[Xmca-l] Re: Conditional and Conditioned

[vwilk@inf.shizuoka.ac.jp]

It's May, mid semester in Japan, and how are all of you?

David K. says: "So what is the difference that makes a difference?"
And it gives me a chance to stick my figurative oar in, saying "them's 
Bateson's words."
Bateson's definition of "information" in Mind And Nature: A Necessary 
Unity 
is exactly, "Any difference that makes a difference."

Dicing logic fine, working with binaries in organismic systems, 
sometimes creates polarities that polarise 
rather dynamic interaction that produces new avenues of connection.

As always, David's quick take is illuminating, evocative, and 
informative.
Kind regards,
Vandy


----- Original Message -----
> Mike makes the point, in an earlier thread, that if we do not 
understand
> what Pavlov meant by "conditional response"--if, for example, we 
assimilate
> it to operant conditioning on the one hand or reflexology on the other
--we
> do not understand the type of claim that Pavlov was making, nor the
> position that Pavlov's work takes up in Vygotsky's development.
> 
> So what is the difference that makes a difference? Pavlov takes the
> response as given by natural conditions rather than by a conditioned
> system (e.g. designed and designated rewards and punishments). At the 
same
> time, Pavlov takes the response as being neurologically ordered rather 
than
> simply reflexive and mechanical (and so potentially open to explaining
> language through a "second signal system").
> 
> Pavlov is working in a good old Russian interpretation of Darwin which 
was
> (as Loren Graham points out) a kind of "Through the Looking Glass" 
version
> of our own. 19th Century America happily accepted the Spencerian 
formula
> "survival of the fittest" but rejected the mutability of species; 
Russians
> came to precisely the opposite conclusion (as did Darwin himself).
> 
> Pavlov sees species as endlessly mutable, and the conditional response 
is
> part of that infiinite mutability. It includes the possibility of
> self-mutability--something that, as Vygotsky points out, opens the 
door to
> a synthesis of Darwin and Lamarck, as far as cultural forms of 
behavior are
> concerned.
> 
> At the same time, there is something immutable in Pavlov that Vygotsky 
in
> turn rejects,  Pavlov sees the response as given by nature and the
> condition as given by nurture, and for Vygotsky this division is too
> elemental to be interesting in the understanding of cultural forms of
> behavior: if the condition is both "natural" and "human", then it 
makes no
> sense to argue that the response is merely the former. A dog that can 
ring
> its own bell is a very different species indeed.
> 
> Take, for example, a classroom situation. If we take children's 
responses
> as conditional, their source is always in the classroom environment
> (physical punishments, and tangible rewards, the real apple and not 
the
> apple of the imagination, as Bleuler says). But if we take chlidren's
> response as conditioned, their source is ultimately the child (the
> satisfactions of peer recognition, teacher praise, self-praise, or 
simply
> turning out to have the right answer).There is absolutely nothing
> preventing the child from emancipating himself or herself from peers,
> teachers, and even a pre-determined right answer. The continuation of
> development beyond this point of self-emancipation cannot be explained 
at
> all.
> 
> David Kellogg
> Sangmyung University
> 
> Recent Article in Language Sciences
> 
> A science for verbal art: Elizabeth Gaskell's contribution to a 
critique of
> political economy
> 
> https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0388000117303534
> 
> Fang Li and David Kellogg.,
> 
> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2018.05.001
> 
> 
>