That is a whole lot to take in, Christine, over even to hold still for
contemplation!
One underlying intuition that seemed to be consistent across your example
thinkers and ideas we that of fluidity, of living movement. This put me
very
much in mind of
Vladimir P. Zinchenko. VPZ sites various russian scholars including
Nicholas
Bernshtein, who come up with ideas such as "living movement." Bernshtein is
said to have likened living movement to a spiders web waving in the breeze.
there is an issue of journal of russian and east european psych coming out
with several of VPZ's ideas. I'll keep an eye out for it.
mike
PS- re fluidity, you get this kind of statement from Ingold:
an organism can be thought of as "a flow of material substance in a space
that is topologically fluid. I conclude that the organism (animal or human)
should be understood not as a bounded entity surrounded by an environment
but as an unbounded entanglement of lines in fluid space. (p. 64)
Is this a move back from digital models of organic life to analogue? Is it
needed to
give us a way to include emotions in our accounts of cognitive processes?
On Fri, Sep 23, 2011 at 8:27 AM, christine schweighart <
schweighartgate@hotmail.com> wrote:
Hi Ivan,
I'm afraid that is a rather multi-faceted endeavour - it would be
'more
than passing interest' ( as Mike in the to Swinburne 'design' thread
orients to) - but here this hasn't yet been attempted in a thorough
scholarly way with depth of engagement in the very diverse themes in CHAT
traditions, and using an explication consistent with this form of
biological
perspective. ( An interest that would refine using inclusional ontology,
in
reframing with reference to those traditions.)
I can only share my own experience of sticking points where each finds
issue with the others' discourse, at most, but it's difficult to 'pitch'.
I
mentioned Maturana and I first tried to examine commonalities and areas
where each adds to the other in a paper this summer - I can send an
extract
if you wish. I found that these ideas were invited for examination
amongst
members of the systems community - however a biological perspective to
be
difficult 'subject matter' to attract or engage interest amongst AT
researchers ( another long story). What Rayner's contribution offers to
this is an ontology which is dynamic and relational.
This current discussion through Tony's observation of 'shared
experience'
as 'experience in which
the experience of others participates in the experience of any one, in
the
course of the experiencing.' Might have brought out a place for
rethinking
the somatic and has a lot to do with 'energy' as well as perception
mediated
through the nervous system. However the biological knowledge of this kind
of
catalysis in the body is over-shadowed by the neurological as if it was
the
only 'system' in the body - not contigous with others in dynamics that we
have insufficient direct knowledge about .
I liked Elinor Ochs petition at ISCAR as it acknowledged that we don't
have
a grasp of how to study the watershed of experience spanning this living
dynamic. ( Indexical meaning 'arcs' towards a place where meaning can
begin
to form' and that in actuality awareness of the living moment is
never complete.
Maturana's 'recursions' in languaging relies upon circular closure to
work
upon empirical experience against a linear
flow ( such as our notion of time) , a relation which is problematic.
Though he does see that the root of social orientation is emotional and
love
for others. Recurrence has a spiraling
rather than replicable circular form, each recurrence is revealed by a
new
capacity ?or hidden inner form which affords new learning (which crafts
meanings).
I am also reminded of the intense discussion of 'concepts' and Jay
Lemke's
questions of the extent of theoretical ground in CHAT in concept
formation, where some researchers have reached out to Schutz (Marianne
Hedegaard for example). At Lancaster a distinction was made that whilst
Schutz bases his work upon Husserl's distinction between a natural
attitude
of 'common sense' belief and the phenomenological attitude in which that
belief is suspended, Husserl regarded the everyday world only as a
preliminary to making the 'phenomenological reduction' [ to 'data of
consciousness'], it is the everyday 'lived in world' that is Schutz's
main
concern - ie more sociologist that phenomenologist wanting to analyse the
'nature of structures which are taken as given'. It is this attitude that
is
frustrated by 'incompleteness', as that which is prevailing 'in the
moment'
as living isn't purely rational, of course, it is embodied- the analytic
separation of emotion and isolation towards considering rationality in
concept formation is problematic. Imagination, as a phenomenon, goes
beyond
emotion though - and articulates through hope ( of course when I say this
I'm drawing on a concept of hope, not the feeling in any living moment).
Perhaps it's in this that Bruce's comment about Lefebvre's terms brings
out a place for Alan Rayner's space as presence of 'receptivity' ?
- to go back to the observation:-
' the presence or absence of a social space - not necessarily physical
proximity but a medium through which an acting collectivity can form.'
and a quote from Alan Rayner's paper on analysis using ideas of
completeness which he drew from understanding boundaries in the study of
fungii
"The very idea of complete ?whole units? existing anywhere, at any scale
in
Nature as an energetically
open, fluid system does not make sense. The fluidly variable connectivity
of natural
inclusionality arises from the coming together
(contiguity/inter-connectivity), fusion (confluence/intra-connectivity)
and
dissociation
(individuation/differentiation) of energetic paths, corridors or channels
of included space in
labyrinthine branching
systems and networks"Where networks are not constituted as connected
nodes,
but are dynamic in a process of relational networking. Maturana's
position
was that we are 'social' through orientation lead by emotion - our
'doing'
arises through 'for others' first ( another rich strand in activity
theoretical work).
This messy complex ( that might seem quite ambiguous - as these
discourses
are terms and terms apart) is why I wanted to express an interest - but
didn't have a sense of how to make a contribution that would make s
difference!
Christine.