Re: [xmca] Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice

[Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>]

Andy,
I think that there is an incredibly important assumption here in your
comment that has been side-stepped by other responses thus far
You wrote:
"leaving aside surgical intervention, neurons only react to other neurons
by direct electrochemical interaction."

If this were true, we would never be able to make any contact with the
world "outside" of our brains - neurons would just be talking to neurons
and they would have no connection with the "world out there" (or any world
for that matter!), and in which case, we would not be able to see, hear,
touch, smell, feel, balance, etc.

But we can do all these things. Thus, there must be a process of moving
from one to the other - from light striking the retina to neurons firing in
the retina and on down the brain (but where is "seeing"?). So "mirror
neurons" aren't necessarily impossible (although it may still be incomplete
or wrong for other reasons).

[and I hope you'll notice a parallel here between the concern articulated
in this email and my previous response to the division that you introduced
in an XMCA post some time ago between the dollar in your pocket and the
dollar in your head. As if the WORD and the THING are in fundamentally
different realms - never to meet one another]

But I think that there is an intuition in your comment about neurons that
nicely "lights up" one of the central problematics of Western science: how
do you get from physical stuff to mental stuff?

I suspect that this question-as-problem arises from a confused
understanding of what we mean by both "physical" and "mental". On the one
hand, we neglect the semiotic, information-based properties of the physical
(and Gregory Bateson is a great place to look for a better understanding
here). And similarly, on the other hand, we neglect the physical aspects of
what we understand to be "mental" (and here, perhaps Charles Peirce is a
good place to look here).

And a bigger problem within which both of these troubles sit is our
tendency of our understanding towards entification rather than seeking the
relational and processual nature of both the so-called "physical" and the
so-called "mental." And that's a whole other problem altogether.

But I've said a lot (too much?) already.
-greg

On Sun, Mar 17, 2013 at 6:15 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Robert, if I were to suggest that "mirror neurons" are a metaphyical
> belief which have no more basis in existence than phlogiston or ether,
> would that actually change anything? Have you ever been misled by the
> mistaken observation of "mirror neuron" activity, or has observation of a
> mirror neuron ever explained some otherwise inexplicable event? So far as I
> know, leaving aside surgical intervention, neurons only react to other
> neurons by direct electrochemical interaction.
> Andy
>
> Robert Lake wrote:
>
>> Hi everyone,
>> I am a relative newcomer to CHAT research, so this (mostly rhetorical)
>> question is probably
>> old hat to many of you. It concerns Holodynski's article as it may or may
>> not relate to the notion of mirror neurons as described by Ramachandran.
>>
>> http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_**ramachandran_the_neurons_that_**
>> shaped_civilization.html<http://www.ted.com/talks/vs_ramachandran_the_neurons_that_shaped_civilization.html>
>>
>>
>> If I understand this correctly, in Holodynski's view, a caregiver mirrors
>> back to the child, his or her own emotions through gesture and facial
>> expressions. What if the child's emotions/expressions fall into the range
>> of autism spectrum disorders? Can ZPD's be created that in turn help create
>> and develop "empathy" neurons in us regardless of our age level? Are there
>> some cultures that are more emotionally and perhaps empathically evolved?
>>
>> Thank-you MCA team  and Professor Holodynski for this article. I think it
>> represents the a key component for the future of cultural/historical
>> research.
>>
>> Fascinated and curious,
>> Robert Lake
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Mar 16, 2013 at 10:59 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:
>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>
>>     The article for discussion is now available at:
>>     http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/**Journal/pdfs/20-1-holodynski.**pdf<http://lchc.ucsd.edu/MCA/Journal/pdfs/20-1-holodynski.pdf>
>>
>>
>>     Andy
>>
>>     mike cole wrote:
>>
>>         We will make available Manfred Holodynski's article - The
>>         Internalization
>>         Theory of Emotions: A Cultural Historical Approach to the
>>         Development of Emotions - available
>>         for discussion as soon as possible. Then let the discussion begin!
>>
>>         mike
>>         ______________________________**____________
>>         _____
>>         xmca mailing list
>>         xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>         http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>     --     ------------------------------**------------------------------
>> **------------
>>     *Andy Blunden*
>>     Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/
>> **>
>>
>>     Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>>     http://marxists.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
>>
>>     ______________________________**____________
>>     _____
>>     xmca mailing list
>>     xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
>>
>>     http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> *Robert Lake  Ed.D.
>> *Associate Professor
>> Social Foundations of Education
>> Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
>> Georgia Southern University
>> P. O. Box 8144
>> Phone: (912) 478-0355
>> Fax: (912) 478-5382
>> Statesboro, GA  30460
>>
>>  /Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
>> midwife./
>> /-/John Dewey.
>>
>>
> --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
> http://marxists.academia.edu/**AndyBlunden<http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden>
>
>
> ______________________________**____________
> _____
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/**listinfo/xmca<http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca>
>



-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Visiting Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca