RE: [xmca] Death and dying

["David H Kirshner" <dkirsh@lsu.edu>]

A few years ago, Eva Ekeblad sent me a paper she had mentioned on XMCA
about Skinner's struggle to purge his own language of mentalist
assumptions. Seems like a nice counterpart to Bateson's efforts to avoid
the language of separateness. 
David
Ekeblad, E. (1996). A lifetime of verbal discipline. Revision of a paper
presented to the Nordic Association of Education Research, 1994.


 -----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Christine Schweighart
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 4:47 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Death and dying

Apologies Greg,
 It was Bateson speaking and not von Glaserfeld!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTsY3TosVX0&feature=related


This aside I wondered if you might be interested to consider the
aesthetic of Garcia Lorca writing on the social meaning of death in
Spanish culture, it seems quite relevant to your topic.
 Christine.

On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Greg Thompson
<greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>wrote:

> There is a flipside to "gaps" that suggests that a gapless world. This

> position is nicely captured by Gregory Bateson (please forgive my 
> transcription by intonation unit - Bateson's prose is hard to capture,

> but see link below for original):
>
> "The nature of
>
> the world in which I live
>
> and in which I wish you lived -
>
> all of you -
>
> and all the time -
>
> but even I don't live in it all the time.
>
> (solemnly) There are times,
>
> when I catch myself believing
>
> that there is such a thing as something
>
> which is separate from something else."
>
> And linking back to General Semantics (and Corey Anton is both 
> affiliated with General Semantics and has written much on Bateson), 
> Bateson was influenced by Korzybski (see Bateson's Korzybski memorial
lecture at:
>
> http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gsb-37-bate
> son.pdf
> and
> Bateson's quote above is taken from a blog announcing the new 
> biographical movie of GB by Nora Bateson, the website can be seen at:
> http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/emind.html).
> And linking further back to Korzybski's view of why things go wrong in

> the world, Bateson writes that:
>
> "The major problems in the world are the result of the difference 
> between how nature works and the way people think."
>
> It would seem that Bateson is pointing to gap-filling as the problem 
> that creates the mismatch between word and world. Does that seem about

> right to others? Is there a tension here between the gap filling that 
> Etienne and Mike describe as something that we do all the time and 
> what Bateson seems to be suggesting about a (preferred) gapless world?

> Am I headed in endless circles here or is there an interesting 
> question at this particular intersection? Or is my way of linking both

> of these positions filling in (or not) too many gaps?
>
> Thoughts?
> -greg
>
> p.s. C.S. Peirce, may have articulated a fuller conception in his 
> notion of "synechism," but Bateson's is certainly more comprehensible
and artful.
> Peirce's vision is a lot more difficult to take in. But I'd add that 
> he has a wonderful notion of "self" that extends beyond the body and
beyond life.
> We are "vicinities" "neighborhoods" rather than discretely bounded
bodies.
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 6:47 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
wrote:
>
> > Hi Anthony
> >
> > The topic of death and the social formation of mind seems to be the 
> > ultimate form of "gap & gap filling" which gives meaning to life. 
> > I'm reading an article by Corey Anton titled "Beyond Theoretical
Ethics:
> > Bakhtinian Anti-Theoreticism" [in Human Studies volume 24, pages 
> > 211-225; 2001] This is what Corey has to say about death and our 
> > unique once-occurant dwelling in the world.
> >
> > "The position that I am trying to make clear is that the human 'in
> general'
> > does not factually exist and that ethical considerations commonly 
> > posit a general human: they posit a 'someone' who is ACTUALLY no 
> > one.  In this regard, their universality implicitly suggets that 
> > people are basically interchangeable or not non-replaceable - not 
> > uniquely held by their place in existence.  The 'theoretical world 
> > is obtained through an essential
> and
> > fundamental abstraction from the factor of my unique being and from 
> > the moral sense of that fact - AS IF I did not exist' (Bahktin).  
> > This theoretical world can deeply mislead, for I never do not exist 
> > in my
> life;
> > I am never unnecessary or irrelevant, and it is only theoretical 
> > positing that can make this seem to be so. (Leder) suggests that 
> > one's lived body
> '
> > is never just an object in the world but that very medium whereby 
> > our
> world
> > comes into being.'  Thus, I may, in one sense, be simply one person 
> > among other persons in the world that will go on without me AFTER MY
DEATH.
>  And
> > yet, I am, for me, that person who is never not there, that person 
> > who somehow is ALWAYS co-given along with the world, and that person

> > whose world falls out of existence WITH MY DEATH. [page 215]
> >
> > Anthony, Corey is pointing to death as the ulimate "gap" and our
> humanness
> > as the process of gap-filling within our once-occurent unique 
> > cultural historical existence.  The social formation of mind 
> > develops through differentiation and distanciation [gaps] AND the 
> > integrating
> [gap-filling]
> > ACTS (including theoretical acts)  of our humanness.
> >
> > Larry
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:45 AM, ANTHONY M BARRA 
> > <tub80742@temple.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Thanks for the resources, Huw and Andy.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Nektarios Alexi
> > > <NEKTARIOS.ALEXI@cdu.edu.au>wrote:
> > >
> > > > Thats an excellent book Huw!
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd
> > > > Sent: Wed 2/1/2012 9:43 PM
> > > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > > > Subject: Re: [xmca] Death and dying
> > > >
> > > > Bakhtin's "Dostoevsky's Poetics" has a few indexed references.
> > > >
> > > > Huw
> > > >
> > > > On 31 January 2012 16:46, ANTHONY M BARRA <tub80742@temple.edu>
> wrote:
> > > >
> > > > > I'm looking for Vygostky's, or Vygotskian, words on death and
> dying,
> > > > > especially terms of (but not limited to) "the social formation

> > > > > of
> > > mind,"
> > > > > and "mind extending beyond the skin."
> > > > >
> > > > > Thanks for any direction or help...
> > > > >
> > > > > Anthony
> > > > > __________________________________________
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>
>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar Department of Communication 
> University of California, San Diego 
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