[Xmca-l] Re: Neoformation and developmental change: Issue 4 article for discussion

[Andy Blunden]

I remember being shocked, Michael, when I first read the
critique of the concept of "trajectory" in a North-Holland
book on the mathematical foundations of quantum physics back
in the 1960s, but on reflection, it is correct and
anticipated by Hegel. Hegel is of course talking about the
*real* movement not subjective thought forms, just as much
as Marx is, but this is a whole other question.

On reflection, I think I was wrong referring to "movement"
as an "abstraction," though. It would be more true to say it
is a derivative or higher order concept while
"contradiction" is the more fundamental concept, from which
"movement" derives. I only raised it because you said "The
smallest unit of movement still is movement," which is just
as nonsensical as the broken English translation of
Leontyev: "Activity is the unit of activity," which has
caused so much confusion for English speakers.

Andy

------------------------------------------------------------
Andy Blunden
http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
On 15/12/2017 12:03 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
> ... and, quantum physics is right for describing events
> that we attribute to quantum particles, protons, photons,
> electrons, etc. For human size stuff, we use classical
> physics because it does pretty well; and when we go to
> stellar scale, we don't use quantum physics but general
> relativity because these approaches are better suited for
> describing and theorizing what we observe :-)
>
> Michael
>
>
> Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
>
> --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Applied Cognitive Science
> MacLaurin Building A567
> University of Victoria
> Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
> http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
> <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>
> New book: */The Mathematics of Mathematics
> <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>/*
>
> On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 4:57 PM, Wolff-Michael Roth
> <wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com
> <mailto:wolffmichael.roth@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Andy,
>     I am looking at the real movement of the thinking-body
>     (Il'enkov), using a pen and making a circle, for
>     example. No abstraction. This is precisely what Maxine
>     Sheets-Johnston develops, and the point that she
>     critiques with embodiers and and enactivists---they
>     abstract in positing schemas, that are somewhere
>     lodged in the mind, whereas life is in movement, real
>     movement, not abstracted. Without movement, life does
>     not exist. 
>
>     Also, an important point. I am talking about
>     /trans/action not /inter/action---in the senses of
>     Dewey and Bateson. Transaction is the coming and going
>     in the same action that Mikhailov is writing about,
>     and the afferent and efferent aspects of an action in
>     the work of Timo Järvilehto. Because of this, any form
>     of cognition cannot be located merely in the brain
>     (see also Il'enkov on the beginning of any thought at
>     the outside of the thinker, and the endpoint of the
>     thought again on the outside of the thinker).
>
>     I don't know where this stuff from quantum physics
>     comes in. I am a physicist by training, having done my
>     MSc in atomic physics, and so I don't see the link to
>     the argument here. 
>
>     Michael
>
>
>
>
>     Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
>
>     --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>     Applied Cognitive Science
>     MacLaurin Building A567
>     University of Victoria
>     Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2
>     http://web.uvic.ca/~mroth
>     <http://education2.uvic.ca/faculty/mroth/>
>
>     New book: */The Mathematics of Mathematics
>     <https://www.sensepublishers.com/catalogs/bookseries/new-directions-in-mathematics-and-science-education/the-mathematics-of-mathematics/>/*
>
>     On Thu, Dec 14, 2017 at 3:32 PM, Andy Blunden
>     <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>
>            Actually Michael, I think "movement" is an
>         abstraction
>         from contradictions between interactions. For
>         example, I saw
>         that car there a moment ago, now I see it here. The
>         contradiction is cognised as movement. That's why
>         "trajectory" is not a legitimate concept in
>         quantum physics.
>         Hegel expresses this in the very well known aphorism:
>         "contradiction is the root of all movement."
>
>         https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hl431.htm#HL2_955
>         <https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hl/hl431.htm#HL2_955>
>
>         Andy
>
>         ------------------------------------------------------------
>         Andy Blunden
>         http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm
>         <http://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/index.htm>
>         On 15/12/2017 9:54 AM, Wolff-Michael Roth wrote:
>         > ... The smallest unit of movement still is
>         > movement, and within it, there is change, so
>         that the different parts are
>         > not the same but themselves in movement. Michael
>         >
>         >
>         > Wolff-Michael Roth, Lansdowne Professor
>         >
>         >
>
>
>