Dear Anna,
thanks for bringing the functional systems concept into the discussion. It
is one
of the reasons that I wanted to include Luria in our exchanges. I found
your comment helpful, but am unsure whether we have fully integrated
functional systems and activity systems.
Vera
-----Original Message-----
From: Stetsenko, Anna <AStetsenko@gc.cuny.edu>
To: 'xmca@weber.ucsd.edu' <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, November 06, 2000 3:15 PM
Subject: disembodied AT?
>I have noticed that a lot of activity in this discussion happens to go over
>the weekend... Which tells me that perhaps not all of you have 5-year-olds
>around you who have not seen you during the week and hence want to catch up
>on that by engaging you in their activities which, in its turn, also happen
>to change your chemical balance completely (in a positive way, mostly) thus
>leaving you with much less time and propensity to contribute to the
>discussion.
>
>And then, by Monday, one is faced with this overwhelming diversity of views
>and issues to react to.
>
>Regarding AT as disembodied: actually, what is not reflected in L's book
but
>is certainly reflected in his other works is the concept of the functional
>systems. This concept is the legacy of diverse sources varying from Anokhin
>and Sechenov to now popular Nikolaj N. Bernstein - another Russian
>'revolutionary scientist' (quote from a recent article about him) who is
>making his way into Western psychology some 50 years after his works were
>written - and, importantly, Luria. The idea behind the concept of
>functional systems is that any activity is realized through the complex
>systems involving the brain and the whole body - systems formed within the
>life time and geared towards specific goals and tasks (and hence
>activities). So, the brain and the body are not ignored but they are viewed
>as included into broader activities and thus as not having an ultimate and
>unique power over human beings separated from the contexts of real life
>activities. The brain is viewed as an organ of activity and not as a source
>of it (Diane, does this makes sense to you?). Like in the example with a
>5-year-old child who literally can make an impact on your brain (as well as
>many other things can - such as a change in the whether conditions, for
>example) - but not directly, rather through engaging you in different types
>of activities. To begin the analyses of any meaningful life event from the
>level of a brain chemistry isolated from broader real life contexts would
be
>an enormous simplification. Broader activity dynamics is exactly what
>ultimately counts...
>
>Hence, it does come as a surprise to many mainstream scientists but not to
>those from the CHAT-perspective that, as recently has been shown, brain
>cells can grow during the life time and, in fact, can respond to how the
>specific life activities are structured (findings that are now presented as
>breaking news). We certainly do not know how the chemical balances and
>disbalances come about in all the details - but there are two different
>possible paths to pursue the answers (CHAT and mainstream) with the locus
of
>causality being so different in these two psychological perspectives.
>
>Anna Stetsenko
>
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Fri Dec 01 2000 - 01:00:59 PST