Diane wrote
> The first thought I had when reading this
> was, ironically enough, from Piaget, who suggested
> that "origins" or "beginnings" don't really matter because
>
> of course the "starting point" changes as one progresses -
> as you observe.
>
> Kathie's thoughts on thresholds,
> and Mike's comments on the limitations of perception,
> these remind me of, oddly (or not) Proust's "Remembrance of Things Past
> (1913-1927)
>
> and his "search" for lost time - as I recall, Proust learned that
> "meaningfulness"
> is only available in remembering, because in the moment of an event
> we are too deeply "in" the event to understand, or too immersed
> to rely on some
> form of distancing, or objectivism...I quote:
>
> "But certain 'privileged moments' of memory, evoked by unconscious
> associations, mean simultaneous existence in the past and present; they
> thus permit a glimpse of the essence common the both, a transcendental
> reality independent of time."
>
> He also realizes that it is through relationships that one's "life" gains
> connection
> with random events (ah the social construction of reality?) -
>
> again, the "beginning" is discursive, everywhere, nowhere,
> ...
>
> I personally understand much of this to be about forms of "control"
> in an academic sense, needing to maintain continuity in
> language practice, or discourse activity, so that
> academics can continue to communicate with each other -
>
> of course even this is restricted by disciplines & specializations.
> It this were animated more, I'd think it more
>
> recursive, progressing in ever-increasing concentricities,
> returning , like a looping curl, to reconnect with what inspired the move
> forward -
> which is how we construct meaningfulness to our actions, of course.
>
> Recursivity has come up here before, though I can't recall the context.
Bakhtin and G. Mead suggested that meaning is a reply to a reply. It is a
puppy trying to bite its own tail (your "looping curl"). I have recently
"discovered" recursivity as production of intentionality.
Eugene