[Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA

[Huw Lloyd]

Hi Henry,

You might like Kurt Lewin's 1931 paper, "The Conflict Between Aristotelian
and Galileian Modes of Thought in Contemporary Psychology".

First link I found here
<https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CD8QFjAFahUKEwii9-uC68fIAhXFwxQKHVk6Dek&url=http%3A%2F%2Fsasico.com.br%2Fpsico%2Fwp-content%2Fimages%2F2009%2F03%2F002-aristoteles-x-galileu1.pdf&usg=AFQjCNF9QwtaANY3mJW0mSJghAmAYE92kw&sig2=7hJc222nnSALDf-xCwF93Q&bvm=bv.105454873,d.d24>
.

Best,
Huw

On 16 October 2015 at 20:56, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Larry,
> I also had read your post, but didn’t realize how generative your gravity
> metaphor was! I was more focused on what you said about play mimesis and
> affordances. After reading Alfredo’s response to your post, I got the
> following from Wikipedia’s “gravity”:
>
> "Gravity is most accurately described by the general theory of relativity <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_theory_of_relativity> (proposed by
> Albert Einstein <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Einstein> in 1915)
> which describes gravity, not as a force, but as a consequence of the
> curvature of spacetime <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spacetime> caused
> by the uneven distribution of mass/energy; and resulting in time dilation <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_dilation>, where time lapses more
> slowly in strong gravitation.”
>
> then further on:
>
> “...gravity has a negligible influence on the behavior of sub-atomic
> particles, and plays no role in determining the internal properties of
> everyday matter (but see quantum gravity <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_gravity>). On the other hand,
> gravity is the dominant force at the macroscopic scale <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macroscopic_scale>”.
>
> Out on a limb, it seems to me that psychology and sociology parallel the
> micro/macro distinction in physics. And note the problems of reconciling
> relativity theory of Einstein with probabalistic quantum theory. In other
> words, physics seems to have had the same problems as social science in
> reconciling the micro and macro.
>
> Henry
>
>
>
>
> > On Oct 16, 2015, at 12:28 PM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> wrote:
> >
> > Larry, I just read your notes and wanted to thank you. There are so many
> interesting things that I would not know how to begin addressing them
> (though I hope I'll get the chance soon). But I wanted to let you know that
> I thoroughly enjoyed the way you move us through a sort of inter-stelar
> travel in your text. I really like the way you treat different traditions
> of thinking as gravitational fields, where notions such as "objects" make
> sense only as part of a larger arrangement of concepts and
> ideas/discourses. The travel you describe certainly touches into some of
> what we (or at least I) experience when we move across literatures to try
> to achieve coherent and pragmatically productive ways of approaching the
> study of human practices. And it also helped me to better see and
> appreciate (at least fragments of) what others had contributed in prior
> discussions in the thread. So, thanks for that!
> >
> > 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: 14 October 2015 18:55
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA
> >
> > I have been deeply engaged with the topic of boundary objects and notions
> > of orientation.
> > Here attached is a response.
> > It is rather long and this is why it is sent as an attachment.
> > I want to thank everyone for our shared voices.
> >
> > On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 9:04 AM, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no
> >
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Huw, thanks a lot! Your experiences is very valuable for what I am
> looking
> >> at now, really. I'll definitively keep you posted on what I get up to.
> >>
> >> 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
> Huw
> >> Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> >> Sent: 14 October 2015 17:50
> >> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA
> >>
> >> Alfredo,
> >>
> >> Regarding "how the situated work taking place during a shift of
> >> (computational) paradigm would differ", generalising from my experience
> I
> >> usually see a breakdown in communication and an approach is taken in
> which
> >> the program is inched forward, perhaps akin to tacking to a coastline.
> >>
> >> What was a reasonable strategy for a quick solution transforms over time
> >> into an abuse of the language, such as 20 files consisting of nested if
> >> statements that are several hundred lines long used to parse text files.
> >>
> >> Depending upon the experience, common trigger scenarios might be:
> >>
> >> Object oriented programming.
> >> Inversion of control (using frameworks)
> >> Multithreaded programming.
> >> Functional programming
> >>
> >> But even when the language constructs are well known there can be
> >> disagreements concerning other basic representational and orientational
> >> constructs, such as what an event is, whether an input is interior or
> >> exterior to an encapsulation, whether value objects or identity objects
> are
> >> used, and whether the problem domain is actually articulated in the
> >> software.
> >>
> >> Regarding gesture, I would say that gestures index orientation mediated
> by
> >> conscious goals.  So I would agree that gesture, rather than mere
> wording,
> >> helps to orient.  But I would tend to disagree that gesture is
> >> 'foundational'.  For me, orientation is king.  It would be interesting
> to
> >> see if you make something else of it.
> >>
> >> Best,
> >> Huw
> >>
> >>
> >> On 14 October 2015 at 15:44, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Huw,
> >>> thanks for the reflection, it brings a very interesting distinction.
> The
> >>> software developers case that I mentioned is more on the contained
> sense
> >> of
> >>> "unknown", as you mentioned, not involving a shift of computing
> paradigm.
> >>> Yet I could observe lots of work performed by the developers for them
> to
> >> be
> >>> able to do intelligible enough reference to the feature thereby being
> >>> designed. This work, which I glossed as "naming", included not just
> >>> (technical, specialized) names already familiar to them, but also
> >> drawings,
> >>> gesturing, and performance. So, the words were not enough, and there
> was
> >>> some form of imagination going on. So the distinction you introduced
> >> makes
> >>> me wonder how the situated work taking place during a shift of
> >>> (computational) paradigm would differ with respect to the one that I am
> >>> observing, that is, involving only a "minor" innovation.
> >>>
> >>> Henry's connection with the moving from verb to noun that we reported
> >> with
> >>> respect to boundary objects is interesting here because it brings
> >> attention
> >>> to objects (materials) and their relation to our sensitivities
> (bodies).
> >> I
> >>> am thinking if this connection might be of help to understand the
> >>> differences between the work that minor innovations involve and the
> work
> >> of
> >>> producing major paradigm shifts. Perhaps, more than a shift in the kind
> >> of
> >>> situated social interactions that we observe, we should (again) attend
> to
> >>> Latour's discussion on inter-objectivity, and see how the
> >>> material-historical arrangements in the setting set the conditions for
> >>> those shifts to occur. At the level of interaction, I can imagine (!)
> >> that
> >>> both going through a minor innovation and going through a major shift
> >>> involve some movement from not being aware of a possibility to
> orienting
> >>> towards that very possibility. Studying differences there would be
> >>> interesting. But I guess that the key lies in the prior historical
> >>> conditions for the innovation/shift to emerge. Imagination may, in this
> >>> account, be a form of perceiving things that, to be so perceived, need
> to
> >>> lend themselves to those perceptions and apprehensions. If imagination
> >>> takes place first as performative work, and not as mental operation
> >> alone,
> >>> it needs to rely upon the possibilities of manipulation that the
> >> materials
> >>> offer. And those possibilities, of course, include possibilities of
> >> naming,
> >>> of using words.
> >>>
> >>> 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
> >>> HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> >>> Sent: 14 October 2015 01:38
> >>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA
> >>>
> >>> Do I recall (and understand) correctly Alfredo’s and Rod’s article (on
> >>> boundary objects and building museum spaces) that gesture preceded
> >> naming?
> >>> I mean that the boundary object started as collaborative/coordinated
> >>> movement. It was a perfomance before it was a thing that could be
> named.
> >> A
> >>> verb before it was a noun. And does this have anything to do with Huw’s
> >>> conjecture about a continuum of kinds of projects, at one end those
> that
> >>> replicate (with minimal creativity) and, at the other,  those that “get
> >>> outside the box”? Academic discourse tends to be very nouny, Latinate,
> >>> loaded with bound morphemes. Such discourse serves important purposes
> >> when
> >>> operating on the generalization and abstraction side of things, amongst
> >> the
> >>> experts. But boundary objects (as observed by Alfredo and Rod) assume
> the
> >>> project members are strangers to one another’s way of generalizing and
> >>> abstracting. Could gesture then be “rising to the concrete” in
> discourse
> >>> generally? That would provide nice praxis.
> >>>
> >>> Respectfully,
> >>> Henry
> >>>
> >>>> On Oct 13, 2015, at 4:45 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>> Alfredo,
> >>>>
> >>>> I suspect the quality of the unknown thing here would need
> >> qualification.
> >>>> Experienced practitioners in software are often dealing with
> >>> to-be-designed
> >>>> artefacts, although these mostly fall into a more minor category of
> >>> things
> >>>> conforming to well-known conceptions or abstractions, hence they are
> >>>> usually only unknown in a rather contained sense (a bit like roughly
> >>>> knowing what kind of model you need to build out of lego).
> >>>>
> >>>> Contrary to this, computing problems entailing a new computational
> >>> paradigm
> >>>> would certainly throw such programmers into a genuine unknown (the
> >>> dawning
> >>>> realisation that one is working with a different kind of kit).  Also,
> >>> with
> >>>> respect to requirements, the real unknowns are usually the soft
> >>>> requirements on agreeing what the problem is in the first place, which
> >>> will
> >>>> be largely governed by the social situation of said programmers, i.e.
> >>> being
> >>>> paid to get something built.
> >>>>
> >>>> Naming is very important in software in order to try to communicate
> >>>> functional intent, hence practitioners would no doubt be comfortable
> >>>> establishing agreement about naming before moving on.  Nonetheless you
> >>> may
> >>>> well be identifying some form of design mediation at play too.
> >>>>
> >>>> Best,
> >>>> Huw
> >>>>
> >>>> On 13 October 2015 at 23:08, Alfredo Jornet Gil <a.j.gil@iped.uio.no>
> >>> wrote:
> >>>>
> >>>>> Henry, all,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I am at this moment going through a video database on design work in
> a
> >>>>> software development company, and, observing a discussion between two
> >>>>> developers who talk about features of the software that are not yet
> >>>>> developed, but which could be, ??the insight came upon me that, to
> >>> possibly
> >>>>> create anything together (and there is no other way to do it since
> one
> >>>>> alone has not the tools/competence to do it), they had to name it.
> So,
> >>> the
> >>>>> developers were talking about something that does not yet exist but
> >>> which
> >>>>> nonetheless needs to be referred to in order for them to even begin
> >>> working
> >>>>> on it. And naming something that does not yet exits does not happen
> >>>>> immediately, because they do not have a name for it. Naming it takes
> >>> time
> >>>>> and space, that is, work. So, I think the notion of "displacement"
> >> that
> >>> you
> >>>>> mention, if it captures this work that talking does to the imagining,
> >>> very
> >>>>> relevant to what I am witnessing in my data. And, given the salience
> >> of
> >>>>> "place making" in the thread, the term "disPLACEment" may be timely
> >>> here.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Alfredo
> >>>>>
> >>>>> ________________________________
> >>>>> From: HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com>
> >>>>> Sent: 13 October 2015 23:34
> >>>>> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> >>>>> Cc: Alfredo Jornet Gil; Rolf Steier; Geoffrey C. Bowker
> >>>>> Subject: Re: [Xmca-l] Re: Reflective Discourse on XMCA
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Mike,
> >>>>> In your original post on Oct 10, you  suggested that we might
> "...come
> >>> up
> >>>>> with a deeper understanding of the interlocking issues involved". As
> >> you
> >>>>> say, each chatter will have their own response to that. Mine is that
> I
> >>> can
> >>>>> relate the three issues to displacement, which is arguably the most
> >>>>> important property of language as a semiotic system. It is the
> ability
> >>> of
> >>>>> with language to refer to and construe aspects of the world removed
> in
> >>> time
> >>>>> and place (from the here and now) and to the "make believe"
> >>> ("irrealis").
> >>>>> I was reminded of this on re-reading an article by Bruno Latour on
> >>>>> Interobjectivity that Greg Thompson posted back on Aug 18. Most
> >> people,
> >>> if
> >>>>> asked, think of language primarily as something for communication.
> >>> Animals
> >>>>> communicate, but, as far as we know, do not displace. (Though It
> might
> >>> be
> >>>>> argued that animals do a better job of communicating than people.!) I
> >>> would
> >>>>> like to emphasize the importance of the temporal domain, as well as
> >> the
> >>>>> spatial, with displacement.
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Henry
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>