RE: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor

[Achilles Delari Junior <achilles_delari@hotmail.com>]

Hi, Colette,

I really don't know if the "train metaphor" that was remembering was the same that you quote, I guess it is not the same... Beucause this mine was related to Sherrinton's neurofunctional contributions, the "funel metaphor" (well, is almost a literal explanation)... But, I found it in my Portuguese version from Psychology of Art, and in the MIA version there is this chapter in English:


"Our nervous system resembles a railway station into which five tracks lead, but only one track leads out. Of five trains arriving at this station, only one ever manages to leave (and this only after a fierce struggle), while the other four remain stalled. "


"Looking at a child, it is evident that its possibilities are far greater than actually realized. If a child plays at soldiers, cops and robbers, and so on, this means, according to some, that inside himself he really becomes a soldier or a robber. Sherrington’s principle (the principle of struggle for a common field of action) clearly shows that in our organism the nervous receptor fields exceed many times the executing effector neurons, so that the organism perceives many more stimuli than it can possibly attend to. Our nervous system resembles a railway station into which five tracks lead, but only one track leads out. Of five trains arriving at this station, only one ever manages to leave (and this only after a fierce struggle), while the other four remain stalled. The nervous system reminds us of a battlefield where the struggle never ceases, not even for a single instant, and our behavior is an infinitesimal part of what is really included in the possibilities of our nervous system, but cannot find an outlet. In nature the realized and executed part of life is but a minute part of the entire conceivable life Oust as every life born is paid for by millions of unborn ones). Similarly, in our nervous system, the realized part of life is only the smallest part of the real life contained in us. Sherrington likens our nervous system to a funnel with its narrow part turned toward action, and the wider part toward the world. The world pours into man, through the wide opening of the funnel 154), thousands of calls, desires, stimuli, etc. enter, but only an infinitesimal part of them is realized and flows out through the narrowing opening. It is obvious that the unrealized part of life, which has not gone through the narrow opening of our behavior, must be somehow utilized and lived. The organism is in an equilibrium with its environment where balance must be maintained, just as it becomes necessary to open a valve in a kettle in which steam pressure exceeds the strength of the vessel. Apparently art is a psychological means for striking a balance with the environment at critical points of our behavior. Long ago the idea had been expressed that art complements life by expanding its possibilities. Von Lange says, “There is a sorry resemblance between contemporary civilized man and domestic animals: limitation and monotony. Issuing from the patterns of bourgeois life and its social forms, these are the main features of the individual existence, which lead everybody, rich and poor, weak and strong, talented and deprived, through an incomplete and imperfect life. It is astonishing how limited is the number of ideas, feelings, and actions that modern man can perform or experience." (The Psychology of Art, 1925 - Chapter 11: Art and life; MIA version - http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/art11.htm )

The same "funel problem" was remembered by Vygotsky in other of his 1925's works: "“Consciousness as a problem in the psychology of behavior”

"The co-ordinating mechanism of the common motor field serves, according to Sherrington (1904, p. 466), “as the basis for the mental process of attention”. “The singleness of action from moment to moment thus assured is a keystone in the construction of the individual whose unity it is the specific office of the nervous system to perfect” (Ibid., p. 466). “A reflex is an integral reaction of the organism.” Each muscle, each working organ, should be regarded “as a check payable to the bearer, which may be any group of receptors.” The general notion of the nervous system becomes clear from the following comparison. “The system of receptors is to the system of efferent path ways as the wide top of a funnel is to its narrow bottom opening. But each receptor is connected not with one, but with many and perhaps with all efferent fibres; of course, these connections vary in strength. Hence, extending our comparison with the funnel, we must say that the whole nervous system is a funnel, one opening of which is five times wider than the other; within this funnel are receptors that are also funnels, whose wide openings are turned toward the outlet of the larger funnel and completely cover it”. (Vygotsky, 1925 - "Consciousness as a problem... - MIA version - http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm )

And then the things are painted in a more tragic fashion, no "trains" this time:

"Academician Pavlov compared the hemispheres of the brain with a telephone switchboard where new temporary connections are established between elements of the environment and different reactions. But much more than a telephone switchboard our nervous system resembles the narrow doors in some large building through which a crowd of many thousands is rushing in panic. Only a few people can get through the door. Those who entered successfully are only few from many thousand who died or were pushed back. This more closely conveys the catastrophic nature of the struggle, the dynamic and dialectic process between the environment and the person and within the person, that we call behaviour." (Vygotsky, 1925 - "Consciousness as a problem... - MIA version - http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1925/consciousness.htm )

This maybe could be an interesting point for Robert's study, two different metaphorical ways for explain the same neurological process, by it's turn first explained with help of another metaphor by Sherrington: "the funel"... But I guess this was not same "train" nor the same problem of you remember Collete.... 


Best,
Achilles.






> From: c.a.murphy@qub.ac.uk
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Date: Fri, 8 Oct 2010 13:10:57 +0100
> Subject: RE: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
> 
> Hi Achilles
> I'd be most interested in the original source of the train metaphor (so that it can be checked with the translation / paraphrased version I referenced) ... I did try a search a few years ago but I couldn't find it! 
> Thanks very much
> Colette
> 
> Dr Colette Murphy
> Senior Lecturer
> School of Education
> Queen's University Belfast
> 69-71 University Street
> Belfast BT7 1HL
>  
> tel: ++ 44 28 9097 5953
> fax: ++ 44 28 9023 9263
>  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Achilles Delari Junior
> Sent: 08 October 2010 00:38
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: RE: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
> 
> 
> Well...
> 
> I also remember that in 1929 Vygotsky compared old psychological views with the "Comedia del'Arte", because the fixed roles of the psychic functions compared to the fixed roles of the characters in that kind of drama... This is at the paper "Concrete human psychology" in English it was published at Soviet Psychology, 1989, v. 17, n. 2 - but I don't have my copy of the English version here anymore.... only a Portuguese version. In the same text is present also the metaphor about consciousness as telephonist in contrast and complementation to Pavlovian metaphor about brain as telephonic central, if I remember well... This same subject was repeatead at the book "The history of development of higher mental functions" from 1931 (In Spanish edition of the Works, as in Russian, it is the Volume III)... A metaphor with trains and rails was used as well, in reflexological discussion, for a comparison with Sherrignton's contributions about much more afferent ways (rails) than efferent ones... but by memory I don't know more if this is at that reflexological text from 1924 or from 1925... (Consciousness as problem of behavior psychology). In the Psychology of Art, certainly he also repeat the Sherington formulation, but I am not so sure about where was the "train metaphor"... If you have interest in this "train" metaphor, I can localize the actual sources, for this too...
> 
> Best.
> 
> Achilles.
> 
> 
> > Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2010 15:05:08 -0700
> > Subject: Re: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
> > From: lchcmike@gmail.com
> > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> > 
> > Woa, not so sure about the train track metaphor. The train moves freely up
> > and down a pre-scribed
> > track and the only thing that can vary "independently" is speed! Brrrr.
> > mike
> > 
> > On Thu, Oct 7, 2010 at 2:20 PM, Colette Murphy <c.a.murphy@qub.ac.uk> wrote:
> > 
> > > One that I like a lot:
> > >
> > > According to Vygotsky the teacher should be the track upon which the train
> > > coaches move freely and independently. The track only gives the coaches the
> > > direction of their own movement.
> > > (Vygotsky, A Reawakened Star:
> > > http://www.marxist.com/science-old/vygotsky_501.html)
> > >
> > > Best
> > >
> > > Colette
> > >
> > > Dr Colette Murphy
> > > Senior Lecturer
> > > School of Education
> > > 69 University St
> > > Queen's University
> > > Belfast BT7 1HL
> > >
> > > tel: 02890975953
> > > ________________________________________
> > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf
> > > Of Robert Lake [boblake@georgiasouthern.edu]
> > > Sent: 07 October 2010 21:15
> > > To: Culture Activity eXtended Mind
> > > Subject: [xmca] LSV's use of metaphor
> > >
> > > Hi Everyone,
> > > I am gathering the use of metaphors in Vygotsky's work for a publication
> > > and want to be sure to include as many as possible.
> > > without any knowledge of Russian along with the fact that I have
> > > only recently begun a serious investigation of his work.
> > >
> > > In her essay on Vygotsky on Thinking and Speaking in the Cambridge
> > > companion to Vygotsky,(2007) Vera John-Steiner cites some of Vygotsky's most
> > > famous examples, i.e. inner speech as "speech turning inward"; thought as a
> > > "cloud shedding a shower of words"; "consciousness is reflected in a word in
> > > a word as the sun in a drop of water". (p.151).
> > >
> > > Yes I know "tool" is a controversial example to some people :-).
> > >
> > > Can you folks think of any others ?
> > >
> > > Thank-you in advance for any help with this.
> > > Robert Lake
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Robert Lake  Ed.D.
> > > Assistant Professor
> > > Social Foundations of Education
> > > Dept. of Curriculum, Foundations, and Reading
> > > Georgia Southern University
> > > P. O. Box 8144
> > > Phone: (912) 478-5125
> > > Fax: (912) 478-5382
> > > Statesboro, GA  30460
> > >
> > >
> > >  Democracy must be born anew in every generation, and education is its
> > > midwife.
> > > -John Dewey.
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