Well, my Maturana is a bit rusty, but his claim is that humans (actually all
living systems) are structurally determined and informationally closed; that
is, they are autonomous and recursively organized, behaving as a function of
their organization and particular structure. Instead of responding in a
cause-effect manner to objective environmental stimuli, living systems, when
perturbed by the environment respond in their own idiosyncratic way -- they
determine their own response, not the environment. Thus, there are no
cause-effect relationships between the world and the learner, and the
patterns exhibited by the perturbed living system do not reflect the
structure of the perturbing stimuli. Living systems are informationally
closed. Nothing is exchanged or communicated. So we need to focus on the
interactions within the learning system, not on the structure of the
environment. And it is the living system that determines what aspects of
the perturbing medium can perturb it. Organisms are structurally coupled to
the medium in which they are embedded. That is, living systems survive by
fitting with one another and with other aspects of the surrounding medium in
a manner that conserves their organization and adaptation. Life is a
succession of dynamic interactions or activities in which people are
structurally coupled to each other and/or the world. So people do what they
do because of how they are put together and how they are connected to the
environment (which they help create), not because the environment directs
them. All this cause-effect, exchange of messages thinking that we do is
simply our primitive attempt to make sense of our experience.
Clear as mud, I'll bet. But as I think about it, the notion of coupling
seems to be just as compatible with CHAT as is production/consumption.
Whether that's a good thing, I'm not sure. And I'll bet somebody has already
written about this!
Happy day to all mothers........djc
-----Original Message-----
From: Judy Diamondstone [mailto:diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu]
Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2001 8:47 PM
To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
Subject: RE: community vs. activity system
yeah, Don, I know what you mean.... As I understand it, the difference
between production/consumption is precisely the object. Insofar as the
subject orients to an object, he or she is involved in productive activity.
In YE's model, it's easier, because the subject is collective, & in any
case, we define an activity in terms of its object. But at the level of
action, I think whatever we as individuals do is often (always?) both at
once, though the producers are not always the consumers within the same
system (certainly not in industrial activity!)
can you elaborate on Maturana with AT?
At 04:52 PM 5/12/01 -0500, you wrote:
>Hmmmmm. Judy, this helps me identify one my puzzles. What is "produced"?
>What is "consumed"? Maybe it is the "exchange" metaphor that I don't
>understand. For my own thinking the notion of structural coupling (e.g.,
>Maturana) has been more helpful. Can you elaborate?
>
>djc
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Judith Diamondstone [mailto:diamonju@rci.rutgers.edu]
>Sent: Saturday, May 12, 2001 1:27 PM
>To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>Subject: Re: community vs. activity system
>
>
>
>I've thought of "community" in AT as "community of reference" -- i.e., the
>backdrop against which 'relevance' emerges.
>
>The answer to Don's q:
>
>My confusion of community with the activity system is perhaps
>understandable since in this example (and in others, I imagine) XMCAites
are
>a part of the community of those inspired by CHAT. The subject could, in
>another analysis, be what is here represented as the community. What would
>BE the community in that analysis, I wonder?
>
>would of course depend on Don's project more generally ('it depends') but
>could for instance be social theorists around the world.
>
>'community of reference' indexes for me the semiotic nature of processes of
>consumption -- the colletctive subject of xmca participants orient to one
>another as well as to a wider community/ies, whereas in 'production,'
>semiosis is instrumental: the subject orients to the obj.
>
>Judy
>
>
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