[Xmca-l] Re: units of analysis? LSV versus ANL

[Huw Lloyd]

On 19 October 2014 04:23, <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> wrote:

> Huw,
> have you ever been unable to remember a phone number until you reach for a
> phone and as soon as your fingers touch the keys you remember it?
> Seems like the number was in your head/fingers/phone, not just your brain.
> No?
>

The ability to reach is a memory too, Greg.

Huw


> Greg
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Oct 18, 2014, at 7:06 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > On 19 October 2014 02:38, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> So many assumptions here that I don't share, Huw.
> >
> > Quite so!  Why don't you share them?
> >
> > Best,
> > Huw
> >
> >
> >>
> >> Martin
> >>
> >>> On Oct 18, 2014, at 8:06 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> If one is going to attend to the notion of consciousness as
> >> attentiveness,
> >>> an "inner eye" etc, then it is germane to distinguish the genetic
> source
> >>> from the derived means.  The means for reflexivity is memory.  It so
> >>> happens that most of our memory is located in our heads, which is how
> >> we're
> >>> able to imagine doing something without concurrently doing it  -- or,
> >> what
> >>> might be more accurate, only partially doing it.
> >>>
> >>> Best,
> >>> Huw
> >>>
> >>> On 19 October 2014 01:49, Martin John Packer <mpacker@uniandes.edu.co>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Hi Greg,
> >>>>
> >>>> I'm certainly not suggesting we stop using the terms inside and
> outside.
> >>>> Material entities - including complex systems - can be inside other
> >>>> entities, including other systems. But "mind" can't be inside
> anything,
> >>>> because it occupies no space. At least that how the classical
> >> enlightenment
> >>>> philosophers defined mental entities - they have no extension, no
> >> spatial
> >>>> dimensions. Remember how Descartes tried to link mind to the pineal
> >> gland,
> >>>> because that was the smallest structure he could find in the brain?
> >>>>
> >>>> One of the indications that psychology is not, in fact, a study of the
> >>>> mind is that we are completely inconsistent in how we talk about it. I
> >> ask
> >>>> my students where their mind is. Most of them point at their heads.
> So I
> >>>> ask them what I asked Andy - "you mean if I look inside you skull I'll
> >> see
> >>>> your thoughts?" They tell me no. So I ask them again where their mind
> >> is,
> >>>> and they can't answer. I ask them how we can study something when we
> >> don't
> >>>> even know where it is.
> >>>>
> >>>> Your right, important stuff is inside the head. I have no trouble at
> all
> >>>> with the proposal that we study what is inside the  head. I used to
> be a
> >>>> computer programmer, so I know something about the important stuff
> >> inside
> >>>> the machine. I think it's important to understand the human brain; I
> >> would
> >>>> not like to try to think without mine. But we won't find the mind by
> >>>> looking at the brain; in both cases there are material processes going
> >> on
> >>>> in material entities - physical in one case, biological in the other.
> In
> >>>> the case of a human being, the brain is a necessary basis for
> >> psychological
> >>>> processes to occur. But also necessary are the rest of the body, and a
> >>>> culture to live in. Just because the brain is inside the skull doesn't
> >> mean
> >>>> that the mind is inside the brain. There are now many powerful
> arguments
> >>>> against the assumption central to Cog Sci, that psychological
> processes
> >> are
> >>>> like computational processes, which operate on non-semantic formal
> >>>> representations (look at Clark, Barsalou, Glenberg, Ingold). And what
> >> sense
> >>>> would it make to say that consciousness is *in* the brain?
> >> Consciousness is
> >>>> a process; it is an aspect of our ongoing involvement in the material
> >>>> world. Where is it? It is where that involvement is.
> >>>>
> >>>> Martin
> >>>>
> >>>>> On Oct 18, 2014, at 6:18 PM, greg.a.thompson@gmail.com wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Martin, I wonder whether you think the notions of "inside" and
> "outside
> >>>> run into similar trouble of mental/material dualism?
> >>>>> I was thinking in particular of the notion of the "inside" of a
> system
> >>>> (this was how Jay Lemke once described the notion of "stance" as the
