Re: [xmca] "Inner Form" of Word, Symmetry, Ivanov Bateson?

[David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>]

On Sunday, the NYT Magazine had this:
 
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/29/magazine/could-conjoined-twins-share-a-mind.html?pagewanted=7&_r=1
 
In Vancouver, there is (are?) a pair of craniopagus conjoined twins (that is, "Siamese" twins joined at the head. It appears that they share a good bit of their brains (though not all) including the thalamus, which according to Cannon (the main opponent of the James/Lange "centripetal" theory of emotion) is the seat of self-consciousness. 
 
But what the children appear to have is exactly the opposite of what Cannon would predict: instead of different sensations and common reactions, they have shared sensations, but they have very different selves in response to it. 
 
So for example Tatiana likes ketchup and Krista does not. When Tatiana eats ketchup, Krista tries to scrape it out of her own (Krista's!) mouth even though she isn't actually eating any. Similarly, if you put a toy thermometer in Krista's mouth, Tatiana's tongue will curl up to hold it in place.
 
Vygotsky remarks in Chapter Four (of Thinking and Speech) that the discovery that apes are perfectly capable of tool use but rather balk at sign use is not really much of a surprise to Marxism. I think this kind of "asymmetry", not between brain halves, but between lower level psychological sensations and higher level psychological evaluations of those sensations (that is, shared feelings but divided thoughts) is not THAT surprising for cultural historical psychologists either.
 
I think the self, like everything else in Thinking and Speech, has two roots. One is, of course, interfunctional connections, and that is obviously to some extent shared in Tatiana and Krista. But there's another root: the "imaginary friend" that the child at six or seven begins to create, a unified character who performs various roles, not necessarily coherent with each other or even compatible. One of these tendencies unites Krista and Tatiana from below. But the other one, which would unite them from above if they were not conjoined, instead divides them.
 
Let's take Andy's definition of inner form: it's the meaning of Tatiana's "action" (in which Andy includes Tatiana's word) for Tatiana herself. But in order for that inner form to be understood by someone else, say, Krista, it must become an outer form. And the nature of understanding that outer form? It seems to me that the way it happens is that it becomes inner form for Krista; that is what understanding really is. 
 
That gets us out of the idea of an immutable inner form in a hurry! So it seems to me I was completely wrong: Bakhtin is not religious, because for him the inner form of the word is Protean and polymorphous; there is nothing of eternity there at all, only the endless passing back and forth of inner to outer and back again. Shpet, on the other hand, is seriously tinged with ahistorical metaphysics, and so is any form of cultural historical psychology that sees the sign as merely a form of tool. When I use a tool on the environment, it has inner form for me and outer form for the environment and this state of affairs does not change. When I use a word on my twin, what is outer for me is inner for her.   
 
David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education

 5/30/11, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com> wrote:


From: Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] "Inner Form" of Word, Symmetry, Ivanov Bateson?
To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, May 30, 2011, 3:41 PM


On 30 May 2011 18:42, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> wrote:

> David, Tony, Martin..........
>
> I am still pondering this note, even though the discussion has moved along.
> The issue that is pestering me is change in word meaning over ontogeny and
> cultural history.
>
> In the 1980's I got to know VV Ivanov. He was preoccupied at the time with
> the importance of A-symmetry and talking a lot of right brain/left brain
> stuff that did not
> particularly excite me at the time.
>
> Your discussion of inner/outer form of word got me thinking about him and
> Bateson.
> I have been unable to find this essay in English
>
> *The Asymmetry of the Brain and of the Sign Systems*). Moscow,Sovetskoe
> radio, 1978.
> Ivanov was/is a fan of Tartu semiological theories.
>
> If the symmetry position is associated with timelessness/religion, might
> there be help here for further thought about inner/outer forms of words in
> the process of thought?
>
> Then I remembered Bateson's focus (in Mind and Nature) on assymetry as
> foundational to development. I do not have my copy of the book to hand, but
> I believe that it is assymetry that underlies the shape of a snail's shell
> and the symbol on the lchc home page.
>
> Any help out there in xmcaland?
> mike
>

Re, asymmetry.  The Footnote from page 10 seems appropriate:

"In the serial case it is easy to imagine that each anterior segment may
give information to the next segment which is developing immediately behind
it.  Such information might determine orientation, size, and even shape of
the new segment.  After all, the anterior is also antecedent in time and
could be the quasi-logical antecedent or model for its successor.  The
relation between anterior and posterior would then be asymmetrical and
complementary.  It is conceivable and even expectable that the symmetrical
relation between right and left is double symmetrical, i.e., that each has
some complementary control over the development of the other.  The pair
would then constitute a circuit of reciprocal control.  It is surprising
that we have almost no knowledge of the vast system of communication which
must surely exist to control growth and differentiation."

With respect to inner form, the pieces that I find intriguing are Bateson's
take on Lamarkian-like development in conjunction with Waddington's
discoveries and Beer's approach to requisite variety.  That is, that one can
get a limited form of Lamarkian-like evolution, based upon a feedback to a
system with sufficient variety to express the genetic alternatives.

Huw


>
>
> On Fri, May 27, 2011 at 8:08 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com
> >wrote:
>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Martin and I have been puzzling over Vygotsky's occasional references to
> > the "inner form" of a word: where did Vygotsky GET the idea? What did he
> DO
> > with it? And above all why does it MATTER?
> >
> > Well, I recently read two books that I think solve these questions, but
> > introduce a whole slew of new ones. The two books are:
> >
> > Tihanov, G. (2009) Gustav Shpet's Contribution to Philosophy and Cultural
> > Theory. West Lafayette: Purdue University Press.
> >
> > Seifrid, T. (2005) The Word Made Self. Ithaca and London: Cornell
> > University Press.
> >
> > >From the Tihanov volume (an edited text) we learn two important things
> > about inner form. First of all, the idea of inner form of LANGUAGE does
> > indeed go back to Humboldt and even further (the Port Royal Grammarians
> > apparently used it!). But it's Potebnia who says that a WORD has inner
> form.
> >
> > This Potebnian formulation obviously begs to be qualified: a word like
> "of"
> > or "the" or even "to be" wears its inner form on its sleeve, and may have
> > less of it than a word like "hedgehog" or "God" or  even "to run".
> >
> > Well, Seifrid argues that this Potebnian interpretation of Humboldt came
> > with a LOT of religious baggage. Potebnia believed that the "inner form"
> of
> > a word was its "nearest psychological meaning", i.e. its sense. But he
> ALSO
> > believed that this essence (or maybe "es-sense") was innate and stable,
> as
> > opposed to the historically changing outer form.
> >
> > That idea, of a God-made word whose inner "self" is unchanging but which
> > can manifest itself in "you" (Christ) and even in "he" (the Holy Spirit),
> > was very attractive to Russian Orthodox philologists, including the
> > Symbolists, later the Acmeists, Florensky, Bulgakov, and possibly
> Bakhtin.
> >
> > Bakhtin, who Seifrid does not discuss much, is a VERY curious case. I
> used
> > to think, along with Emerson and Morson, that there is no serious
> evidence
> > that he was a deeply religious man, not even his early writings. But
> Seifrid
> > points out that one of the conceits that Florensky and Bulgakov had was
> that
> > the human body was basically SYMMETRICAL: not only along the head to
> crotch
> > axis but even along a left hip right hip axis: the kidneys correspond to
> > lungs, the asshole to the mouth and so on. Florensky and Bulgakov (and
> > I think Bakhtin too) played with the idea that semen and language were
> > equivalent effluvia, one from the upper and one from the lower bodily
> > stratum.
> >
> > There are three reasons why I think Bakhtin might have been in on the
> joke:
> > First, and worst, although Bakhtin claims to be interested in novels, he
> > never expresses any sustained interest in the work of any woman novelist
> of
> > any nationality whatsoever, and the novel is, at least in English and
> > French, an overwhelming feminine mode of expression.  Secondly, in his
> > Rabelais book he writes almost obsessively about the "lower bodily
> stratum"
> > and its effusions and is particularly amused by the correspondance of
> > flatulence to laughter, and other forms of inverting high and low.
> Thirdly,
> > the Rabelais book was, as we know, rejected, when Bakhtin submitted it as
> a
> > Ph.D. although to all appearances it is a very sound, even miraculous,
> work
> > of medieval scholarship. If it was recognized as a work associated with
> > Florensky and Bulgakov, that would explain it.
> >
> > Shpet also signs up to this idea of an unchanging "inner form", and
> rejects
> > "psychologism" on precisely these grounds. But it's EXACTLY the opposite
> of
> > Vygotsky's view. Yesterday I pointed out that the Donizetti aria presents
> > two DIFFERENT views of causation, both of which may be said to be
> > "mechanical": Adina says her infidelity is caused by her inner essence,
> and
> > Nemorino says her unchanging love is caused by an outer force.
> >
> > This is, I think, Vygotsky's view! Inner form is actually what CHANGES
> from
> > moment to moment, flitting and fluttering, pattering and puttering. Outer
> > form changes too, but more slowly, the way that the river, grieving and
> > grooving the mountains, drags them down grain by grain to the sea.
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> > __________________________________________
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> >
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