Re: [xmca] Concerning the origins of Pointing

[Mike Cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>]

PS--Work too much? You jest!!

Bach is playing in the background. the garden has been watered, our dog has
taken us for a walk, we saw a fantastic
production of Cyrano translated by Anthony Burgess that had my mind reeling
about the magic of language, ventriloquation,
the connection between ashes and diamonts, writting vs speaking, and  lot
more. And there is so much interesting here at xmca to think about. Not to
mention the few pages of George Elliot that i get through each day. Amazing
to read long passages in which she is
giving voice to a form of zionism that has contemporary relevance that is
mind boggling.

Work? Work is when our faculty return and classes start. Then the horrendous
massacre of a great public university will make
getting up in the morning a real chore because in addition to financially
overburdened students, the faculty will be fighting for
their perks in the name of virtue, a situation that provides an iron clad
guarantee of unpleasantness.
m

On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 5:39 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Thanks for that Mike. Ask a question on this list and the answer is not
> long in coming. A case of joint attention I guess.
>
> As I understand this excerpt, the idea of pointing growing out of attempted
> grasping in ontogenetic development is ruled out, but the "precision
> grasping" movement with thumb and forefinger and the pointing gesture with
> thumb *not* opposing the forefinger are co-evolved reflexes (?) and the
> discovery is pushed back from Vygotsky and Dewey to Darwin (sort of). And
> co-attention (gaze-following) precedes pointing at distant objects.
>
> All of which points to the communicative functions developing
> ontogenetically in advance of I->object functions. Is that right? And we
> should take the grasping-then-pointing idea really just as part of our
> history.
>
> thanks Mike.
> you work too hard!
>
> Andy
>
> Mike Cole wrote:
>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> xmca mailing list
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>>
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Andy Blunden (Erythrós Press and Media) http://www.erythrospress.com/
> Orders: http://www.erythrospress.com/store/main.html#books
>
> _______________________________________________
> xmca mailing list
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca
>
_______________________________________________
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca