[Xmca-l] Re: Why Computers Make So Little Difference

[mike cole]

Your query, Henry, returns us to the discussion of LSV's article on the
environment from a couple of months ago and the concept of perezhivanie,
the translation of which several experts are certain they know the proper
interpretation. Unfortunately, they are not in agreement. (This is true of
both Russian and English-writing scholars within and between
language/culture communities)

Vasiliuk's book, "The psychology of experiencing" is floating around in pdf
form somewhere. His focus there is on perezhivanie. More recently he has
been focused on this concept with respect to psychotherapy. I believe this
work is being translated now, and is about to appear in English, but am not
sure.

mike

On Thu, Mar 12, 2015 at 9:05 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Too,
> Annalisa has spilled some virtual ink pondering affect and feeling. I have
> struggled with the same issue. Andy, through Academia, has just made
> available his article. “The Germ Cell of Vygotsky’s Science”, from which
> the following quote:
>
> "In each of the areas of psychological research into which Vygotsky went,
> his aim was to establish a unit of analysis. He was not always successful,
> and for example, his study of the emotions failed to arrive at a unit of
> analysis before his death in 1934.”
>
> How and why did Vygotsky fail? This question may be off-thread, or not.
>
> Henry
>
> P.S. Annalisa, you use the term “repair”. Could you explain how that fits
> with affect and feeling?
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Mar 11, 2015, at 5:58 PM, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > These examples of tape recorders in language labs verses automated
> recordings on buses seem to say a lot about contexts to me. Specifically
> environments (which include subject-objects, object-subjects, subjects, and
> objects).
> >
> > But ALSO not just environments and others: Affects and feelings and
> motivations, *too*.
> >
> > That all of these are exceptionally important to take into consideration
> when reading, listening, judging, and comparing, and then writing.
> Sometimes we skip steps, not intentionally, but also, not all the time.
> >
> > (I am learning about affects lately, thanks to a book Paul Mocombe
> recommended, BTW)
> >
> > Apparently an affect is like a wordless feeling; Something coming from
> the environment (which can be from another person or people, though I
> wonder if it's possible just from the environment without people, as well).
> Affect seems to be something unconscious. Feeling, however is more
> concrete, and therefore more conscious, and thus seated within our embodied
> experience in a different way than affect is embodied, whereby for a
> feeling, the affect has been transformed into a thought, but not a thought
> in the sense of a cerebral-thought, but a feeling-thought. Unfortunately my
> vocabulary fails me here.
> >
> > Hence: Affect + Transformation into thought = Feeling
> >
> > Trouble arises when affect isn't transformed. Perhaps tool use (such as
> when speaking or writing or reading, or baking lasagna, running, raking
> leaves, playing the saxophone) assists in this transformation.
> >
> > I can't help but include in this concept in this thread about the impact
> of computers. That much of the profile of computer usage, just like other
> tools, is how they transmit emotion to us, and how do we know (with
> certainty) what is authentic emotion in something like an email or a list
> serve post?
> >
> > Posts on listservs are not just words.
> >
> > Something does convey even if the sense is a shattered or muffled sense.
> What is lacking in the profile of this tool called a computer, is the means
> of repair that is usually done in the world without computers in the
> middle. Likely because there is not a stable context or environment in
> which to do that. Particularly where people are in different timezones.
> >
> > This feature is absent from the printing press and distribution of
> books, because the feedback loop was entirely different with many
> gatekeepers. Computers attached to a network has little friction (compared
> to 1400 transmissions of words in books).
> >
> > Even we see something similar in the cameras as apparatus (apparati?) A
> large format camera takes an entirely different photograph from a 35mm
> camera from a 2-¼ format camera. This has to do with lenses, f-stops, film
> speed, whether a tripod is required or not. One really understands this
> concept after using different cameras. The comparison can be made for those
> of us who used Instamatics and now use an iPhone to take pictures, so I
> don't mean to privilege this to only committed photogs.
> >
> > Since computers and the manner that they transmit affect and feeling can
> have such an impact on so many people, I'm not sure how that doesn't make a
> difference.
> >
> > Certainly, television has made a difference to us. It fired all the
> babysitters for example. Now the televisions are being fired in favor of
> video games, youTube, and other various preoccupations on the digital wave.
> >
> > Some researchers are saying that kids brains are being rewired from this
> ubiquitous use of computers. I'm not sure how I feel about that, but it
> does seem that kids take to playing with them in an easier fashion than
> their parents.
> >
> > I don't think we can therefore isolate words from our experience, but as
> you point out David, they that must be contextualized in the wider world. I
> am reading that as what you are saying.
> >
> > Of course I may have misunderstood your affect, feelings, and
> motivations, or you may also misunderstand mine.
> >
> > And so we cast ourselves into the void and hope for the best, giving the
> other the benefit of the doubt.
> >
> > We hope.
> >
> > Kind regards,
> >
> > Annalisa
> >
> >
>
>


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