Re: [xmca] Wells more manageable in small pieces

Paul, I think Lenin was right when he said "the _sole_ property of matter
with whose recognition philosophical materialism is bound up is the
property of _being an objective reality_, of existing outside our mind."
[http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/five2.htm]
There are qualifications one would have to make here about what Lenin means
by "mind" and I certainly don't go with teverything Lenin said in this book.
Ilyenkov is the one who has given us the clearest idea of "ideal" I think:
"The ideal form is a form of a thing, but a form that is outside the thing,
and is to be found in man as a form of his dynamic life activity, _as goals
and needs_. Or conversely, it is a form of man's life activity, but outside
man, in the form of the thing he creates."
[http://www.marxists.org/archive/ilyenkov/works/ideal/ideal.htm]
The multiple dimensions of modern physics' conception of space and time are
not "beyond our perception", it is just that they are ideals which are
meaningful only within the practice of modern theoretical physics, which
is, after all, a form of human activity, and therefore a form of perception.
Your suggestion that "ideal" may be a 5th dimension of space-time can only
be interpreted as a piece of playfulness. Each of the other 4 are already
ideals, but there correspond to and have a place within definite forms of
practice which establish definite relations between them, and that cannot
be said of your entirely unclear dimension no. 5, except that the 5th
dimension is the dimension of comedy.

Andy
At 12:55 PM 2/10/2007 -0700, you wrote:
>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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  Andy Blunden : http://home.mira.net/~andy/ tel (H) +61 3 9380 9435, AIM
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Received on Tue Oct 2 16:30 PDT 2007