Bill, thanks for posting the address for Alfred's paper -- it does a better
job explaining Pierce than anyything i've read. you wrote:
In contrast, activity theory may consider the mountain, the ice, to be the
material object (am I wrong in this interpretation?) and the boots, the
crampons, and the ice axe, among other things are the mediating artifacts.
But there is not an counterpart to ExtrA processes, perhaps, due to the
movement of the theory's focus away from the structure of the natural
environment.
I think it is also due to the theory's not being built to account
specifically for semiosis, where excess, if you will, 'inheres' --
i wish i knew about this paper a month ago.
At 07:58 PM 1/22/00 -0500, you wrote:
>At 4:07 PM -0500 1/22/00, Mike Cole wrote:
>>that structure in the environment/interaction was being snuck into the
>>head making for theorizing that was misguided.
>
>Sorry to barge in between Mike and Owen, but I have a few moments before
dinner and can see affordances in the human-made environment addressed in
Alfred Lang's four processes of his extended Semiotic Function Circle, and
perhaps this can be extended a little more to include the natural world as
well, where interactions among natural things will happen as ExtrA
processes, i.e light electrons interacting with atoms in the sun to produce
light that we read by, fluorescent bulbs being the artifactual analog.
>
>http://www.cx.unibe.ch/psy/ukp/langpapers/papers1990-93/1993_noncartesian_a
rt.html
>
>I see a different way in which CHAT from Yrjö's 1987 book addresses this
-- yet there is, otherwise, a section that indexes ecology giving way to
economy in the evolution of culture "what used to be ecological and natural
becomes economic and historical", and I can see how this is to be supported,
yet in that evolutionary departure, natural processes are moved from the
focus of the theory, although not removed entirely.
>
>Here is a 'slippery slope' to consider. In the book "Annapurna" by Arlene
Blum, she describes cutting across, i.e. traversing, the slope of Mount Everest.
>
> 'Once on Mount Everest I was traversing a treacherous flake of rotten
ice with
> Norbu, A Sherpa. He yelled to me, "Wait, memsahib." Watching him
rummage
> through his pack, I assumed he was looking for ice screws to anchor
us to the slope.
> He finally found what he was looking for - holy rice. He prayed,
tossed the rice
> over his shoulder and then informed me that now we could cross the
rotten ice
> safely.
>
> "What about ice screws?"
>
> "No problem, memsahib. Mountain gods happy."
>
> Though many Sherpas are expert at using modern technical-climbing
techniques
> and equipment, they still believe that their survival in the mountains
depends
> primarily on fate and the goodwill of the mountain gods. They ready
themselves
> for the most severe climbing not only by perfecting their skill, but
also by praying
> and making offerings to these gods. The time had finally come to make
offering to
> the mountain spirits who lived on the slopes of Annapurna." p96
>
>And then, processes that are usually low-level operations (i.e. walking in
an airport), become actions again in the mountain environment, where
repeatedly moving the feet foward takes all the concentration of the
climber. Under these new environmental-and-physiological conditions, the
climber almost performs as a child in the early stages of walking. The
physical fatigue, oxygen depletion, lack of sleep, dehydration,
disorientation etc. are constraints to which the climber, with ropes, axes,
crampons, clothes etc., and the corresponding affordances of these
artifacts, responds. History helps. Sometimes climbers are re-oriented by
ropes left behind by previous climbers, hopefully showing the way to the summit.
>
>We think of one of the elements to the ExtrA processes as 'gravity' today.
Before gravity was invented, folks thought of things as proceeding to their
natural places. Arlene and the Sherpa's natural place may have been
somewhere between their position and the foot of Mount Everest. With
Einsteins theory of general relativity, we can think of the two as following
a trajectory in a curved space-time (1), physically constrained by the
surface of the mountain(2), and friction keeping the climbers from slipping
along that slope. The Sherpa's ideas include mountain gods, and so the
tossing of the rice. (Who knows what it is that actually makes one fall
off a mountain!) At first blush I conclude that what we DO (ExtrO) is under
the influence of the structures in the head (better said the dynamic
patterns of the mind-brain -- IntrA ) AND the structures in the
environment/interaction (dynamic patterns of the natural-and-artifactual
world influencing with the human -- ExtrA, IntrO)
>
>Before my focus is blurred with the many different things to consider from
here, I'd like to add that I have found the triangles of chat to be very
useful for thinking of schools coordinating around children studying ecology
-- same problem -- people interacting with each other and a natural
environment. There are elements of the study, such as what is happening
when a child picks up a pond macroinvertebrate, that is more readily
described in the semiotic function circle, and perhaps
'constraints-and-affordances' better fit there as well, as the child
realizing how to catch the macroinvertebrates with a net.
>
>Time for dinner. Any reactions?
>
>(1) the counterpart to Newton's gravity is curved space-time.
>
>(2) "locally" they would otherwise fall straight down, without the
constraining surface of the earth they would fall into an orbit. The theory
does not offer any new insights to a climber wishing not to fall off a mountain.
>
>
>
>Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
>Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
>Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
>http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
>_______________________
>"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
> and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
>[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]
>
>
>
Judith Diamondstone (732) 932-7496 Ext. 352
Graduate School of Education
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey
10 Seminary Place
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1183
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