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

[christine schweighart <schweighartgate@hotmail.com>]

I’d like to clarify my thoughts on  how there can be separation of higher
psychological function from a biological perspective. Recalling David Kellogg’
meaning and sense of his apple example, sensuous experiencing of an apple
unfolds in relation to another sensual source –whatever is experienced on the bringing
forth of meaning in coordinating action with the word apple. Immanence of these
senses in flux in inner form seems fluid, but also physiological. 

The orientation to Tappan DEVELOPMENTAL REVIEW, 17, 78–100 (1997) for
moral development seemed to come back to place moral development alongside ‘an
operation that initially represents an external activity is reconstructed and
begins to occur internally’’ 

 And the use of this quotein the article


“At the same time, however,
because language is a cultural product, sociocultural-

historical processes also
necessarily enter the developmental picture:

The child’s intellectual growth is
contingent on his mastering the social means of

thought, that is, language. . . .
If we compare the early development of speech and

intellect—which, as we have seen,
develop along separate lines both in animals and

in very young children—with the
development of inner speech and verbal thought,

we must conclude that the latter
stage is not a simple continuation of the earlier. The

nature of the
development itself changes, from biological to sociohistorical. Verbal

thought is not an innate, natural
form of behavior, but is determined by a historicalcultural

process and has specific
properties and laws that cannot be found in the

natural forms of thought and
speech. Once we acknowledge the historical character

of verbal thought, we must
consider it subject to all of the premises . . . which are

valid for any historical
phenomenon in human society. (pp. 94–95)

Thus, concluded Vygotsky, ‘‘the
problem of thought and language . . . extends

beyond the limits of natural science
and becomes the focal problem

of historical human psychology’’ (p. 95).”


It strikes me that sociohistorical is still ‘natural’  - phenomenon of our living in the world. At
the time Vygotsky's expression was made in contrast with behavioural  S-R notions.Are these still pressing circumstances? Just as the notion of competition has become redundant in evolution,
species consolidate  survival by sharing and conserving in ecosystems, have other circumstances of a biological/sociohistorical separation changed? 
Even in the 1980’s algebraic formula representing  altruistic behavior to benefit kinship emerged
in Biology. Also the notion of prescription by genetic code has been
reinterpreted as Huw points to, at a cellular level DNA repairs itself, the notion
of ‘switching on or off’ as a lock and key model to understand genes has been replaced with a much
more fluid ( and little understood) kind of affair related to more complex
unfolding catalytic energy processes. 

How does this relate to inner form and word meaning?
Well it might be useful as metaphor of a fluid model – one of structural drift.
Drift doesn’t carry the weight of pathway  or 
path dependence (as how the set of decisions faced for any
given circumstance is limited by the decisions made in the past, even though
past circumstances may no longer be relevant). 
This seems particularly relevant going back to Jay Lemke’s call for the
particular and what is taken forward to the next particular case. 



Moral also has something
of aesthetic qualities,  as a creative
opportunity,  creating phronetically – as
all affected bring their historically formed  particular aesthetic  thresholds or liminality,  here I am referring to an article using threshold as per Gustav
Theodor Fechner (not Ray Land's use in educational literature on threshold concepts)
The Vorschule der Aesthetik summarized Gustav Fechner’s major work
on psychological aesthetics and was published inLeipzig
in 1876 [2]. Which I found in ‘Bridging
the Arts and Sciences:A Framework for the Psychology of Aesthetics’ Thomas
Jacobsen LEONARDO,
Vol. 39, No. 2, pp. 155–162, 2006) A quote from Jacobsen:


“Fechner:
A Source of Inspiration






To
this day, Fechner’s works remain a source of inspiration within experimental psychological
aesthetics. Many of his concepts,  however,
have yet to be adopted into today’s inventory of psychological terminology, and
some aspects of his work have fallen into oblivion. The concept of the aesthetic
threshold, for example, implies that a stimulus has to cross a specific
individual threshold in order to trigger experiences that are aesthetically
pleasant or unpleasant. This concept was subjected to empirical and experimental
verification, and the results were published in a renowned psychological
journal, the Psychological Review, in 1906 [3]. In recent years, however, Fechner’s concept
of the aesthetic threshold, or the aesthetische
Schwelle, can no longer be found in the work
of international experts.’”

I came to the aesthetic, which seems to include
sensibility and physiology of sensation within, or in immanence with, higher
cognitive functioning  from Mike’s
a-symmetry. As symmetry and asymmetry are relevant in aesthetics.

Mike’s
comment:

-Then I remembered Bateson's focus (in Mind and Nature) on assymetry as

foundational
to development. – 

Reminded
me of dissymmetry, not the same as a-symmetry?, as dissymmetry seems to bring
with it a sense of expectation of harmony (proximal?)symmetry.

It was a quote in a review which interested me 'dissymmetry creates the
phenomenon' ,phenomena as motivation for enquiry, and building of new
conceptual understanding in the course of enquiry affording development..

The review took issue with some
aspects of a book ‘Symmetry: Cultural-Historical and Ontological Aspects of
Science-Arts

Relations: The Natural and Man-Made World in an Interdisciplinary Approach by
György Darvas.’

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Symmetry-Cultural-historical-Science-Arts-Interdisciplinary-ebook/dp/B001BTKKJ0 ( see p 14)


 

The review was written by István Hargittai, Leonardo, Volume 41, Number 2, April 2008,
pp. 185-187 (Review)

Who took issue with the meaning of
dissymmetry used by Darvas , following a Shubinov use quoted below ( although
in doing this the overall contribution of work put forward in  Darvas’ book might not be fairly evaluated, I
don’t know): 



"A.V.
Shubnikov’s teachings [1], so let us see what dissymmetry is according to Shubnikov.
It is the absence of certain

symmetry
elements, for example a symmetry plane. Shubnikov called dissymmetry the falling
out of one or another element of symmetry from a given group. Pasteur
used the term dissymmetry for the first time to designate the absence of a
symmetry plane in a figure. Accordingly, dissymmetry did not exclude all
elements of symmetry, only the absence of certain symmetries. Curie suggested a
broad application of the term dissymmetry. He called a crystal dissymmetric in
the case of the absence of those elements of symmetry upon which depends the
existence of one or another physical property in that crystal. In Curie’s
original words: “Dissymmetry creates the phenomenon” (“C’est la dissymétrie
qui crée le phénomène”) [2].

That
is, a phenomenon exists and is observable due to dissymmetry, due to the
absence of some symmetry elements from the system."
Darvas, on p14 if you have access to the e-book ,made observations about how in natural formations in plants and animals there isn't a perfect symmetry, that quality of asymmetry contributed to a sense of harmony and beauty. This seems to have something to contribute to the discussion of individual difference, and rather than it following a pathway ( dependence) to insecurity,to  value and receive difference as a developmental source. It would have many more forms than in verbal thought alone and is embodied difference including all forms of expression and visual re-presentationssensation, it seems to me. I even wonder how aesthetics does interplay in physiological function in a non-metaphoric way., which is why I struggle to see a complete separation of biological and  sociohistorical.
Christine.




1. A.V. Shubnikov, Simmetriya i
antisimmetriya

konechnykh figure (Moscow: Izv. Akad. Nauk SSSR,

1951). This book is in Russian, but there is ample

discussion of this subject in the English-language

translation of another Russian book: A.V. Shubnikov

and V.A. Koptsik, Symmetry in Science and Art

(New York: Plenum Press, 1974). Darvas does not

mention it, but the latest, augmented Russian

edition of the Shubnikov–Koptsik classic appeared

in 2004. Also, several of Shubnikov’s key papers

appeared in English translation in I. Hargittai and

B.K. Vainshtein, eds., Crystal Symmetries: Shubnikov

Centennial Papers (Oxford, U.K.: Pergamon Press,

1988).

2. P. Curie, “Sur la symétrie dans les phénomenes

physiques, symétrie d’un champ eléctrique et d’un

champ magnétique.” J. Phys. (Paris) 3 (1894) pp.

393–415.




 

 


 		 	   		  __________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca