[Xmca-l] Re: Do adults play?

[Greg Thompson]

Larry,
Deeply appreciate your thoughts here.
Yes, is play lost like a child's "baby teeth" and/or what comes up in its
place?
-greg


On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 9:00 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:

> Greg,
> Let's follow your lead or guidance [or invitation]whaen you pose the
> question:
> Seems like Vygotsky and mead would suggest that play changes over
> developmental time. But it seems like vygotskys narrative of the
> development of play has the main character, play,going down in a blaze of
> glory - sacrificing itself for the sake of the Sacred Symbolic Development.
> This question poses *play* as the main *character* in earlier *stages* [?]
> of development who then in a blaze of glory leaves the stage for the sake
> of *Sacred Symbolic to take over center stage.
>
> I would like to bring in Luria's article "The Problem" which Huw recently
> attached to explore this entering and leaving the stage [situation,
> context]
>
> The hypothesis is that the dominance of "graphical-functional" forms of
> *knowledge* transform when economic forces of production change [and school
> becomes an arena of development]
> In Luria's words, "We needed to examine how REASONING processes took place,
> whether they were part of the subjects' DIRECT practical EXPERIENCE and
> what changes they underwent when reasoning WENT BEYOND graphic functional
> practice and into the REALM of theoretical or FORMALIZED [systematized,
> sedimented] thought."
>
> The next paragraph captures Greg's graphic-functional character exiting
> stage left while "Sacred Symbolic" enters the *play*.
>
> Luria continues, "The next stage was a study of IMAGINATIVE PROCESSES, THE
> REMOVAL OF ONESELF from IMMEDIATE perception [?? M-P would say ALL
> perception involves tradition] and operation on a PURELY symbolic, verbal,
> and logical level."
>
> Now my further question [invitation to dialogue] is to wonder if there is
> another *act* on this stage of consciousness??
>
> Perception AS *mediated* [not immediate] implies
> graphic-functional orienting as involving *traditions*.
> "Sacred Symbolic" requires *imaginal realms*.
> Is there a need for reflecting on the notions of *knowledge* and
> *understanding*.
> Knowledge appropriated FROM the external inwards while understanding moves
> FROM the internal directed outwards?
> I am using the inside/outside as metaphorical to IMAGINE  a graphical
> image. In reality experience moves in EXCESS [m-p] of all metaphors and
> models.
> The move to distinquish knowledge and understanding may return us to the
> realm of *play* [Huw's reminder that play is *as if* knowledge and
> understanding]
> Larry
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 6:49 AM, <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Yes, Doug, you speak to the heart of the CHAT Matter, is the play of
> > adults the same as the play of children? Or is there a development or two
> > along the way that involves a radical transformation in the possibilities
> > of play.
> > Seems like Vygotsky and mead would suggest that play changes over
> > developmental time. But it seems like vygotskys narrative of the
> > development of play has the main character, play,going down in a blaze of
> > glory -  sacrificing itself for the sake of the Sacred Symbolic
> Development.
> >
> > But maybe I've got that wrong?
> > Greg
> >
> > Sent from my iPhone
> >
> > On Oct 22, 2013, at 2:31 AM, Douglas Williams <djwdoc@yahoo.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Hi--
> > >
> > > I play bridge....does that count? :)
> > >
> > > What is play? In all species, a rehearsal; a symbolic enactment echoing
> > past and future activity. In humans, a possible world that represents
> what
> > is, what was, and what could be, in a symbolic form that enables it to be
> > shaped through thinking about rules, relationships, perceptions, and
> > feelings. Games are the sum of human experience, in a form more available
> > for introspection and renovation than the "real" world, precisely because
> > they are games. Bridge, for example, is a game of coalitions, of
> strategy,
> > of psychology, of deception, none of which is so far distant from the
> real
> > politics of offices and of the streets. On another level, the Duke of
> > Wellington famously (and for some, inexplicably) observed that the Battle
> > of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. What Wellington meant
> is
> > that the rehearsal of adversity and courage in sport enabled a beaten
> army
> > to persevere in following a strategy that enabled that beaten army to
> win a
> > long and
> > > terrible battle. Wellington meant that field sport games, in their
> often
> > wanton brutality and sudden reversals, prepared his field commanders to
> > treat the even more wanton brutality and reversal of war with practiced
> > familiarity and undaunted spirit, in the certain belief that as they had
> > come from behind to win at Eton, so they would at Waterloo.
> > >
> > > We are a symbolic species. We live and breathe symbols. We dream of
> > ourselves and each other, and out of our dreams, the world is given form
> > and substance. Communities take shape, symbolic interactions begin, and
> > towers of iron and concrete expand outward and upward from doodles. And
> > sometimes, we just remind ourselves in games of who we are, and where we
> > come from. I lay an offering of that kind of play before you.
> > >
> > >
> >
> http://uwch-4.humanities.washington.edu/~WG/~DCIII/120F%20Course%20Reader/CR5_Geertz_Deep%20Play.pdf
> > >
> > > Adults not play? What is the business of minds such as ours, if not to
> > dream of the impossible, and make it real? Or, in the words of a Mr.
> > Church, who was confronted with similar doubts:
> > >
> > > No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand
> > years from now, Virginia,  nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he
> >  will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.
> > >
> > > ...and I would add, the minds of adults.
> > >
> > > Cheers,
> > > Doug
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Monday, October 21, 2013 5:38 PM, "White, Phillip" <
> > Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > >
> > > Greg  -  Valerie back-channeled me:
> > >
> > > Something quantum physics going on here in a gnomic zen sort of way.
> > >
> > > Valerie
> > >
> > > and in considering what she wrote, i am now wondering if classical
> > mechanical physics isn't being used here in xmca to explain
> > perception/consciousness and the distinction between "play" and
> "reality"  -
> > >
> > > whereas, for our 'mind', in the world of quantum physics, what is
> > perceived - regardless theater, performance, movies, television, whatever
> > the media - the mind does not discriminate between what we call 'real'
> and
> > 'imaginary' .  it's all the same.
> > >
> > > so perhaps it's a false duality to think of play and real as polar
> > opposites, but rather multiple genres of performance would better work
> as a
> > theoretical framework.
> > >
> > > phillip
> >
> >
>



-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson