Damn good question!
He must, somehow, have noticed that it wasn't really the WORDS that he
wanted to eradicate, but rather the patterns of THOUGHT that spawned the
words.
How awkward.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Martin Packer
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 5:37 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Death and dying
Why didn't he just give himself an electric shock each time he spoke the
word 'mind'? It shouldn't have been a struggle at all!
Martin
On Feb 6, 2012, at 5:59 PM, David H Kirshner wrote:
A few years ago, Eva Ekeblad sent me a paper she had mentioned on XMCA
about Skinner's struggle to purge his own language of mentalist
assumptions. Seems like a nice counterpart to Bateson's efforts to
avoid the language of separateness.
David
Ekeblad, E. (1996). A lifetime of verbal discipline. Revision of a
paper presented to the Nordic Association of Education Research, 1994.
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Christine Schweighart
Sent: Monday, February 06, 2012 4:47 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Death and dying
Apologies Greg,
It was Bateson speaking and not von Glaserfeld!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTsY3TosVX0&feature=related
This aside I wondered if you might be interested to consider the
aesthetic of Garcia Lorca writing on the social meaning of death in
Spanish culture, it seems quite relevant to your topic.
Christine.
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 7:38 PM, Greg Thompson
<greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>wrote:
There is a flipside to "gaps" that suggests that a gapless world.
This
position is nicely captured by Gregory Bateson (please forgive my
transcription by intonation unit - Bateson's prose is hard to
capture,
but see link below for original):
"The nature of
the world in which I live
and in which I wish you lived -
all of you -
and all the time -
but even I don't live in it all the time.
(solemnly) There are times,
when I catch myself believing
that there is such a thing as something
which is separate from something else."
And linking back to General Semantics (and Corey Anton is both
affiliated with General Semantics and has written much on Bateson),
Bateson was influenced by Korzybski (see Bateson's Korzybski memorial
lecture at:
http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gsb-37-bat
e
son.pdf
and
Bateson's quote above is taken from a blog announcing the new
biographical movie of GB by Nora Bateson, the website can be seen at:
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/emind.html).
And linking further back to Korzybski's view of why things go wrong
in
the world, Bateson writes that:
"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference
between how nature works and the way people think."
It would seem that Bateson is pointing to gap-filling as the problem
that creates the mismatch between word and world. Does that seem
about
right to others? Is there a tension here between the gap filling that
Etienne and Mike describe as something that we do all the time and
what Bateson seems to be suggesting about a (preferred) gapless
world?
Am I headed in endless circles here or is there an interesting
question at this particular intersection? Or is my way of linking
both
of these positions filling in (or not) too many gaps?
Thoughts?
-greg
p.s. C.S. Peirce, may have articulated a fuller conception in his
notion of "synechism," but Bateson's is certainly more comprehensible
and artful.
Peirce's vision is a lot more difficult to take in. But I'd add that
he has a wonderful notion of "self" that extends beyond the body and
beyond life.
We are "vicinities" "neighborhoods" rather than discretely bounded
bodies.
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 6:47 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com>
wrote:
Hi Anthony
The topic of death and the social formation of mind seems to be the
ultimate form of "gap & gap filling" which gives meaning to life.
I'm reading an article by Corey Anton titled "Beyond Theoretical
Ethics:
Bakhtinian Anti-Theoreticism" [in Human Studies volume 24, pages
211-225; 2001] This is what Corey has to say about death and our
unique once-occurant dwelling in the world.
"The position that I am trying to make clear is that the human 'in
general'
does not factually exist and that ethical considerations commonly
posit a general human: they posit a 'someone' who is ACTUALLY no
one. In this regard, their universality implicitly suggets that
people are basically interchangeable or not non-replaceable - not
uniquely held by their place in existence. The 'theoretical world
is obtained through an essential
and
fundamental abstraction from the factor of my unique being and from
the moral sense of that fact - AS IF I did not exist' (Bahktin).
This theoretical world can deeply mislead, for I never do not exist
in my
life;
I am never unnecessary or irrelevant, and it is only theoretical
positing that can make this seem to be so. (Leder) suggests that
one's lived body
'
is never just an object in the world but that very medium whereby
our
world
comes into being.' Thus, I may, in one sense, be simply one person
among other persons in the world that will go on without me AFTER MY
DEATH.
And
yet, I am, for me, that person who is never not there, that person
who somehow is ALWAYS co-given along with the world, and that person
whose world falls out of existence WITH MY DEATH. [page 215]
Anthony, Corey is pointing to death as the ulimate "gap" and our
humanness
as the process of gap-filling within our once-occurent unique
cultural historical existence. The social formation of mind
develops through differentiation and distanciation [gaps] AND the
integrating
[gap-filling]
ACTS (including theoretical acts) of our humanness.
Larry
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:45 AM, ANTHONY M BARRA
<tub80742@temple.edu>
wrote:
Thanks for the resources, Huw and Andy.
On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Nektarios Alexi
<NEKTARIOS.ALEXI@cdu.edu.au>wrote:
Thats an excellent book Huw!
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd
Sent: Wed 2/1/2012 9:43 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Death and dying
Bakhtin's "Dostoevsky's Poetics" has a few indexed references.
Huw
On 31 January 2012 16:46, ANTHONY M BARRA <tub80742@temple.edu>
wrote:
I'm looking for Vygostky's, or Vygotskian, words on death and
dying,
especially terms of (but not limited to) "the social formation
of
mind,"
and "mind extending beyond the skin."
Thanks for any direction or help...
Anthony
__________________________________________
_____
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
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
__________________________________________
_____
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
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca