As I see it Mike, the reason that a set-up which facilitates the
subject imaginatively putting themselves into the object, leads to
quicker solution of the problem because it mobilises the highly
developed sense we have of our own body. Although wrong about much
else, I think Lakoff was right about the central place of spatial and
other visceral metaphors lying at the root of our ability to understand
things, including concept formation and the formation of language.
Likewise, I think the whole range of social feelings we have - shame,
fear of disapproval, desire for recognition, respect for norms of
behaviour, etc., as well as knowledge of the various objects which
populate our social world, key in our understanding of concepts which
have an essentially social existence. Just as my feet and shoulders
twitch when I watch a tennis match, I think similar but deeper
processes are going on when I recognise or think about things which are
conceptualised in a particular way in the social environment I am in.
If this is the kind of thing you have in mind, then I believe I
understand you. The same considerations also engage the concepts of
abstract and concrete, but you seemed to be hinting at a more immediate
connection which at the moment is just escaping me.
Perhaps you could explain?
Andy
mike cole wrote:
Thanks for posting the link to the paper, Andy.
I believe that a starting point is to ask the following
question(s):
1. What is it that accounts for the increase in time to carry
out a mental rotation for the plain
conglomeration of blocks?
2. Whatever the process is, why is it that the amount of
rotation is irrelevant if the figure has
a schematic face/head on it in a place where it appears
person-like?
Maybe all the concrete is between my ears.
mike
On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 8:27 AM, Andy
Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>
wrote:
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/Histarch/ap81v3n2.PDF
p.16
Mike, I also, at first had the same problem with motorscooter
indicator, and I used a different but similar tactic to overcome it.
Also, as a civil engineer I learnt that it was essential to imagine
yourself as the building in order to nknow where the stresses would be
and effectively design it, and most difficult problems, up to the point
of calculations could be solved this way.
But ... :) ... I can't see what this has to do with abstract and
concrete. Can you explain?
Andy
mike cole wrote:
A wonderful paper by Yutaka Sayeki (with two key figures reversed, but
it is obvious where the mistake was made when you read it) has an
example of what I take to be almost a "measure" of rising to the
concrete (see also Davydov's ideas on the topic).
Its part of a special issue of the newsletter. Accessible to anyone at lchc.ucsd.edu
<http://lchc.ucsd.edu>
*
Volume 3, Number 2 April 1981
*
AZUMA, Hiroshi: /A Note on Cross-Cultural Study/
INAGAKI, Kayoko: /Facilitation of Knowledge Integration through /
/Classroom Discussion/
KASHIWAGI, Keiko: /Note on the Socialization Processes in Japan/
HATANO, Giyoo, KUHARA, Keiko, and AKIYAMA, Michael: /Kanji Help /
/Readers of Japanese Infer the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words/
SAITO, Hirofumi/: Toward Comparative Studies in Reading Kanji and /
/Kana/
SAYEKI, Yutaka: /"Body Analogy" and the Cognition of Rotated Figures/
On Wed, Aug 15, 2012 at 5:24 AM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com
<mailto:huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>>
wrote:
On 15 August 2012 13:01, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net
<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> Well, these issues are not going to be solved in 5 minutes,
Huw.
Analog
> and digital belong to a completely different frame than the
concepts of
> abstract/concrete and general/universal which I think Greg
asked
about
> initially.
>
Analog was an elaboration. This point is not necessary to resolve
"universal" in the Lenin quote.
Huw
>
> Let me be brief then. Ilyenkov famously makes the point that
(exchange)
> value is an ideal, but it is also real. The market implements a
process of
> abstracting the value of commodities but it is the very
concreteness of the
> market which makes that process possible.
Democracy is an ideal which really motivates millions of people and
> underpins constitutional governments.
>
> Universal suffrage allows that insane people, criminals and
children do
> not vote. And what is more, when the President is elected, only
the votes
> of 51% count. (There are of course plenty of "Ah, but ..."s
about this, but
> this is what is meant by the difference between the general
and the
> universal.)
>
> http://www.marxists.org/**reference/archive/hegel/works/**
>
sl/slsubjec.htm#SL163n1b<http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/sl/slsubjec.htm#SL163n1b>
>
> Andy
>
>
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
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