RE: [xmca] activity (was concepts)

["White, Phillip" <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>]

i've got multiple responses here, Andy -

Michael G. responded to Mike C's request about why the additional names - that it seems that this thread is fraying. (my interpretation)

as for your nervous system example - i really can't answer that question with any expertise - i've always understood that your multiple physical systems were integrated, interactive, and mutually dependent.  hence, they're all open systems.  and certainly the human body is an open systems - its responds and interacts with systems outside of itself - viruses, tornadoes, bacteria, etc., not to mention cultural psychology - which is one of our many tools.

Michael G. also posited the value of feedback - which i find totally consistent with Peter's example of how anticipation is strengthened and clarified when emerging from conceptual coherence.  and, this, by the way, i find quite commensurate with Mike C's understanding of prolepsis, a weighty component of cultural psychology.

as a teacher who works with adults who are learning to teach, i value greatly attention paid to feed-back - someone learning to teach, or even an experienced teacher, who is not mindful of feedback in its myriad of forms - i.e., chairs flying across the room, compliance, glee, frustration, etc. - is usually not very successful as a teacher. 

so, while activity theory as elucidated by Tolman is described as a linear process, i would say is actually a far more recursive process  -  

and i guess that in this very brief posting i've piled concept upon concept!  argggghhhhhhhhh.  in other words, it seems as if we use within a community like ours in which there is so much shared understandings - not to mention misunderstandings - that we refer to concepts as a form of short-hand communication.

i'm probably not much help here.

Mike C - is there a particular direction you're hoping for this multi-variant thread on concepts/activity to be going?

phillip 




Phillip White, PhD
University of Colorado Denver
School of Education
phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Tuesday, April 19, 2011 9:34 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] activity (was concepts)

Systems theory is not my scene, but isn't there an important sense in
which our nervous system is a "closed system"? I mean neurons only
interacts with other neurons. Not an isolated system of course, because
there is energy input and output, but "closed" in the sense of physics.
That always seemed to me a strong argument for cultural psychology.

Andy


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