[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [xmca] "Rising to the concrete"

Just as a side thought, your image of the feet twitching when watching a
tennis match reminded me of this video

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html


Wagner Luiz Schmit
Brazil


2012/8/15 Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>

> **
> 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
>>>     >
>>>     >
>>>     __________________________________________
>>>     _____
>>>     xmca mailing list
>>>     xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>>     http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> --
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>>
>> __________________________________________
>> _____
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>  http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>
>
> --
> ------------------------------
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>
> __________________________________________
> _____
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
>
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca