Maria wrote,
> Hi Eugene and everybody
> When you gave the examples I think you were talking about the"animus" a
> child gives to a thing before the operational stage, like Piaget. I am
> asking about the idea of the imaginary a person makes about a thing.
> What kind of mental representation occurs in a mind when someone doesn't
> have a cientific concept, this is the question.
I think about this process as "projection" or "induction" rather than
representation in accord with what Nate wrote,
>I am reminded of my son talking to the computer and expecting an
> answer and with certain software programs he does. In his mind
> he is interacting with the computer not the programmer of the
> software.
Maria asked,
>What do you think about
> the imaginary relation students and/or teachers have to computer?
> Perhaps we can have a support from Moscovici and the social
> representation. Or the Myth theory. The problem is that people have
> difficulty to relate themselves with computer like a tool, they give
> some magic role to computers. What do you think?
I think that computer is more than a tool. It is also a medium of
asynchronous communication with others (i.e., it can be compared with a book
but it's more interactive). I agree with Nate that,
> At times I respond to a
> computer as a tool, as in writing a paper, and at other times I
> respond to it as something more than that. At times the
> interaction with my computer appears to more closely resemble
> human intraction than using it solely as a tool.
I think that projection of another agency into a computer (or other
equipment) allows a person to appreciate opaqueness of the interaction with
the equipment. German philosopher Fichte (sorry for the Russian spelling), a
contemporary of Kant and Hegel, paraphrased Decart's famous motto, "I am
because I think" as "I am because you are." I tried to show that self is a
reflected "light" of individual from other individuals. Along these lines,
Bakhtin emphasized that our relationships with others as agencies (not tools
for our actions) are consituted by opaqueness of others -- their principle
transgradience, non-comprehensiveness, surplus of their vision. I think that
this opaqueness gets destroyed when a person try to play chess with
him/herself because the other is transparent. When computer is opaque
(i.e., you cannot predict what it does -- it surprises you) then an agency
emerges.
What do you think?
Eugene