> >>>> insides if the system).
> >>>>> I can see trouble if we think of "Inside" solely in terms of "inside
> my
> >>>> head" as you mention. But I wonder if there isn't some possibility of
> >>>> working with this way of speaking that doesn't necessarily call in a
> >>>> mental/physical dualism? (I mean, "inside" and "outside are both ways
> of
> >>>> describing physical spaces, so it seems like as long as they aren't
> >> applied
> >>>> to a pre existing dualist if concept, then this shouldn't be a
> problem.)
> >>>>> And though I'm not fond of the brain-as-computer metaphor, it might
> be
> >>>> instructive as a way to think about this inside/outside distinction as
> >> the
> >>>> difference between watching the processor at work (outside) and
> watching
> >>>> the screens as a program runs (inside).
> >>>>> In principle the one can be reduced to the other, but in practice it
> >>>> can't anymore (I assume this is true with today's computers).
> >>>>> The degree of complexity can make it seem like the program running is
> >> an
> >>>> autonomous explanatory level of its own, but that doesn't mean that it
> >> is.
> >>>> Just that it is the "inside" of the system.
> >>>>> What do you think?
> >>>>> -Greg
> >>>>> Ps, apologies for not making more direct ties to lsv vs anl
> discussion.
> >>>> If this is too much of a sidetrack, I'm happy to take this up offline.
> >> But
> >>>> Martin, I find your position to be a very provocative one and would
> >> like to
> >>>> hear more about how it makes sense for you. It is a way of thinking
> >> that is
> >>>> very difficult to wrap one's Western language/mind/brain around!
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Sent from my iPhone
> >>>>>
> >>>>>> On Oct 18, 2014, at 3:38 PM, Martin John Packer <
> >>>> mpacker@uniandes.edu.co> wrote:
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Hi Michael,
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> LSV points out that no proper science sets out to study appearances.
> >>>> Every science studies entities that exist, in order to *explain*
> >>>> appearance. One of his examples is from the science of optics. When we
> >>>> place a burning candle in front of a mirror there *appears* to be a
> >> second
> >>>> candle burning behind the mirror, or 'in' the mirror. The scientist
> >> doesn't
> >>>> study that second candle. What he or she studies is the first candle,
> >> and
> >>>> the mirror, in order to discover principles by which to explain why an
> >>>> 'image' of a second candle appears, apparently located 'in' the
> mirror.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> It's the same with the mind. It *appears* to us (at least to those
> of
> >>>> us raised in western, scientific cultures) that our thoughts and
> >> feelings
> >>>> exist in a special, internal, subjective, hidden place that we call
> "the
> >>>> mind."  A scientific psychology, says LSV, needs to try to explain how
> >> that
> >>>> appearance is possible. It's not too difficult, in fact: our verbal
> >>>> thoughts, our private subvocal speech, is possible, first, because we
> >> can
> >>>> use vocal speech to direct our own actions and second, because a fibre
> >>>> bundle called the arcuate fasciculus forms between Broca's area and
> >>>> Wernicke's area (to considerably simply the neuroanatomy and
> >>>> neurofunctioning).  The appearance of a "mind in the head" is a *folk*
> >>>> psychology: it is simply one way, among several, in which people try
> to
> >>>> make sense of an experience that they have; it is the way our own
> >>>> psychological processes *appear* to us. Scientific psychology cannot
> >> study
> >>>> the mind, any more than it can study the second candle. It can,
> however,
> >>>> set out to *explain* the mind, and that is part of what LSV did.
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>> Martin
> >>>>>>
> >>>>>>> On Oct 18, 2014, at 8:11 AM, Glassman, Michael <
> glassman.13@osu.edu>
> >>>> wrote:
> >>>>>>>
> >>>>>>> I sort of feel like (at this point) Vygotsky did open himself up
> for
> >>>> being critiqued for going inside the head.  It was a choice, I don't
> >> think
> >>>> he was willing to give up the idea of individual development (which I
> >> think
> >>>> you have to do if you are going to escape dualism - because what
> >> develops
> >>>> if you can't say there is something inside the head that develops
> >> (remember
> >>>> I am suggesting individual development here).
> >>
> >>
> >>
>
>