Re: [xmca] Wells more manageable in small pieces

Andy,
   
  I liked your response to the difference between what Gordon is proposing and discourse ethics but need to think more about it before responding.
   
  As to the question about where the ideal might exist, "if it's not material then where?" I want to imagine within the framework of what physicists have come to understand about "matter".
   
   I'm sure you are aware that modern definitions of matter/energy -- the substrate of our perception of a "material" reality -- have a lot more than the traditional 4 dimensions, all of those other dimensios are beyond the horizons of our perception and some theorists have defined them as information pure and simple. Now it's easy to say "ok but that's still just matter" but that really isn't the case since those dimensions have no counterpart in our sensory experience, the ground of our "material" existence" and all its structures of necesity such as light-speed limit, a function of the relation between eye and light, all horizons on the experiential.
   
  Haven't you ever wondered what Engels might have written if quantum mechanics(let alone string-theory ) and not Newtonian mechanics was the prevailing paradigm in his time?
   
  So might not ideas (the ideal) just exist as, to borrow a phrase that already has been used in the CHAT context, the 5th dimensional information projected onto the four dimensional cut available to our senses, which themselve exist are a projection that other level of information. B ut a dimension nevertheless available to cognition.
   
  Yeah, I know, pretty meta-physical.
   
  Paul
   
  ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:
  
Hello Andy:

Perhaps someone more intelligible than I could answer to this. I am going
directly from the quote in the Wells article. See below to refresh about
the quote.

eric

Andy Blunden

et> cc:
Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] Wells more manageable in small pieces
xmca-bounces@web
er.ucsd.edu

10/01/2007 06:20
PM
Please respond
to "eXtended
Mind, Culture,
Activity"

Eric, if an ideal is not material, where does it exist, of what is it made,

and how do you get to know it without material intereaction?
And tell me some material thing you know, that is known to you as other
than an ideal, something that you know without recourse to any concept.
Andy
At 11:04 AM 1/10/2007 -0500, you wrote:

>Tony:
>
>Thank you for putting the breaks on and putting the article in more
>digestible pieces. Initially, I would like to point out two interesting
>excerts, " discursive mediation differs from tool mediation in that
instead
>of being brought to bear directly on the object of action, it takes the
>form of a transaction between the human participants with respect to the
>object of their action." Also in speaking about Engstrom's triangle Wells
>writes, " in both cases (literature v. spoken and written text) the
>intended outcome is of an "ideal" rather than a material kind (Cole,
1996),
>and the action involves a transaction between participating subjects
rather
>than on a material object."
>
>I take this to mean that Wells is trying to bring into light that when
>people communicate in a goal oriented sense they may have the 'ideal' in
>mind but in the material sense there is no representation of this 'ideal'.
>
>Any comments before I go further?
>
>eric
>
>
>
>
> Tony
> Whitson
>
>
> du> cc:
>
> Sent by: Subject: Re: [xmca] Some
> comments on Gordon's article
> xmca-bounces@web
>
> er.ucsd.edu
>
>
>
>
>
> 09/29/2007
> 08:59
>
> AM
>
> Please
> respond
>
> to
> "eXtended
>
> Mind,
> Culture,
>
> Activity"
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>On Sat, 29 Sep 2007, David Kellogg wrote:
>
> > ... Gordon Wells is trying to DEconstrue the word "discourse", to turn
>it from a thing back into an activity.
>
>I think there's a hazard here for discussing this particular article. In
>most contexts, David's rendering would be fine; but in this particular
>context, I think Gordon is pointedly arguing that discoursing should be
>understood
>NOT as an ACTIVITY, but as OPERATION (a distinction that has a
>particular significance in CHAT).
>
>I think it will be tricky to be careful about this kind of terminology in
>discussing this article, but unnecessary confusion could result if we
>don't try to observe such distinctions from the outset.
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>
>
>
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Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435, AIM
identity: AndyMarxists mobile 0409 358 651

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Received on Tue Oct 2 12:57 PDT 2007