[Xmca-l] Re: How *basic* are images?

[mike cole]

I think that my current and changing views are consistent with Barsalou,
Martin. I come at this from Alexander Suvorov's charactrization of
imagination as "rising off of the world and returning to it again" (he was
blind & deaf, a circumstance that seems relevant to his characterization of
the process. A process, through time, and where you land is not where you
began, even if you are trying to jump exactly the same way twice.

To me kosslyn results I attached earlier have always been thought provoking
about images and imagination as process.

mike

mike.

On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 11:36 AM, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co
> wrote:

> Mike,
>
> I don't know whether you agree with me, but I'd say that "mental images"
> are examples of the "simulations" that Larry Barsalou has been studying.
> Barsalou is one of the proponents of "grounded cognition": here is the
> abstract from one of his papers:
>
> "Grounded cognition rejects traditional views that cognition is
> computation on amodal symbols in a modular system, independent of the
> brain’s modal systems for perception, action, and introspection. Instead,
> grounded cognition proposes that modal simulations, bodily states, and
> situated action underlie cognition. Accumulating behavioral and neural
> evidence supporting this view is reviewed from research on perception,
> memory, knowledge, language, thought, so- cial cognition, and development.
> Theories of grounded cognition are also reviewed, as are origins of the
> area and common misperceptions of it. Theoretical, empirical, and
> methodological issues are raised whose future treatment is likely to affect
> the growth and impact of grounded cognition."
>
> (Available here:)
> <
> http://www.cogsci.ucsd.edu/~ajyu/Teaching/Cogs202_sp12/Readings/barsalou08_grounded.pdf
> >
>
> In my view, LSV helps us break away from the core assumption of cognitive
> psychology: that the brain (and or mind) operates with *amodal* 'mental'
> representations ('amodal' simply means independent of the perceptual
> modalities of sight, sound, touch, etc.). That assumption leads into
> intractable dualism, and into exactly the problems that LSV described. But
> certainly we can create *modal* simulations, as LSV knew well - 'inner'
> speech is one example (though it's still not clear what goes on in the
> brain when we do this). Grounded cognition is one of the new turns in
> psychology that I think aligns well with cultural psychology/CHAT. Perhaps
> Barsalou was in contact with the folk at UCSD?
>
> Martin
>
> On Dec 2, 2014, at 2:18 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>
> > I think I am with you on re-fraction rather than re-presentation, Henry.
> > Although there are circumstances in which representation seems an
> > appropriate enough word.
> >
> > I would like to continue the half of the conversation that continued to
> > talk about images (despite their bad rep) and imagination (despite its
> > trendiness).
> >
> > I take the core of the discussion to be about the nature of/existence
> > of/signficicance of "mental images" and their relation (or lack thereof)
> to
> > the polysemic concept of imagination.
> >
> > To go way back in time (not so far as Wundt and Tichner, but all the way
> > back to 1978) I attach a paper by Stephen Kosslyn that seems relevant to
> > think about images as processes so that the verbiness of imag(ing) is
> > brought to the fore.
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Dec 2, 2014 at 10:49 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Peeps,
> >> I come late to this, but I was thinking this morning at the bus stop
> about
> >> David K’s narrative of kids learning about light. I though maybe a
> >> parallel: Representation = Reflection and Procedural = Refraction. I
> think
> >> of both as imagery, just that representation is sort of nouny and
> >> procedural is verby. Procedural imagery involves, depending on the
> angle of
> >> incidence, deviation from the the initial vector. But procedural imagery
> >> keeps things on the move. An affordance. I have forgotten my physics,
> but
> >> does refraction slow things down in any way?
> >> Henry
> >>
> >>> On Dec 1, 2014, at 8:23 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> Martin!
> >>>
> >>> Perhaps the day we stop employing the phrase "mental representation" is
> >> coming closer!
> >>>
> >>> For me, this brings us closer to truly understanding Gibson's theory of
> >> affordances.
> >>>
> >>> This is what it's like for me to read David's contributed article. But
> I
> >> wonder if it is possible for you, Martin, to explain why it is important
> >> not to use the phrase,"mental representation" in the article.
> >>>
> >>> I suspect there is a history here, and I do not mean to pull a grenade
> >> pin, I just want to understand because I am a newcomer to the list. If
> you
> >> can trust that that is my intention by asking, I will look forward to
> your
> >> reply, Martin.
> >>>
> >>> Let me just add that I am putting two and two together that being at
> >> UCSD and it being the home to Distributed Cognition, that that
> influences
> >> your position, not that it necessarily shapes it, but that you find
> >> community in it (which I suppose can still shape, but it seems more
> >> voluntary phrased that way).
> >>>
> >>> Kind regards,
> >>>
> >>> Annalisa
> >>> ________________________________________
> >>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu
> >
> >> on behalf of Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> >>> Sent: Monday, December 1, 2014 4:28 AM
> >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: How *basic* are images?
> >>>
> >>> An interesting article, David. One way in which it is interesting, to
> me
> >> at least, is that the phrase "mental representation" is not used, even
> >> once. Instead the author writes of the way that we "read" images in the
> >> world around us - material representations - and he tries to define the
> >> "interpretational space" within which this reading takes place.
> >>>
> >>> Martin
> >>>
> >>> On Dec 1, 2014, at 1:53 AM, David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Larry, Annalisa:
> >>>>
> >>>> People sometimes ask my wife if it was "love at first sight" when we
> >>>> met. She answers--quite truthfully--that she has no memory of anything
> >>>> except the price of the shoes that I wore (a kind of shoe available
> >>>> for a standard price all over China) She does not even remember
> >>>> whether they were new or old (they were pretty new; it was the
> >>>> beginning of the semester). I think I would describe this as a
> >>>> non-image based mental representation.
> >>>>
> >>>> As Larry says, the issue of whether all mental representations are
> >>>> images was a very hot one--back in the late nineteenth century. In
> >>>> fact, it was the key issue for the Gestaltist revolt against Titchener
> >>>> and against Wundtian psychology: for Wundt and his disciples,
> >>>> everything was image based, and the Gestaltists demonstrated that
> >>>> many, if not most, of our mental operations are genetically anterior
> >>>> to images, and have more to do with processes, else we would not have
> >>>> time or ability to process complex problems in real time.
> >>>>
> >>>> I think it is even more true that of forms of thinking that are
> >>>> genetically posterior to images. I hesitate to recommend more reading
> >>>> to anybody, because of course Larry is far more well read than I am
> >>>> (particularly on phenomenology) and Annalisa sometimes feels like
> >>>> she's being sent to sit facing the corner with a book. So do NOT read
> >>>> this article--instead, look at Figure 11.
> >>>>
> >>>> http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3157022/
> >>>>
> >>>> The artist, Robert Pepperell, uses the general color structure of
> >>>> Michelangelo’s painting to suggest images without using any actual
> >>>> images: by color and shape, which some part of our cultural experience
> >>>> associates with Renaissance paintings.  Pepperell then deliberately
> >>>> frustrates these guiding images by refusing to give them any
> >>>> recognizable figures upon which to focus.
> >>>>
> >>>> However, the child staring up at Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel fresco
> >>>> for the first time finds himself in the opposite situation. He or she
> >>>> can discern quite clearly the fighting figures in the painting and
> >>>> wonders who they are and why they are fighting, but does not notice
> >>>> the color structure or see anything particularly meaningful in it.
> >>>>
> >>>> David Kellogg
> >>>> Hankuk University of Foreign Studies
> >>>>
> >>>> On 1 December 2014 at 10:39, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu>
> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hi Larry and David,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Am I butting in? I hope if I am, it is a welcome butting in!
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I don't know that we can say that "basic guiding images" are at the
> >> root of all thinking.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Perhaps it is safer to say that people think differently, based upon
> >> previous conditioning and interactions with their caretakers, in
> >> combination with their biological makeup? Vera has a coined a phrase I
> like
> >> a lot called "Cognitive pluralism." She has written a paper on it by the
> >> same title and you may find interesting it if you don't know it.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> With this in mind, it is possible that _some_ people think as Hackett
> >> describes, but I don't know if it is how all people think. Have you
> already
> >> given an example of Hackett's work that you recommend? I'd be willing to
> >> take a look.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> As I understand, the topic of mental representations is
> controversial.
> >> It is likely controversial because no one likes it when someone says
> "this
> >> is how all humans think." Of course, that is just my humble observation.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It may just be that thinking is a dynamic process and whatever that
> >> process is, is particular to the necessity to the situation at hand?
> Just a
> >> thought.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> What is it that appeals to you about this model, metaphoricity?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> (BTW, a metaphor need not be image based!)
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Kind regards,
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Annalisa
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ________________________________________
> >>>>> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> >> on behalf of Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> >>>>> Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2014 11:33 AM
> >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture Activity
> >>>>> Subject: [Xmca-l]  How *basic* are images?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> David K
> >>>>> I mentioned Chris Hackett, and I recently referenced Peirce. My
> reason
> >> for
> >>>>> exploring these authors is I have been following a path pursuing a
> >> basic
> >>>>> question.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Are basic guiding images at the root of all thinking?
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Chris Hackett's answer is: "thinking never EXCEEDS the basic guiding
> >> images
> >>>>> upon which thinking rests"
> >>>>>
> >>>>> The recent dialogue between Andy and Martin exploring appearances and
> >>>>> illusions was also exploring this theme.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hackett is outlining what he understands as a new phenomenological
> path
> >>>>> that places guiding images at the root of thinking. He names this
> >> process
> >>>>> *metaphoricity*.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hackett believes metaphoricity names the irreducible image-character
> >> of the
> >>>>> *spontaneous event* of meaning.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> He goes on to suggest that the "intending subject" - which he
> brackets
> >> -
> >>>>> finds itself implicated in this guiding image.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> AND
> >>>>>
> >>>>> it is *in* this guiding image that the *intending subject* finds the
> >>>>> meaning of its very self.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Exploring the notion of "first things* Hackett proposes this
> >>>>> image-character IS a new *objectivity* that only the notion of
> >> metaphor can
> >>>>> invoke. In other words the notion of *seeing as* is implicated in
> >>>>> *objectivity*
> >>>>>
> >>>>> This new objectivity for Hackett is the root of thinking.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Reason at the point of becoming conscious and in command of itself
> >> *in* the
> >>>>> mode [path] of the concept
> >>>>> occurs AFTER the *constitution* of meaning through guiding images has
> >> been
> >>>>> established.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In other words meaning through guiding images mediates the path of
> >>>>> conscious verbal thought in command of itself which is derived from
> the
> >>>>> image-character of the guiding image.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I hesitate to open this thread because of how controversial this
> topic
> >> may
> >>>>> become [again]
> >>>>>
> >>>>> However I will take the risk as I continue to be held by this basic
> >>>>> question. I want to repeat that Hackett is exploring these images as
> >>>>> occurring as *events* and in his speculations the images emerge
> >>>>> spontaneously prior to intentional consciousness.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> This is not the phenomenology of Husserl [which is transcendental]
> and
> >> is
> >>>>> not the phenomenology of Heidegger [which is hermeneutical]. It seems
> >> to
> >>>>> have an affinity with Peirce and speculative musings.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I also realize this question may already be answered in Vygotsky's
> >> writings
> >>>>> and may be pulling us away from the historical concerns of XMCA. I
> >>>>> personally am following this path for now.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Larry
> >>>>>
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
> >
> > --
> > It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an
> > object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.
> >
> <dev.image1.&cit%3Apub=Developmental+Psychology&cit%3Avol=10&cit%3Aiss=5&cit%3Apg=716&cit%3Adate=Sep+1974&ic=true&c>
>
>
>


-- 
It is the dilemma of psychology to deal with a natural science with an
object that creates history. Ernst Boesch.