes (such as the micro changes of current in a circuit). The deeper view on digital is to understand it as a distinction (when it is accompanied by its context) or (without its context) merely a label. Hence the whole problem with so many social studies that only focus upon words and text (so called qualitative) rather than action. These are digital - analog problem too. Best, Huw On Sat, 22 Sep 2018 at 02:47, Andy Blunden wrote: > A few comments Greg. > It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an *artefact *not > events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; > it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian > has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as > such. What you do with that evidence is something again. > > Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the > opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the > 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate > natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic > circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost > complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses > analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did > when I knew it in the 1980s. > > Andy > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > > Hello all, > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of > perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. > Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two > with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my > design. > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields > (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I > needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said > "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I > want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and > culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of > identity as we create online spaces. > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What > does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to > reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180922/2008d119/attachment.html From glassman.13@osu.edu Sat Sep 22 07:46:53 2018 From: glassman.13@osu.edu (Glassman, Michael) Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2018 14:46:53 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Greg and Andy, I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Andy Blunden Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie A few comments Greg. It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: Hello all, I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180922/6f1dd378/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Sun Sep 23 19:42:50 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 12:42:50 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] The word and the concept in the history of science Message-ID: I have been in an exchange on Twitter which began with someone claiming that it was wrong to refer to "Vygotsky's concept of internalisation." My response has been to point to (https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1931/higher-mental-functions.htm#genetic-law) and following paragraphs. We confirmed that in the original Russian the words "internalisation" or "internalise" do not appear, but phrases like "from external to internal" abound. The conclusion therefore is that LSV did have a concept of "internalisation" but never put a word to it. I compared this to the situation with "Marx's concept of commodification" which has a clear basis in (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007) the /Communist Manifesto/ and (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch01.htm) /Capital/, but in fact the word "commodification" never appeared in English until a Maoist group in the US used it in 1970. (It still isn't recognised by Spellcheck). So here we have two important cases where the word was coined long after the concept was formulated in detail by a creator. "Internalisation" is a concept that had been around at least since (https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/locke.htm) Locke, but there is no doubt that it is meaningful to talk of *Vygotsky's* concept of "internalisation"; likewise, Marx did not invent the idea of making something into a trade-able commodity, but it is certainly justified to talk of *Marx's* concept of "commodification." On the other hand. /perezhivanie/ was a word in psychological theory before Vygotsky, and LSV himself used the word in multiple senses, so I think we have consensus on this list that it is not legitimate to refer without qualification to "Vygotsky's concept of /perezhivanie"/ because the reference of such a term is entirely unclear and requires explanation. It is *not* a general rule that the word is coined after the concept is formulated. In the psychology of concept creation I think word-making and concept-making are intimately tied together; very often old words are redeployed, modified or joined, and clearly play a part in concept formulation. Tolstoy's aphorism cited by Vygotsky: "The word is almost always ready when the concept is ready," (https://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/words/ch06.htm) is only in reference to children's conceptual development and is not quite relevant here. I have crticised interlocutors of_**_ "dogmatism" for insisting that it is wrong to refer to "Vygotsky's concept of internalisation." The above observations are what I would call "further information" for someone unaware that Vygotsky did not have the word, rather than a contradiction. Questions: Am I correct in what I have said, and can people think of other examples like internalisation and commodification? Continuing the previous topic I raised, could I coin the word "alienism" as the cultural analogue of "anachronism"? Andy -- ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180924/a5f35952/attachment.html From dkellogg60@gmail.com Sun Sep 23 23:14:20 2018 From: dkellogg60@gmail.com (David Kellogg) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 15:14:20 +0900 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: The word and the concept in the history of science In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Andy: I think the real problem in "Vygotsky's concept of internalization" is not so much in "internalization" (because of course Vygotsky does use "interiorization", "ingrowing", and explicitly defines "internal" as being "psychological"). The real problem is in "Vygotsky's". For example: ?????? ?????? ??????????? ??????? ?????????? ???????? ????? ??????? ?????? ????????, ?????? ??? ??????? ???????? ????????????? ??????????. ????????? ???? ???????? ??????????? ? ???????? ?????????. ?????? ?????? ????? ??? ????????? ?? ???????? ??????????????, ??????????? ????????? ??????. "Every higher psychic function necessarily proceeds through an outer stage of development, because the function is primordially a social one. This: the centre of the problem of inner and outer behavior. Many authors have long pointed out the problem of interiorization, the passing of behavior to the inside." (Russian CW 144-145, see English CW 105). Vygotsky goes on to cite two: Kretschmer and Buhler. The funny thing, which Mike pointed out to me a few months ago, is that Vygotsky's own term is ?????????? ("vraschivaniya") which is today used to refer to the kind of hair transplant operation that the US President has made infamous. These did not exist in Vygotsky's time but the term Vygotsky used existed--and in fact you can find it in Dal's dictionary, which is the Russian equivalent of Samuel Johnson's in English or the Kangxi Dictionary in Chinese. So the term has been creatively translated as "rooting", "revolution" (much favored by Maoists), "turning inward", "conversion"--often in one and the same text (e.g. HDHMF). There's really no mystery about how Vygotsky himself would have translated it into English, because "The Problem of the Cultural Development of the Child" (see Vygotsky Reader, pp. 57-72) was published in English in his own lifetime, and he undoubtedly proofed the galleys, becuase there's a sentence which includes his translation "ingrowing" which does not appear in the Russian original, and it's not the sort of thing you would let a proofreader add. The mystery is in how the meaning of "ingrowing" changes as it grows into Vygotsky's theory. dk David Kellogg Sangmyung University New in *Early Years*, co-authored with Fang Li: When three fives are thirty-five: Vygotsky in a Hallidayan idiom ? and maths in the grandmother tongue Some free e-prints available at: https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/7I8zYW3qkEqNBA66XAwS/full On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 11:42 AM, Andy Blunden wrote: > I have been in an exchange on Twitter which began with someone claiming > that it was wrong to refer to "Vygotsky's concept of internalisation." My > response has been to point to (https://www.marxists.org/ > archive/vygotsky/works/1931/higher-mental-functions.htm#genetic-law) and > following paragraphs. We confirmed that in the original Russian the words > "internalisation" or "internalise" do not appear, but phrases like "from > external to internal" abound. The conclusion therefore is that LSV did have > a concept of "internalisation" but never put a word to it. > > I compared this to the situation with "Marx's concept of commodification" > which has a clear basis in (https://www.marxists.org/ > archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm#007) the *Communist > Manifesto* and (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ > ch01.htm) *Capital*, but in fact the word "commodification" never > appeared in English until a Maoist group in the US used it in 1970. (It > still isn't recognised by Spellcheck). > > So here we have two important cases where the word was coined long after > the concept was formulated in detail by a creator. "Internalisation" is a > concept that had been around at least since (https://www.marxists.org/ > reference/subject/philosophy/works/en/locke.htm) Locke, but there is no > doubt that it is meaningful to talk of *Vygotsky's* concept of > "internalisation"; likewise, Marx did not invent the idea of making > something into a trade-able commodity, but it is certainly justified to > talk of *Marx's* concept of "commodification." > > On the other hand. *perezhivanie* was a word in psychological theory > before Vygotsky, and LSV himself used the word in multiple senses, so I > think we have consensus on this list that it is not legitimate to refer > without qualification to "Vygotsky's concept of *perezhivanie"* because > the reference of such a term is entirely unclear and requires explanation. > It is *not* a general rule that the word is coined after the concept is > formulated. In the psychology of concept creation I think word-making and > concept-making are intimately tied together; very often old words are > redeployed, modified or joined, and clearly play a part in concept > formulation. Tolstoy's aphorism cited by Vygotsky: "The word is almost > always ready when the concept is ready," (https://www.marxists.org/ > archive/vygotsky/works/words/ch06.htm) is only in reference to children's > conceptual development and is not quite relevant here. > > I have crticised interlocutors of "dogmatism" for insisting that it is > wrong to refer to "Vygotsky's concept of internalisation." The above > observations are what I would call "further information" for someone > unaware that Vygotsky did not have the word, rather than a contradiction. > > Questions: Am I correct in what I have said, and can people think of other > examples like internalisation and commodification? > > Continuing the previous topic I raised, could I coin the word "alienism" > as the cultural analogue of "anachronism"? > > Andy > -- > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180924/af54a662/attachment.html From djwdoc@yahoo.com Sun Sep 23 23:51:17 2018 From: djwdoc@yahoo.com (Douglas Williams) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 06:51:17 +0000 (UTC) Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day References: <1125241314.1346730.1537771877609.ref@mail.yahoo.com> Message-ID: <1125241314.1346730.1537771877609@mail.yahoo.com> Hi, Huw-- Thanks again for your patience, and apologies to anyone else whose comment or advice I might have missed.? Regards,Doug On ?Thursday?, ?September? ?20?, ?2018? ?12?:?03?:?03? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: I've sent it again. I wouldn't trust yahoo mail for reliability.? As per my earlier note, I am required to fish out your emails from spam due to address verification issues. Huw On Thu, 20 Sep 2018 at 04:12, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw--No, still don't see it. According to Yahoo's attachment sorter, the last document that I have from you in email is July 26. Perhaps I didn't get that email?? Regards,D On ?Tuesday?, ?September? ?18?, ?2018? ?10?:?52?:?31? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: I sent it 11 days ago, Doug. On Tue, 18 Sep 2018 at 07:57, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw--I will look forward to seeing the draft. I'm very much interested in thought and interaction as a layered, complex interaction (in both V and the normal sense of the word), so look forward to learning more.? Regards,Doug On ?Friday?, ?September? ?7?, ?2018? ?12?:?46?:?55? ?PM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Hi Doug, At first I thought you were talking about Bernshtein with respect to embodied expression in action. It is nice to hear of Eisenstein taking a theoretical interest beyond surface details. This seems quite reasonable from my position, in which orientation can be considered as a concern for the pragmatics aspect of semiotic categories. There is nothing amiss in associative thinking itself, but rather there are broader and more coherent circuits of thought that may be realised beyond such. Through employing more sophisticated and layered perspectives, one can interpret differently, hence re-construe content. A change in the background -- perspective or orientation -- can change the contents or meaning of the foreground. On metaphoric linkage, one would need to be careful to distinguish association in simple action from linking by outcome and from linking by process in the contextual extension of a word, phrase or term (to point to three of potentially many forms of extension). Each form of cognition can introduce further forms of extension (or displacement). I will send you the draft which is about these differing perspectives and ideas concerning how shifts can be realised through "conversation" (Pask's term) and orientation. In addition to deliberate displacement/extension there is also the displacements that arise across levels of sophistication, such as the child's concretised apprehension of abstract phrases. No doubt much more can be said. Huw On Fri, 7 Sep 2018 at 04:36, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- I'd be interested in hearing more about this. As you may now (probably most people on this list have forgotten more than I know), Eisenstein, influenced by Mayerhold, was attempting to develop a more scientific understanding of Mayerhold's biomechanics in which the embodiment of bodies in action within space was capable of communicating thoughts, feelings, emotion. Eisenstein seemed to have some research program going on in the late 1920s-early 1930s with Vygotsky school researchers, though that fell apart (as with much of everything else very early on--in part politics, and in part Eisenstein's inability (personally or socially?) to build the kind of sustaining research program that would develop it.? Vygotsky's comments about thinking in complexes of objects with factually present connections which lack logical unity, but can have consistency over time (concrete associations: same colors, movements, sounds, etc--or collections: color contrasts, synesthesic associations generally, such as purple evoking yellow, a specific car engine associated with specific events or people, a smell triggering a narrative sequence of images or memories)? puts us very much in the world of metonymy, metaphor, and the pre-neocortex world we probably share with mammals generally, in which mammalian image-narrative recall, dreams, cinematic imagery, theater, and other forms of--let's say--thinking in action in space and time through recall or performance--operate. I know that's a rather dense nest of ideas, so I'll leave it at that. This is the kind of thing that, when I pitched it to Lakoff directly, ended up closing rather than opening interactions--though I did notice that he later turned to preconceptual political narratives as an area of interest, which is what my dissertation was about. so I have always counted that as a small victory for my chiseling into his worldview. though what he came up with had nothing to do with me. This research project is my Zaigarnik nightmare from academia: my own version of unified theory of everything in human culture that I sense is there, and see the shadow of in many things, but never quite the thing itself... Regards,Doug On Tuesday, September 4, 2018, 4:59:46 AM PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: Re "oriented-ness", Ilyenkov, "intelligent movement", as a prelude to some technical study on orientation, I formulated a "perspective-based theory of cognition". It's in draft form and would probably benefit from a few sympathetic reviews. One of the reasons metaphor does not show up in this explicitly is that it becomes less meaningful when it is recognised as being non-discrete, i.e. as being a process amongst others. The issue is similar to an issue (or limitation) I had with one of Ruqaiya?Hasan's books (perhaps an early one) in which she declared that the superficial constraint of her topic by formal categories was insufficient, that she was interested in expressing meanings that go beyond this, but then turning around and declaring that she would only focus upon her (formally identified) subject matter, thereby proceeding to paint the world in terms of her categories -- like painting the whole world with metaphor. Best,Huw On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 11:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: Annalisa, Doug,?all, just to address the issue that seems to linger on "what may Lakoff and Johnson be critiqued for", if I may re-phrase the question this way, and being clear that I am talking for anyone else than myself. First, I think there are way more reasons to praise than to critique their work on metaphor, among others, because we ought to them having this and many other?discussions on such a relevant topic.?But?I mentioned that one objection to their book is that "flesh" was precisely what was missing from their account. What this claim refers to is the sense I got, upon reading the book and other of their works, that their analyses, while very illuminating with respect to the prevalence and form of metaphors in conceptual thinking,?they seemed to remain?with a quite?formalistic sphere. As Huw seems to be critiquing in prior posts, their accounts speak of metaphors we live by, but not of the way?they come to be formed as part of living. Missing is a genetic account, and that, I think, has to do with an account of how flesh, as living matter, is not just another piece of matter; that the logic of its explanation is not formal but genetic (which was Bateson is talking about too, that "syllogisms in grass", as he refers to them, make sense because they the logic of growth and formation).?But then, as?I understood it (and perhaps I am outdated now), Lakoff's and Johnson's works rely on notions of "embodied image?schemata" as a way to account for the formation and prevalence?of these metaphors.? But if it is the formation of bodily images?what makes flesh "flesh," then?this formation needs to be accounted for, and also we need to understand how such an account would differ from cognitive processing theories, besides the observation?that now "information" of the world is?being represented as?consistent with bodily actions rather than with abstract perceptions.? Of course, the critique is not mine, and it has been elaborated by authors such as Maxime?Sheets-Johnstone, who adresses all forms of "embodied" cognition, claiming that it is a problem that we try to understand how our bodies are involved in thinking by "forthrightly packaging the subject of their?concern into a readily available pre-existing and pre-formed material container with?a readily available linguistic signifier, namely, the all-purpose lexical band-aid of?embodiment and its lexical derivatives" (see attached article, titled "Embodiment on Trial",?which I share for educational purposes only?in this private list). W-M. Roth has drawn on these arguments to elaborate a critique and advance a "mathematics in the flesh" approach (?https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781136732218?).? More recently, Ilyenkov's Spinozist idea of the "thinking body" has been inspiring from a dialectical materialist perspective, according to which it is not schemata but rather object-orientedness nature of objective activity that would explain intelligent movement. But here, I am not aware of work in which?the notion of metaphor has been taken up or elaborated along the larger framework.? Well, to summarize, the problem with schemas is that they take the metaphoric relation and read it backwards, so that we can map actions to concepts formally. But a further challenge involves reading metaphors forward, as means not of conceptualizing already gone realities, but as a means of and for intelligently acting in the world.?So,?I hope this helps on the issue of "exceptions" to Lakoff.? As per Doug on the central role of image?(by the way,?thanks for your beautiful post on the meaning of cherry blossoms),?I wonder what an "image" that is "metaphoric and metonymic" (so not simply "visual")?is?, and whether and?how that may relate to the notion of object-orientedness that I mention?above.? Cheers, Alfredo From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: 04 September 2018 11:02 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day? On Tue, 4 Sep 2018 at 01:53, Annalisa Aguilar wrote: Huw, One possible argument that I see metaphor readily as a basis, is because animals seem to dream, as Douglas has so aptly discussed, and I do plan to respond more to his post but I would like to read it one more time and I just scanned the thread as of late. If something is lauded, it might be for a reason, and it might be the case that you are missing something or you have dismissed something that everyone else accepts. Yes.? What isn't clear to me is what you are rejecting. You have made a reference to Sh?n, but that doesn't really do much unless one has read Sh?n, so why don't you explain it more transparently? If the opinions offered are distinguished from the opinions offered as assertion, it may be more apparent that I have done so up to a point.? What are your 20 exceptions? Dear Annalisa, I have no present wish to enumerate and turn over them all. The assertion was about the extent to which an opinion was formed, not an invitation to squander more time on it. If you take care with the few points I have made then it may be apparent that they stand for more than solitary issues. One needn't describe all the ripples if one can identify a few stones. But if you are annoyed by this response, then that may be usefully applied in looking for yourself. Huw [...] It is possible. Kind regards, Annalisa From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd Sent: Monday, September 3, 2018 2:44:21 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day?Yes, the paintbrush example also crops up in the "displacement of concepts" text (p.87), which was first published in 1963. From recollection, I liked it for the processual perspective and, of course, it's tying in with later work. Perhaps Sch?n's account also helped me get over the hump of many over metaphoric accounts, which seemed to miss quite a bit and fudge the issue. Best,Huw On Mon, 3 Sep 2018 at 21:11, Julian Williams wrote: Huw/Doug ? And ..? I found a citation in an old paper in ESM from ? 