RE: [xmca] comparing NewYorker images

["White, Phillip" <Phillip.White@ucdenver.edu>]

Andy, my own take on the comprehension of the New Yorker cover is that understanding it is dependent on a specific domain of knowledge.
-
Jean Lave's article in MCA some years back challenges the dualistic nature of theories of learning - formal v.s. informal  -  as well as she challenges psychological theories of learning that situate learning in a child's head.  as well i also find it problematic about teaching in schools as being decontextualized  - i think this is also dualistic theorizing.  i'm not sure that what looks like decontextualized practices isn't really a problem of students not having specific domain knowledge, and exasperated by the fact that the teacher doesn't realize that the students don't have the domain knowledge.

i recently read:
"A crown of 10,000 saw him (Willy Hammond) survive a first-ball lbw appeal from Horace Hazell and then scratch around for 50 minutes, making only seven, before being clean bowled by Hazell."

i can decode the words - i totally lack the domain knowledge, background knowledge, to comprehend what it was i just read.  

phillip

Phillip White, PhD
University of Colorado Denver
School of Education
phillip.white@ucdenver.edu
________________________________________
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net]
Sent: Wednesday, July 07, 2010 9:07 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] comparing NewYorker images

It's been a great exercise Mike and rich with problems. I
think the idea of discerning a cultural message in a
collection of similar things is a great exercise in
psychology. Obviously no-one is proposing the *separation*
of thining and perception.

I just know I have problems with perception: I don't hear
the words to songs usually, I easily make silly mistakes
assembling equipment, I miss things when reading. I try to
overcome these problems, but I know they are part of my
personality. I guess I don't fancy accepting myself as a
generally deficient person. I prefer to think there are
different styles of learning, different "ways of working"
and this particular exercise really brought out a weakness
of mine. SHould I abandon all hope? :)

Andy

mike cole wrote:
> I agree with Martin here, Andy. I find these images interesting precisely
> because they appeared to me to be communicable examples of processes that
> LSV writes about, but which remain pretty empty abstractions for many. As
> this exchange makes clear, even evoking a distinction between perception and
> conception is difficult, let alone between something like "seeing two green
> dots" versus "two peas in a pod" and believing that the former is perceptual
> while the latter is conceptual.
>
> Oh well, at least I thought the examples were vehicles for communication of
> the processes that LSV writes about. Seems they might not be after all!
> mike
>
> On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 7:50 AM, Martin Packer <packer@duq.edu> wrote:
>
>> Andy, Mike,
>>
>> I've argued in this space a couple of time that for LSV perception and
>> thinking are intimately related. As thinking changes, the world is viewed
>> differently. LSV writes frequently of the 'generalized perception' that
>> arises from acquiring language. So no we shouldn't conflate the two, but nor
>> should we keep them artificially separate and think that one develops but
>> the others is unchanging.
>>
>> Martin
>>
>> On Jul 7, 2010, at 9:35 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:
>>
>>> I don't think so Mike. I think there is a danger there in conflating
>> perception and thinking. ... And also of subjective acquisition and
>> objective development of concepts.
>>> Andy
>>>
>>> mike cole wrote:
>>>> Yes indeed, beware empty abstractions, Andy!
>>>> And rise to the concrete if we can.
>>>> My major point in that note was that in moving between "levels" of
>> abstraction contained with the image, our perception, how we
>>>> "see" the constituents changes. Might this be akin to the dynamics
>> between scientific and everyday concepts, and/or between differently
>> configures systems of higher psychological functions?
>>>> mike
>>>> On Tue, Jul 6, 2010 at 11:26 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net<mailto:
>> ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:
>>>>    Well, we're all hanging out for the next issue of The New Yorker
>>>>    now! I feel really "exposed" by this exercise. :) In both cases I
>>>>    failed to see the cultural reference. I picked up the
>>>>    abstract-theoretical reference, indeed I'd even already used No. 2
>>>>    to illustrate "Gestalt", but still failed to see the real-world,
>>>>    cultural meaning. :( Once an abstract-thinker, always an abstract
>>>>    thinker, no matter how many books you read.
>>>>    Andy
>>>>    White, Phillip wrote:
>>>>        Well, certainly, Mike, I thing that knowing the song "Love and
>>>>        marriage, love and marriage, go together like a horse and
>>>>        carriage. Dad would say to Mother, "You can't have one without
>>>>        the other."
>>>>        So, yes, two peas in a pod, a pair of shoes, and a pair of eyes.
>>>>        Phillip
>>>>        Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
>>>>        -----Original Message-----
>>>>        From: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>
>>>>        Sender: "xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>        <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>"
>>>>        <xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>
>>>>        Date: Tue, 6 Jul 2010 19:57:24 To: eXtended Mind,
>>>>        Culture,Activity<xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
>>>>
>>>>        Reply-To: "lchcmike@gmail.com <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>"
>>>>        <lchcmike@gmail.com <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>>, "eXtended
>>>>        Mind, Culture,
>>>>               Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:
>> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
>>>>        Subject: [xmca] comparing NewYorker images
>>>>        I want to use the occasion of martin coming late to the second
>>>>        of two new
>>>>        yorker covers we have
>>>>        been disscussing, to talk about some interesting properties of
>>>>        each and
>>>>        different approaches to their
>>>>        interpretation (I have still to deal with local microgenises).
>>>>        What both images seem to have in common is that an overall
>>>>        concept covers
>>>>        all the examples. One you see the overall concept, you
>>>>        perception/interpretation of the constituents changes. And, if
>>>>        you are
>>>>        working upward from the constituents, but still have not got
>>>>        "IT" the little
>>>>        its do not "add up."
>>>>        So someone sees the two eyeball shaped almost green things as
>>>>        "two green
>>>>        dots." But after one takes
>>>>        in the heart *near* the top, and then the two bells with what
>>>>        look like
>>>>        ribbons, on may think (June=prominent
>>>>        month for getting married, weddding bells...... and from there
>>>>        on, there are
>>>>        functional relations among the parts and those functions have
>>>>        changed in
>>>>        some cases where the function is difficult to discern, like those
>>>>        two partly green eye shaped things. Now they become "two peas i
>>>>        a pod" and
>>>>        you might notice that it is
>>>>        kind of strange that they are only partly green.
>>>>        I am pretty sure this is what Paula and David were writing about
>>>>        in a more
>>>>        consistent way.
>>>>        One thing I am pretty certain of. Getting "it" requires
>>>>        voobrazhenie,
>>>>        into-image-making, and the process of
>>>>        voobrazhenie is path dependent.
>>>>        What would LSV think?
>>>>        mike
>>>>        _______________________________________________
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>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>>>    *Andy Blunden*
>>>>    Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/<http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/><
>> http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>>>>    Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
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>>> --
>>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>> *Andy Blunden*
>>> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/ <http://home.mira.net/%7Eandy/>
>>> Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
>>> Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss
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--
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*Andy Blunden*
Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
Videos: http://vimeo.com/user3478333/videos
Book: http://www.brill.nl/scss


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