This is interesting Lucas - I took a look at the extended mind thesis and my own gut feeling is that Bateson was more trying to solve a problem with his man/cane metaphor than propose an idea. The trouble with applying the man/cane metaphor to lanuage is that once you throw a word out into the world it has a really good chance of becoming detatched from you, from your mind, from your thinking. To me, right now it seems, Bateson was all about trying to get rid of the mechanistic parts of cybernetics while maintaining the idea of feedback loops. There has to be some type of continuous connection as you extend out or the system breaks down, and that is why language based systems so often break down or go off kilter. The thing about the cane is it represents an actual visceral link between the mind and the world so that there is a constant feedback loop. It takes the extension of the mind to the next level. So to my thinking right now, and I may have this wrong from any number of directions (lacking feedback loops to the ideas) Bateson is trying to figure out something beyond the extended mind thesis. Michael ________________________________ From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Lucas Bietti Sent: Thu 10/14/2010 10:05 AM To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity Subject: RE: [xmca] Tom Toolery As far as I know "the man with the stick" example appears in Steps to an Ecology of Mind(Bateson, 1972). This example is widely used by Lambros Malafouris, a cognitive archaeologists at Cambridge who tries to develop a new theory on material engagement and the extended mind thesis (Clark, 2008; Clark & Chalmers). Some of his papers can be downloaded from his webpage: http://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/directory/profile.php?lm243 Malafouris co-edited the book The Cognitive Life of Things: Archaeology, Material Engagement and the Extended Mind. Cambridge: McDonald Institute Monographs. This book came out a few months ago. On this link you can also find an interesting paper on material memories and the extended mind: http://www.phil.mq.edu.au/staff/jsutton/CognitiveLifeOfThings.htm There is another book on the social life of things which might be of interest: Appadurai, A. (ed.). (1986). The Social Life of Things. Commodities in Cultural Perspective.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hope this helps, Lucas On October 14, 2010 at 8:40 AM Paula M Towsey <paulat@johnwtowsey.co.za> wrote: > Hello Andy-of-the-5-o'clock-shadow > > Yet it's a different kind of gnashing of teeth (and wailing and weeping) > when the baboons at Third Bridge get stuck into the tinned supplies... > > Paula > > > > _________________________________ > Paula M Towsey > PhD Candidate: Universiteit Leiden > Faculty of Social Sciences > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On > Behalf Of Andy Blunden > Sent: 14 October 2010 13:19 > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity > Subject: Re: [xmca] Tom Toolery > > My answer, Paula: yes. > My body, with its various parts, is an artefact; according to context, > symbol or tool. > My face and my 5 o'clock shadow is a symbol just as much as the shirt I > wear. My teeth a tool just as much as a can opener. > > Andy > > Paula M Towsey wrote: > > For some inexplicable reason while watching Mike's blind man with a > > stick video, I remembered smsing Carol with a quirky question: if a > > researcher without a knife is trying to open an airline packet of > > peanuts, and she resorts to using her teeth, what tool is she using? > > > > Though, perhaps the better question would be - is she using a tool.? > > > > > > > > _________________________________ > > > > Paula M Towsey > > > > PhD Candidate: Universiteit Leiden > > > > Faculty of Social Sciences > > > > > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > xmca mailing list > > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca > > > > > > > > -- > ------------------------------------------------------------------------ > *Andy Blunden* > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ > Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos > Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss > > > _______________________________________________ > xmca mailing list > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca > > _______________________________________________ > xmca mailing list > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca Lucas M. Bietti Macquarie University Universitat Pompeu Fabra lucas@bietti.org www.collectivememory.net _______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
<<winmail.dat>>
_______________________________________________ xmca mailing list xmca@weber.ucsd.edu http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca