[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: [xmca] perception/conception etc
eric:
It seems to me that you can't get to concepts from percepts. If you could, then you could not get to science concepts from everyday concepts. Now, you might argue that the development of science concepts in laboratories by people like Newton and in observational studies corroborated mathematically by people like Galileo is an example of this kind of empiricism, the development of a true science concept from raw perceptual observations.
THAT, it seems to me, is romantic science, not in the sense that Luria meant it, but in the conception of the scientist as a romantic poet in a garret, observing light entering a prism in his chamber and pulling science concepts out of it like sonnets.
But I think in every case, history will show how they cheated. They knew what to look for and where to look before they started looking, through precisely the kind of abstract thinking that Andy indulges in; the point is that they ROSE to the concrete from abstract thinking.
Newton didn't develop the notion of white light as a mixture of colors from observation alone, and Galileo knew perfectly well tht the speed at which an object rolls down an inclined plane does not depend on its mass before he ever started fiddling with cannonballs.
My father is a boatbuilder, just like you (he's working on a Whitehall boat now, with gorgeous clinker built strakes along the side). When he was still in his thirties, and before there was any satellite data, he made very rough calculations about how the earth creates a shock wave in the solar wind. These were not corraborated by the first data from America's first Explorer satellites (which were hurriedly launched in respnse to Sputnik and had very little scientific value).
But then he was able to show how the the earth's magnetic field would bend radiation from the sun (and this is in fact how Aurora take place). This became the accepted account of a number of phenomena, including why the Van Allen radiation belts do not cover the poles.
Now, I always assumed he came to this from his life long love of waves and boats, and of course a general predisposition to the study of solar wind would come naturally to a sailor-physicist. I thought he just spent a lot of time with his head hanging over the bow of a rowboat observing the eddies in the current. But when I tried out this theory on him a few years ago, he laughed.
Yes, some of the phenomena that made him (a little) famous back in the fifties are perceptually observeable, not from boats but from the distortion of sunlight by the shock wave created by air going over an airplane wing at supersonic speeds (because although the plane is going subsonically, the Bernouilli effect can create a shockwave that will bend the rays of the sun). But in order to understand it, and even in order to notice it, you first need a pencil and a whole lot of paper.
I am interested in two things in the two New Yorker covers, and I think BOTH of them come from things I read rather than things I can see. In the one Martin draws our attention to, I am struck by the wide variety of associations that produce the June "couples" we see: sometimes opposites attract, and sometimes they repel, sometimes love and marriage go together like a horse and carriage, and sometimes they go together like a compass and a magnet. The only thing that all these "couples" have in common is Vygotsky's extreme North Pole: the number two as a RELATION between quantities rather than as quantity itself. This is, of course, not a percept.
Because the the associative principle is infinitely variable, we can think of an associative chain, or a diffuse complex that will include virtually any two objects. This means, of course, that we can create mnemo-technical devices to link almost anything with almost anything else, and a number of Vygotsky and Luria's experiments on linking (e.g.) a camel and the concept of "death" or a crab and a slice of bread played precisely on this ability. The only really effective method of vocabulary learning, the keyword method, works on the same principle, and so did the astonishing and almost completely NONperceptual memory tricks that Luria records in "Mind of a Mnemonist".
The rhombus of fish and birds is a very different concept, but it represents something that to me anyway is equally inperceptible; it represents the principle of self-similarity, because the rhombus is made up of other rhombuses. In the same way, we find that classroom discourse is made up of exchanges, sequences, episodes, and even whole lessons that have a rough three part structure: getting attention, giving information, and checking integration:
T: Hi, there! My name is Mr. K. And you?
T: What's this?
S: It's an apple.
T: Right.
T: Now, today we're going to look at and listen to a new dialogue. Then we'll repeat the lines. And finally we'll play a game.
It's very tempting to see this as a set of rhombuses that make up a big rhombus (or a set of triangles that make up a big triangle), in the same way that melodies by Bach can be seen as sequences that make up larger sequences which are really expanded copies of themselves.
It's very tempting to see this as a purely NATURAL phenomenon, like the structure of a fern leaf, and describable in terms of chaos-complexity concepts like self-similar scaling and fractal geometry.
But when we look at the APEX of the rhombus (the overall structure of the lesson) and the BASE of the rhombus (the "summing up" that the teacher does at the end of the lesson) we notice that either the turns or the exchanges are unusually long, in much the same way that the pelican and the turtle are outstandingly detailed.
This to me suggests that they are designed; they are conscious, they are not simply produced in the same way that other rhombuses are, inter-mentally. So although there IS self-similarity, there is also difference, and the differences stem precisely from the greater self-consciousness and more deliberate design of the extremities of the lesson.
There is a very strong tendency in discourse studies to treat discourse as a natural phenomenon which can be examined quite independent of human volition; as a percept and not as a concept (e.g. 'conversation without mind"). But conversation without mind is noise, not news.
The truth is that the apparently non-deliberate structure of conversation comes from an excess of minds and not from a paucity thereof; it comes from the fact that minds meet and cooperate or contend for domination of the discourse, not from the mindless interaction of an ant with the obstacles that it meets with perceptually as it walks along the seashore.
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education
.
--- On Wed, 7/7/10, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:
From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Subject: [xmca] perception/conception etc
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, July 7, 2010, 12:19 PM
Hi All-- I have changed the heading which has "chained" a good deal from the
topic
of the header.
I did not "see" the concepts in either image, Andy, until I went back to
them and somewhere
in both cases were conversations with my wife. Everyone is temporarily abled
and simultaneously disabled, all that changes in the mix.
Those interested in pursuing the line of inquiry opened by eric might enjoy
this early article by Ed Hutchins from his work in Trobriand a while back.
http://lchc.ucsd.edu/Histarch/fe79v1n2.PDF
mike
On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 10:38 AM, <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
> Hi Michael:
>
> thanks for the example
>
> Laurie Anderson is an experimental performance artist that began with
> spoken word pieces performed to violin and electronic effects. As she
> progressed in her artistic career she put recording "on hold" in order to
> take singing and voice lessons. Had her artistic conceptions outgrown her
> physical abilities? I don't believe so because since that time she has
> recorded numerous albums with exceptional voice quality. The formal
> training provided the "scientific concepts" that moved her beyond being a
> spoken word artist to an exceptional musician. Scientific concepts do
> indeed appear to be born of formal academia.
>
> eric
>
>
>
> From:
> "Michael Glassman" <MGlassman@ehe.osu.edu>
> To:
> "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date:
> 07/07/2010 12:01 PM
> Subject:
> RE: [xmca] comparing NewYorker images
> Sent by:
> xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>
>
>
> Hi Eric,
>
> Actually been thinking about this in another context. Here is my view,
>
> A pipe blower teaches and apprentice to build a pipe, teaches him to build
> the pipe in a step by step method, the apprentice memorizes each step, and
> then recreates it in building his own pipe. But that is all the
> apprentice can do, build that one single pipe following the exact same
> process. I am thinking this would be at the level of a pseudo-concept.
>
> A pipe blower teachers an apprentice how to blow a pipe. The pipe blower
> goes through the steps but explains the intricacies of what each step
> means and why it works towards the final product. The apprentice is able
> to understand (appropriate?) each of these steps and use it to create a
> pipe, but also when the pipe blower wants to blow a different type of pipe
> does not have to go through the same step by step process but move quickly
> through the variations on the different steps. The apprentice
> understanding the meaning of the steps in the process understands quickly
> and gets better and more efficient at making different types of pipes. I
> am thinking this would be everyday concepts.
>
> A pipe blower is teaching an apprentice how to blow a pipe. The pipe
> blower teaches the properties of how the material reacts to the flame, and
> what a material like glass can and cannot do at different temperatures.
> The pipe blower actually concentrates on the properties of materials more
> than making a pipe, believing the making of the pipe may take a much
> longer time, but the apprentice now has the freedom to experiment with not
> only glass, but materials and heat and can branch off to make things in
> different ways. I am thinking this would be scientific concepts.
>
> The problem is, with the pipe blower take the time to engage in the third,
> even though in the long run it is better for the community. Probably not,
> and may even think of it as being detrimetal. That is why this type of
> education needs to occur in formal schooling.
>
> Of course once formally schooled the apprentice actually needs to go back
> and learn how to make an actualy pipe - actually go back to the concrete -
> and that is what allows him to go forward in the context of this new,
> abstract information.
