[Xmca-l] Re: Do adults play?

[Greg Thompson]

Lois,
The title reminds me of a favorite line from Lloyd Alexander's Castle of
Llyr:

"Child, child, do you not see? For each of us comes a time when we must be
more than what we are."

-greg


On Thu, Oct 24, 2013 at 9:20 AM, Lois Holzman <
lholzman@eastsideinstitute.org> wrote:

> 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
> performingtheworld.org
> loisholzman.org
> allstars.org
> http://esicommunitynews.wordpress.com/
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> 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
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
>
>


-- 
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