[Xmca-l] Re: Trying to frame studies of the web through perezhivanie

[Glassman, Michael]

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.



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