To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>From:
carolmacdon@gmail.comSent by:
xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.eduDate: 03/18/2013 01:21AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice
Why is that so perplexing David. For those suffering from Chronic Fatigue imaging exercise has pretty much the same effect as doing it. Sorry for the example off topic.
Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you!
-----Original Message-----
From: David H Kirshner <dkirsh@lsu.edu>
Sender: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2013 06:13:17
To: ablunden@mira.net<ablunden@mira.net>; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Subject: RE: [xmca] Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice
Wikipedia's entry opens with "A mirror neuron is a neuron that fires both when an animal acts and when the animal observes the same action performed by another."
Help me, here. I thought neural activity was associated with things meaningful at the level of patterns of neural firings, not at the level of the individual neuron.
David
-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Monday, March 18, 2013 12:22 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is choice
Who's against being "interested in" the brain, Vera?
And what is "materialist" about explaining human behaviour by postulating unobservable and uncontrollable mechanisms in a brain you or I will never see? That sounds almost like the definition of idealism to me (As in Thesis on Feuerbach #1). Take a phenomenon, and posit a metaphyical cause especially for that phenomenon, problem solved.
"Mirror neurons" are a simplistic reification of the idea of biological determination of social behaviour, obviating the need for any investigation of activity. Children imitate, therefore there are "imitiative neurons" in the head. I believe in God therefore I have God-neuron? If this is materialism I prefer idealism.
Andy
Vera John-Steiner wrote:
> I fully agree, Martin. I have considered our lack of interest in the
> brain a strange stance considering the crucial role Luria has played
> in C-H theory, beside the clear implication of a materialist stance.
> How can there be a study of speech or thinking without a slowly growing but exciting exploration of the brain?
>
> Vera
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of Martin Packer
> Sent: Sunday, March 17, 2013 6:13 PM
> To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> Subject: Re: [xmca] Polls are closed: Manfred Holodynsk's article is
> choice
>
> Seems to me that we say that a word is a process. Equally, a thought
> is a process. Producing either without having a brain would be a
> struggle. Trying to figure out the role of the brain in each is worthwhile.
>
> Martin
>
> On Mar 17, 2013, at 6:56 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:
>
>
>> As I understand it, "mirror neurons" are not supposed to be sensory
>>
> neurons or motor neurons, but in the frontal lobe. But in any case,
> reacting to light or pressure. etc., constitutes a connection to a
> neuron in someone else's head only in the most trivial sense. But my
> intention was actually to head off a diversion but I am in danger of
> creating one. I certainly have experienced a baby smiling back at me,
> but I think ascribing this behaviour to "mirror neurons" is pure
> metaphysics, about as explanatory as ascribing it to angels, only except that "mirror neurons" belongs to today's religion.
> I think infant smiling is most fruitfully discussed as behaviour
> rather than brain activity.
>
>> On the other matter, far from occupying different realms, words *are*
>> things. But thoughts are not. But I no longer try to persuade people
>> of this. A lost cause. In the world of "mirror neurons" thoughts are
>> also configurations of neurons. :(
>>
>> Andy
>>
>> Greg Thompson wrote:
>>
>>> 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
>>>
> <mailto: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_civ
>>> i
>>> lization.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>
>>> <mailto: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
>>>
>>>
>>> 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
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> --
>
>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>>> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>>> <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>>>
>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>>> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
>>>
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>>>
>>> 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 <tel:%28912%29%20478-0355>
>>> Fax: (912) 478-5382 <tel:%28912%29%20478-5382>
>>> 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/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>>> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> 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
>>>
>> --
>> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>> --
>> *Andy Blunden*
>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>> http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
>>
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--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
http://marxists.academia.edu/AndyBlunden
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