[Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience

[Greg Thompson]

Larry,
The clues are all there with regard to "ma".

Dewey and ma point us to Mike's paper with Etienne Pelaprat titled "Mind
the Gap" - the Dewey link should be obvious in the text, but at the bottom
of the wikipedia page you shared about "ma", one finds (strangely!) a link
to "Mind the Gap" - not Mike's essay but the phrase to which the essay
refers.

So, yes indeed,

mind the gap!

-greg

On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 11:33 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
wrote:

> Thanks a lot for the links! The ideas you are writing about sound really
> interesting. I have also thought/written about Dewey, and right now I am
> finishing a paper on "learning transfer" where we propose a "transactional
> approach" that builds precisely on the ideas that you mention about
> receptivity and undergoing as moments of experience. These ideas  become
> particularly challenging to classical notions of transfer because transfer
> is typically thought of as the bringing of prior knowledge into a new
> situation, without the surrender, affectivity, and going through that (an)
> experience in the Deweyan sense implies.
>
> Thanks once more,
> Alfredo
> ________________________________________
> From: xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
> Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> Sent: 16 July 2015 06:12
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
>
> Alfredo,
> Here is another Wikipedia link to "ma" [as space]
>
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ma_(negative_space)
>
> An article by Sheila Ross "The Temporality of Tarrying in Gadamer"  in the
> journal *Theory, Culture, & Society*, 2006, Volume 23 (1): Pages 104-123 is
> where I encountered this idea.
>
> I am personally linking Dewey, Gadamer, and the concept of "ma".  I will
> point out that Gadamer's focus on tarrying is to  focus an experience of
> the "subject matter" through living conversations.  My readings on this
> topic are idiosyncratic but I personally sense/perceive a shared
> sensibility and "disposition" in these notions of "agentic" receptivity and
> undergoing phenomena.  [which is not passive]
> I also believe this disposition to perceive the "pregnant pause" in ongoing
> activity can be "cultivated/grown".
>
> Thanks for inviting me to think out loud with you.
> Larry
>
>
>
> Your article is moving deeper into the multimodal with bodily gesture but I
> believe my comments add to the complexity of the "aspects" you are
> exploring as place-making/meaning.
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 8:43 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
>
> > Larry,
> >
> > when you mentioned the "ma" case today, I immediately thought of Dewey's
> > "an" experience, because it involves the unity of the different moments
> > that you described in "ma". I never came along Gadamer, but, after
> reading
> > your e-mail, I will definitely have a look. Is there a particular text
> you
> > would recommend?
> >
> > Thanks,
> > Alfredo
> > ________________________________________
> > From: xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu
> > <xmca-l-bounces+a.g.jornet=iped.uio.no@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of
> > Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
> > Sent: 16 July 2015 05:33
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Having an experience
> >
> > Mike,
> >
> > I wanted to show how I read Dewey's focusing on having "an" experience is
> > focusing on the same theme as the Japanese concept of "ma"
> > Here is a link to explain this concept:
> >
> >
> https://wawaza.com/pages/when-less-is-more-the-concept-of-japanese-ma.html
> >
> > Here is Dewey exploring similar themes:
> > Experiencing like breathing is a rhythm of intakings and outgivings.
> Their
> > succession is PUNCTUATED and made a rhythm by the existence of INTERVALS,
> > periods in which one phase is ceasing and the other is inchoate and
> > preparing"
> >
> > Here is another example from the Dewey article:
> >
> > "Because of continuous merging, there are no holes, mechanical junctions,
> > and dead centers when we have an experience. There are PAUSES, PLACES OF
> > REST but they punctuate and define the "quality of" movement.  They sum
> up
> > what has been UNDERGONE and prevent its dissipation and idle evaporation.
> >
> > So for Dewey the aspect of "an" experience includes "undergoing" which
> > develops "perception" [which Dewey contrasts with mere "recognition"
> >
> > Now I want to highlight that this undergoing is "receptive" which is NOT
> > passive. I see this as the essence of "ma" To "be" receptive is an active
> > process of undergoing and consolidation as "intaking" aspect of having
> "an"
> > experience this is an act of "surrender"
> > Here is Dewey exploring this theme"
> >
> > The aesthetic or undergoing phase of experience is receptive. It involves
> > surrender. But adequate yielding of the self is possibly only through a
> > controlled activity that may well be intense. In much of our intercourse
> > with our surroundings we withdraw; sometimes from fear, if only of
> > expending unduly our store of energy; sometimes from preoccupation with
> > other matters, as in the case of recognition. Perception is an act of the
> > going-out of energy in order to receive, not a withholding of energy. To
> > steep ourselves in a subject-matter we have first to plunge into it. When
> > we are only passive to a scene, it overwhelms us and, for lack of
> answering
> > activity, we do not perceive that which bears us down. :We must summon
> > energy and pitch it at a responsive key in order to *take *in."
> >
> > Dewey describes receptive surrender as summoning energy and pitching this
> > energy at a responsive key IN ORDER TO "take in".
> >
> > If others are interested Gadamer shares the centrality of this phenomena
> of
> > "taking in" receptively and surrender to "the subject matter" as
> > undergoing.  In German the term is "verweiling" which is translated as
> > "tarrying"
> >
> > I mention Japanese "ma" as this concept is deeply integrated into there
> > cultural fabric as a valued "disposition" and attitude.
> >
> > Dewey is showing that to be manically "making" and "constructing" and
> > "working" is actually a "dis-order" of will.
> > Without the pause/interval there is no integral experience but only
> > "dis-ordered will".
> >
> > In other words willing what cannot be willed. I purposely am using this
> > older term "will" to contrast with the notion of "receptive undergoing"
> > within "lived through experience"
> >
> > On Wed, Jul 15, 2015 at 4:57 PM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> >
> > > Andy suggested I read this a couple of weeks back and it seems quite
> > > appropriate to the conversation around Alfredo and Rolf's
> > > paper. I found it thought provoking from the get go. Lets hear it for
> the
> > > old guys.
> > > mike
> > >
> > > --
> > >
> > > Both environment and species change in the course of time, and thus
> > > ecological niches are not stable and given forever (Polotova & Storch,
> > > Ecological Niche, 2008)
> > >
> >
> >
>
>


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson