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Re: [xmca] Re: Kant and the Strange Situation
Eric,
It seems to me that a cognitive model needs to satsfy two criteria. First it
has to have what one might call face validity: the model has to resemble the
phenomenon it is modeling. This model, in my view, doesn't do this. To pick
just one example, it presupposes that each of us is constantly asking
ourselves the question, Am I okay? That's not my experience, for sure.
Second, a model has to function, it has to operate. A clockwork model of the
solar system has to actually make its little planets turn. A computer model
has to actually go through its distinct steps. This model doesn't do this
either. For example, it starts with a loop. That's fine: computer programs
have continuous loops. But if they are to ever exit the loop they have to
continually test the state of some register of information. This model asks
a question, but there is no indication of how it comes up with an answer.
When I ask myself, Am I okay?, I presumably check with the state of my body,
or the opinions of people like my doctor. An adequate model needs to include
these elements too. This model leaves out all reference to 'external' data,
and so I can't agree with you that it provides an unambiguous explanation.
What we have in the text, as a result, is a continual appeal to *both* the
model *and* the person that it supposedly replaces. We're told that people
"use" the model.
But more importantly, contrast this kind of 'explanation' though cognitive
modeling with the excellent account that Steve has just provided of the
exchange between Obama and Roberts. Steve starts with his overall "sense"
(understanding? empathy?) of what was going on (or going wrong) in their
exchange, then justifies this through an utterance-by-utterance
interpretation of their interaction that identifies the moments when each of
the 'mechanics' of conversation occured: the interruptions, hesitations,
repairs, negotiations.
Here we have an analysis of action that is possible only because the event
was video-recorded and so 'fixed' as an object which we can all examine and
discuss, even though none of us was present as a first-person observer. I
too, the first time through, thought that Obama had bungled the lines. But
the transformed temporality of a video - the fact that we can replay it,
even view it in slow motion - gives us the opportunity to understand it
*more correctly.* (At the same time we should bear in mind that most people
haven't had this opportunty and so the "bungling" interpretation may
linger.)
Steve's analysis makes tacit use of, and appeals to, our common knowledge of
the character of the event and the persons involved (chief justice [child of
justice as Ageliki wonderfully put it]; president-elect) and the official
text of the exchange. He analyzes the problems that came up in the
interaction, the 'decisions' that each participant made along the way, and
moves to an attribution of causality ("the culprit") in the form of a
preposition misplaced by the chief justice. This enables him to make
grounded claims about the personality or character of the participants:
Obama's capacities as a leader, his self-awareness, composure, sense of
occasion and humor.
To me, this kind of explanatory account has much more power than any kind of
hypothetical mental model. It appeals to what is *visible* to any speaker of
English. It builds its case upon public evidence, contestable at each step.
And it is an explanatory account of *action* - intelligent action in a
social setting.
Martin
On 1/21/09 12:08 PM, "ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org" <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
>
> Martin:
>
> Although the article on health related decision making does lean in the
> positivist mode of object-subject dualism when discussing heuristic problem
> solving I believe it is at least unambiguous in explaining problem solving.
> Something the dialectic does not do, in fact the ambiguity of the dialectic
> and the ethereal value leaves little explanatory powers. Perhaps the next
> great step that could occur in CHAT is for theorists to posit how the
> dialectic can be THE unit of analysis. Impossible? A question left to
> greater minds then myself. I agree people are not information processors
> but if one takes a look at heuristic affect in the process of decision
> making I believe the article steps beyond defining people as information
> processors and places them into the cultural milieu. Must admit I have
> never been a fan of flow charts but once again they have explanatory
> powers. I am left thinking how could the question of taking medication or
> seeking medical care be approached via the functional method of double
> stimulation?
>
> eric
>
>
>
> Martin Packer
> <packer@duq.edu> To: "eXtended Mind,
> Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Sent by: cc:
> xmca-bounces@web Subject: Re: [xmca] Re: Kant
> and the Strange Situation
> er.ucsd.edu
>
>
> 01/20/2009 08:50
> PM
> Please respond
> to "eXtended
> Mind, Culture,
> Activity"
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Eric, this certainly is a perfect example of reducing a person to an
> information processor, which I assume is why you've pointed it out. Notice
> that the microgenetic model doesn't even work as a heuristic device. At the
> very start it posits a loop: the person will apparently sit all day asking
> themselves, Am I okay? until the answer is No. Very realistic.
>
> Then the next decision is, Why no? (Why not okay?). There are three
> possible
> answers - I know, I don't know, and I am not sure. All lead to the same
> next
> step! A pointless question.
>
> This next step is to ask: What can I do to make me feel better? There are
> no
> less than twelve possible options that can be selected from here - and not
> a
> single criterion is proposed upon which to make the choice! In the text we
> learn that "past experience" makes a difference, but the model has no place
> for that. So following this model apparently one randomly decides to make
> some tea (option 4) or go to the hospital (option 12). If the choice
> happens
> to work, the model returns to the first step, and the person once again
> sits
> all day asking themselves Am I okay?
>
> Lots of insight about personal health-care choices here!
>
> Martin
>
> p.s. Andy, I'm mulling over objects and objectivity... Been distracted
> reading about the debates in the 30s between Max Eastman and Sidney Hook
> over Marx and Hegel
>
>
> On 1/20/09 2:08 PM, "ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org" <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
>
>>
>> Hello All:
>>
>> I have been enjoying this thread and at times have attempted a post but
>> then find myself unsatisfied with what I am trying to say. The following
>> article I believe dovetails nicely into this topic.
>>
>> http://www.qualitative-research.net/index.php/fqs/article/view/653/1415
>>
>> I particularly like the part about hemeneutics of decision making in
>> irreversible time.
>>
>> Hope people enjoy.
>>
>> eric
>>
>>
>>
>> Andy Blunden
>> <ablunden@mira.n To: "eXtended Mind,
>> Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>> et> cc:
>> Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] Re:
> Kant
>> and the Strange Situation
>> xmca-bounces@web
>> er.ucsd.edu
>>
>>
>> 01/19/2009 05:44
>> PM
>> Please respond
>> to ablunden;
>> Please respond
>> to "eXtended
>> Mind, Culture,
>> Activity"
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Martin, surely we two (of the many) meanings of "objectify"
>> here.
>>
>> (1) In "objectifying action has its dangers, such as
>> treating it as the output of a decision-making system" you
>> are using the word in the meaning it took on I think in the
>> 1970s as "treating a subject as an object" following the
>> idea of Kant that one ought to treat all people as ends not
>> means.
>>
>> (2) In "action is fleeting it must be fixed in some manner,
>> and although objectifying action transforms it" you are
>> using the word in its Hegelian sense of making a thought
>> into a material thing for others, a meaning which carries no
>> implication of being unethical.
>>
>> But Derek uses the word in yet a third sense, i.e., of being
>> "objective" which inheres in the action of the recipient of
>> action not the actor, i.e., objectify means (3) to regard
>> the thing as something objective, independently of one's own
>> subjectivity.
>>
>> Isn't this so?
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Martin Packer wrote:
>>> Derek,
>>>
>>> This is indeed such a huge topic that I hesitate to take it up. But
>> equally
>>> important; so here goes.
>>>
>>> Techniques of objectifying are certainly part of any science, but surely
>> not
>>> the whole story. And I don't see that objectifying people reduces them
> to
>>> biological phenomena, and their action to biological processes, any more
>>> than objectifying biological entities reduces them to physical
> phenomena,
>>> and their processes to physical ones. Certainly objectifying action has
>> its
>>> dangers, such as treating it as the output of a decision-making system,
>> or
>>> as a collection of factual events which can described without
>>> interpretation. But Paul Ricoeur (below) has argued convincingly that
>> since
>>> action is fleeting it must be fixed in some manner, and although
>>> objectifying action transforms it, these transformations can serve
>> important
>>> functions. The analysis of conversational action took steps forward when
>>> recording technology became widely available (without treating
>> conversation
>>> as a biological phenomenon.
>>>
>>> This is not to say that figuring out an appropriate science of action is
>>> easy. But surely it's easier to study action scientifically than it is
> to
>>> study a personal, private, inner mind to which by definition one can
> only
>>> have first-person access!
>>>
>>> Ricoeur, P. (1971). The model of the text: Meaningful action considered
>> as a
>>> text. Social Research, 38(3), 529-562.
>>>
>>> Martin
>>>
>>> On 1/17/09 6:09 PM, "Derek Melser" <derek.melser@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Martin, Steve:
>>>>
>>>> This is a big issue. I have written a bit about it. Chapter 11 ('Our
>>>> knowledge of actions') in *The Act of Thinking* is about it. And so are
>> the
>>>> last three paragraphs of the essay at
>>>> http://www.derekmelser.org/essays/essayverbal.html
>>>>
>>>> The primary interpersonal attitude is the side-by-side one, the
> attitude
>> of
>>>> fellow-participants in some shared activity. Our perception of others'
>>>> actions occurs under the aegis of this fellow-participant (or would-be
>>>> fellow-participant, empathic) attitude; it is the light in which we see
>>>> actions. Now and then we defect into an objective (distancing,
> reifying,
>>>> alienating) attitude towards others. Rigorously maintained, this
>> objective
>>>> attitude reduces a person to a biological phenomenon. But biological
>>>> phenomena don't perform *actions*, they merely exhibit derivative
>> biological
>>>> phenomena.
>>>>
>>>> Science is the rigorous maintenance of objective attitudes and
>> observation
>>>> methods. My paradigm examples of 'science' are the physical sciences:
>>>> chemistry, physics, biology... There are disciplined academic studies
>> of
>>>> history, law, fine arts, literature, education in which the topic is
>>>> people's actions and in which objectivity and empathy alternate, in
>> roughly
>>>> equal measure. But these disciplined academic studies are not normally
>>>> thought of as sciences. The thing about sciences is that they stick
>>>> rigorously to objective methods. Why would you want to put psychology
>>>> alongside biology, rather than alongside, say, history or education? Of
>>>> course, you could call any disciplined academic investigation a
>> 'science'.
>>>>
>>>> Anyway, it is impossible to write briefly on such a large topic without
>>>> pontificating, so I'll stop here.
>>>>
>>>> Derek
>>>>
>>>> *http://www.derekmelser.org*
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> 2009/1/16 Steve Gabosch <stevegabosch@me.com>
>>>>
>>>>> Derek, I have been wanting to ask you about your thoughts about how
>> aspects
>>>>> of human behavior that can only be comprehended through empathy are
>>>>> therefore inaccessible to science. Assuming, for the sake of
>> discussion,
>>>>> that you are right, that empathy is a necessary component of accurate
>>>>> observation and understanding, why does employing empathy exclude
> doing
>>>>> science? Marx said (something like) "nothing human is alien to me."
>> That
>>>>> attitude isn't "empathy," strictly speaking, but it is certainly on
> the
>> way.
>>>>> Not that it is an easy or automatic thing to do, but why do you seem
>> to
>>>>> feel that we **can't** learn how to use our powers of empathy in
> social
>>>>> science?
>>>>>
>>>>> - Steve
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Jan 15, 2009, at 4:20 PM, Martin Packer wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Derek,
>>>>>> It depends of course on what one means by empathy. I've been arguing
>> for
>>>>>> years that all the social sciences draw implicitly on our human
>> capacity
>>>>>> for
>>>>>> *understanding* the actions of others (Einfühlung?), and that our
>>>>>> investigations can and should be interpretive, hermeneutic. Of course
>> many
>>>>>> others have made similar points. To say that genuine science is not
>>>>>> interpretive would be in my mind simply a false claim.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Martin
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> On 1/14/09 4:20 PM, "Derek Melser" <derek.melser@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, if
> mind/consciousness/thinking
>> is
>>>>>>> an
>>>>>>> action, then, because our perception of others' actions always
>> requires
>>>>>>> empathy, and because empathy is not an acceptable observation method
>> in
>>>>>>> the
>>>>>>> sciences, there will never be a genuine science of
>>>>>>> mind/consciousness/thinking. But at least we'll no longer be
>> bamboozled
>>>>>>> by
>>>>>>> the mind/body problem...
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
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>>
>> --
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Andy Blunden http://home.mira.net/~andy/ +61 3 9380 9435
>> Skype andy.blunden
>> Hegel's Logic with a Foreword by Andy Blunden:
>> http://www.marxists.org/admin/books/index.htm
>>
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