Re: [xmca] Body expression as sign.

[Jack Whitehead <jack@actionresearch.net>]

On 23 May 2012, at 17:24, Joseph Gilbert wrote:

> Let us remember that spoken-word language is composed of sounds made by the body, sounds that issue forth as expressions of emotions and that cause hearers bodies to assume patterns of motion analogous to those in the generators of the sounds. Thereby motion and emotion are transferred from originators to receivers. It is that sense of emotion, that we experience by our spoken words, that provides us with a sense of meaning. Our own emotion is the bottom line of our sense of meaning. Things have meaning only in as much, and in how, they affect us. And our emotions are the way we experience effects. Our words deal in the currency of meaning - our emotions - , and they refer to things. Because of this dual nature, words - the very things that identify things - inform us of the meaning of our world simply by affecting our emotions with their sounds. Since we are normally preoccupied with the referential aspect of words, it is subconsciously that we experience their emotional effects.
> 
> 		Joseph Gilbert

Dear Joseph Gilbert (and all), I like very much your points about emotion. I'm also like the point below from Vasilyuk about energy and motivation, energy and meaning and energy and values. I'm wondering if anyone has any references you can send me that can help me to understand how to represent flows of energy with values, in explanatory principles that can be used in explanations of educational influences in learning?

Vasilyuk, F. (1991) The Psychology of Experiencing: the Resolution of Life’s Critical Situations.  Hemel Hempstead; Harvester Wheatsheaf. 

“The Energy Paradigm

 Conceptions involving energy are very current in psychology, but they have been very poorly worked out from the methodological standpoint. It is not clear to what extent these conceptions are merely models of our understanding and to what extent they can be given ontological status. Equally problematic are the conceptual links between energy and motivation, energy and meaning, energy and value, although it is obvious that in fact there are certain links: we know how ‘energetically’ a person can act when positively motivated, we know that the meaningfulness of a project lends additional strength to the people engaged in it, but we have very little idea of how to link up into one whole the physiological theory of activation, the psychology of motivation, and the ideas of energy which have been elaborated mainly in the field of physics. (p.63-64)



Love Jack.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
When Martin Dobson, a colleague, died in 2002 the last thing he said to me
was 'Give my Love to the Department'. In the 20 years I'd worked with
Martin it was his loving warmth of humanity that I recall with great life
affirming pleasure and I'm hoping that in Love Jack we can share this
value of common humanity.

Jack Whitehead , Professor, Liverpool Hope University, UK.    
        
Visiting Fellow, University of Bath, UK.

Life-time member of OMNIBUS (All Bath University Staff).

web-site http://www.actionresearch.net with email address. 



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