RE: [xmca] The Coconut Eyes of Consciousness

["SungWon Hwang" <sungwonh@gmail.com>]

Hi David,
McNeill's work works for me as I want to understand learning from a standpoint of a real person who is located in a concrete situation--this is how ethnomethodology helps.
SungWon


> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
> On Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: Friday, April 17, 2009 12:58 PM
> To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> Subject: Re: [xmca] The Coconut Eyes of Consciousness
> 
> 
> Paul:
> 
> Wait a minute. Aren't the higher mental functions peculiar to humans?
> Since they are all mediated by word meanings, don't they have to be?
> 
> Sungwon:
> 
> I agree that the analytical unit is crucial. This is why I avoid
> McNeill's work; he doesn't actually have any use for mediation, and he
> thinks Vygotsky was a Sassurean. Both views are very hard to reconcile
> with Vygotsky's argument that the unit of analysis for human
> consciousness is the meaningful word.
> 
> I also agree with you that Vygotsky's view of "collectivity" is not
> simply individuals agreeing with each other. In fact, I think that he
> believes that heterogeneous collectivity precedes any homogeneous
> individuality; we individuate our selves out of an "ur wir". This is
> yet another case of differentiation yielding sameness instead of the
> other way around.
> 
> Someone off list pointed out to me how similarity arises from
> differences in complexive thinking. We can see this in the transition
> from the chain complex to the diffuse one, but how does it happen in
> the more basic transition from the associative to the complex
> collection?
> 
> Perhaps the associative complex is based on a bunch of CONCRETE
> similarities, but because they are concrete, they are all different.
> These give rise to CONCRETE DIFFERENTIATION (e.g. the handles on the
> knife, fork, spooon) and that gives rise to FUNCTIONAL SIMILARITY?
> 
> I STRONGLY agree with you that development involves the creation of new
> potential that was NOT implicit or built in at the beginning (this may
> even be the key distinction between learning and development). But
> doesn't that mean that we should feel a little uneasy about using
> "already" and "presupposed" when we talk about how communication
> crosses borders and differentiation develops heterogeneity?
> 
> Wolff-Michael: I certainly did not mean to misread and still less to
> annoy. I wasn't actually writing about you personally at all. I was
> writing about something you published in MCA.
> 
> You wrote that acts of labor solidarity such as strikes are sectoral,
> "strategic" and ultimately self-defeating (because strikes damage banks
> where workers' pensions may be invested). Of course, I'm very glad to
> hear that this remark was not intended to be anti-labor, but I'm
> certainly not the only reader who took it at face value.
> 
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
> 
> 
> 
> 
> --- On Thu, 4/16/09, Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
> > From: Paul Dillon <phd_crit_think@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] The Coconut Eyes of Consciousness
> > To: "Culture ActivityeXtended Mind" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Thursday, April 16, 2009, 9:29 PM
> > David,
> >
> >
> > What do you mean by "conscious" or "consciousness"?  Is it
> > something peculiar to humans?  If not, how does it differ
> > from V's higher mental functions, processes, etc.?
> >
> > Also, thinking fractally, when does similarity dissolve
> > into difference or difference resolve into similarity?
> >
> > Paul Dillon
> >
> > --- On Wed, 4/15/09, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > From: David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: [xmca] The Coconut Eyes of Consciousness
> > To: mcole@weber.ucsd.edu,
> > "Culture ActivityeXtended Mind" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> > Date: Wednesday, April 15, 2009, 4:15 PM
> >
> >
> > Last night I read two very different pieces of work on
> > culture and cognition, and this morning it seems to me that
> > the differences between them are very instructive in the
> > light of:
> >
> > a) recent exchanges here on the list on ethnomethodology in
> > general and conversational analysis in particular, and
> >
> > b) articles by Wolff-Michael Roth and Sungwon Hwang in the
> > recent MCA which seem to me to take a nondevelopmental view
> > of solidarity by reducing it to a question of ontology and
> > by eliminating the “prise de conscience” necessary for
> > the recognition of similarities beyond differences.
> >
> > c) work we are doing in our Vygotsky seminar on Chapter Six
> > of Thinking and Speech, where the "prise de conscience" of
> > Claparede and Piaget is rather too placidly translated as
> > "conscious awareness".
> >
> > The first thing I read was Edward Hutchins' contribution to
> > the 1987 Holland and Quinn volume 'Cultural Models in
> > Language and Thought' (CUP). It’s called 'Myth and
> > Experience in the Trobriand Islands' and it offers two
> > readings of a common Trobriand myth which is offered to
> > explain the fact that we do not see the spirits of the dead
> > and yet they see us.
> >
> > One reading is what the Trobrianders themselves offer: A
> > woman dies. Her daughter gives birth. She leaves the land of
> > spirits to grow taro for her daughter and grandchild, but
> > while doing this work, the daughter flings a soup bowl out
> > the window and strikes her. In anger, the dead woman divides
> > a coconut and gives her daughter the portion without eyes.
> > From that day on the dead have eyes to see us, but we have
> > no eyes to see them.
> >
> > The contradictions in the myth (e.g. the fact that the dead
> > can carry heavy weights, and are both living and dead, at
> > home and in exile on an island which is both real and
> > mythical) are so many signs that it there is an esoteric as
> > well as an exoteric interpretation. But the very existence
> > of this explanation is known only to a privileged few.
> >
> > The second reading is based on Freud's famous
> > interpretation of a man's toothache: according to Freud, the
> > lives of old people weigh heavily on the young, and we all
> > wish the early demise of our elders and despise ourselves
> > for wishing it. We suppress the wish, but still feel guilty
> > for having wished it, and thus punish ourselves through
> > dreams and myths. The fact that we deny that this is what
> > our myths mean is taken not as disproof of the hypothesis
> > but rather as so much proof of the hypothesis of repression.
> > The analyst always thinks we doth protest overmuch.
> >
> > Both interpretations admit the possibility of consciousness
> > of the true meaning of the myth, but both of them close off
> > this possibility to most  interactants and seize the
> > coconut eyes of consciousness for a priveleged few. The
> > difference is that the Trobriand interpretation denies this
> > consciousness to outsiders and confers it only to privileged
> > insiders. But the Freudian interpretation denies this
> > consciousness to the interactants and confers it only upon
> > privileged outsiders.
> >
> > The second thing I read was Ron Eglash’s book on African
> > Fractals, justly recommended elsewhere on this list. This
> > begins with an extremely clear explanation of what fractal
> > geometry really is and how it depends on the strictly
> > mathematical idea that infinity can be discovered within a
> > finite space.
> >
> > Then it shows how the creators of fractal architectures in
> > Africa proceed to this consciousness by varied degrees of
> > 'prise de conscience': some create fractals exoterically,
> > because they 'look pretty', some because it is the hallowed
> > esoteric tradition, and some because they are fully
> > conscious of what they are doing.
> >
> > Eglash's book is what it demonstrates; it presents what is,
> > after all, fairly esoteric knowledge in an exoteric way, a
> > way that allows you to read it for pretty pictures, or for
> > arcane knowledge, and even for a full mathematical 'prise de
> > conscience'. The very act of reading it and understanding it
> > convinces you that all three of these things are different
> > moments of the same realization of consciousness. If they
> > can think of infinity, so can you. If you can think it, so
> > can they.
> >
> > But both acts require some work; there is no sense in which
> > the concept of infinity within a finite space is presupposed
> > or assumed. Consciousnss is "necessary" in the sense that it
> > is mathematically determined and not arbitrary. But it's not
> > built in from the get-go; after all, termites build
> > beautiful fractal architecture as well, but they are,
> > presumably, quite oblivious to both the aesthetic and the
> > mathematical properties of what they are doing. Ultimately,
> > the concrete form of that the necessary consciousness of
> > infinity in a coconut shell takes is a "prise de
> > conscience". That "prise de conscience" is a volitional and
> > not a predetermined act.
> >
> > In Wolff-Michael’s editorial 'Solidarity and
> > Responsibility', posted on his website, he is arguing for a
> > sense of difference that is 'ontological' and 'categorical',
> > that is, 'original' in the sense of Adam and Eve. He
> > directly opposes this to a necessary consciousness of
> > sameness that is developed through the consciousness of
> > difference. I think (I hope) that it is this, and not any
> > strongly felt anti-labor sentiment, that leads him to
> > denounce strikes as ultimately pointless and
> > self-destructive.
> >
> > In Sungwon Hwang’s commentary on my own piece, this
> > 'ontological' as opposed to developmental sense of
> > me-in-the-other is taken still further: 'The first
> > articulation that crosses boundaries of cultures and
> > languages presupposes the heterogeneous Self and
> > culture/language in which boundaries are already
> > problematized.' (p. 191), and 'The development (sic) does
> > not denote the homogenization of differences but the
> > non-self-identical movement of an irreducibly heterogenous
> > unit.' Difference, then, is only the 'intensification' of
> > some kind of pre-existing hybridization.
> >
> > At this point I have to admit that we are wading into
> > esoteric water that is well over my exoteric head.
> > Fortunately, Sungwon Hwang gives an example from my own work
> > with teacher talk about student talk, and native language
> > talk about foreign language talk. He says:  '(M)eta-talk is
> > a constitutive part of talk' (192), 'there is no clear
> > distinction between talk and meta-talk once we consider them
> > within the whole act of communication'.
> >
> > I think what I actually said was that 'talk about talk is
> > not just talk, but it is not not talk either'. But I think
> > I'm now willing to go a little further: in Sungwon Hwang's
> > sense, the distinction is indeed clear and even embodied,
> > because in my data meta-talk is by and large the province of
> > the teacher and the teacher alone. It's only when we
> > recognize this division of labor that we can form the firm
> > intention to break it down. In this sense the transgression
> > of the boundaries we see in linguistic hybridization is not
> > at all ontological but rather a largely unforeseen and even
> > unpredictable development.
> >
> > In the second part of Chapter Six of Thinking and Speech
> > Vygotsky takes Claparede and Piaget (once again!) to the
> > woodshed for their explanation of why the various partial
> > functions of consciousness (e.g. attention, memory,
> > perception) become conscious in school children but
> > consciousness as a whole does not.
> >
> > Claparede and Piaget offer the 'loi de prise de
> > conscience', which simply states that we become conscious of
> > differences before we become conscious of simliarities, and
> > the quasi-Freudian 'loi de deplacement' according to which
> > this consciousness of maladaptation is transferred from the
> > plane of action to the plane of consciousness through a
> > process very like Freudian displacement and only after a
> > period of time. (Minick version, p. 189)
> >
> > Vygotsky retorts that these laws merely restate the problem
> > and do not by any means resolve it: we still do not know HOW
> > we become conscious of similarities or HOW this
> > consciousness gets transferred from the plane of practical
> > intelligence to the plane of verbal intelligence.
> >
> > If anything, Claparede and Piaget have made it LESS clear
> > how children overcome the 'maladaptation' that shows them
> > difference but not similarity and LESS clear how knowledge
> > can be 'displaced' from the world of direct action the realm
> > of indirect representations.
> >
> > By the end of the chapter, Vygotsky offers a solution, and
> > it’s really the same exoteric ethnomethodological solution
> > as Eglash, just as the non-solutions offered by Piaget and
> > Claparede seem to partake of the same primevalist exoterica
> > offered by the Trobrianders and by Freud.
> >
> > The child becomes conscious of similarity AFTER the child
> > becomes conscious of difference for the simple reason that
> > difference is can be perceptual, while similarity often
> > requires the formation of a higher concept. The child
> > 'seizes consciousness' of these concepts by noticing first
> > the DIFFERENCE between everyday concepts and science
> > concepts and only then their similarity.
> >
> > So it is that similarity emerges from difference, and the
> > coco-nut eyes of consciousness are opened by the sundering
> > of the coconut. And so Yeats writes:
> >
> > 'A woman can be proud and stiff
> > When on love intent;
> > But Love has pitched his mansion in
> > The place of excrement;
> > For nothing can be sole or whole
> > That has not been rent.'
> >
> > David Kellogg
> > Seoul National University of Education
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> >
> >
> >
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> 
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