Re: [xmca] LCA-- transparency

From: Mike Cole (lchcmike@gmail.com)
Date: Sat Jul 02 2005 - 10:45:24 PDT


If the journal is online, I will read with interest and if it is not, might
you provide a pdf,
Michael?

I was starting from the cane and hammer examples, for which the glasses
metaphor does
not work well, at least for me.

When the blind man picks up the cane, it is not transparent and the mind, in
Bateson's rendering of the
discussion, stops at the fingers and palm of the hand. But with habitual
use, the "mind" or the "mind's eye"
moves to the end of the stick, to the sidewalk at its tip, and then even
further outward when walking on a
habitual path.... I can find an electronic version of the example if it is
not familiar. I would need to go to
the library to get Heiddeger.

What is it that makes the stick, as it were, become transparent, or the
handle of the hammer? Or, in the
case of the spike, that it is "seen through" to its source?
mike

On 7/2/05, Wolff-Michael Roth <mroth@uvic.ca> wrote:
>
> Hi Mike and others,
> I used the word "transparent" in analogy to glasses that I wear and
> that I do not notice. That is, in my practice, it is as if I was not
> wearing these glasses, I am looking right through, they are
> transparent. In the article where I develop this argument, I provide an
> example of a water technician who points to a spike on the graph and
> says, "This is a clogged pipe". Of course, what she is pointing to is
> not a clogged pipe, but an index pointing to the clogged pipe. In her
> practice, therefore, she looks right through the spike and sees the
> world, as if it was a pair of glasses allowing her to see the world.
>
> I compare this to the infamous painting "This is not a pipe" by Rene
> Magritte, and the analysis Foucault provided of it in "This is not a
> pipe". ([drawing of a pipe for smoking] captioned "Ceci n'est pas une
> pipe")
>
> I also describe how the signs become transparent, after being the
> object of inquiry initially, then become tools for analysis, and then
> disappear, seemingly. I use triangle notations to show the movement of
> the graphs (signs) in the process.
>
> Roth, W.-M. (2003). Competent workplace mathematics: How signs become
> transparent in use. International
>
> Journal of Computers for Mathematical Learning, 8(3), 161–189.
>
> By the way, I started out trying to make a case for Ricardo
> Nemirovsky's concept of fusion, but didn't get anywhere . . .
> Michael
>
> On 2-Jul-05, at 10:27 AM, Mike Cole wrote:
>
> > An extra long wait on the tarmac in New York heading home gave me
> > plenty of time to read the interesting articles
> > by Wells, Halliday, and Hasan in preparation for participating in the
> > discussion. But first I have started to read sequentially
> > through the messages and want to pick up on some earlier points.
> >
> > A comnment from wolf-michael in the signs and tools discussion
> > touches on an issue of great interest to me. Transparency.
> > Here is the statement that set me off.
> >
> > one more comment--if a tool such a cane or hammer is transparent in
> > use, then it is similar to my tongue or my arm or my leg, it is part
> > of
> > me and the world begins on the other end.
> >
> > Question: what are the conditions that produce transparency? Is there
> > a consensual answer to this question?
> > mike
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
>
>


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