[Xmca-l] Re: "conscious awareness enters through the gate" (a Participation Question)

[Martin Packer]

I’ve always read this to be suggesting that instruction of a child in scientific concepts in school leads to conscious awareness (and deliberate control) by the child of their psychological processes, such as thinking, and of the concepts themselves.

And I have assumed that in any culture, instruction in the concepts of that culture would lead to similar conscious awareness and deliberate control.

My 2c.

Martin


> On Aug 11, 2020, at 3:03 PM, Anthony Barra <anthonymbarra@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Good afternoon,
> 
> This is a question -- and an invitation:
> 
> First the question: What do you understand the passage below (at the bottom of this email) to mean?
> 
> Second, the invitation: How about sharing your thoughts in short video form? It's quite enjoyable (ask Andy; ask David; etc) -- and it's also helpful, not only to me but to anyone watching or listening. (Here is the question again, in video form: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://tiny.cc/l41nsz__;!!Mih3wA!W0lFezqAoWqRYVD58qhjnQsF2McT2YEFquQxTrkpO8CQc4EaDKDw4o0Z5c3aYftpmUigRA$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://tiny.cc/l41nsz__;!!Mih3wA!RbTsEBrr1M-JQ2E0Cza-8aoA440vsBAtR7DQicuejOZvYN1AOyytgVid7plmKnYKHKx2jw$>)
> 
> I believe that many people -- including many teachers -- would benefit from answers to this question, preferably multiple answers. With permission, I will nicely edit and add your response to this growing list of asked-and-answered questions: https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://tiny.cc/451nsz__;!!Mih3wA!W0lFezqAoWqRYVD58qhjnQsF2McT2YEFquQxTrkpO8CQc4EaDKDw4o0Z5c3aYfsUAEPtjQ$  <https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://tiny.cc/451nsz__;!!Mih3wA!RbTsEBrr1M-JQ2E0Cza-8aoA440vsBAtR7DQicuejOZvYN1AOyytgVid7plmKnayu3KfOQ$>  Thanks for considering it, and note that we don't care about perfectionism here; it's mostly for fun. 
> 
> Here is the passage in question, from Thinking and Speech, Ch. 6, pp. 190-1:
> "To perceive something in a different way means to acquire new potentials for acting with respect to it. At the chess board, to see differently is to play differently. By generalizing the process of activity itself, I acquire the potential for new relationships with it. To speak crudely, it is as if this process has been isolated from the general activity of consciousness. I am conscious of the fact that I remember. I make my own remembering the object of consciousness. An isolation arises here. In a certain sense, any generalization or abstraction isolates its object. This is why conscious awareness – understood as generalization – leads directly to mastery.
>  
> Thus, the foundation of conscious awareness is the generalization or abstraction of the mental processes, which leads to their mastery. Instruction has a decisive role in this process. Scientific concepts have a unique relationship to the object. This relationship is mediated through other concepts that themselves have an internal hierarchical system of interrelationships. It is apparently in this domain of the scientific concept that conscious awareness of concepts or the generalization and mastery of concepts emerges for the first time. And once a new structure of generalization has arisen in one sphere of thought, it can – like any structure – be transferred without training to all remaining domains of concepts and thought. Thus, conscious awareness enters through the gate opened up by the scientific concept."
> 
> What do you understand this passage to mean? 
> 
> Thanks 😎
> 
> Anthony Barra 
>  
> P.S. My first encounter with Thinking and Speech was very difficult, even with the help of talented classmates and a smart professor. Thankfully, three online videos from Nikolai Veresov, presented not as a definitive reading but as a general map of the book's terrain, were really so helpful and encouraging for me. If any videos I'm posting turn out to be similarly useful (as a number of people have told me), that's great. So thank you again to anyone interested in participating. 
> 
> 

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