At first read, the quote by Vygotsky about water being irreducible to
hydrogen and oxygen struck a sour note with me. I wanted to edit the last
line to read 'He will never succeed in explaining the characteristics of
the whole by [only] analyzing the characteristics of its elements."
because of course it helps to know that water is composed of hydrogen and
oxygen and this does make all the difference in the world - it is water not
carbon dioxide for example, which is what you would get if you combined
carbon and oxygen. I wanted to add "and he would not succeed unless he
also analyzes its elements", but who am i to criticize publically and
sociall the words of Vygotsky or Wertsch? Especially because one author is
present?
Well, semiosis be damned unless I can. :-) Vygotsky most likely did not
know of the process of molecular 'building up' - starting with a
description of isolated atoms and watching their structures gradually
transform, in response to each other, as one (analytically) brings them
together, until finally they make up each other as the molecule, with a new
structure and continuous degrees of difference in structure, from those
*practically* isolable to individual atoms and those completely considered
molecule and indivisible.
Jim introduces 'isolation' which allows the process I am interested in
preserving, and does not carry the end-of-the-line sense that 'reduction'
does. Isolation becomes viable because it is like what Catalina Laserna
calls 'zooming in' - you focus more tightly for a while, always with the
perspective in mind that this is a piece of a bigger picture. So with
this, I will continue to think about the 'building up' of complex dynamics,
tentatively termed action, in the modeling I am doing, and must get back
to, and also revisit another method, thought-experiment, which may be also
isolationist in nature, I now realize, not reductionist.
Bill Barowy, Associate Professor
Technology in Education
Lesley College, 29 Everett Street, Cambridge, MA 02138-2790
Phone: 617-349-8168 / Fax: 617-349-8169
http://www.lesley.edu/faculty/wbarowy/Barowy.html
_______________________
"One of life's quiet excitements is to stand somewhat apart from yourself
and watch yourself softly become the author of something beautiful."
[Norman Maclean in "A river runs through it."]