[Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively

[WEBSTER, DAVID S.]

Just a thought before bed- 

>From Knowing and the Known
N1: The transactional is in fact that point of view which systematically proceeds upon the ground that knowing is co-operative and as such is integral with communication -  In Preface. 

N2:  Our own procedure is the transactional, in which is asserted the right to see together, extensionally and durationally, much that is talked about conventionally as if it were composed of irreconcilable separates. Page 120

The Senses Considered as Perceptual Systems (Gibson 1966): The rat had to behave [act] before he could perceive, but in the course of exploration the utility of the lever became evident: it afforded food…the rat’s attention to the food affordance persisted…  Page 272-3. 

Gloss: the rat’s exploratory behaviour is apiece [extensionally and durationally not separately] with its perception [pick up of stimulus information] of an invariant between the moved lever and the provision of food –the rat sees together extensionally and durationally [transactionally] the lever and the provided food.

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Glassman, Michael
Sent: 31 January 2018 18:45
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively

Hi all,

Just a bit of background on the Bateson quote(s), at least from my subjective perspective. Bateson was in the middle of a big argument at the time between cyberneticists and second order cyberneticists. The big issue from what I have read is that cyberneticists believe that you can locate and manipulate an objective circuit (i.e. continuous feedback loops)  that is separate from the person locating it. The second order cyberneticists (Bateson's position) was that you could never remove the individual who was observing the feedback loops from the feedback loop itself. The person observing the loop was also steering it from his own perspective. I'm not sure if this was directly related to the objective, subjective distinction but it definitely fits with it. 

I think Bateson would have thought the type of neuroscience circuits that Martin describes as first order and might not have been too happy with them.

I do think there is a natural affinity between Gibson and his idea of affordances and Bateson and the larger idea of second order cybernetics.  This would indeed be a fascinating topic to pursue.

Michael I'm not sure what you mean by transactional. Do you mean Dewey's definition (across actions) or a more common definition?

Michael

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of mike cole
Sent: Wednesday, January 31, 2018 11:26 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively

Gibson is clearly relevant, but so is Bronfenbrenner. He was struggling to overcome the idea of a one way, top town, Outter—->inner causation in the direction that Jon is urging, I believe.
The passage cited in my note with this subject line was part of his unease with concentric circles.

This is reflected in UB’s critique of the use of multiple regression.
(But multiple regression can be a useful tool. It was one of the methods used in the Scribner/Cole research on Vai literacy)

Mike

On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 7:44 AM WEBSTER, DAVID S. <d.s.webster@durham.ac.uk>
wrote:

> The problem here is that you feel the need to put selects in scare quotes.
> I am all for Dewey but I am not sure you are right about Gibson not 
> being transactional  but where Gibson had got to when he died was 
> already a hard enough sell. A good topic to pursue through
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:
> xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Wolff-Michael Roth
> Sent: 31 January 2018 15:26
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively
>
> But Gibson is not transactional in the way Bateson is. For Bateson (or 
> Dewey or others), there is no "natural" affordance. In other words, 
> the human also would be the affordance to the door knob, not merely 
> the door knob an affordance to humans. The door knob "selects" humans 
> over other animals... The environment "samples" the individual as much 
> as the individual "samples" the environment...
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 31, 2018 at 7:14 AM, WEBSTER, DAVID S. < 
> d.s.webster@durham.ac.uk
> > wrote:
>
> > The perception-action cycle has been a topic of debate in the 
> > Gibsonian literature since the early -mid  1980s i.e. just after 
> > Gibson died in 1979
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-l-bounces@ 
> > mailman.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> > Sent: 31 January 2018 14:56
> > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Bateson on thinking relatively
> >
> > I’m struck by the similarity between Bateson’s description and the 
> > notion floating around in neuroscience of a “perception-action cycle,”
> > in which brain, body, and environment are each components in a 
> > circular
> process.
> >
> > The perception-action cycle is a circular cybernetic flow of 
> > information processing between the organism and its environment in a 
> > sequence of goal-directed actions. An action of the organism causes 
> > an environmental change that will be processed by sensory systems, 
> > which will produce signals to inform the next action, and so on. The 
> > perception-action cycle is of prime importance for the adaptive 
> > success of a temporally extended gestalt of behavior, where each 
> > action is contingent on the effects of the previous one. The 
> > perception-action cycle operates at all levels of the central 
> > nervous system. Simple, automatic, and well rehearsed behaviors 
> > engage only the lower levels of the perception-action cycle, 
> > whereas, for sensorimotor integration, the cycle runs through the 
> > spinal cord and
> subcortical structures.
> >
> > To the extent that deliberate, reflexive planning becomes part of 
> > the cycle on its highest levels, the sense of being the initiator of 
> > action can be hard to resist. But it’s just the walnut on the cupcake.
> >
> > Here’s a diagram, though it’ll be probably be removed, so here’s the 
> > link too…
> >
> > <http://willcov.com/bio-consciousness/sidebars/Perception--Action%20
> > Cy
> > cle_
> > files/image295.jpg>
> >
> >
> >
> > Martin
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > > On Jan 31, 2018, at 9:38 AM, mike cole <mcole@ucsd.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > Darned if I did not find that Bateson passage online! Amazing.
> > > Here it is from *Steps to an Ecology of Mind.*
> > >
> > > mike
> > > --------------\
> > >
> > > Consider a tree and a man and an axe. We observe that the axe 
> > > flies through the air and makes certain gashes in a pre-existing 
> > > cut in the side of the tree. If we now want to explain this set of 
> > > phenomena, we shall be concerned with differences in the cut face 
> > > of the tree, differences in the retina of the man, differences in 
> > > the central nervous system, differences in his different neural 
> > > messages, differences in the behaviour of his muscles, difference 
> > > in how the axe flies, to the differences which the axe then makes 
> > > on the face of the tree. Our explanation will go round and round 
> > > that circuit. If you want to explain or understand anything in 
> > > human behaviour, you are
> > always dealing with total circuits, completed circuits.
> > > (Bateson, 1972, p. 433)
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Later in the same paper he writes about how difficult it is to 
> > > adopt this
> > > epistemology:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > I can stand here and I can give you a reasoned exposition of this 
> > > matter; but if I am cutting down a tree, I still think ‘Gregory 
> > > Bateson’ is cutting down a tree. I am cutting down the tree. ‘Myself’
> > > is to me still an excessively concrete object, different from the 
> > > rest of what I have been calling ‘mind’.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > The step to realizing – to making habitual – the other way of 
> > > thinking – so that one naturally thinks that way when one reaches 
> > > out for a glass of water or cuts down a tree – that step is not an
> easy one.
> > >
> > >
> > > .... Once we have made this shift, our perspective fundamentally
> changes.
> > > We firstly start focusing on relationships, flows and patterns; 
> > > and secondly realize that we are part of any field we are studying.
> >
> >
> >
>
>