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Re: [xmca] Death and dying
There is a flipside to "gaps" that suggests that a gapless world. This
position is nicely captured by Gregory Bateson (please forgive my
transcription by intonation unit - Bateson's prose is hard to capture, but
see link below for original):
"The nature of
the world in which I live
and in which I wish you lived -
all of you -
and all the time -
but even I don't live in it all the time.
(solemnly) There are times,
when I catch myself believing
that there is such a thing as something
which is separate from something else."
And linking back to General Semantics (and Corey Anton is both affiliated
with General Semantics and has written much on Bateson), Bateson was
influenced by Korzybski (see Bateson's Korzybski memorial lecture at:
http://www.generalsemantics.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/gsb-37-bateson.pdf
and
Bateson's quote above is taken from a blog announcing the new biographical
movie of GB by Nora Bateson, the website can be seen at:
http://www.bullfrogfilms.com/catalog/emind.html).
And linking further back to Korzybski's view of why things go wrong in the
world, Bateson writes that:
"The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between
how nature works and the way people think."
It would seem that Bateson is pointing to gap-filling as the problem that
creates the mismatch between word and world. Does that seem about right to
others? Is there a tension here between the gap filling that Etienne and
Mike describe as something that we do all the time and what Bateson seems
to be suggesting about a (preferred) gapless world? Am I headed in endless
circles here or is there an interesting question at this particular
intersection? Or is my way of linking both of these positions filling in
(or not) too many gaps?
Thoughts?
-greg
p.s. C.S. Peirce, may have articulated a fuller conception in his notion of
"synechism," but Bateson's is certainly more comprehensible and artful.
Peirce's vision is a lot more difficult to take in. But I'd add that he has
a wonderful notion of "self" that extends beyond the body and beyond life.
We are "vicinities" "neighborhoods" rather than discretely bounded bodies.
On Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 6:47 AM, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi Anthony
>
> The topic of death and the social formation of mind seems to be the
> ultimate form of "gap & gap filling" which gives meaning to life. I'm
> reading an article by Corey Anton titled "Beyond Theoretical Ethics:
> Bakhtinian Anti-Theoreticism" [in Human Studies volume 24, pages 211-225;
> 2001] This is what Corey has to say about death and our unique
> once-occurant dwelling in the world.
>
> "The position that I am trying to make clear is that the human 'in general'
> does not factually exist and that ethical considerations commonly posit a
> general human: they posit a 'someone' who is ACTUALLY no one. In this
> regard, their universality implicitly suggets that people are basically
> interchangeable or not non-replaceable - not uniquely held by their place
> in existence. The 'theoretical world is obtained through an essential and
> fundamental abstraction from the factor of my unique being and from the
> moral sense of that fact - AS IF I did not exist' (Bahktin). This
> theoretical world can deeply mislead, for I never do not exist in my life;
> I am never unnecessary or irrelevant, and it is only theoretical positing
> that can make this seem to be so. (Leder) suggests that one's lived body '
> is never just an object in the world but that very medium whereby our world
> comes into being.' Thus, I may, in one sense, be simply one person among
> other persons in the world that will go on without me AFTER MY DEATH. And
> yet, I am, for me, that person who is never not there, that person who
> somehow is ALWAYS co-given along with the world, and that person whose
> world falls out of existence WITH MY DEATH. [page 215]
>
> Anthony, Corey is pointing to death as the ulimate "gap" and our humanness
> as the process of gap-filling within our once-occurent unique cultural
> historical existence. The social formation of mind develops through
> differentiation and distanciation [gaps] AND the integrating [gap-filling]
> ACTS (including theoretical acts) of our humanness.
>
> Larry
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 5:45 AM, ANTHONY M BARRA <tub80742@temple.edu>
> wrote:
>
> > Thanks for the resources, Huw and Andy.
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 1, 2012 at 8:12 AM, Nektarios Alexi
> > <NEKTARIOS.ALEXI@cdu.edu.au>wrote:
> >
> > > Thats an excellent book Huw!
> > >
> > >
> > > -----Original Message-----
> > > From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu on behalf of Huw Lloyd
> > > Sent: Wed 2/1/2012 9:43 PM
> > > To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
> > > Subject: Re: [xmca] Death and dying
> > >
> > > Bakhtin's "Dostoevsky's Poetics" has a few indexed references.
> > >
> > > Huw
> > >
> > > On 31 January 2012 16:46, ANTHONY M BARRA <tub80742@temple.edu> wrote:
> > >
> > > > I'm looking for Vygostky's, or Vygotskian, words on death and dying,
> > > > especially terms of (but not limited to) "the social formation of
> > mind,"
> > > > and "mind extending beyond the skin."
> > > >
> > > > Thanks for any direction or help...
> > > >
> > > > Anthony
> > > > __________________________________________
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--
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Sanford I. