[Xmca-l] Re: Do adults play?

[Lois Holzman]

A propos this thread, I invite folks to peruse performingtheworld.org and read the attached announcement and call for proposals for the 8th Performing the World conference to be held in NYC October 10-12, 2014—with the theme "How Shall We Become?" The gathering brings together hundreds who are doing/studying (and even theorizing) play and performance with people of all ages. If you want to see adults play, this is one place to do it.
Lois



Don't forget to check out the latest at http://loisholzman.org and http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/conceptual-revolution

Lois Holzman, Ph.D.
Director, East Side Institute for Group and Short Term Psychotherapy
104-106 South Oxford St.
Brooklyn NY 11217
Chair, Global Outreach for All Stars Project UX 
tel. 212.941.8906 ext. 324
fax 718.797.3966
lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org
eastsideinstitute.org
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On Oct 22, 2013, at 5:49 PM, CAITLIN WUBBENA <cwubbena@gse.upenn.edu> wrote:

> I agree that play allows us to construct realities (through play, we're
> able to imagine ourselves in new situations and are then able to construct
> realities based on that "practice"). I think Vygotsky does a good job of
> setting that up. Kendall Walton also states that those who play develop
> better people skills (empathy, etc). I'm looking forward to reading the
> Luria article.
> 
> I'm curious, from that point, how play could be conceived as enabling
> people to do better work. Maybe there's a way to make a "play as developing
> human capital" argument. The set up is definitely there and I think we've
> begun to touch upon that question. But I'm curious if there is more
> explicit evidence that proves this suspicion I have that people who play
> more in childhood are more comfortable "playing" with intellectual ideas
> later in life and, thus, produce better academic products.
> 
> 
> On Tue, Oct 22, 2013 at 11:00 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
>>> 
>>> 
>>