200? when we wrote about metaphor as a sort of abduction between in-and-out of school activity ? I remember the whole book is great but loved this one in particular: Schon, D.A.: 1995, ?Generative metaphor: A perspective on problem-setting in social policy?, in A. Ortony (ed.),?Metaphor and Thought:?2nd Edition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 137?163. ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Julian Williams Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:59 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Huw/Doug ? This is the same Schon that wrote about ?generative metaphor? ? as in his analysis of the ?paintbrush as a pump? ??? sorry I have not been following the conversation and if this is irrelevant please ignore it! ? Julian ? From: on behalf of Huw Lloyd Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Date: Monday, 3 September 2018 at 20:43 To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Doug, ? I found your email in spam -- possibly yahoo are not verifying emails? ? As you note they're opinions. I found that text sloppy, superimposing metaphor onto language and concepts rather than actually looking for them in their genesis, with many other unwarranted generalisations and poorly articulated assertions. No doubt it wouldn't have been such a disappointment if it hadn't been so lauded.? Historically I have found?Sch?n to be a rewarding read, so I was delighted to find his old text on "displacement of concepts" which is true to its title. It is a reprint in the series "Classics from the Tavistock Press". ? In his chapter(s) on homology, Stafford is not addressing metaphor in its development but rather describing the role of analogy in the formation of ideas, prior to the formulation of more precise definitions that may be isomorphic across domains. ? Best, Huw ? ? ? ? On Fri, 31 Aug 2018 at 08:59, Douglas Williams wrote: Hi, Huw-- ? Coincidentally, I spent a term at UCB to study with Lakoff, and he took about twenty or so exceptions to my exceptions, though I was thinking they were questions. It would be interesting to see you debate, as I was not up to the challenge (my main radicalism was to note parallels between things in the Cognitive Linguistics model and thinking in complexes (LSV), and Whorf/Sapir, GH Mead, Dewey, and so on, and wondering if there could be some cross-disciplinary unity that would improve on all of them. Not interesting questions for him, at the time, at least.? ? Barring the debate, I'd be interested in seeing your take on the flaws of the cognitive metaphor approach, or do Schon or Beer happen to address themselves to Lakoff in particular?? ? I find Cognitive Linguistics quite interesting. Even if some of the explanations are wrong (as is certainly true with Freud's hydraulic cathexes and repression of the id relating to jokes--seeking, like water, the way of least resistance to the sea), the observations are interesting, and well worth pursuing deeper. I also looked a bit into Ronald Langacker, which is the more austere form of embodied language, relating to an embodied basis for grammar, which is also quite interesting, though more calculus to Lakoff's algebra, at least to me. But this is an area of study that is expanding its adherents,? ? Mark Turner'sMore Than Cool Reason and Death is the Mother of Beauty are the better places to begin from a literary appreciation standpoint.? ? And for Alfredo and Annalisa-- I think one needn't go terribly far into anthropology to find that embodied imagery clothed and complicated with words is the foundation of all kinds of complex interactive imagery and behaviors, from Balinese cockfights to "Christian" leopards in Ethiopia, to themono no aware--the awareness of the infinite sadness and beauty of the cycle of life--which is evoked by thesakura, the cherry blossom.? ? The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal ? | | | | | | | | | | | The Meaning of Cherry Blossoms in Japan: Life, Death and Renewal Japanese sakura are not only sublime to look at, they're deeply revered for their symbolism. Find out the true m... | | | Cherry blossoms as the image of human life, or autumn leaves, or winter snows, or the return of the salmon--very commonly, mixtures of renewal or restoral, mixed with death and decay, and other emblems of seasonal cycles--is a constant imagistic theme across many cultures, related specifically to humans--so that these thingsare humans, unconsciously, at least, as we have put off . The rituals in Japan around the sakura are in concert with the theme of ancestor worship, another kind of day of the dead, and consistent? with much more wordy expressions of something embodied in the imagery--this from Stevens' "Sunday Morning:" ? Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams And our desires. ? a common theme... ? Qui beaut? eut trop plus qu'humaine? Mais o? sont les neiges d'antan! (Villon)? ? Each Morn a thousand Roses brings, you say: Yes, but where leaves the Rose of Yesterday? And this first Summer month that brings the Rose Shall take Jamsh?d and Kaikob?d away.(Khayyam) ? But one step deeper: What really strikes me as the core of metaphor and analogy--see, here was my idea of a multidisciplinary research project that was always beyond my abilities or means--is the fixation of memory and associations and emotional associations in dreams. They are metaphoric and metonymic through blending of imagery--for we remake past and present memory in dreams--and in dreams, which was a radical idea 25 years ago, but emerging as the dominant paradigm now--we form and reshape the past and present in sequences that develop through recalling and associating past fixed memories with newer ones. All mammals (except the echidna, a very primitive group of mammals) dream, emphasizing the essential adaptive nature of dreams, which we have known heuristically, and increasingly scientifically, are associated with memory. And what do animals dream? According to Temple Grandin, mammals think (and dream) predominantly in images. They think in pictures. We think in pictures too, but words and internalized schemas and phrases overwhelm the imagery. But it is in dreams that we come relatively closer to the more common mammalian world of imagistic cognition--though even there, we bring in sociocultural schemas. Images are less mediated in words, more direct to our own perceptions. Part of the appeal to poetry, surely, is in the way that a good poem can reach into imagery, and evoke sensations and sounds of the sort that are closer to a pre-verbal sensory and narrative world. It is precisely the power of imagery that struck people about the early cinema. We have learned to take cinematic narratives for granted now, but they continue to have social effects that are probably underexamined.? ? For narratives to seem most numinous to us, most self-evident or profound, it would make sense that they probably typically evoke the imagistic thinking our words and socially internalized narratives often convey implicitly, concealed behind words, and that we perceive in our own embodied world of imagery.? ? Which leads us back to the unconscious. One part of it, which I draw from Grandin, is that perception of raw sensory data is still what we do, all the time. Though it is mediated by words and social narratives, and to some extent shaped by them, the extreme perception that enables dogs or cats to perceive narratives of the sensory world we don't notice, are still there. They tug at us, and we react unconsciously (preconsciously) to them. Emotive associations with imagery (the evolutionary benefit of fear, anger, pleasure and pain), evoked in the background of our mind through words, and schemas that touch on these strings of preconscious perception and memory would give a sense of how a cinematic narrative is constructed literally to play on common sensory experience, mediated through shared sociocultural themes--and how some of these themes that are universal to human experience, would be so similar in their imagery in human culture.? ? But that's a lot (obviously some bottled-up thought--and probably less interesting to you than to me), and it's time for me to sleep, perchance to dream...? ? Regards, Doug ? ? On ?Tuesday?, ?August? ?28?, ?2018? ?01?:?57?:?45? ?AM? ?PDT, Huw Lloyd wrote: ? ? After taking twenty or so exceptions to "The now-classic, Metaphors We Live By" in the first fifty pages, my copy now resides in a pile of books the only use of which is to refer to errors. One of the basic errors seems to be Lackoff's assumption that we only have one conceptual system. Rather, I would commend Donald Schon's "Displacement of Concepts". The use of homology (by Bateson) is also systematically (and simply) presented by Stafford Beer in his text on "Decision and Control". ? Best, Huw ? On Tue, 28 Aug 2018 at 07:31, Alfredo Jornet Gil wrote: oh yes, the chapter! Here it is?:)? Alfredo ? ? From:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu on behalf of Annalisa Aguilar Sent: 28 August 2018 07:05 To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Rogers day ? Hi Alfredo and venerable others who continue to peruse the thread, ? Thanks for your verdant post! I must say that in regard to your syllogism: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass. ? I would reply: ? Grass dies; Men die; Men are grass cut down by the grim reaper; but grass grows back if watered by mother nature; A mother who lives forever. Just to give a feminist twist, though I hope not too essentialist. ? However, I was taken by surprise on your take on Lakoff and Johnson, and I had to think a little before I replied, so that I respond more thoughtfully (I hope).? ? For me, the "flesh" part of the book's content references embodied thinking, which I may have already said, and I hope I'm not repeating myself. The assertion being, we can't think without a body and also that we are not robots with brains for our CPUs. I wish I had the book at my fingertips right now to say more on that. ? It took me a little bit to consider what embodied thinking actually meant while reading the book, because looking back I see how many Cartesian assumptions I had to unlearn when thinking about mind. Also reading David Kirsh's work on dancers and how they mark with their bodies when learning new sequences of steps helped me to understand. Using a bookmark is a form of embodied thinking (real books not digital browsers!) ? The problem with thinking about thinking is that we forget that we have a body already in place sitting in a soup of evolution, culture, history, etc, and how there is an illusion that we are bubbles of consciousness thinking like Rodin's thinker on a stool. That pose has become the shorthand for mainstream conceptions of a thinker. ? I'm even remembering how the documentary of Hannah Arendt shows her laying on a couch smoking a cigarette while contemplating evil (which might just a postmodern cinematic redo of David's Madame Recamier perhaps?). ? Anyway, there was also something Kirsh wrote in another paper about metacognition about libraries that I found illuminating, and I'm not referencing green-shaded lamps. Recalling from memory... it was something like: how if not for size and height of the tables (horizontal) we could not read the books stored on the shelves (vertically) because sometimes we want to lay many books open at once and compare them, and how we might use a finger to keep our place while checking and comparing texts. So environment has a lot of power in how we digest our tools for thinking as well. ? How could we conceive of vertical and horizontal without bodies (and without gravity and a horizon). ? Also, that the way we see, which the eyes only have a small part in, also has to do with our bodies, because sometimes we have to walk around things to know about them, something the eyes can't do alone. Or how the organs of perception work in unison, such as smoke and fire may mean danger when we see flames, smell burning wood and our skin feels heat. But when we have one of those faux fireplaces with digital flickering flames, we just feel coziness (or an aversion to the kitsch)! ? Anyway, Bateson?was an inspiration to Hutchins, and his work assisted in Hutchins's development of his approach to distributed cognition (Bateson is someone on my reading list). I also feel that there is a connection to what you offer about Bateson's observation of metaphor as a "primary" language to Levi-Straus's Science of the Concrete, as described in the first chapter of Le Pens?e Sauvage whose connotation, I might add, is lost when translated to English's "The Savage Mind" because in the French (as I understand) is a double ent?ndre of savage mind and wild pansy at the same time. I take that to be a wonderful reference to the wisdom of the natural world inherent in what we used to call "primitive" or "uncivilized" cultures. It is a beautiful, embodied metaphor which is far more meaningful than the English, which ironically seems more idealized, or Cartesian (who was French!) ? I would enjoy to look at that chapter you almost attached if not for want of a plane to board. ? With regard to the metaphor and how it fails, is that metaphor is aspectual. Just like a tool might have a proper and improper application, so does a metaphor. ? In Vedanta, for example, there is a drshtanta (sanskrit for "teaching-illustration") for the dehatma-buddhi, which translates roughly to the "mind-body-sense complex," (and also references that the dehatma-buddhi is the self and the self is the dehatma-buddhi as 1:1 equivalence and how this equivalence is an illusion), anyway, the drshtanta of the red-hot iron ball is a very old metaphor used to explain something very hard to explain rationally. ? It is used to show how one might perceive that the attributes of iron might associate to the fire and vice versa, because they are indeed at that moment in time inseparably presenting in the same loci. It would take for one to have prior knowledge of the attributes of fire to know that the roundness and heaviness of the ball does not belong to fire but to iron, and likewise the knowledge of iron to know that the heat and the redness belong actually to fire not to iron. It is impossible to physically differentiate the red-hot from the iron ball, say by pulling them apart into smaller pieces (which Descartes tries to do: to see a thing in parts adding into a whole). It is a beautiful metaphor for explaining how the self takes on attributes of the body and the body takes attributes of the self. And yet the drshtanta fails if someone from the peanut gallery says, "Just dunk it in a pool of water like any old blacksmith and you'll figure that one out," and the peanut thrower would be right, but the metaphor, if used in a surgical way, is very apt to show the illusion of the location of consciousness (self). So the metaphor, when used with precision, is a useful tool. ? One doesn't get far with a screwdriver if everything seems a screw, especially if the screw is a nail. ? I think with a metaphor (as a cognitive tool) it's the same. Of course there is danger?if we mix our metaphors inappropriately, which is another way they can fail. ? I feel compelled to find an example in which metaphors help problem-solving in life situation...perhaps it is a job for Superman or some other superhero. ? Kind regards, ? Annalisa ? -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180924/de83bde1/attachment.html From jgregmcverry@gmail.com Mon Sep 24 03:59:21 2018 From: jgregmcverry@gmail.com (Greg Mcverry) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 06:59:21 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thank you all, You are getting at the theoretical sturggle I am having with describing the web. It is both artefact and experience. My website and feed are just as much a part of my funds of identity and a shaping of who I am than any other experiencing I may do, I will look at a Deweyian lens for the study. I don;'t think it would shift my theoretical or operational approaches too much at all. This discussion between analog and digital is fascinating. I struggle to point out how there is a false dichotomy between online and offline and the analog and digital split is becoming defined in pop culture as offline or online. I believe in terms of identity development the distinction doesn't work. Plus I hate writing "meat space" or "irl" (in real life). On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 10:48 AM Glassman, Michael wrote: > Hi Greg and Andy, > > > > I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to > focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. > I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell > it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both > artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times > I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in > using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the > meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a > good way to describe what you are trying to do. > > > > Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between > digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is > that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information > and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier > than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the > father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father > but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of > trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late > forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it > is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous > (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another > piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information > as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to > the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital > became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it > is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often > wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There > are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early > history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in > the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. > > > > Michael > > > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu *On > Behalf Of *Andy Blunden > *Sent:* Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM > *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through > perezhivanie > > > > A few comments Greg. > > It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an *artefact *not > events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; > it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian > has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as > such. What you do with that evidence is something again. > > Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the > opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the > 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate > natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic > circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost > complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses > analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did > when I knew it in the 1980s. > > Andy > ------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > > Hello all, > > > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of > perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. > > > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. > Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two > with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my > design. > > > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields > (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I > needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said > "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I > want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and > culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of > identity as we create online spaces. > > > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What > does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to > reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180924/0c9c76f9/attachment.html From jgregmcverry@gmail.com Mon Sep 24 04:02:02 2018 From: jgregmcverry@gmail.com (Greg Mcverry) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 07:02:02 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Huw, I submitted in a much larger 1.4 federal million dollar grant to look at the production of fake news as a way to combat fake news.: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OrwDAzNPIn1DbJyUxbvyqVciYZUAgjO7dstQ7FmiGQQ/edit?usp=sharing I won't hear about the denial for months but I agree it is an interesting approach. On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 6:59 AM Greg Mcverry wrote: > Thank you all, > > You are getting at the theoretical sturggle I am having with describing > the web. It is both artefact and experience. My website and feed are just > as much a part of my funds of identity and a shaping of who I am than any > other experiencing I may do, > > I will look at a Deweyian lens for the study. I don;'t think it would > shift my theoretical or operational approaches too much at all. > > This discussion between analog and digital is fascinating. I struggle to > point out how there is a false dichotomy between online and offline and the > analog and digital split is becoming defined in pop culture as offline or > online. I believe in terms of identity development the distinction doesn't > work. Plus I hate writing "meat space" or "irl" (in real life). > > On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 10:48 AM Glassman, Michael > wrote: > >> Hi Greg and Andy, >> >> >> >> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to >> focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. >> I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell >> it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both >> artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times >> I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in >> using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the >> meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a >> good way to describe what you are trying to do. >> >> >> >> Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between >> digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is >> that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information >> and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier >> than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the >> father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father >> but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of >> trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late >> forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it >> is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous >> (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another >> piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information >> as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to >> the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital >> became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it >> is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often >> wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There >> are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early >> history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in >> the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. >> >> >> >> Michael >> >> >> >> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> *On Behalf Of *Andy Blunden >> *Sent:* Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through >> perezhivanie >> >> >> >> A few comments Greg. >> >> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an *artefact *not >> events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; >> it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian >> has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as >> such. What you do with that evidence is something again. >> >> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the >> opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the >> 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate >> natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic >> circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost >> complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses >> analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did >> when I knew it in the 1980s. >> >> Andy >> ------------------------------ >> >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> >> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >> >> Hello all, >> >> >> >> I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of >> perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. >> >> >> >> I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. >> Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two >> with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my >> design. >> >> >> >> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >> >> >> >> -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields >> (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I >> needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said >> "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I >> want to make sure I capture the struggle. >> >> >> >> -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and >> culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of >> identity as we create online spaces. >> >> >> >> -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What >> does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to >> reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. >> >> >> >> >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180924/4bbd983c/attachment.html From huw.softdesigns@gmail.com Mon Sep 24 14:23:30 2018 From: huw.softdesigns@gmail.com (Huw Lloyd) Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2018 22:23:30 +0100 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Sounds like an impressive proposal, Greg. I suppose the antecedent for that in media studies is the "belief in print" syndrome. I haven't seen any studies of that, though. Presumably there are studies of it (in archives probably). A useful activity-theoretic analog can be taken from studies in the formation of listening skills for musical tones. I believe both Luria and Leontyev reported quite simple studies on that. Your issues with descriptives for different "worlds" seem to me to be a function of your efforts to frame things in terms of "identity". I'm not sure you'd have that problem if it was framed in terms of identification. But that was my position on the "identity of funds" paper & discussion. I don't buy the "strong version" of identity implicated. For me, it leans more towards the verbal descriptives rather than the actual awareness of personal agency. Best, Huw On Mon, 24 Sep 2018 at 12:03, Greg Mcverry wrote: > Huw, > > I submitted in a much larger 1.4 federal million dollar grant to look at > the production of fake news as a way to combat fake news.: > https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OrwDAzNPIn1DbJyUxbvyqVciYZUAgjO7dstQ7FmiGQQ/edit?usp=sharing > > I won't hear about the denial for months but I agree it is an interesting > approach. > > On Mon, Sep 24, 2018 at 6:59 AM Greg Mcverry > wrote: > >> Thank you all, >> >> You are getting at the theoretical sturggle I am having with describing >> the web. It is both artefact and experience. My website and feed are just >> as much a part of my funds of identity and a shaping of who I am than any >> other experiencing I may do, >> >> I will look at a Deweyian lens for the study. I don;'t think it would >> shift my theoretical or operational approaches too much at all. >> >> This discussion between analog and digital is fascinating. I struggle to >> point out how there is a false dichotomy between online and offline and the >> analog and digital split is becoming defined in pop culture as offline or >> online. I believe in terms of identity development the distinction doesn't >> work. Plus I hate writing "meat space" or "irl" (in real life). >> >> On Sat, Sep 22, 2018 at 10:48 AM Glassman, Michael >> wrote: >> >>> Hi Greg and Andy, >>> >>> >>> >>> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to >>> focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. >>> I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell >>> it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both >>> artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times >>> I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in >>> using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the >>> meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a >>> good way to describe what you are trying to do. >>> >>> >>> >>> Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between >>> digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is >>> that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information >>> and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier >>> than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the >>> father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father >>> but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of >>> trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late >>> forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it >>> is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous >>> (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another >>> piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information >>> as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to >>> the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital >>> became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it >>> is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often >>> wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There >>> are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early >>> history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in >>> the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. >>> >>> >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> >>> >>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> *On Behalf Of *Andy Blunden >>> *Sent:* Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through >>> perezhivanie >>> >>> >>> >>> A few comments Greg. >>> >>> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an *artefact *not >>> events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; >>> it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian >>> has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as >>> such. What you do with that evidence is something again. >>> >>> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means >>> the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from >>> the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate >>> natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic >>> circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost >>> complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses >>> analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did >>> when I knew it in the 1980s. >>> >>> Andy >>> ------------------------------ >>> >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> >>> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >>> >>> Hello all, >>> >>> >>> >>> I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of >>> perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. >>> >>> >>> >>> I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. >>> Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two >>> with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my >>> design. >>> >>> >>> >>> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >>> >>> >>> >>> -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields >>> (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I >>> needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said >>> "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I >>> want to make sure I capture the struggle. >>> >>> >>> >>> -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify >>> and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds >>> of identity as we create online spaces. >>> >>> >>> >>> -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What >>> does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to >>> reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> >> -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180924/14c52c6b/attachment.html From ewall@umich.edu Tue Sep 25 12:10:35 2018 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 14:10:35 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Michael I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. Ed > On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > > Hi Greg and Andy, > > I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. > > Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden > Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > A few comments Greg. > > It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. > Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. > > Andy > > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > Hello all, > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180925/ac0bf853/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 25 16:16:28 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 16:16:28 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Yet another interesting job opportunity. mike ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Larisa A Heiphetz Date: Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 2:38 PM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University To: Dear Colleagues, Columbia is hiring a developmental psychologist this year! Please see the ad below; we would love for you to apply and/or to pass along this ad to your students/post-docs/other fabulous developmental psychologists you know. The Department of Psychology at Columbia University invites applications for a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at the tenure-track assistant professor or early associate level, to begin July 1, 2019. We seek applications from individuals with specializations in developmental psychology that complement current areas of expertise within the Department. While the position is open to all developmental psychologists, those conducting research in cognitive science and/or cognitive neuroscience are particularly encouraged to apply. Successful candidates will have a demonstrated record of research productivity and teaching commensurate to the level of the faculty position. We will begin reviewing applications November 1, 2018 and will continue until the position is filled. Using our Recruitment of Academic Personnel System (RAPS), applicants should submit their vitae, statements of research and teaching interests, copies of relevant papers, and arrange for three letters of reference to be uploaded into RAPS. Please note that all applications must be submitted through the online application site, where you can also find further information about this position: academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=67007. For more information about the Psychology Department please visit: https://psychology.columbia.edu/ Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Larisa Heiphetz Department of Psychology Columbia University columbiasamclab.weebly.com [ columbiasamclab. weebly. com ] _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180925/ffa03e6b/attachment.html From dkirsh@lsu.edu Tue Sep 25 18:03:54 2018 From: dkirsh@lsu.edu (David H Kirshner) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 01:03:54 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY MESSAGE] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *********************************************************************************** WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. *********************************************************************************** Mike, your email was intercepted by my university?s email security system and forwarded to me with a warning. David From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 6:16 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [RISKY MESSAGE] [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University *********************************************************************************** WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. *********************************************************************************** Yet another interesting job opportunity. mike ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Larisa A Heiphetz > Date: Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 2:38 PM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University To: > Dear Colleagues, Columbia is hiring a developmental psychologist this year! Please see the ad below; we would love for you to apply and/or to pass along this ad to your students/post-docs/other fabulous developmental psychologists you know. The Department of Psychology at Columbia University invites applications for a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at the tenure-track assistant professor or early associate level, to begin July 1, 2019. We seek applications from individuals with specializations in developmental psychology that complement current areas of expertise within the Department. While the position is open to all developmental psychologists, those conducting research in cognitive science and/or cognitive neuroscience are particularly encouraged to apply. Successful candidates will have a demonstrated record of research productivity and teaching commensurate to the level of the faculty position. We will begin reviewing applications November 1, 2018 and will continue until the position is filled. Using our Recruitment of Academic Personnel System (RAPS), applicants should submit their vitae, statements of research and teaching interests, copies of relevant papers, and arrange for three letters of reference to be uploaded into RAPS. Please note that all applications must be submitted through the online application site, where you can also find further information about this position: academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=67007. For more information about the Psychology Department please visit: https://psychology.columbia.edu/ Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Larisa Heiphetz Department of Psychology Columbia University columbiasamclab.weebly.com [ columbiasamclab. weebly. com ] _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/cf00ffaf/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Tue Sep 25 18:12:53 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 11:12:53 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY MESSAGE] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: David, Best to contact security@lsu.edu and get them to change their classification. This is obviously an error by LSU and you need to help them fix it. Marxists.org was got a classification like this from AOL and it took years of complaining to get it reversed, but eventually we did. LSU is probably more amenable to advice than AOL, Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 26/09/2018 11:03 AM, David H Kirshner wrote: > ************************************************************************************ > WARNING!! > This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that > based on our data, > is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before > you click any links. > > LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. > If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU > IT Security Team > by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold > fish icon) in Outlook > and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message > to security@lsu.edu . > > NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account > information or > other personal details. For more information or to get > help, contact > the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. > ************************************************************************************ > > Mike, your email was intercepted by my university?s email > security system and forwarded to me with a warning. > > David > > > > > > > > *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > *On Behalf Of *mike cole > *Sent:* Tuesday, September 25, 2018 6:16 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > *Subject:* [RISKY MESSAGE] [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job > Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University > > > > ************************************************************************************ > WARNING!! > This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that > based on our data, > is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before > you click any links. > > LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. > If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU > IT Security Team > by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold > fish icon) in Outlook > and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message > to security@lsu.edu . > > NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account > information or > other personal details. For more information or to get > help, contact > the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. > ************************************************************************************ > > > > Yet another interesting job opportunity. > > mike > > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: *Larisa A Heiphetz* > > Date: Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 2:38 PM > Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental > Psychology at Columbia University > To: > > > > > Dear Colleagues, > > > > Columbia is hiring a developmental psychologist this year! > Please see the ad below; we would love for you to apply > and/or to pass along this ad to your > students/post-docs/other fabulous developmental > psychologists you know. > > > > The Department of Psychology at Columbia University > invites applications for a faculty position in the > Department of Psychology at the tenure-track assistant > professor or early associate level, to begin July 1, > 2019. We seek applications from individuals with > specializations in developmental psychology that > complement current areas of expertise within the > Department. While the position is open to all > developmental psychologists, those conducting research > in cognitive science and/or cognitive neuroscience are > particularly encouraged to apply. Successful > candidates will have a demonstrated record of research > productivity and teaching commensurate to the level of > the faculty position. > > We will begin reviewing applications November 1, > 2018 and will continue until the position is filled. > Using our Recruitment of Academic Personnel System > (RAPS), applicants should submit their vitae, > statements of research and teaching interests, copies > of relevant papers, and arrange for three letters of > reference to be uploaded into RAPS. Please note that > all applications must be submitted through the online > application site, where you can also find further > information about this > position: academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=67007 > . > > For more information about the Psychology Department > please visit: https://psychology.columbia.edu/ > > Columbia University is an Equal > Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. > > Larisa Heiphetz > > Department of Psychology > > Columbia University > > columbiasamclab.weebly.com > [ columbiasamclab. > weebly. com ] > > _______________________________________________ > To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: > cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org > > (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any > large attachments, your message > will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: > http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/eddcf4b1/attachment.html From dkirsh@lsu.edu Tue Sep 25 18:54:52 2018 From: dkirsh@lsu.edu (David H Kirshner) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 01:54:52 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY MESSAGE] Re: [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY MESSAGE] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: *********************************************************************************** WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. *********************************************************************************** Andy, et al., LSU isn?t rejecting XMCA emails, it?s pointing to a dangerous link in the email that Mike forwarded to XMCA, that would be: academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=67007 https://psychology.columbia.edu/ columbiasamclab.weebly.com cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org or http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org Whether any of these links actually is dangerous, I don?t know. But folks should know the potential danger. David From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Andy Blunden Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 8:13 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [RISKY MESSAGE] [Xmca-l] Re: [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY MESSAGE] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University *********************************************************************************** WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. *********************************************************************************** David, Best to contact security@lsu.edu and get them to change their classification. This is obviously an error by LSU and you need to help them fix it. Marxists.org was got a classification like this from AOL and it took years of complaining to get it reversed, but eventually we did. LSU is probably more amenable to advice than AOL, Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 26/09/2018 11:03 AM, David H Kirshner wrote: *********************************************************************************** WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. *********************************************************************************** Mike, your email was intercepted by my university?s email security system and forwarded to me with a warning. David From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of mike cole Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 6:16 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [RISKY MESSAGE] [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University *********************************************************************************** WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling 225-578-3375. *********************************************************************************** Yet another interesting job opportunity. mike ---------- Forwarded message --------- From: Larisa A Heiphetz > Date: Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 2:38 PM Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University To: > Dear Colleagues, Columbia is hiring a developmental psychologist this year! Please see the ad below; we would love for you to apply and/or to pass along this ad to your students/post-docs/other fabulous developmental psychologists you know. The Department of Psychology at Columbia University invites applications for a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at the tenure-track assistant professor or early associate level, to begin July 1, 2019. We seek applications from individuals with specializations in developmental psychology that complement current areas of expertise within the Department. While the position is open to all developmental psychologists, those conducting research in cognitive science and/or cognitive neuroscience are particularly encouraged to apply. Successful candidates will have a demonstrated record of research productivity and teaching commensurate to the level of the faculty position. We will begin reviewing applications November 1, 2018 and will continue until the position is filled. Using our Recruitment of Academic Personnel System (RAPS), applicants should submit their vitae, statements of research and teaching interests, copies of relevant papers, and arrange for three letters of reference to be uploaded into RAPS. Please note that all applications must be submitted through the online application site, where you can also find further information about this position: academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=67007. For more information about the Psychology Department please visit: https://psychology.columbia.edu/ Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. Larisa Heiphetz Department of Psychology Columbia University columbiasamclab.weebly.com [ columbiasamclab. weebly. com ] _______________________________________________ To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large attachments, your message will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/d7f891f6/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Tue Sep 25 21:56:05 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Tue, 25 Sep 2018 21:56:05 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY MESSAGE] Re: [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY MESSAGE] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia University In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks David -- Sorry for putting you at risk, xmcaers mike On Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 6:57 PM David H Kirshner wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ************************************************************************************ > WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a > hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please > be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for > your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please > report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon > (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding > the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any > e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. > For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling > 225-578-3375. > ************************************************************************************ > > Andy, et al., > > > > LSU isn?t rejecting XMCA emails, it?s pointing to a dangerous link in the > email that Mike forwarded to XMCA, that would be: > > academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=67007 > https://psychology.columbia.edu/ > > columbiasamclab.weebly.com > > cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org > > or > > http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org > > > > Whether any of these links actually is dangerous, I don?t know. > > But folks should know the potential danger. > > > > David > > > > > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu *On > Behalf Of *Andy Blunden > *Sent:* Tuesday, September 25, 2018 8:13 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [RISKY MESSAGE] [Xmca-l] Re: [RISKY MESSAGE] RE: [RISKY > MESSAGE] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at > Columbia University > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ************************************************************************************ > WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a > hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please > be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for > your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please > report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon > (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding > the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any > e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. > For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling > 225-578-3375. > ************************************************************************************ > > David, Best to contact security@lsu.edu and get them to change their > classification. This is obviously an error by LSU and you need to help them > fix it. > > Marxists.org was got a classification like this from AOL and it took years > of complaining to get it reversed, but eventually we did. LSU is probably > more amenable to advice than AOL, > > Andy > ------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 26/09/2018 11:03 AM, David H Kirshner wrote: > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ************************************************************************************ > WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a > hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please > be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for > your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please > report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon > (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding > the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any > e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. > For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling > 225-578-3375. > ************************************************************************************ > > Mike, your email was intercepted by my university?s email security system > and forwarded to me with a warning. > > David > > > > > > > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > *On Behalf Of *mike cole > *Sent:* Tuesday, September 25, 2018 6:16 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > *Subject:* [RISKY MESSAGE] [Xmca-l] Fwd: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in > Developmental Psychology at Columbia University > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > ************************************************************************************ > WARNING!! This e-mail contains a link to a > hosting company that based on our data, is frequented by scammers. Please > be extra cautious before you click any links. LSU will NEVER ask you for > your account information by e-mail. If you receive such a message, please > report it to the LSU IT Security Team by utilizing the Report Phishing icon > (purple and gold fish icon) in Outlook and/or Outlook Web or by forwarding > the message to security@lsu.edu . NEVER reply to any > e-mail asking you for your account information or other personal details. > For more information or to get help, contact the ITS Help Desk by calling > 225-578-3375. > ************************************************************************************ > > > > Yet another interesting job opportunity. > > mike > > > > ---------- Forwarded message --------- > From: *Larisa A Heiphetz* > Date: Tue, Sep 25, 2018 at 2:38 PM > Subject: [COGDEVSOC] Job Opening in Developmental Psychology at Columbia > University > To: > > > > Dear Colleagues, > > > > Columbia is hiring a developmental psychologist this year! Please see the > ad below; we would love for you to apply and/or to pass along this ad to > your students/post-docs/other fabulous developmental psychologists you know. > > > > The Department of Psychology at Columbia University invites applications > for a faculty position in the Department of Psychology at the tenure-track > assistant professor or early associate level, to begin July 1, 2019. We > seek applications from individuals with specializations in developmental > psychology that complement current areas of expertise within the > Department. While the position is open to all developmental psychologists, > those conducting research in cognitive science and/or cognitive > neuroscience are particularly encouraged to apply. Successful candidates > will have a demonstrated record of research productivity and teaching > commensurate to the level of the faculty position. > > We will begin reviewing applications November 1, 2018 and will continue > until the position is filled. Using our Recruitment of Academic Personnel > System (RAPS), applicants should submit their vitae, statements of research > and teaching interests, copies of relevant papers, and arrange for three > letters of reference to be uploaded into RAPS. Please note that all > applications must be submitted through the online application site, where > you can also find further information about this position: > academicjobs.columbia.edu/applicants/Central?quickFind=67007. > > For more information about the Psychology Department please visit: > https://psychology.columbia.edu/ > > Columbia University is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action employer. > > Larisa Heiphetz > > Department of Psychology > > Columbia University > > columbiasamclab.weebly.com [ columbiasamclab. weebly. com ] > > _______________________________________________ > To post to the CDS listserv, send your message to: > cogdevsoc@lists.cogdevsoc.org > (If you belong to the listserv and have not included any large > attachments, your message > will be posted without moderation--so be careful!) > > To subscribe or unsubscribe from the listserv, visit: > http://lists.cogdevsoc.org/listinfo.cgi/cogdevsoc-cogdevsoc.org > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180925/30e5f2df/attachment.html From glassman.13@osu.edu Wed Sep 26 06:53:42 2018 From: glassman.13@osu.edu (Glassman, Michael) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 13:53:42 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Ed, This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Edward Wall Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie Michael I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. Ed On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: Hi Greg and Andy, I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie A few comments Greg. It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: Hello all, I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/8add3ea6/attachment.html From dkirsh@lsu.edu Wed Sep 26 07:55:38 2018 From: dkirsh@lsu.edu (David H Kirshner) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 14:55:38 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Carl Bereiter contributed the final chapter to a book on situated cognition that I edited with Tony Whitson a couple of decades ago. If you switch ?situated? for ?analog,? his chapter is relevant to the current discussion, especially the subsection titled ?Learning to Simulate a Computer.? http://www.ikit.org/fulltext/1997situated.pdf David From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 8:54 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie Hi Ed, This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Edward Wall Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie Michael I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. Ed On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: Hi Greg and Andy, I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie A few comments Greg. It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: Hello all, I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/bc172c8a/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Wed Sep 26 14:52:50 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 15:52:50 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. Henry > On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > > Hi Ed, > > This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Edward Wall > Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > Michael > > I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. > > Ed > > On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: > > Hi Greg and Andy, > > I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. > > Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden > Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > A few comments Greg. > It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. > Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. > Andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > Hello all, > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/e5aaecd9/attachment.html From ewall@umich.edu Wed Sep 26 14:57:06 2018 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 16:57:06 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <454746EF-4DB3-44C6-9CF8-3959B9638C30@umich.edu> David Thanks for the paper reference. Interesting! Michael Bruce makes a good point. Again, from where I was sitting at that time, what bothered people even more was binary logic business. If I remembered correctly, the Russians built a machine that had three states roughly: yes, no, and maybe. Again all this could be simulated on a binary logic machine so economics again won out. However, Zadek in engineering pioneered the idea of fuzzy logic (later Joe Goguen would discuss fuzzy sets, etc.) and this is somewhat relevant to how we think (i.e. neuron transmitters and synapses). I think that the zojirushi rice cookers use fuzzy logic. There is still some interest in this sort of thing, but you can imagine that people would hesitate at building devices that could fail dramatically at times, but you can probably also imagine occasions where failure might be essential (learning, I think, is one such). That, by the way, may be part of what we lost, i.e. uncertainty. Computers can, at times, be unhelpfully certain. Oh, a fellow I used to know, Michael Eldred, wrote a book titled "The Digital Cast of Being: Metaphysics, Mathematics, Cartesianism, Cybernetics, Capitalism, Communication? which seems to wonder as you are wondering. Ed > On Sep 26, 2018, at 9:55 AM, David H Kirshner wrote: > > Carl Bereiter contributed the final chapter to a book on situated cognition that I edited with Tony Whitson a couple of decades ago. If you switch ?situated? for ?analog,? his chapter is relevant to the current discussion, especially the subsection titled ?Learning to Simulate a Computer.? http://www.ikit.org/fulltext/1997situated.pdf > > David > > > > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael > Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 8:54 AM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > Hi Ed, > > This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Edward Wall > Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > Michael > > I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. > > Ed > > On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > > Hi Greg and Andy, > > I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. > > Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of Andy Blunden > Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > A few comments Greg. > It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. > Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. > Andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > Hello all, > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. From ewall@umich.edu Wed Sep 26 15:10:04 2018 From: ewall@umich.edu (Edward Wall) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 17:10:04 -0500 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Henry Interesting subject. I have always thought Newton somewhat more ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which Robinson much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how they, in essence, treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few calculus texts that do use Leibnitz?s method and there are some arguments that, mathematically speaking, extensions of his method (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some things into view that may be hard to see otherwise. Ed > On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. > Henry > >> On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: >> >> Hi Ed, >> >> This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. >> >> Michael >> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Edward Wall >> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie >> >> Michael >> >> I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. >> >> Ed >> >> On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: >> >> Hi Greg and Andy, >> >> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. >> >> Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. >> >> Michael >> >> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden >> Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie >> >> A few comments Greg. >> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. >> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. >> Andy >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >> Hello all, >> >> I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. >> >> I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. >> >> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >> >> -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. >> >> -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. >> >> -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/f26c8600/attachment.html From mcole@ucsd.edu Wed Sep 26 17:52:24 2018 From: mcole@ucsd.edu (mike cole) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 17:52:24 -0700 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I would be helped in following this interesting discussion if people brought it back to *perezhivanie *. It is my reading of the recent special issue on perezhivanie that there is no firm agreement on its meaning. My unease was evoked when I read a note where the word perezhivanie had been replaced by the word experience. When I read the word experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, not Vsiliuk. Mike PS What is the best discussion of experience and perezhivanie that covers a lot of Dewey, particularly ?*Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out there, speak up!* On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall wrote: > Henry > > Interesting subject. I have always thought Newton somewhat more > ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which > Robinson much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how they, in > essence, treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few calculus texts that > do use Leibnitz?s method and there are some arguments that, mathematically > speaking, extensions of his method (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some > things into view that may be hard to see otherwise. > > Ed > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t > "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to > arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change > (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be > possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. > Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be > impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs > independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the > calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that > adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. > Henry > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: > > Hi Ed, > > This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural > perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce > Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that > analog computers were better for things like differential equations and > more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information > processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural > perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way > humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big > argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that > the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human > mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the > last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, > if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As > a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they > are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had > wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m > agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another > direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a > Tuesday morning. > > Michael > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu *On > Behalf Of *Edward Wall > *Sent:* Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through > perezhivanie > > Michael > > I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital > and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the > ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was > sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two > kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific > computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. > Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical > that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various > graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see > today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it > has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had > the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. > However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became > possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and > pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, > economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the > evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics > to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the > way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little > louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume > control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So > I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the > analog path. > > > Ed > > On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: > > Hi Greg and Andy, > > I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to > focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. > I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell > it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both > artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times > I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in > using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the > meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a > good way to describe what you are trying to do. > > Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between > digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is > that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information > and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier > than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the > father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father > but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of > trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late > forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it > is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous > (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another > piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information > as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to > the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital > became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it > is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often > wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There > are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early > history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in > the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. > > Michael > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu *On > Behalf Of *Andy Blunden > *Sent:* Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM > *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through > perezhivanie > > A few comments Greg. > It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an *artefact *not > events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; > it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian > has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as > such. What you do with that evidence is something again. > Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the > opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the > 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate > natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic > circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost > complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses > analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did > when I knew it in the 1980s. > Andy > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > > Hello all, > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of > perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. > Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two > with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my > design. > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields > (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I > needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said > "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I > want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and > culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of > identity as we create online spaces. > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What > does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to > reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/8814d086/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Wed Sep 26 18:28:52 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2018 11:28:52 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> I found "Having an experience" the most useful. https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: > I would be helped in following this interesting discussion > if people brought it back to /perezhivanie /. It is my > reading of the recent special issue on perezhivanie that > there is no firm agreement on its meaning. My unease was > evoked when I read a note where the word perezhivanie had > been replaced by the word experience. When I read the word > experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, > not Vsiliuk. > > Mike > PS > What is the best discussion of experience and perezhivanie > that covers a lot of Dewey, particularly ?/Art and > Experience? ? Deweyites out there, speak up!/ > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall > > wrote: > > Henry > > Interesting subject. I have always thought > Newton somewhat more ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat > more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which Robinson > much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how > they, in essence, treat something like a point. I?ve > seen a few calculus texts that do use Leibnitz?s > method and there are some arguments that, > mathematically speaking, extensions of his method > (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some things into > view that may be hard to see otherwise. > > Ed > > >> On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD >> > wrote: >> >> It took me a long time to understand the calculus, >> because I couldn?t "get" the limit theorem, which >> allows for a way to use digital means to arrive >> quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of >> rates of change (in differential calculus) and sums >> (in integral calculus) than would be possible and/or >> practical with analog means of counting and >> measuring. Without such quickly gotten precision, >> modern engineering would be impossible. I thought >> that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs >> independently and at the same time, but a quick look >> at the wiki on the calculus is much more complex than >> that. It?s a history, it seems, that adds to the >> issue of concept and a word for the concept. >> Henry >> >>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael >>> > >>> wrote: >>> >>> Hi Ed, >>> >>> This is a kind of interesting topic, including from >>> a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is >>> relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a >>> really good point to me ? also in your message ? >>> that analog computers were better for things like >>> differential equations and more pure mathematic >>> stuff (I think). But that when it came to >>> information processing digital was far superior. My >>> thinking though from the cultural perspective is >>> that analog thinking is more representative of the >>> way humans actually think, at least the way I >>> believe they think. The big argument I have with >>> information processing is that the argument is that >>> the way the computer works (mostly software) is >>> isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much >>> of the direction our society has gone in the last >>> thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple >>> choice questions, if we are attempting to make the >>> human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend >>> who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me >>> recently, they are beginning to wonder if the >>> computer is not training the human. I had wondered >>> if we had gone the analog route (and right now I >>> think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) >>> if we might have gone in another direction, a more >>> pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a >>> Tuesday morning. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> >> > *On Behalf >>> Of *Edward Wall >>> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM >>> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>> >> > >>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of >>> the web through perezhivanie >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> I don?t know if my comments are germane to your >>> discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved >>> in the 60s towards the tail end of the >>> ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; >>> however from where I was sitting there were some >>> nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two >>> kinds of computing using ?computers?: information >>> processing and scientific computing. Both of these >>> had an analog history stretching far back. >>> Information processing was, in a sense, initially >>> mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by >>> electronics and eventually with the advent of >>> various graphic devices (I include printers of >>> various kinds) became what we see today. The >>> situation with scientific computing was a little >>> different as it has even a richer analog history. >>> Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper >>> hand because they could, in effect, operate in real >>> time. However, as the digital devices became faster >>> and faster, it became possible to, in effect, >>> simulate an analog device on a digital machine and >>> pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus >>> for, in a sense, economic reasons digital >>> ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution >>> is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or >>> using mathematics to model physical reality; it is >>> amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is >>> still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play >>> music a little louder, the increase is done in a >>> digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one >>> of the original versionsit is done in an analog >>> fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path >>> doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. >>> >>> >>> Ed >>> >>> On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael >>> >> > wrote: >>> >>> Hi Greg and Andy, >>> >>> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is >>> might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as >>> (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather >>> than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good >>> grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell >>> it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience >>> the Web becomes both artefact and event in our >>> actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple >>> times I think that we cannot really know our >>> tools outside of our experience in using them, >>> and that in attempting to separate them we are >>> diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So >>> I think experience actually would be a good way >>> to describe what you are trying to do. >>> >>> Oh, also another take on analog and digital. >>> There was a battle between digital and analogous >>> in computing but my own reading of the history >>> is that had more to do with how we treated how >>> computers processed information and solved >>> problems. I believe the crux of the battle was >>> a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar >>> Bush who some (me included) consider the father >>> of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a >>> more distant father but the actual name web is >>> based on one of his ideas I think, web of >>> trails) was working on the idea of an analogous >>> computer in the late forties. I am sure others >>> were as well. The difference as I understand it >>> is whether we wanted to treat the processing of >>> information as analogous (sort of a linear >>> logic) where one piece of information built off >>> another piece working towards an answer or >>> whether we wanted to treat information as a >>> series of yes no questions leading to a solution >>> (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as >>> yes and no, although I always mix that up. >>> Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, >>> not the least of which is because it is more >>> precise and efficient but it is also far more >>> limited. I often wonder what would have >>> happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). >>> There are analog and digital circuits of course, >>> but at least in the early history of the >>> computer I don?t believe that was the primary >>> discussion in the use of these terms. Of course >>> that?s just my reading. >>> >>> Michael >>> >>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> >> > *On >>> Behalf Of *Andy Blunden >>> *Sent:* Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>> >>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies >>> of the web through perezhivanie >>> >>> A few comments Greg. >>> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is >>> an *artefact *not events; each unit is a trace >>> of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it >>> is important not to conflate events and >>> artefacts; just as an historian has to know that >>> what they see are traces of real events, not the >>> events as such. What you do with that evidence >>> is something again. >>> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean >>> "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of >>> reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" >>> originate from the 1960s when there were two >>> types of computer. Analog computers emulate >>> natural processes by representing natural >>> processes in analogous electronic circuits based >>> on the calculus. In the end digital computers >>> won an almost complete victory, but for example, >>> if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog >>> computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, >>> or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. >>> Andy >>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >>> >>> Hello all, >>> >>> I have been spending time this summer >>> reading up on the concept of perezhivanie >>> after our article discussion on identify of >>> funds. >>> >>> I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical >>> perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word >>> count it will probably be reduced to a >>> paragraph or two with drive by citations but >>> I am trying to think this through to inform >>> my design. >>> >>> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >>> >>> -I got a little feedback but from Russian >>> scholars in other fields (literature >>> mainly) that I missed the meaning by being >>> too neutral and I needed to get at "growing >>> from one's misery" or another person said >>> "brooding over the bad stuff that happened >>> that makes you who you are" So I want to >>> make sure I capture the struggle. >>> >>> -I am not diving into this now but I am also >>> considering the identify and culture of a >>> local web and how that plays out into how we >>> shapes funds of identity as we create online >>> spaces. >>> >>> -Finally is applying this lens with adult >>> learners not appropriate? What does it mean >>> when you actively want to tweak the >>> environment of learners to reduce >>> experiencing as struggle and increase >>> experience as contemplation. >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180927/4ca68ea1/attachment-0001.html From jgregmcverry@gmail.com Wed Sep 26 19:24:45 2018 From: jgregmcverry@gmail.com (Greg Mcverry) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 22:24:45 -0400 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> References: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> Message-ID: Yes sorry my use of analog v digital sidetracked thread. I spent some time considering how drastic a change to my methodology I would have to make to for switch to Dewey and experiencing. I really don't consider the web, for those who inhabit it, as an artifact. it is both the act of identity creation and identity itself. A dance of the selves in a networked world. A living part of who many people are. A piece of my MEs that is shaped by me and outside interest. I On Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 9:30 PM Andy Blunden wrote: > I found "Having an experience" the most useful. > > > https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm > > Andy > ------------------------------ > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: > > I would be helped in following this interesting discussion if people > brought it back to *perezhivanie *. It is my reading of the recent > special issue on perezhivanie that there is no firm agreement on its > meaning. My unease was evoked when I read a note where the word > perezhivanie had been replaced by the word experience. When I read the word > experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, not Vsiliuk. > > Mike > PS > What is the best discussion of experience and perezhivanie that covers a > lot of Dewey, particularly ?*Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out there, > speak up!* > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall wrote: > >> Henry >> >> Interesting subject. I have always thought Newton somewhat more >> ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which >> Robinson much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how they, in >> essence, treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few calculus texts that >> do use Leibnitz?s method and there are some arguments that, mathematically >> speaking, extensions of his method (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some >> things into view that may be hard to see otherwise. >> >> Ed >> >> >> On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: >> >> It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t >> "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to >> arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change >> (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be >> possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. >> Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be >> impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs >> independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the >> calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that >> adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. >> Henry >> >> >> On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael < >> glassman.13@osu.edu> wrote: >> >> Hi Ed, >> >> This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural >> perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce >> Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that >> analog computers were better for things like differential equations and >> more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information >> processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural >> perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way >> humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big >> argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that >> the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human >> mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the >> last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, >> if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As >> a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they >> are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had >> wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m >> agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another >> direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a >> Tuesday morning. >> >> Michael >> >> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> < xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> *On >> Behalf Of *Edward Wall >> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM >> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity < >> xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> >> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through >> perezhivanie >> >> Michael >> >> I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of >> digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of >> the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was >> sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two >> kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific >> computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. >> Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical >> that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various >> graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see >> today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it >> has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had >> the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. >> However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became >> possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and >> pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, >> economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the >> evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics >> to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the >> way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little >> louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume >> control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So >> I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the >> analog path. >> >> >> Ed >> >> On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael < >> glassman.13@osu.edu> wrote: >> >> Hi Greg and Andy, >> >> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to >> focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. >> I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell >> it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both >> artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times >> I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in >> using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the >> meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a >> good way to describe what you are trying to do. >> >> Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between >> digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is >> that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information >> and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier >> than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the >> father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father >> but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of >> trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late >> forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it >> is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous >> (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another >> piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information >> as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to >> the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital >> became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it >> is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often >> wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There >> are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early >> history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in >> the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. >> >> Michael >> >> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >> < xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> *On >> Behalf Of *Andy Blunden >> *Sent:* Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through >> perezhivanie >> >> A few comments Greg. >> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an *artefact *not >> events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; >> it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian >> has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as >> such. What you do with that evidence is something again. >> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the >> opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the >> 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate >> natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic >> circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost >> complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses >> analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did >> when I knew it in the 1980s. >> Andy >> ------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >> >> Hello all, >> >> I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of >> perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. >> >> I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. >> Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two >> with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my >> design. >> >> >> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >> >> -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields >> (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I >> needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said >> "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I >> want to make sure I capture the struggle. >> >> -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and >> culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of >> identity as we create online spaces. >> >> -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What >> does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to >> reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. >> >> >> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/a2ebfb91/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Wed Sep 26 19:50:51 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 20:50:51 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> Message-ID: <1429370E-E9AB-4F0B-BF4D-CF7135C81019@gmail.com> Thanks, Mike! For sure analog/digital is a sidebar. Got lost in the weeds. But I do have something that I think germane to the subject line, a question really: How does Dewey connect experience and democracy? And how about Vygotsky? In fact, would anyone point me to ways in which Dewey and Vygotsky connect experience/perrizhvanie (mass/countable) and democracy, or whatever form of government applies? I despair sometimes about the future of democracy. Has it ever had a present? I hope I?m not getting into weeds where no one wants to go. Or maybe it?s so obvious, it doesn?t bear wasting words? Henry > On Sep 26, 2018, at 8:24 PM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > > Yes sorry my use of analog v digital sidetracked thread. > > I spent some time considering how drastic a change to my methodology I would have to make to for switch to Dewey and experiencing. > > I really don't consider the web, for those who inhabit it, as an artifact. it is both the act of identity creation and identity itself. A dance of the selves in a networked world. A living part of who many people are. > > A piece of my MEs that is shaped by me and outside interest. > > I > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 9:30 PM Andy Blunden > wrote: > I found "Having an experience" the most useful. > > https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm > Andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: >> I would be helped in following this interesting discussion if people brought it back to perezhivanie . It is my reading of the recent special issue on perezhivanie that there is no firm agreement on its meaning. My unease was evoked when I read a note where the word perezhivanie had been replaced by the word experience. When I read the word experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, not Vsiliuk. >> >> Mike >> PS >> What is the best discussion of experience and perezhivanie that covers a lot of Dewey, particularly ?Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out there, speak up! >> >> On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall > wrote: >> Henry >> >> Interesting subject. I have always thought Newton somewhat more ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which Robinson much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how they, in essence, treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few calculus texts that do use Leibnitz?s method and there are some arguments that, mathematically speaking, extensions of his method (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some things into view that may be hard to see otherwise. >> >> Ed >> >> >>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD > wrote: >>> >>> It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. >>> Henry >>> >>>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael < glassman.13@osu.edu > wrote: >>>> >>>> Hi Ed, >>>> >>>> This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. >>>> >>>> Michael >>>> >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Edward Wall >>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM >>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity < xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie >>>> >>>> Michael >>>> >>>> I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. >>>> >>>> Ed >>>> >>>> On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael < glassman.13@osu.edu > wrote: >>>> >>>> Hi Greg and Andy, >>>> >>>> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. >>>> >>>> Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. >>>> >>>> Michael >>>> >>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden >>>> Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie >>>> >>>> A few comments Greg. >>>> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. >>>> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. >>>> Andy >>>> Andy Blunden >>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >>>> Hello all, >>>> >>>> I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. >>>> >>>> I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. >>>> >>>> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >>>> >>>> -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. >>>> >>>> -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. >>>> >>>> -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/52d76998/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Wed Sep 26 20:28:51 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2018 13:28:51 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: <1429370E-E9AB-4F0B-BF4D-CF7135C81019@gmail.com> References: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> <1429370E-E9AB-4F0B-BF4D-CF7135C81019@gmail.com> Message-ID: <6301dedc-2faa-2c3c-c237-794b92c56c04@marxists.org> Henry, I think that deploying concepts like /"perezhivanie" /or "experiences" in social and historical analysis just entails recognition that transformative experiences are collective, shared experiences; movements are formed and transformed by shared experiences (this idea goes back to Herder) and consequently, so are nations. Having recently read an oral history of the 1968 events in France (events which my generation shared whatever country you were in at the time), this is very clear. Experiences not only create and transform social movements, they transform the individual people at the same time. I think Vygotsky is widely interpreted as seeing perezhivaniya as happening "between people" but this is not yet quite the same thing. But I am not aware that either Vygotsky or Dewey explicitly treated this theme. Are you? Andy ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 27/09/2018 12:50 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > Thanks, Mike! > For sure analog/digital is a sidebar. Got lost in the weeds. > > But I do have something that I think germane to the > subject line, a question really: How does Dewey connect > experience and democracy? And how about Vygotsky? In fact, > would anyone point me to ways in which Dewey and Vygotsky > connect experience/perrizhvanie (mass/countable) and > democracy, or whatever form of government applies? I > despair sometimes about the future of democracy. Has it > ever had a present? I hope I?m not getting into weeds > where no one wants to go. Or maybe it?s so obvious, it > doesn?t bear wasting words? > Henry > > >> On Sep 26, 2018, at 8:24 PM, Greg Mcverry >> > >> wrote: >> >> Yes sorry my use of analog v digital sidetracked thread. >> >> I spent some time considering how drastic a change to my >> methodology I would have to make to for switch to Dewey >> and experiencing. >> >> I really don't consider the web, for those who inhabit >> it, as an artifact. it is both the act of identity >> creation and identity itself. A dance of the selves in a >> networked world. A living part of who many people are. >> >> A piece of my MEs that is shaped by me and outside interest. >> >> I >> >> On Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 9:30 PM Andy Blunden >> > wrote: >> >> I found "Having an experience" the most useful. >> >> https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm >> >> Andy >> >> ------------------------------------------------------------ >> Andy Blunden >> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >> On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: >>> I would be helped in following this interesting >>> discussion if people brought it back to >>> /perezhivanie /. It is my reading of the recent >>> special issue on perezhivanie that there is no firm >>> agreement on its meaning. My unease was evoked when >>> I read a note where the word perezhivanie had been >>> replaced by the word experience. When I read the >>> word experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not >>> Stanislavsky, not Vsiliuk. >>> >>> Mike >>> PS >>> What is the best discussion of experience and >>> perezhivanie that covers a lot of Dewey, >>> particularly ?/Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out >>> there, speak up!/ >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall >>> > wrote: >>> >>> Henry >>> >>> Interesting subject. I have always thought >>> Newton somewhat more ?digital? and Leibnitz >>> somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals >>> which Robinson much latter put on a firm >>> mathematical basis) in how they, in essence, >>> treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few >>> calculus texts that do use Leibnitz?s method and >>> there are some arguments that, mathematically >>> speaking, extensions of his method (due, in >>> part, to Robinson) bring some things into view >>> that may be hard to see otherwise. >>> >>> Ed >>> >>> >>>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD >>>> >>> > wrote: >>>> >>>> It took me a long time to understand the >>>> calculus, because I couldn?t "get" the limit >>>> theorem, which allows for a way to use digital >>>> means to arrive quickly at >>>> as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates >>>> of change (in differential calculus) and sums >>>> (in integral calculus) than would be possible >>>> and/or practical with analog means of counting >>>> and measuring. Without such quickly gotten >>>> precision, modern engineering would be >>>> impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz >>>> discovered the calculs independently and at the >>>> same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the >>>> calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a >>>> history, it seems, that adds to the issue of >>>> concept and a word for the concept. >>>> Henry >>>> >>>>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael >>>>> >>>> > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Hi Ed, >>>>> >>>>> This is a kind of interesting topic, including >>>>> from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on >>>>> this is relatively superficial. Bruce >>>>> Robinson made a really good point to me ? also >>>>> in your message ? that analog computers were >>>>> better for things like differential equations >>>>> and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But >>>>> that when it came to information processing >>>>> digital was far superior. My thinking though >>>>> from the cultural perspective is that analog >>>>> thinking is more representative of the way >>>>> humans actually think, at least the way I >>>>> believe they think. The big argument I have >>>>> with information processing is that the >>>>> argument is that the way the computer works >>>>> (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human >>>>> mind. But I wonder how much of the direction >>>>> our society has gone in the last thirty years, >>>>> with the timed testing using multiple choice >>>>> questions, if we are attempting to make the >>>>> human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a >>>>> friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of >>>>> years told me recently, they are beginning to >>>>> wonder if the computer is not training the >>>>> human. I had wondered if we had gone the >>>>> analog route (and right now I think I?m >>>>> agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if >>>>> we might have gone in another direction, a >>>>> more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just >>>>> rambling on a Tuesday morning. >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> >>>> > *On >>>>> Behalf Of *Edward Wall >>>>> *Sent:* Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM >>>>> *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity >>>>> >>>> > >>>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame >>>>> studies of the web through perezhivanie >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> I don?t know if my comments are germane >>>>> to your discussion of digital and analog, but >>>>> I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end >>>>> of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense >>>>> to me; however from where I was sitting there >>>>> were some nuances. In those years there were, >>>>> in effect, two kinds of computing using >>>>> ?computers?: information processing and >>>>> scientific computing. Both of these had an >>>>> analog history stretching far back. >>>>> Information processing was, in a sense, >>>>> initially mechanical, a mechanical that became >>>>> driven by electronics and eventually with the >>>>> advent of various graphic devices (I include >>>>> printers of various kinds) became what we see >>>>> today. The situation with scientific computing >>>>> was a little different as it has even a richer >>>>> analog history. Initially, electronic analog >>>>> devices had the upper hand because they could, >>>>> in effect, operate in real time. However, as >>>>> the digital devices became faster and faster, >>>>> it became possible to, in effect, simulate an >>>>> analog device on a digital machine and >>>>> pragmatically the simulation was ?good >>>>> enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic >>>>> reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? >>>>> In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that >>>>> of audio reproduction or using mathematics to >>>>> model physical reality; it is amazingly >>>>> effective. The battle, by the way, is still >>>>> going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play >>>>> music a little louder, the increase is done in >>>>> a digital fashion. If I turn the volume >>>>> control on one of the original versionsit is >>>>> done in an analog fashion. So I think you are >>>>> right, the digital path doesn?t completely >>>>> reproduce the analog path. >>>>> >>>>> >>>>> Ed >>>>> >>>>> On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, >>>>> Michael >>>> > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Hi Greg and Andy, >>>>> >>>>> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, >>>>> is might be more worthwhile to focus on >>>>> the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience >>>>> rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really >>>>> have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t >>>>> even really spell it. But if you used >>>>> Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web >>>>> becomes both artefact and event in our >>>>> actions. Dewey makes the argument >>>>> multiple times I think that we cannot >>>>> really know our tools outside of our >>>>> experience in using them, and that in >>>>> attempting to separate them we are >>>>> diminishing the meaning of both in our >>>>> lives. So I think experience actually >>>>> would be a good way to describe what you >>>>> are trying to do. >>>>> >>>>> Oh, also another take on analog and >>>>> digital. There was a battle between >>>>> digital and analogous in computing but my >>>>> own reading of the history is that had >>>>> more to do with how we treated how >>>>> computers processed information and solved >>>>> problems. I believe the crux of the >>>>> battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. >>>>> Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me >>>>> included) consider the father of both the >>>>> Internet and the Web (well maybe a more >>>>> distant father but the actual name web is >>>>> based on one of his ideas I think, web of >>>>> trails) was working on the idea of an >>>>> analogous computer in the late forties. I >>>>> am sure others were as well. The >>>>> difference as I understand it is whether >>>>> we wanted to treat the processing of >>>>> information as analogous (sort of a linear >>>>> logic) where one piece of information >>>>> built off another piece working towards an >>>>> answer or whether we wanted to treat >>>>> information as a series of yes no >>>>> questions leading to a solution (digital >>>>> referring to the use of 0 and one as yes >>>>> and no, although I always mix that up. >>>>> Digital became dominant for a lot of >>>>> reasons, not the least of which is because >>>>> it is more precise and efficient but it is >>>>> also far more limited. I often wonder >>>>> what would have happened if we had >>>>> followed Bush?s intuition). There are >>>>> analog and digital circuits of course, but >>>>> at least in the early history of the >>>>> computer I don?t believe that was the >>>>> primary discussion in the use of these >>>>> terms. Of course that?s just my reading. >>>>> >>>>> Michael >>>>> >>>>> *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> > *On >>>>> Behalf Of *Andy Blunden >>>>> *Sent:* Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >>>>> *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>> >>>>> *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame >>>>> studies of the web through perezhivanie >>>>> >>>>> A few comments Greg. >>>>> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, >>>>> yes?) is an *artefact *not events; each >>>>> unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a >>>>> perezhivaniye as such; it is important not >>>>> to conflate events and artefacts; just as >>>>> an historian has to know that what they >>>>> see are traces of real events, not the >>>>> events as such. What you do with that >>>>> evidence is something again. >>>>> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean >>>>> "original" or "real"; it means the >>>>> opposite of reality. The terms "digital" >>>>> and "analog" originate from the 1960s when >>>>> there were two types of computer. Analog >>>>> computers emulate natural processes by >>>>> representing natural processes in >>>>> analogous electronic circuits based on the >>>>> calculus. In the end digital computers won >>>>> an almost complete victory, but for >>>>> example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic >>>>> ear uses analog computing to achieve >>>>> real-time coding of speech, or at least it >>>>> did when I knew it in the 1980s. >>>>> Andy >>>>> ------------------------------------------------------------ >>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >>>>> >>>>> Hello all, >>>>> >>>>> I have been spending time this summer >>>>> reading up on the concept of >>>>> perezhivanie after our article >>>>> discussion on identify of funds. >>>>> >>>>> I wanted to share a draft of my >>>>> theoretical perspectie for feedback. >>>>> Granted due to word count it will >>>>> probably be reduced to a paragraph or >>>>> two with drive by citations but I am >>>>> trying to think this through to inform >>>>> my design. >>>>> >>>>> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >>>>> >>>>> -I got a little feedback but from >>>>> Russian scholars in other fields >>>>> (literature mainly) that I missed the >>>>> meaning by being too neutral and I >>>>> needed to get at "growing from one's >>>>> misery" or another person said >>>>> "brooding over the bad stuff that >>>>> happened that makes you who you are" >>>>> So I want to make sure I capture the >>>>> struggle. >>>>> >>>>> -I am not diving into this now but I >>>>> am also considering the identify and >>>>> culture of a local web and how that >>>>> plays out into how we shapes funds of >>>>> identity as we create online spaces. >>>>> >>>>> -Finally is applying this lens with >>>>> adult learners not appropriate? What >>>>> does it mean when you actively want to >>>>> tweak the environment of learners to >>>>> reduce experiencing as struggle and >>>>> increase experience as contemplation. >>>>> >>>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180927/8be7e12d/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Wed Sep 26 20:57:56 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2018 21:57:56 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: <6301dedc-2faa-2c3c-c237-794b92c56c04@marxists.org> References: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> <1429370E-E9AB-4F0B-BF4D-CF7135C81019@gmail.com> <6301dedc-2faa-2c3c-c237-794b92c56c04@marxists.org> Message-ID: <8C5AB18A-87CC-42B8-B292-CC454A50B946@gmail.com> No, Andy. The reason I asked the question is because I was listening to a podcast of Sam Harris (neuroscientist/philosopher) interviewing Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli academic who wrote two very popular books: Sapiens, about the history of humans, and Homo Deus, about our future. (Interestingly, the editor of the piece from Dewey you linked us to remarked on Dewey?s look to the future.) Someone in the audience to the interview during a Q&A asked the question as to whether democracy will be viable in a future where specialized elites are, more and more, the only ones able to solve the problems of planet earth. Harari?s response was that solutions require elites (elite pilot, elite surgeon, etc.). We all want elites. But goals should reflect the experiences of everybody, not just of the elites. Hence, democracy may be messy, but the best thing going. Your description of movements and transformation makes total sense to me and would not contradict Harari, I think. As far as whether Vygotsky and Dewey have addressed my question, I would bet they did address it for their time. But nuclear weaponry, climate change and artifical intelligence didn?t exist then. Harari, in Homo Deus, seems to be addressing the question for our time. What do you think? Henry > On Sep 26, 2018, at 9:28 PM, Andy Blunden wrote: > > Henry, I think that deploying concepts like "perezhivanie" or "experiences" in social and historical analysis just entails recognition that transformative experiences are collective, shared experiences; movements are formed and transformed by shared experiences (this idea goes back to Herder) and consequently, so are nations. Having recently read an oral history of the 1968 events in France (events which my generation shared whatever country you were in at the time), this is very clear. Experiences not only create and transform social movements, they transform the individual people at the same time. I think Vygotsky is widely interpreted as seeing perezhivaniya as happening "between people" but this is not yet quite the same thing. > But I am not aware that either Vygotsky or Dewey explicitly treated this theme. Are you? > > Andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 27/09/2018 12:50 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: >> Thanks, Mike! >> For sure analog/digital is a sidebar. Got lost in the weeds. >> >> But I do have something that I think germane to the subject line, a question really: How does Dewey connect experience and democracy? And how about Vygotsky? In fact, would anyone point me to ways in which Dewey and Vygotsky connect experience/perrizhvanie (mass/countable) and democracy, or whatever form of government applies? I despair sometimes about the future of democracy. Has it ever had a present? I hope I?m not getting into weeds where no one wants to go. Or maybe it?s so obvious, it doesn?t bear wasting words? >> Henry >> >> >>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 8:24 PM, Greg Mcverry > wrote: >>> >>> Yes sorry my use of analog v digital sidetracked thread. >>> >>> I spent some time considering how drastic a change to my methodology I would have to make to for switch to Dewey and experiencing. >>> >>> I really don't consider the web, for those who inhabit it, as an artifact. it is both the act of identity creation and identity itself. A dance of the selves in a networked world. A living part of who many people are. >>> >>> A piece of my MEs that is shaped by me and outside interest. >>> >>> I >>> >>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 9:30 PM Andy Blunden > wrote: >>> I found "Having an experience" the most useful. >>> >>> https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm >>> Andy >>> Andy Blunden >>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>> On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: >>>> I would be helped in following this interesting discussion if people brought it back to perezhivanie . It is my reading of the recent special issue on perezhivanie that there is no firm agreement on its meaning. My unease was evoked when I read a note where the word perezhivanie had been replaced by the word experience. When I read the word experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, not Vsiliuk. >>>> >>>> Mike >>>> PS >>>> What is the best discussion of experience and perezhivanie that covers a lot of Dewey, particularly ?Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out there, speak up! >>>> >>>> On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall < ewall@umich.edu > wrote: >>>> Henry >>>> >>>> Interesting subject. I have always thought Newton somewhat more ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which Robinson much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how they, in essence, treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few calculus texts that do use Leibnitz?s method and there are some arguments that, mathematically speaking, extensions of his method (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some things into view that may be hard to see otherwise. >>>> >>>> Ed >>>> >>>> >>>>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD > wrote: >>>>> >>>>> It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. >>>>> Henry >>>>> >>>>>> On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael < glassman.13@osu.edu > wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Ed, >>>>>> >>>>>> This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. >>>>>> >>>>>> Michael >>>>>> >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Edward Wall >>>>>> Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM >>>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity < xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie >>>>>> >>>>>> Michael >>>>>> >>>>>> I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. >>>>>> >>>>>> Ed >>>>>> >>>>>> On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael < glassman.13@osu.edu > wrote: >>>>>> >>>>>> Hi Greg and Andy, >>>>>> >>>>>> I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. >>>>>> >>>>>> Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. >>>>>> >>>>>> Michael >>>>>> >>>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu < xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden >>>>>> Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM >>>>>> To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu >>>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie >>>>>> >>>>>> A few comments Greg. >>>>>> It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. >>>>>> Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. >>>>>> Andy >>>>>> Andy Blunden >>>>>> http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm >>>>>> On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: >>>>>> Hello all, >>>>>> >>>>>> I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. >>>>>> >>>>>> I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. >>>>>> >>>>>> https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html >>>>>> >>>>>> -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. >>>>>> >>>>>> -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. >>>>>> >>>>>> -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. >>>>> >>>> >>> >> > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180926/958b8c3d/attachment.html From glassman.13@osu.edu Thu Sep 27 06:01:24 2018 From: glassman.13@osu.edu (Glassman, Michael) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2018 13:01:24 +0000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: <8C5AB18A-87CC-42B8-B292-CC454A50B946@gmail.com> References: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> <1429370E-E9AB-4F0B-BF4D-CF7135C81019@gmail.com> <6301dedc-2faa-2c3c-c237-794b92c56c04@marxists.org> <8C5AB18A-87CC-42B8-B292-CC454A50B946@gmail.com> Message-ID: Hi Henry, I?m not sure about perezhivanie and I too would be really interested in hearing more about it in this discussion as I would like to have a better understanding (I know, I should go read the special issue, I have put in my queue but I am not sure when I?ll get there). As far as experience is concerned I think this is a large part of Dewey?s lifelong project. Democracy for Dewey is not a form of government but a form of human association. A key question is how we both bring experience and treat experience in human association and use it in that association. I think he would say for instance giving the experience of the elites special value and falling into the habits of simply following elites because they have been given that position by society (and he gives general reasons why we do that) is inherently undemocratic. Democratic association means treating experience of all individuals experience as equal as we approach the problem and then treat the problem itself as vital experience (focus on the problem solving itself rather than falling in to specific roles). So how does this work, because some people have more experience in certain areas than others ? well it is being open to that, but only if the experience actually does help in solving the problem. Very often the people society deem elites are not good at all at solving the problem. I was discussing this with some doctors in medical education and initially they were having a hard time with this. What we came to is the recognition that at times (no agreement on how many times) this works against the goals of education. If doctors believe they know and are the best ones to solve the problems they can make very bad mistakes. They should be taught from the beginning at least to bring the patient into the process, but if it is a problem that goes beyond habit to bring it in to a community of doctors with different types of experience and engage each other in democratic association. One other thing. Same Harris? Really? A member of the (play ominous music) a member of the ?Intellectual Dark Web? ? Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 11:58 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie No, Andy. The reason I asked the question is because I was listening to a podcast of Sam Harris (neuroscientist/philosopher) interviewing Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli academic who wrote two very popular books: Sapiens, about the history of humans, and Homo Deus, about our future. (Interestingly, the editor of the piece from Dewey you linked us to remarked on Dewey?s look to the future.) Someone in the audience to the interview during a Q&A asked the question as to whether democracy will be viable in a future where specialized elites are, more and more, the only ones able to solve the problems of planet earth. Harari?s response was that solutions require elites (elite pilot, elite surgeon, etc.). We all want elites. But goals should reflect the experiences of everybody, not just of the elites. Hence, democracy may be messy, but the best thing going. Your description of movements and transformation makes total sense to me and would not contradict Harari, I think. As far as whether Vygotsky and Dewey have addressed my question, I would bet they did address it for their time. But nuclear weaponry, climate change and artifical intelligence didn?t exist then. Harari, in Homo Deus, seems to be addressing the question for our time. What do you think? Henry On Sep 26, 2018, at 9:28 PM, Andy Blunden > wrote: Henry, I think that deploying concepts like "perezhivanie" or "experiences" in social and historical analysis just entails recognition that transformative experiences are collective, shared experiences; movements are formed and transformed by shared experiences (this idea goes back to Herder) and consequently, so are nations. Having recently read an oral history of the 1968 events in France (events which my generation shared whatever country you were in at the time), this is very clear. Experiences not only create and transform social movements, they transform the individual people at the same time. I think Vygotsky is widely interpreted as seeing perezhivaniya as happening "between people" but this is not yet quite the same thing. But I am not aware that either Vygotsky or Dewey explicitly treated this theme. Are you? Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 27/09/2018 12:50 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: Thanks, Mike! For sure analog/digital is a sidebar. Got lost in the weeds. But I do have something that I think germane to the subject line, a question really: How does Dewey connect experience and democracy? And how about Vygotsky? In fact, would anyone point me to ways in which Dewey and Vygotsky connect experience/perrizhvanie (mass/countable) and democracy, or whatever form of government applies? I despair sometimes about the future of democracy. Has it ever had a present? I hope I?m not getting into weeds where no one wants to go. Or maybe it?s so obvious, it doesn?t bear wasting words? Henry On Sep 26, 2018, at 8:24 PM, Greg Mcverry > wrote: Yes sorry my use of analog v digital sidetracked thread. I spent some time considering how drastic a change to my methodology I would have to make to for switch to Dewey and experiencing. I really don't consider the web, for those who inhabit it, as an artifact. it is both the act of identity creation and identity itself. A dance of the selves in a networked world. A living part of who many people are. A piece of my MEs that is shaped by me and outside interest. I On Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 9:30 PM Andy Blunden > wrote: I found "Having an experience" the most useful. https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: I would be helped in following this interesting discussion if people brought it back to perezhivanie . It is my reading of the recent special issue on perezhivanie that there is no firm agreement on its meaning. My unease was evoked when I read a note where the word perezhivanie had been replaced by the word experience. When I read the word experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, not Vsiliuk. Mike PS What is the best discussion of experience and perezhivanie that covers a lot of Dewey, particularly ?Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out there, speak up! On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall > wrote: Henry Interesting subject. I have always thought Newton somewhat more ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which Robinson much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how they, in essence, treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few calculus texts that do use Leibnitz?s method and there are some arguments that, mathematically speaking, extensions of his method (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some things into view that may be hard to see otherwise. Ed On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD > wrote: It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. Henry On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: Hi Ed, This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Edward Wall Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie Michael I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. Ed On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: Hi Greg and Andy, I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. Michael From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie A few comments Greg. It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. Andy ________________________________ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: Hello all, I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180927/61be8791/attachment.html From andyb@marxists.org Thu Sep 27 06:12:58 2018 From: andyb@marxists.org (Andy Blunden) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2018 23:12:58 +1000 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> <1429370E-E9AB-4F0B-BF4D-CF7135C81019@gmail.com> <6301dedc-2faa-2c3c-c237-794b92c56c04@marxists.org> <8C5AB18A-87CC-42B8-B292-CC454A50B946@gmail.com> Message-ID: <25112e98-d3db-1c51-8554-20edc5e61bda@marxists.org> Michael, Myles Horton would say that you (the citizen, the student, whatever) are the expert in your own experience. However, you don't necessarily have the expertise needed to solve the problems which arise from your experience. The thing is to learn how to analyse your own experience. Andy. ------------------------------------------------------------ Andy Blunden http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm On 27/09/2018 11:01 PM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > > Hi Henry, > > > > I?m not sure about /perezhivanie /and I too would be > really interested in hearing more about it in this > discussion as I would like to have a better understanding > (I know, I should go read the special issue, I have put in > my queue but I am not sure when I?ll get there). As far > as experience is concerned I think this is a large part of > Dewey?s lifelong project. Democracy for Dewey is not a > form of government but a form of human association. A key > question is how we both bring experience and treat > experience in human association and use it in that > association. I think he would say for instance giving the > experience of the elites special value and falling into > the habits of simply following elites because they have > been given that position by society (and he gives general > reasons why we do that) is inherently undemocratic. > Democratic association means treating experience of all > individuals experience as equal as we approach the problem > and then treat the problem itself as vital experience > (focus on the problem solving itself rather than falling > in to specific roles). So how does this work, because > some people have more experience in certain areas than > others ? well it is being open to that, but only if the > experience actually does help in solving the problem. Very > often the people society deem elites are not good at all > at solving the problem. I was discussing this with some > doctors in medical education and initially they were > having a hard time with this. What we came to is the > recognition that at times (no agreement on how many times) > this works against the goals of education. If doctors > believe they know and are the best ones to solve the > problems they can make very bad mistakes. They should be > taught from the beginning at least to bring the patient > into the process, but if it is a problem that goes beyond > habit to bring it in to a community of doctors with > different types of experience and engage each other in > democratic association. > > > > One other thing. Same Harris? Really? A member of the > (play ominous music) a member of the ?Intellectual Dark Web? ? > > > > Michael > > > > *From:*xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > *On Behalf Of *HENRY SHONERD > *Sent:* Wednesday, September 26, 2018 11:58 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web > through perezhivanie > > > > No, Andy. > > > > The reason I asked the question is because I was > listening to a podcast of Sam Harris > (neuroscientist/philosopher) interviewing Yuval Noah > Harari, an Israeli academic who wrote two very popular > books: Sapiens, about the history of humans, and Homo > Deus, about our future. (Interestingly, the editor of the > piece from Dewey you linked us to remarked on Dewey?s look > to the future.) Someone in the audience to the interview > during a Q&A asked the question as to whether democracy > will be viable in a future where specialized elites are, > more and more, the only ones able to solve the problems of > planet earth. Harari?s response was that solutions require > elites (elite pilot, elite surgeon, etc.). We all want > elites. But goals should reflect the experiences of > everybody, not just of the elites. Hence, democracy may be > messy, but the best thing going. Your description of > movements and transformation makes total sense to me and > would not contradict Harari, I think. As far as whether > Vygotsky and Dewey have addressed my question, I would bet > they did address it for their time. But nuclear weaponry, > climate change and artifical intelligence didn?t exist > then. Harari, in Homo Deus, seems to be addressing the > question for our time. What do you think? > > Henry > > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 9:28 PM, Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > > > Henry, I think that deploying concepts like > /"perezhivanie" /or "experiences" in social and > historical analysis just entails recognition that > transformative experiences are collective, shared > experiences; movements are formed and transformed by > shared experiences (this idea goes back to Herder) and > consequently, so are nations. Having recently read an > oral history of the 1968 events in France (events > which my generation shared whatever country you were > in at the time), this is very clear. Experiences not > only create and transform social movements, they > transform the individual people at the same time. I > think Vygotsky is widely interpreted as seeing > perezhivaniya as happening "between people" but this > is not yet quite the same thing. > > But I am not aware that either Vygotsky or Dewey > explicitly treated this theme. Are you? > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 27/09/2018 12:50 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > > Thanks, Mike! > > For sure analog/digital is a sidebar. Got lost in > the weeds. > > > > But I do have something that I think germane to > the subject line, a question really: How does > Dewey connect experience and democracy? And how > about Vygotsky? In fact, would anyone point me to > ways in which Dewey and Vygotsky connect > experience/perrizhvanie (mass/countable) and > democracy, or whatever form of government applies? > I despair sometimes about the future of democracy. > Has it ever had a present? I hope I?m not getting > into weeds where no one wants to go. Or maybe it?s > so obvious, it doesn?t bear wasting words? > > Henry > > > > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 8:24 PM, Greg Mcverry > > wrote: > > > > Yes sorry my use of analog v digital > sidetracked thread. > > > > I spent some time considering how drastic a > change to my methodology I would have to make > to for switch to Dewey and experiencing. > > > > I really don't consider the web, for those who > inhabit it, as an artifact. it is both the act > of identity creation and identity itself. A > dance of the selves in a networked world. A > living part of who many people are. > > > > A piece of my MEs that is shaped by me and > outside interest. > > > > I > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 9:30 PM Andy Blunden > > wrote: > > I found "Having an experience" the most > useful. > > https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > > On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: > > I would be helped in following this > interesting discussion if people > brought it back to /perezhivanie /. It > is my reading of the recent special > issue on perezhivanie that there is no > firm agreement on its meaning. My > unease was evoked when I read a note > where the word perezhivanie had been > replaced by the word experience. When > I read the word experience I think > Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, > not Vsiliuk. > > > > Mike > > PS > > What is the best discussion of > experience and perezhivanie that > covers a lot of Dewey, particularly > ?/Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out > there, speak up!/ > > > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward > Wall > wrote: > > Henry > > > > Interesting subject. I have > always thought Newton somewhat > more ?digital? and Leibnitz > somewhat more ?analog? (he used > infinitesimals which Robinson much > latter put on a firm mathematical > basis) in how they, in essence, > treat something like a point. I?ve > seen a few calculus texts that do > use Leibnitz?s method and there > are some arguments that, > mathematically speaking, > extensions of his method (due, in > part, to Robinson) bring some > things into view that may be hard > to see otherwise. > > > > Ed > > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, > HENRY SHONERD > > > wrote: > > > > It took me a long time to > understand the calculus, > because I couldn?t "get" the > limit theorem, which allows > for a way to use digital means > to arrive quickly at > as-precise-as-you-like > approximations of rates of > change (in differential > calculus) and sums (in > integral calculus) than would > be possible and/or practical > with analog means of counting > and measuring. Without such > quickly gotten precision, > modern engineering would be > impossible. I thought that > Newton and Leibnitz discovered > the calculs independently and > at the same time, but a quick > look at the wiki on the > calculus is much more complex > than that. It?s a history, it > seems, that adds to the issue > of concept and a word for the > concept. > > Henry > > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 > AM, Glassman, Michael > > > wrote: > > > > Hi Ed, > > > > This is a kind of > interesting topic, > including from a cultural > perspective. My knowledge > on this is relatively > superficial. Bruce > Robinson made a really > good point to me ? also in > your message ? that analog > computers were better for > things like differential > equations and more pure > mathematic stuff (I > think). But that when it > came to information > processing digital was far > superior. My thinking > though from the cultural > perspective is that analog > thinking is more > representative of the way > humans actually think, at > least the way I believe > they think. The big > argument I have with > information processing is > that the argument is that > the way the computer works > (mostly software) is > isomorphic to the human > mind. But I wonder how > much of the direction our > society has gone in the > last thirty years, with > the timed testing using > multiple choice questions, > if we are attempting to > make the human mind > isomorphic to the > computer. As a friend who > has worked at IBM for a > lot of years told me > recently, they are > beginning to wonder if the > computer is not training > the human. I had wondered > if we had gone the analog > route (and right now I > think I?m agreeing with > Bruce, but I change > quickly) if we might have > gone in another direction, > a more pure human-computer > symbiosis. Just rambling > on a Tuesday morning. > > > > Michael > > > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > *On > Behalf Of *Edward Wall > *Sent:* Tuesday, September > 25, 2018 3:11 PM > *To:* eXtended Mind, > Culture, Activity > > > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] Re: > Trying to frame studies of > the web through perezhivanie > > > > Michael > > > > I don?t know if my > comments are germane to > your discussion of digital > and analog, but I was > involved in the 60s > towards the tail end of > the ?competition'. Your > reading makes sense to me; > however from where I was > sitting there were some > nuances. In those years > there were, in effect, > two kinds of computing > using ?computers?: > information processing and > scientific computing. Both > of these had an analog > history stretching far > back. Information > processing was, in a > sense, initially > mechanical, a mechanical > that became driven by > electronics and eventually > with the advent of various > graphic devices (I include > printers of various kinds) > became what we see today. > The situation with > scientific computing was a > little different as it has > even a richer analog > history. Initially, > electronic analog devices > had the upper hand because > they could, in effect, > operate in real time. > However, as the digital > devices became faster and > faster, it became possible > to, in effect, simulate an > analog device on a digital > machine and pragmatically > the simulation was ?good > enough.? Thus for, in a > sense, economic reasons > digital ?computers? won > the ?battle.? In a way the > evolution is reminiscent > of that of audio > reproduction or using > mathematics to model > physical reality; it is > amazingly effective. The > battle, by the way, is > still going on. If I tell > the Amazon Alexa to play > music a little louder, the > increase is done in a > digital fashion. If I turn > the volume control on one > of the original versionsit > is done in an analog > fashion. So I think you > are right, the digital > path doesn?t completely > reproduce the analog path. > > > > Ed > > On Sep 22, 2018, at > 9:46 AM, Glassman, > Michael > > > wrote: > > > > Hi Greg and Andy, > > > > I wonder if, based on > what Andy has said, is > might be more > worthwhile to focus on > the Web as (Dewey?s > ideas on) experience > rather > than perezhivaniye. I > don?t really have a > good grasp on > perezhivaniye, can?t > even really spell it. > But if you used > Dewey?s ideas on > experience the Web > becomes both artefact > and event in our > actions. Dewey makes > the argument multiple > times I think that we > cannot really know our > tools outside of our > experience in using > them, and that in > attempting to separate > them we are > diminishing the > meaning of both in our > lives. So I think > experience actually > would be a good way to > describe what you are > trying to do. > > > > Oh, also another take > on analog and > digital. There was a > battle between digital > and analogous in > computing but my own > reading of the history > is that had more to do > with how we treated > how computers > processed information > and solved problems. > I believe the crux of > the battle was a bit > earlier than the > 1960s. Actually > Vannevar Bush who some > (me included) consider > the father of both the > Internet and the Web > (well maybe a more > distant father but the > actual name web is > based on one of his > ideas I think, web of > trails) was working on > the idea of an > analogous computer in > the late forties. I am > sure others were as > well. The difference > as I understand it is > whether we wanted to > treat the processing > of information as > analogous (sort of a > linear logic) where > one piece of > information built off > another piece working > towards an answer or > whether we wanted to > treat information as a > series of yes no > questions leading to a > solution (digital > referring to the use > of 0 and one as yes > and no, although I > always mix that up. > Digital became > dominant for a lot of > reasons, not the least > of which is because it > is more precise and > efficient but it is > also far more > limited. I often > wonder what would have > happened if we had > followed Bush?s > intuition). There are > analog and digital > circuits of course, > but at least in the > early history of the > computer I don?t > believe that was the > primary discussion in > the use of these > terms. Of course > that?s just my reading. > > > > Michael > > > > *From:* xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > > *On > Behalf Of *Andy Blunden > *Sent:* Friday, > September 21, 2018 9:46 PM > *To:* xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > > *Subject:* [Xmca-l] > Re: Trying to frame > studies of the web > through perezhivanie > > > > A few comments Greg. > > It seems to me that > the web (i.w., www, > yes?) is > an *artefact *not > events; each unit is a > trace of perezhivaniya > not a perezhivaniye as > such; it is important > not to conflate events > and artefacts; just as > an historian has to > know that what they > see are traces of real > events, not the events > as such. What you do > with that evidence is > something again. > > Just by-the-by, > "analog" does not mean > "original" or "real"; > it means the opposite > of reality. The terms > "digital" and "analog" > originate from the > 1960s when there were > two types of computer. > Analog computers > emulate natural > processes by > representing natural > processes in analogous > electronic circuits > based on the calculus. > In the end digital > computers won an > almost complete > victory, but for > example, if I'm not > mistaken, the bionic > ear uses analog > computing to achieve > real-time coding of > speech, or at least it > did when I knew it in > the 1980s. > > Andy > > ------------------------------------------------------------ > > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > > On 22/09/2018 12:57 > AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > > Hello all, > > > > I have been > spending time this > summer reading up > on the concept of > perezhivanie after > our article > discussion on > identify of funds. > > > > I wanted to share > a draft of my > theoretical > perspectie for > feedback. Granted > due to word count > it will probably > be reduced to a > paragraph or two > with drive by > citations but I am > trying to think > this through to > inform my design. > > > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > > > -I got a little > feedback but from > Russian scholars > in other fields > (literature > mainly) that I > missed the meaning > by being too > neutral and I > needed to get at > "growing from > one's misery" or > another person > said "brooding > over the bad stuff > that happened that > makes you who you > are" So I want to > make sure I > capture the struggle. > > > > -I am not diving > into this now but > I am also > considering the > identify and > culture of a local > web and how that > plays out into how > we shapes funds of > identity as we > create online spaces. > > > > -Finally is > applying this lens > with adult > learners not > appropriate? What > does it mean when > you actively want > to tweak the > environment of > learners to reduce > experiencing as > struggle and > increase > experience as > contemplation. > > > > > > > > > > > > > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180927/a4e7834c/attachment.html From hshonerd@gmail.com Thu Sep 27 10:35:17 2018 From: hshonerd@gmail.com (HENRY SHONERD) Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2018 11:35:17 -0600 Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie In-Reply-To: References: <49b4998a-2b19-41bf-4ac0-deacf58ca6db@marxists.org> <1429370E-E9AB-4F0B-BF4D-CF7135C81019@gmail.com> <6301dedc-2faa-2c3c-c237-794b92c56c04@marxists.org> <8C5AB18A-87CC-42B8-B292-CC454A50B946@gmail.com> Message-ID: <3ACA3BB8-61B8-450F-987F-BAEFD65725F4@gmail.com> Hi Michael, First, yes Sam Harris of the ?intellectual dark web?. Harari was pushing back on the questioner?s implication that expertise trumped the vote. I think Harari was also pushing back on some things that Harris has said about the future of liberal democracy. What you say about medical education strikes home: My wife is a standardized patient (one who portrays patients) in the medical school at the Univ of New Mexico, a highly touted program that attempts to address the problems you describe. Unfortunately, I think I am still off topic, since I can?t figure how this relates to studies of the web through perezhivanie. Henry > On Sep 27, 2018, at 7:01 AM, Glassman, Michael wrote: > > Hi Henry, > > I?m not sure about perezhivanie and I too would be really interested in hearing more about it in this discussion as I would like to have a better understanding (I know, I should go read the special issue, I have put in my queue but I am not sure when I?ll get there). As far as experience is concerned I think this is a large part of Dewey?s lifelong project. Democracy for Dewey is not a form of government but a form of human association. A key question is how we both bring experience and treat experience in human association and use it in that association. I think he would say for instance giving the experience of the elites special value and falling into the habits of simply following elites because they have been given that position by society (and he gives general reasons why we do that) is inherently undemocratic. Democratic association means treating experience of all individuals experience as equal as we approach the problem and then treat the problem itself as vital experience (focus on the problem solving itself rather than falling in to specific roles). So how does this work, because some people have more experience in certain areas than others ? well it is being open to that, but only if the experience actually does help in solving the problem. Very often the people society deem elites are not good at all at solving the problem. I was discussing this with some doctors in medical education and initially they were having a hard time with this. What we came to is the recognition that at times (no agreement on how many times) this works against the goals of education. If doctors believe they know and are the best ones to solve the problems they can make very bad mistakes. They should be taught from the beginning at least to bring the patient into the process, but if it is a problem that goes beyond habit to bring it in to a community of doctors with different types of experience and engage each other in democratic association. > > One other thing. Same Harris? Really? A member of the (play ominous music) a member of the ?Intellectual Dark Web? ? > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of HENRY SHONERD > Sent: Wednesday, September 26, 2018 11:58 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > No, Andy. > > The reason I asked the question is because I was listening to a podcast of Sam Harris (neuroscientist/philosopher) interviewing Yuval Noah Harari, an Israeli academic who wrote two very popular books: Sapiens, about the history of humans, and Homo Deus, about our future. (Interestingly, the editor of the piece from Dewey you linked us to remarked on Dewey?s look to the future.) Someone in the audience to the interview during a Q&A asked the question as to whether democracy will be viable in a future where specialized elites are, more and more, the only ones able to solve the problems of planet earth. Harari?s response was that solutions require elites (elite pilot, elite surgeon, etc.). We all want elites. But goals should reflect the experiences of everybody, not just of the elites. Hence, democracy may be messy, but the best thing going. Your description of movements and transformation makes total sense to me and would not contradict Harari, I think. As far as whether Vygotsky and Dewey have addressed my question, I would bet they did address it for their time. But nuclear weaponry, climate change and artifical intelligence didn?t exist then. Harari, in Homo Deus, seems to be addressing the question for our time. What do you think? > Henry > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 9:28 PM, Andy Blunden > wrote: > > Henry, I think that deploying concepts like "perezhivanie" or "experiences" in social and historical analysis just entails recognition that transformative experiences are collective, shared experiences; movements are formed and transformed by shared experiences (this idea goes back to Herder) and consequently, so are nations. Having recently read an oral history of the 1968 events in France (events which my generation shared whatever country you were in at the time), this is very clear. Experiences not only create and transform social movements, they transform the individual people at the same time. I think Vygotsky is widely interpreted as seeing perezhivaniya as happening "between people" but this is not yet quite the same thing. > But I am not aware that either Vygotsky or Dewey explicitly treated this theme. Are you? > Andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 27/09/2018 12:50 PM, HENRY SHONERD wrote: > Thanks, Mike! > For sure analog/digital is a sidebar. Got lost in the weeds. > > But I do have something that I think germane to the subject line, a question really: How does Dewey connect experience and democracy? And how about Vygotsky? In fact, would anyone point me to ways in which Dewey and Vygotsky connect experience/perrizhvanie (mass/countable) and democracy, or whatever form of government applies? I despair sometimes about the future of democracy. Has it ever had a present? I hope I?m not getting into weeds where no one wants to go. Or maybe it?s so obvious, it doesn?t bear wasting words? > Henry > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 8:24 PM, Greg Mcverry > wrote: > > Yes sorry my use of analog v digital sidetracked thread. > > I spent some time considering how drastic a change to my methodology I would have to make to for switch to Dewey and experiencing. > > I really don't consider the web, for those who inhabit it, as an artifact. it is both the act of identity creation and identity itself. A dance of the selves in a networked world. A living part of who many people are. > > A piece of my MEs that is shaped by me and outside interest. > > I > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018, 9:30 PM Andy Blunden > wrote: > I found "Having an experience" the most useful. > https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/us/an-experience.htm > Andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 27/09/2018 10:52 AM, mike cole wrote: > I would be helped in following this interesting discussion if people brought it back to perezhivanie . It is my reading of the recent special issue on perezhivanie that there is no firm agreement on its meaning. My unease was evoked when I read a note where the word perezhivanie had been replaced by the word experience. When I read the word experience I think Dewey, not Vygotsky, not Stanislavsky, not Vsiliuk. > > Mike > PS > What is the best discussion of experience and perezhivanie that covers a lot of Dewey, particularly ?Art and Experience? ? Deweyites out there, speak up! > > On Wed, Sep 26, 2018 at 3:11 PM Edward Wall > wrote: > Henry > > Interesting subject. I have always thought Newton somewhat more ?digital? and Leibnitz somewhat more ?analog? (he used infinitesimals which Robinson much latter put on a firm mathematical basis) in how they, in essence, treat something like a point. I?ve seen a few calculus texts that do use Leibnitz?s method and there are some arguments that, mathematically speaking, extensions of his method (due, in part, to Robinson) bring some things into view that may be hard to see otherwise. > > Ed > > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 4:52 PM, HENRY SHONERD > wrote: > > It took me a long time to understand the calculus, because I couldn?t "get" the limit theorem, which allows for a way to use digital means to arrive quickly at as-precise-as-you-like approximations of rates of change (in differential calculus) and sums (in integral calculus) than would be possible and/or practical with analog means of counting and measuring. Without such quickly gotten precision, modern engineering would be impossible. I thought that Newton and Leibnitz discovered the calculs independently and at the same time, but a quick look at the wiki on the calculus is much more complex than that. It?s a history, it seems, that adds to the issue of concept and a word for the concept. > Henry > > On Sep 26, 2018, at 7:53 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: > > Hi Ed, > > This is a kind of interesting topic, including from a cultural perspective. My knowledge on this is relatively superficial. Bruce Robinson made a really good point to me ? also in your message ? that analog computers were better for things like differential equations and more pure mathematic stuff (I think). But that when it came to information processing digital was far superior. My thinking though from the cultural perspective is that analog thinking is more representative of the way humans actually think, at least the way I believe they think. The big argument I have with information processing is that the argument is that the way the computer works (mostly software) is isomorphic to the human mind. But I wonder how much of the direction our society has gone in the last thirty years, with the timed testing using multiple choice questions, if we are attempting to make the human mind isomorphic to the computer. As a friend who has worked at IBM for a lot of years told me recently, they are beginning to wonder if the computer is not training the human. I had wondered if we had gone the analog route (and right now I think I?m agreeing with Bruce, but I change quickly) if we might have gone in another direction, a more pure human-computer symbiosis. Just rambling on a Tuesday morning. > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Edward Wall > Sent: Tuesday, September 25, 2018 3:11 PM > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > Michael > > I don?t know if my comments are germane to your discussion of digital and analog, but I was involved in the 60s towards the tail end of the ?competition'. Your reading makes sense to me; however from where I was sitting there were some nuances. In those years there were, in effect, two kinds of computing using ?computers?: information processing and scientific computing. Both of these had an analog history stretching far back. Information processing was, in a sense, initially mechanical, a mechanical that became driven by electronics and eventually with the advent of various graphic devices (I include printers of various kinds) became what we see today. The situation with scientific computing was a little different as it has even a richer analog history. Initially, electronic analog devices had the upper hand because they could, in effect, operate in real time. However, as the digital devices became faster and faster, it became possible to, in effect, simulate an analog device on a digital machine and pragmatically the simulation was ?good enough.? Thus for, in a sense, economic reasons digital ?computers? won the ?battle.? In a way the evolution is reminiscent of that of audio reproduction or using mathematics to model physical reality; it is amazingly effective. The battle, by the way, is still going on. If I tell the Amazon Alexa to play music a little louder, the increase is done in a digital fashion. If I turn the volume control on one of the original versionsit is done in an analog fashion. So I think you are right, the digital path doesn?t completely reproduce the analog path. > > Ed > On Sep 22, 2018, at 9:46 AM, Glassman, Michael > wrote: > > Hi Greg and Andy, > > I wonder if, based on what Andy has said, is might be more worthwhile to focus on the Web as (Dewey?s ideas on) experience rather than perezhivaniye. I don?t really have a good grasp on perezhivaniye, can?t even really spell it. But if you used Dewey?s ideas on experience the Web becomes both artefact and event in our actions. Dewey makes the argument multiple times I think that we cannot really know our tools outside of our experience in using them, and that in attempting to separate them we are diminishing the meaning of both in our lives. So I think experience actually would be a good way to describe what you are trying to do. > > Oh, also another take on analog and digital. There was a battle between digital and analogous in computing but my own reading of the history is that had more to do with how we treated how computers processed information and solved problems. I believe the crux of the battle was a bit earlier than the 1960s. Actually Vannevar Bush who some (me included) consider the father of both the Internet and the Web (well maybe a more distant father but the actual name web is based on one of his ideas I think, web of trails) was working on the idea of an analogous computer in the late forties. I am sure others were as well. The difference as I understand it is whether we wanted to treat the processing of information as analogous (sort of a linear logic) where one piece of information built off another piece working towards an answer or whether we wanted to treat information as a series of yes no questions leading to a solution (digital referring to the use of 0 and one as yes and no, although I always mix that up. Digital became dominant for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is because it is more precise and efficient but it is also far more limited. I often wonder what would have happened if we had followed Bush?s intuition). There are analog and digital circuits of course, but at least in the early history of the computer I don?t believe that was the primary discussion in the use of these terms. Of course that?s just my reading. > > Michael > > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu > On Behalf Of Andy Blunden > Sent: Friday, September 21, 2018 9:46 PM > To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie > > A few comments Greg. > It seems to me that the web (i.w., www, yes?) is an artefact not events; each unit is a trace of perezhivaniya not a perezhivaniye as such; it is important not to conflate events and artefacts; just as an historian has to know that what they see are traces of real events, not the events as such. What you do with that evidence is something again. > Just by-the-by, "analog" does not mean "original" or "real"; it means the opposite of reality. The terms "digital" and "analog" originate from the 1960s when there were two types of computer. Analog computers emulate natural processes by representing natural processes in analogous electronic circuits based on the calculus. In the end digital computers won an almost complete victory, but for example, if I'm not mistaken, the bionic ear uses analog computing to achieve real-time coding of speech, or at least it did when I knew it in the 1980s. > Andy > Andy Blunden > http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm > On 22/09/2018 12:57 AM, Greg Mcverry wrote: > Hello all, > > I have been spending time this summer reading up on the concept of perezhivanie after our article discussion on identify of funds. > > I wanted to share a draft of my theoretical perspectie for feedback. Granted due to word count it will probably be reduced to a paragraph or two with drive by citations but I am trying to think this through to inform my design. > > https://checkoutmydomain.glitch.me/theoretical.html > > -I got a little feedback but from Russian scholars in other fields (literature mainly) that I missed the meaning by being too neutral and I needed to get at "growing from one's misery" or another person said "brooding over the bad stuff that happened that makes you who you are" So I want to make sure I capture the struggle. > > -I am not diving into this now but I am also considering the identify and culture of a local web and how that plays out into how we shapes funds of identity as we create online spaces. > > -Finally is applying this lens with adult learners not appropriate? What does it mean when you actively want to tweak the environment of learners to reduce experiencing as struggle and increase experience as contemplation. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20180927/6eea9d7b/attachment.html From hhdave15@gmail.com Sun Sep 30 22:02:36 2018 From: hhdave15@gmail.com (Harshad Dave) Date: Mon, 1 Oct 2018 10:32:36 +0530 Subject: [Xmca-l] Difference between "Value" and "Exchange Value". Message-ID: Hi, Here I copy paste the words/para taken from "Value, Price and Profit" by Karl Marx. *"At first sight it would seem that the value of a commodity is a thing quite relative, and not to be settled without considering one commodity in its relations to all other commodities. In fact, in speaking of the value, the value in exchange of a commodity, we mean the proportional quantities in which it exchanges with all other commodities. But then arises the question: How are the proportions in which commodities exchange with each other regulated? We know from experience that these proportions vary infinitely. Taking one single commodity, wheat, for instance, we shall find that a quarter of wheat exchanges in almost countless variations of proportion with different commodities. Yet, its value remaining always the same, whether expressed in silk, gold, or any other commodity, it must be something distinct from, and independent of, these different rates of exchange with different articles. It must be possible to express, in a very different form, these various equations with various commodities.* *Besides, if I say a quarter of wheat exchanges with iron in a certain proportion, or the value of a quarter of wheat is expressed in a certain amount of iron, I say that the value of wheat and its equivalent in iron are equal to some third thing, which is neither wheat nor iron, because I suppose them to express the same magnitude in two different shapes. Either of them, the wheat or the iron, must, therefore, independently of the other, be reducible to this third thing which is their common measure."* If you go through the views of Marx expressed on *Value *while exchanging *wheat* against *iron *you will feel that Marx expresses it with difficulty. I think this complexity emerges only because economists of the time (perhaps even of present time) could not differentiate between *value* and *exchange value.* It is a serious mistake to grasp *value* through *exchange* *value.* It is the most unfortunate part that the word/phrase " *Exchange* *value*" incorporates the word "*Value*" and it, perhaps, misleads us. I have tried to explain exactly this difference in my articles on following web links. I will be thankful if I receive your views on the same. The Web Links: [1] Article: "Exchange Value" Journal Link: *http://armgpublishing.sumdu.edu.ua/journals/fmir/current-issue-of-fmir/ * Article Link: *http://armgpublishing.sumdu.edu.ua/journals/fmir/volume-2-issue-2/article-6/ * [2] Article: "The Constitution of Value" [Explained in short] Short form: https://www.academia.edu/35947903/Constitution_of_value_ACADEMIA Article: "The Constitution of Value" [Explained elaborately] https://www.academia.edu/35885621/An_Introduction_to_the_constitution_of_value._Part_1_Constitution_of_Use_Value_Value_and_Forms_of_Value._Preamble Regards, Harshad Dave -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://mailman.ucsd.edu/pipermail/xmca-l/attachments/20181001/e7447c6d/attachment.html