We seem to have a lot of beliefs and inclinations in common, Diane.
You declare openly that you don't actually believe in modern
psychology, that being a fictive discourse; of the most trivial
genre, I'd like to add. -- I have now and then tried to show some
faculty from various disciplines why it is a century's dead end and
an obstacle to understanding the human condition. A sample of this is
in my farewell lecture; unfortunately, its in German. Naturally, the
psychologists objected, not in argument, but by aggression, because
they felt personally attacked rather than reminded of any scientist's
basic duty to draw in question his own beliefs. I had much more
success with a bunch of clever students. Also most non-psychologists
understood quite well: historians, art historians, literary people,
even some biologists. Some even have well understood they need
cooperation with a realistic psychology to do their own duties. None,
though, would manifestly affirm my contention that a group or system
of scientific undertakings to conceive of the human condition in some
kind of comprehensive manner belonged right in the center of any
university, of research strategies, and of educational programs. Yet
the latter colleagues would eventually not keep up, when occasion did
arise, to installing a really realistic psychology, probably for fear
of loosing the financial support of that sheer numbers of
psychologists.
Your write:
> is a foundation necessary? doesn't this connote not only structure
>replacing structure, origins,
>but also rigidity as opposed to flexibility, fluidity, mobility? maybe
>fields needs wheels. ha ha
Maybe fields need wheels, ha ha. -- Yes, and those wheels could or
should be triangulars and irregular polygons, so the riders may
please feel the rough terrain they cross. You are absolutely right.
In the 1880 Charles Peirce attempted to teach his fellow scientist in
vain the simple indeed consequence of accepting the belief that the
universe be of an evolutive character: natural law must co-evolve to
remain valid in time. There may be lawfulnesses of longer and of
shorter life cycle, though.
Did I use the term "foundation"? Indeed, foundations cannot be
defined by convention nor by power. And tradition may go errant (?
sounds horrible English?). I have come to be sure those available --
cf. terms like truth, knowledge, substance, subject, mind, matter,
cause etc. -- are misleading. Maybe I use words such as foundation,
basis etc. some times. But I don't mean something fixed except for
some very basic constituents. If bioevolution could not build on
reliable chemistry and physics of the atoms, it would quickly break
down and so would all what's built upon it. The secret of evolution
is the "evolution of evolutions" (John Dewey's phrase!), So it proves
presumptions wrong anyway. Better to avoid, then.
You did ask this question already in your reply to my
transaction/transgression note? My answer was to come in the (elabs)
but you give me kindly occasion again. A constructive methodology (as
I said, Lewin has invented such a strategy in the 1920; and I hope
the advantage of constructing transgression and transaction from the
same building blocks has caught your curiosity) will probably avoid
replacing foundations by other foundations by other ones because its
basics are so sparse, so stint. I still believe, and do so until
somebody shows me wrong, semiotic ecology is built on one single
assumption: structures emerging can combine or change each other to
build new and affine structures. All the rest follows in the
evolutive process. No other foundation is required. Would this
eventually calm you fear?
Structures in this sense emerging in biotic evolution and in their
co-evolving environments are at the same time sort of self-contained
and, in order to maintain themselves, also dependent on other
structures, on structures particularly affine to them (nutritionals,
mates, children, discussants etc.). On the one hand this combined
autonomy-and-dependency renders the idea of absolute chance to be an
ideal fiction found only in playing with symbols, but not among the
structures of this world interacting. Contingency of encounters,
however, remains and is of uttermost importance. But this makes for a
decisive difference in understanding evolutions. I would never
subscribe any statement so fashionable today that culminates in
credos like we are forced to choose between an orderly lawful world
or the absolute senselessness of a chance world in which anybody is
utterly alone. I think this to be another of those PR tricks of those
promoting their interests and in need of sheep to seek solace and
guidance and serve the former's purpose. And so we are back at that
vulgar Darwinism.
>i, too, have noticed a recent upsurge of this thinking, that bio-evolution
>is the original copy upon which all human activity imitates its social and
>cultural manifestations. myopic, at best.
>my personal concern is the ceaseless absence of politics, and the ways
>these organize so much of what comes to be called activity. the social and
>the cultural, even the bioevolutionary are all deeply political fields -
>i would like to hear more on semiotic ecologies, personally, when you find
>the time, as it seems to me you see a linking between this and the archaic
>punishments of traditional disciplines.
In some sense I feel like being a kind of political animal. But
obviously I don't like to burn or have my paws hurt in fighting with
faux paws. Prefer instead to use my head. So I have mostly refrained
from really entering those circles, preferring the position of an
analyst from the sideline. Certainly at this time there is more than
enough of activists around. Indeed, there is a natural place for
ethics and politics in semiotic ecology. Almost a century before
Darwin a clever guy named J.G. Herder has not only given a fully
functional theory of cultural evolution, but has also well understood
its being linked with bioevolution and with the open development of
individuals. But in the progressive era to come he has been made down
and then forgotten. Understandably, because he proposed an ethics of
responsibility. My paper on him, again, is in German.
Diane, do you have a website or some papers I can read to learn more
of your world? I must have missed reading most of your contributions
to the list since you joined when I was mostly absent.
Alfred
-- --------------------------------------------------------------------- Alfred Lang, Psychology, Univ. Bern, Switzerland --- alfred.lang@psy.unibe.ch Website: http://www.psy.unibe.ch/ukp/langpapers/ ---------------------------------------------------------------------
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