Hi Nate,
>
>"Such a multivoicedness should not regard internal contradictions and
>debates as a sign of weakness; rather, they are an feature of the theory.
I understand him and you. I see dialectics as useful, but not the only way to think of interrelatedness and semiotic ecology dynamics.
>However; this requires at least a shared understanding of the character of
>the initial cell and a continuous collective attempt to elucidate that cell,
>as well as the miltiple mediating steps from the cell to specific concepts".
>
>Which is to say I agree with you, but there needs to a shared understanding
>of the "initial cell" or object.
I'm questioning this. Coming at it from a different direction and using Yrjö's 1987 together with Eva's iscrat xlists (3 nested systems), and bronfenbrenners molar activity as frameworks against which one can compare xmca. With co-constitution a major element in the extended system model of activity i.e. "distinctions within a unity" (YE,p79) , the dynamic changes in the division of labor among xmca participants, materialized in the dynamic changing distribution of artifacts aka messages, I am wondering about how this percolates to object. Should that be unchanging? To playfully take Leontiev's beating the bush example, I get the feeling that sometimes on xmca we have people beating the bush, others waiting with clubs for the animal to emerge, while there are greenpeace types running interference so the animal can get away, all the while the prey has transformed into a herring that has headed downstream.
As an ongoing process of interactions, perhaps we can think of multivoicedness as the materialization of xmca's shifting distribution of labor in the nested xlist system of community building. Multivoicedness may have a place in a system of which the object is community building. From Eva:
"The common object of this activity system is the online community of scholars and practicioners from diverse disciplines with a common interest in sociocultural or cultural-historical theories of learning, development and activity - the academic network of people with a craving for CHAT perspectives. Again this community is not cast in iron once and forever, but has to be continuously re-constructed through the coming and going of participants. As already noted, 'community' in this context does not only refer to a concrete collective, coordinated through a common activity. The object of xlist community building activity is a collectively developed and maintained culture of candid collaboration: an inviting place for multilogue. Thus what motivates the activity in this system of xlist community building is the enduring concern with the transformation of the changing subscriber collective into a collaborative community of people with some measure of commitment to the virtual environment they share, some awareness of its anchoring in wider offline academic networks, and some competence in the shared field of CHAT research, theory and applications. "
>
>Bill said:
>
>"Another way to think about this, is to go back to the time the xlists, in
>their diversity, were conjoined. Before grand unification, each could be
>considered with a unique object. After the unification, roughly assuming
>the same population of folks that constituted the initial collection of
>xlists, everyone was 'suddenly' communicating on one channel. Did the
>objects suddenly unify also?"
I'd answer "No" to Bill, citing Eva's paper. But that's what he was hoping I'd do anyway. One of his strategies is to apply thought experiments, trying perturbations of an extant situation and running back an forth in time, related to prolepsis, to understanding the situation. Here, nothing has to be made up, it is done and archived. What's made up is Bill's recollection of reading what Eva has written, and I definitely question the accuracy of his memory. He and I would both agree, however, that partitioning xlchc to xlists to xmca is a beautiful design experiment in changing the distribution of labor, artifacts, community etc.
Mike said earlier that experience shows on this
>medium disagreements are rarely resolved.
I wonder about this too and would like to make some qualifications. I could look back at Bill's earlier exchanges with Naoki and Alfred, in which they [not Bill] may have given up in frustration. Things were not re-solved, but rather dis-solved on the interpersonal plane, as materialized in the ex-exchange of messages, only for them to be re-solved for Bill on the intrapersonal plane. But you cannot see this except to do a longtitudinal study of Bill's contributions to xmca (how uninteresting for anyone to do but me, and even I'm not THAT interested!) that I'm pretty sure Mike has not done.
He probably will not re-solve this discussion with you either, but will instead use it to think about another situation of a system among systems that he is trying to understand. He is feeling a little disembodied from the passion of the discussion, but he liked your Luria quote.
BB
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