[Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky.Peirce.Mediation

[Lplarry]

Today I want to refer to this excellent resource that Andy sent as a contextualized sampling of Alfred Lang’s contributions to the xlists. Care went into this compilation.
It is a rich resource of memory for the theme of this thread.

If you go to page 7 there is a table of contents that links to various topics.
Today I went to topic 13 Goals which takes you to page 193. Read the section or scroll  to section 13.7 on page 201 where the focus opens on Lang’s definition of (structure).
Structure is a distinguishing set of mind/brain states as well as particular arrangements of the environment that are:
Given, selected, or brought about. 
The essential difference to common notions of goals and strategies and designs might be that such structures need not contain a representation of one end state yet can IMPLY a large set of attracting and constraining Possibilities that together enforce directed behaviour.
The commentary is worth reading as an opwning into this thread

Sent from my Windows 10 phone

From: Lplarry
Sent: June 21, 2016 10:41 PM
To: mike cole; Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: RE: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky.Peirce.Mediation

Mike,
I have been reading the link that Andy sent and am experiencing a deep (bond) among the participants in this act of culture.
Reflecting on the image of bridges connecting  entities in relation to this (bond) I experienced in my encountering you and Alfred and Arne on this site, where do we locate this bond. Is this bond a “living” entity?
Do the *persons* I am encountering here and now have any substance or essence?
Is it permissible to say these *persons* bonding exist or are real as a *living* presence.
Is this occurring only inside my *mind* as imaginary or imagination.
Or is there a 3rd realm that I will call *imaginal* as an adjective.
To ask if this (bond) I experience as I interpret the words is actually an imaginal image that presents itself through encountering this  living presence as this (bond).
I am using *imaginal* image to convey a sense of the presence of these 3 persons bonding that is a living (vital, animated) presence. This presence is not captured or expressed in the same way when using the words imaginary or imagination.
If others who are reading the link are also experiencing this (bond) then it is not merely private nor objective. It seems to be a third way (via media).
I do not think the bridge metaphor expresses this *imaginal* image as what is occurring is *deep within* our meeting in this third space. 
I have a hunch that Peirce as a third way may contribute something to my question. 


Sent from my Windows 10 phone

From: mike cole
Sent: June 21, 2016 5:23 PM
To: Andy Blunden; eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: Vygotsky.Peirce.Mediation

I mis-wrote, Andy. I did not mean to say that YOU held that view, Andy.
Rather, your note about a bridge presupposing two entities raised the issue
clearly. Alfred held challenged me on this very point, insisting he was a
dualist and using Peirce as his tool of thought. In any event, the document
you forwarded has a lot of history of semiotics, Peirce, and LSV, and xmca.
And the belief among some that Vygotsky was a dualist remains. That is what
makes Peirce such an interesting 'third'.

If one googles Alfred Lang on the lchc website homepage lchc.ucsd.edu, a
list of relevant documents comes up.

mike



On Tue, Jun 21, 2016 at 5:04 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Goodness, I will really have to work harder to make my meaning clear, I
> was trying to say that in the tradition running through Hegel and Marx that
> Vygotsky was *not* a dualist.
>
> I'm not sure which document captures the discussion Mike was talking of
> but try this:
> http://lchc.ucsd.edu/Histarch/LAEMDI.PDF
>
> Andy
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden
> http://home.mira.net/~andy
> http://www.brill.com/products/book/origins-collective-decision-making
> On 22/06/2016 1:54 AM, mike cole wrote:
>
>> The header is a three word summary of the topic that seems to have emerged
>> to engage discussion, James, so maybe use that
>> or put together a header of your own. Semiotics could be there.
>>
>> A discussion of this topic might begin by unearthing the discussions in an
>> earlier xmca generation. Arne Raeithel and Alfred Lang
>> led discussion on this topic as has, I believe, Jay Lemke. Alfred was
>> steadfast in his interpretation of Vygotsky as a dualist in
>> precisely the way that Andy did in a recent note. Its in the newsletter
>> and
>> the archives, or perhaps in Andy's computer.
>>
>> Given that as background,  what new insights can we gain from considering
>> these early efforts at mutual enlightenment via computer *mediated*
>> discourse??
>>
>> Could some of the core discussers organize to point us to prior
>> understandings of this nexus of topics from the xmca/xlchc archives?
>> That would provide a starting point for assessing the answer to my
>> question. Otherwise, I fear we will be unable to supercede a collective
>> level of discourse that corresponds more or less to chaining in a
>> Vygotskian conceptual hierarchy.
>>
>> Summer Solstice Suggestion
>>
>> Mike
>>
>>
>


-- 

It is the dilemma of psychology to deal as a natural science with an object
that creates history. Ernst Boesch