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Re: [xmca] "Inner Form" of Word, Symmetry, Ivanov Bateson?




Hmmm.  Well there's plenty of room for creative misunderstanding here, so
here's what I'm reading into the sentence.  With respect to representational
"symmetry", i.e the creation of some kind of map of something else, there
isn't going to be an exact symmetry, rather there's a relational
correspondence.  So the maze and the rat's representation of the maze are
not symmetric, though they're obviously related.
 Yes, that is what I was referring to - not the 'pre-linguistic of early childhood for example- Margaret Archer  approximates the nature of 
this correspondence in her 'embodied'

 The (fragmented) representation of the maze is part of the rats biology, it
is also an extension of the rat such that it is able to (incrementally)
successfully regulate itself. 

Well it's through the biological 'operation' , the on-going living. But regulation then is through perception of other , and  by 'embedding' becomes in immanence with, senses. Also I relate this to the origin of 'higher functions'  where inner speech too is part of 'controlling behaviour from the outside' allowing new forms. ( Mind in Society 78 p 40 is quoted for this reverse action)
 
 Hence I would say that mental and social
functioning are part of this autopoiesis they are temporarily, or
transitionally, embedded within it, hence any form of organic "symmetry" of
its use of social representations (scents, objects etc.) encapsulated in
memory would be used to co-ordinate other operations.  So rather than
conceive of the distribution of work between the autopoetic aspect and the
languaging aspect, I'd focus, from a biological perspective, on the
supporting infrastructure that allows for the embedding of language within
the biological.

Hm, Maturana has the social as not autopoietic but medium of organism, and 'mind' as token in language for the relational domain ( of organism:medium) as non-intersecting which we can only encounter as observer in the relational domain , never reduced to the autopoietic itself. ( this is along the line of descriptions of reality can never capture all reality in actuality of Heisenberg etc.)
Operations of inner speech has been so revealing - of voice of imperatives of regulation.
 >
> And on the transformation of development from 'biological' I am  also
> trying to relate to what seems to be complementary work by Maturana's , as
> he too saw cognition as historical, - where on separation from the
> biological he suggests:
> "
> As our existence as human beings takes place in our operation in language,
> the features of our existence that constitute our humanness,pertain to our
> relational domain and occur in our "languaging", not in our bodyhood.


I'm fine with this provided you include perceptions of bodyhood and gesture
in language/semiotics.  i.e. what this represents for the other and self
(rather than, or in addition to, self perpetuation) such as the size of a
stag's antlers, the deepness of a male frog's ribbit, or the stripes on a
wasp.
Always being in the 'observer domain' implies this, that we observe relational qualities ( not actual perpetuation) or our distinctions of relational qualities.

 > Thus, notions such as consciousness, reflection insolitude, mind, thinking
> and intentionality correspond to distinctions that we make of different
> aspects of our relational dynamics in our operation as human beings, and as
> such they do not take place in our bodies, norare they functions localizable
> in our brains.


I would say that they do not originate in our brains.
No me either in a conventional sense, but also because the nervous system is contiguous with other very little understood but very complex regulatory functions - most interesting to me is the notion of energy regulation . 

>In other words, consciousness,auto-reflection, mind, thinking, or
> intentionality do not take place inthe body but occur through the operation
> of the body because they take place or arise as relations or distinctions
> that we make of relations ofthe living system with the medium, and involve
> both, body and medium, inthe dynamic flow of living, in the manner that we
> have described in this essay."
>

Yes, nice amount of crossover/continuity.  The point about vygotsky's
internal plane, however, is that representational fragments available for
reflection, and consolidation, do exist within the individual mind, and that
these representations (and their operations) may be refined whereby the
subject comes to improve their social activity/skill.

Individual 'mind' is the  ontogeny of an individual's relational history, with recursive interplay of physiological and relational phenomena . 'Operating' in autopoiesis is always in the 'present'  , a circular production. Our observing is in a linear flow, producing phenomena in our observing.. very opaque explanation, but ontogeny is then the conserving of a form of living.
Another Maturana Quote to explain this: " what reproduces.. is a particular systemic entity whose realization takes place in the continuous dynamic interplay of a particular bodyhood and a particular configuration of dynamic circumstances that have arisen in the medium along the phylogenic history of the reproducing living system. At the same time what is organically passed to the next generation through reproduction is an initial structural configuration that makes possible the epigenetic realization of a particular manner of living that entails systemic conservation of a particular bodyhood and bodyhood dynamics if it is placed in the proper circumstances of the medium..... Inheritance, then is... is not determined by any particular set of molecular or cellular components.'



 > In the 1995 'Brain, Language and the origin of Human Mental Functions',
> because as biological knowledge has been refined the nature of separation
> yet without completely cutting off might be timely to reconsider - but
> without being in that perspective as a biological scientist -on firmer
> ground - it's  fragmented.
>

I'd say that any such boundaries are artificial and based purely on what is
defined as biological and what isn't. 

Well I think its helpful to establish just what distinctions are being made in 'good biological science' - avoiding blind alleys of 'survival of the fittest' etc.
But mostly to enable a clearer distinction-making about 'well-being', somehow. For example ecological issues present across indigenous and 'non-scientific' languaging cultures, and well-being in relation to languaging requires new forms of 'scientific' research to improve and contribute to different forms of regulation... Anyway in environmental science, scientists encounter these very difficult problems, and in environmental education there are these new needs.-linguistics 
>From my perspective, taking a holistic approach allows one to investigate any phenomena scientifically.
Whether one calls oneself a biologist, a psychologist, a sociologist or a
linguist is governed by the locus of ones' interest and the knowledge
acquired.

I'm guessing I've missed several strands of your thoughts on dissymmetry,
depending upon how technical a use your making of the term, i.e. of the
differences between symmetrical entities, or more generally such as the
relatedness of organs or subsystems that are not the same.

Not frivolous at all - very rare to get the chance for this reflection! I've missed several strands of my thoughts on asymmetry too ( in nature there isn't any perfect symmetry, its our abstraction that creates a notion of symmetry?)), I had them on a back burner with many other things,  But the avenue to aesthetics is one I will pursue, I am not equipped to explore 'inner speech' further in this  concept formation,  other than a placemark of this boundary zone including in between both physiological and regulation of a form of living.
Thanks, Christine.




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