[Xmca-l] Re: Fate, Luck and Chance

Tue Nov 25 11:47:12 PST 2014

Haydi,
What’s a “stop” signal?! I lack chat etiquette know how I’ll bet. But let me charge ahead. Respectfully. So, what do you, or anyone, think of the substance of my comment/conjecture? Are humans wired differently with how they use their eyes to point? Of course, this doesn’t explain how blind people acquire language. Still…
Henry

> On Nov 25, 2014, at 12:29 PM, Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Thanks HENRY ! et al !
> 
> First as I was not catching up with the posts , I didn't see the 'stop' signal on discussion . If you count my posts in a year , you will see that I'm the least-heard voice . 
> 
> Second Vera John-Steiner is not someone not known at least to old participants . Then As I knew her , I very seriously put some questions in the hope she will kindly help . Maybe tweeters and retweeters and button-pressers have seen sarcasm , arrogance ?? in what I humbly wrote in which case they have just been playing memoirs . We have a proverb saying : bowls hotter than soup . Please let your respectable teacher talk whatever and however they wish to . There was misunderstanding of clouding which very swiftly and fortunately switched to 'unclouding' . Why again ? It's a matter of hours !! Sorry !!
> 
> Best
> 
> Haydi       
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> From: HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> To: Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>; "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu> 
> Cc: "vygotsky@unm.edu" <vygotsky@unm.edu> 
> Sent: Tuesday, 25 November 2014, 10:06:32
> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Fate, Luck and Chance
> 
> Hi Haydi and Vera,
> I don’t want to speak for Vera, but I remember her telling her students (when I has one of her students) about the importance developmentally of interaction between (human) care givers and very young children through “joint regard” toward objects at a distance. Am I wrong in thinking that this is very different for humans, vis-a-vis other critters? For example, I can have eye contact with my dog, but I can’t “use” my eyes (and language) to direct his attention to an object at a distance from both of us. As far as I know, only humans can do this. Am I wrong? If not, I think it says something about the ability of humans to “displace”, so important to the development of language, cognition, imagination. I believe this displacement applies both spatially and temporally. 
> Henry
> 
> 
> 
> > On Nov 25, 2014, at 5:54 AM, Haydi Zulfei <haydizulfei@rocketmail.com <mailto:haydizulfei@rocketmail.com>> wrote:
> > 
> > Hi Vera,
> > Respectfully !
> > 1.  "developmentally co-constructed process" does contain the bigger share of the truth . But...
> > 2. The other side to "The newborn is not awareof a conscious self" is that it is aware of some other things . The problem is with the very 'being aware' for a newborn . It does not seem to be logical . The whole thing Vygosky and his followers tried to do was to put some thing between the two components of the formula Stimulus =====> Response . Else what do we have to answer Vygotsky on his refutation of reflexology , reactology , etc. 
> > 3. I think Vygotsky also uses 'feelings' of pain , hunger , comfort , etc. Are not these 'reflexes' common to both animals and humans ? Having said this , can we put the question "With respect to the genesis (ignoring its being innate) of consciousness , is it a matter of leaps and bounds or gradience ?
> > 4. Then , we are left with "Eye-motion coordination" which takes us to the idea that with so many things we know about the so-called 'intelligence?!' of the animals , birds , etc. , could we specify it to just human beings . 
> > 5. I got very pleased with the "add up to  thebeginnings of consciousness" . This helps a lot . But out of Vygotsky's 'emotions' I could not gather exact terms for the points on a continuum if any . amorphous what , intellect , irritability ?? 
> > 6. If you are so kind to think of this also :
> > a. you drive quite skillfully thinking of the xmca or whatever .
> > b. You drive while the officer is testing you for certificate .
> > c. You drive focusing on the manner you are driving with .  
> > Best
> > Haydi
> >      From: Vera John-Steiner <vygotsky@unm.edu <mailto:vygotsky@unm.edu>>
> > To: "'eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity'" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>> 
> > Sent: Monday, 24 November 2014, 16:34:24
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fate, Luck and Chance
> > 
> > Hi,
> > 
> > I just would like to add a postscript to the discussion on consciousness and
> > that is that what we experience as adults
> > is a developmentally co-constructed process, and that so much of it is the
> > consequence of early exchanges. That is why(among
> > other reasons) it is so dynamic and open to change. The newborn is not aware
> > of a conscious self,but of pain, hunger, comfort,
> > all of which, together with eye-motion coordination, add up to  the
> > beginnings of consciousness. Or that is how it appears to me.
> > Vera 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>
> > [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu>] On Behalf Of Martin John Packer
> > Sent: Monday, November 24, 2014 4:11 PM
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Fate, Luck and Chance
> > 
> > Well I think we are generally in agreement, Andy. However, there are some
> > points of difference that it might be worth exploring.
> > 
> > First, from the fact that consciousness is fallible it does not follow that
> > consciousness is completely an illusion.  If that were the case, how could
> > one come to judge its fallibility? How can you state with certainty that "My
> > consciousness is an illusion"? No, consciousness is incomplete, and partial,
> > but it can also be educated. Importantly, consciousness can come to know
> > itself. And since I know the world not only from what I experience directly,
> > in the first-person manner, but also from what others tell me and from what
> > I read, I can become aware of the limitations of my own consciousness in
> > this manner. (Consciousness is both natural and social, as I mentioned in a
> > previous message.) I know, these are also given to me in my consciousness,
> > but I don't see that any insuperable problems arise as a consequence. Unlike
> > Descartes, I don't believe that an evil demon is bent on deceiving me.
> > Consciousness is our openness to the world, as Merleau-Ponty put it.
> > 
> > Second, since consciousness is personal, I have to make inferences about
> > another person's consciousness. (With the exception of a few occasions of
> > experiencing things together with another - like dancing salsa!) However, I
> > also have to infer that, and rely on the fact that, my own consciousness is
> > a material process. My own consciousness can be, and often is, outside my
> > consciousness - this is, in a nutshell, LSV's argument in Crisis. In just
> > the same way I come to learn that my digestion is a material process. I come
> > to learn that my life itself is a material process - there is no 'life
> > spirit' that animates me. Both life and digestion are, like consciousness,
> > first-person processes, and nonetheless material processes. Perhaps I am
> > helped in coming to these conclusions by observing other people, whose
> > processes of living and digesting I cannot experience directly. 
> > 
> > Where is the paradox here? It seems to me the paradox lies with those who
> > say that experience is all in the mind, and yet at the same time that we can
> > know the world. That was Descartes' paradox, and it remains the paradox,
> > unresolved, of most of contemporary social science.
> > 
> > Martin
> > 
> > 
> > On Nov 24, 2014, at 5:48 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
> > 
> >> I'll try to explain it my way, why "consciousness is a material process"
> > despite the fact that "matter is what exists outside of and independently of
> > consciousness" as you say, Martin.
> >> 
> >> In 
> >> https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a <https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a>
> >> .htm#A Marx said "My relation to my environment is my consciousness" 
> >> although he crossed it out in the manuscript. But why did he suddenly
> > introduce the first person pronoun here?
> >> 
> >> Everything I know of the world, in any sense of the word "know," I know
> > through my consciousness, but my consciousness is an illusion, a phantom,
> > and fundamentally different from that which is outside my consciousness and
> > reflected in it. Nonetheless it is what I use to determine my actions in the
> > world. I do not act exclusively through conditional reflexes like a simple
> > organism as an immediate material process, but on the contrary, mediate my
> > relation to my environment through my consciousness, which I learn, is not
> > 100% reliable, because it is just an illusion, but is reliable enough and in
> > any case is more effective thanks to socially constructed mediation, than
> > nervous reflexes.
> >> 
> >> But *your* consciousness is also outside my consciousness, and therefore I
> > must regard it as material, and if I am to get to know it, I rely on the
> > fact that it is a material process, arising from your behaviour and your
> > physiology, and although *like anything* I cannot have unmediated access to
> > it, I can learn about it only through material interactions, the same way in
> > that sense that I learnt your name and age.
> >> 
> >> But you are of course in the same position. A world of phantoms and 
> >> illusions is all you have to guide your activity in the material 
> >> world, too. Vygotsky says that the confusion arises "When one mixes up 
> >> the epistemological problem with the ontological one". That is the 
> >> relation between consciousness (an illusion) and matter 
> >> (interconnected with all other processes in the universe) is actually 
> >> an epistemological one, that is, of the sources and validity of 
> >> knowledge, and not an ontological one, that is a claim that 
> >> consciousness is something existing side by side so to speak with 
> >> matter. So it is important that while I recognise that for any person 
> >> the distinction for them between consciousness and matter is 
> >> absolutely fundamental, I must regard their consciousness as a 
> >> material process, explainable from their physiology and behaviour. 
> >> This is not a trivial point. Consciousness is not neuronal activity. 
> >> Neuronal activity is the material basis, alongside behaviour, of 
> >> consci
> > ousness, but the world is not reflected for me in neuronal activity, which
> > I know about only thanks to watching science programs on TV. Consciousness
> > is given to me immediately, however, and I am not aware of any neuronal
> > activity there.
> >> 
> >> So yes, what you said was right, "consciousness is a material process,"
> > but I think it unhelpful to leave it as a paradox like that. And I admit it
> > is unhelpful to be rude. Perhaps we both ought to exercise more restraint?
> >> 
> >> Andy
> >> 
> >> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> >> --
> >> *Andy Blunden*
> >> http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/ <http://home.pacific.net.au/~andy/>
> >> 
> >> 
> >> Martin John Packer wrote:
> >>> Don't get your point, Huw. A rectangle is generally defined as having
> > unequal sides, in contrast to a square, so that's not helping me. Obviously
> > (I would think) I am not saying that consciousness is the entirely of
> > matter. 
> >>> Perhaps you can help me in my struggle...
> >>> 
> >>> Martin
> >>> 
> >>>  
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Andy,
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> I don't see that being rude advances the conversation.  When I 
> >>>>> assert a position here in this discussion I try to base it on an 
> >>>>> argument, and/or in sources that we all have access to. I'm 
> >>>>> certainly not trying to cloud any issues, and I don't think that 
> >>>>> arguing from authority (one's own assumed) dispels the clouds.  I 
> >>>>> guess I simply don't have access to "a whole tradition of science."  
> >>>>> :(
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> To respond to your other message, yes, I am arguing that 
> >>>>> consciousness (and thinking) are material processes. They are 
> >>>>> consequences of (certain kinds of) matter in (certain kinds of) motion.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Against whom am I arguing? I am arguing against all those 
> >>>>> psychologists who argue that consciousness (and thinking) are 
> >>>>> mental processes - processes which they believe take place in some 
> >>>>> mysterious realm called "the mind" that is populated by "mental 
> >>>>> representations" of the "world outside." I deal with people who 
> >>>>> make this argument on a daily basis. They believe that the proper
> > object of investigation for psychology is "mind,"
> >>>>> and so they have no interest in setting, or culture, or practical 
> >>>>> activities.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Yes, Haydi's message is the portion of Crisis that I pointed to in 
> >>>>> my last message.
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> 
> >>>>> Martin
> >>>>>      
> >>> 
> >> 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> 
> 