>
> Michael
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
> Sent: Wed 7/7/2010 11:52 AM
> To: lchcmike@gmail.com; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] comparing NewYorker images
>
>
>
> perhaps this can be clarified perhaps not.
>
> When a tribal elder teaches an apprentice to build a blow pipe is that
> conveying scientific concepts or is it conveying everyday concepts?
>
> In other words do scientific concepts only happen in a formal academic
> setting?
>
> I can accept that everyday concepts grow out of perceptions rather than
> abstractions of thought.
>
> Perhaps that is my own muddled perception on things. For if one views
> life as being perfect than one can live a perfect life.
>
> eric
>
>
>
> From:
> mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> To:
> ablunden@mira.net, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
> <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date:
> 07/07/2010 09:22 AM
> Subject:
> Re: [xmca] comparing NewYorker images
> Sent by:
> xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>
>
>
> Yes indeed, beware empty abstractions, Andy!
> And rise to the concrete if we can.
> My major point in that note was that in moving between "levels" of
> abstraction contained with the image, our perception, how we
> "see" the constituents changes. Might this be akin to the dynamics between
> scientific and everyday concepts, and/or between differently configures
> systems of higher psychological functions?
> mike
> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
> > Well, we're all hanging out for the next issue of The New Yorker now! I
> > feel really "exposed" by this exercise. :) In both cases I failed to see
> the
> > cultural reference. I picked up the abstract-theoretical reference,
> indeed
> > I'd even already used No. 2 to illustrate "Gestalt", but still failed to
> see
> > the real-world, cultural meaning. :( Once an abstract-thinker, always an
> > abstract thinker, no matter how many books you read.
> >
> > Andy
> >
> >
> > White, Phillip wrote:
> >
> >> Well, certainly, Mike, I thing that knowing the song "Love and
> marriage,
> >> love and marriage, go together like a horse and carriage. Dad would say
> to
> >> Mother, "You can't have one without the other."
> >>
> >> So, yes, two peas in a pod, a pair of shoes, and a pair of eyes.
> >>
> >> Phillip
> >> Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
> >>
> >> -----Original Message-----
> >> From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
> >> Sender: "xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu" <xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >> Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 19:57:24 To: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity<
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >> Reply-To: "lchcmike@gmail.com" <lchcmike@gmail.com>, "eXtended Mind,
> >> Culture,
> >> Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> >> Subject: [xmca] comparing NewYorker images
> >>
> >> I want to use the occasion of martin coming late to the second of two
> new
> >> yorker covers we have
> >> been disscussing, to talk about some interesting properties of each and
> >> different approaches to their
> >> interpretation (I have still to deal with local microgenises).
> >>
> >> What both images seem to have in common is that an overall concept
> covers
> >> all the examples. One you see the overall concept, you
> >> perception/interpretation of the constituents changes. And, if you are
> >> working upward from the constituents, but still have not got "IT" the
> >> little
> >> its do not "add up."
> >>
> >> So someone sees the two eyeball shaped almost green things as "two
> green
> >> dots." But after one takes
> >> in the heart *near* the top, and then the two bells with what look like
> >> ribbons, on may think (June=prominent
> >> month for getting married, weddding bells...... and from there on,
> there
> >> are
> >> functional relations among the parts and those functions have changed
> in
> >> some cases where the function is difficult to discern, like those
> >> two partly green eye shaped things. Now they become "two peas i a pod"
> and
> >> you might notice that it is
> >> kind of strange that they are only partly green.
> >>
> >> I am pretty sure this is what Paula and David were writing about in a
> more
> >> consistent way.
> >>
> >> One thing I am pretty certain of. Getting "it" requires voobrazhenie,
> >> into-image-making, and the process of
> >> voobrazhenie is path dependent.
> >>
> >> What would LSV think?
> >> mike
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> xmca mailing list
> >> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> >> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >>
> >>
> >>
> > --
> > ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > *Andy Blunden*
> > Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/> <
> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/ <
> http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>> >
> > Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
> > Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
> >
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > xmca mailing list
> > xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
> >
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
>
> [attachment "winmail.dat" deleted by ERIC RAMBERG/spps]
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca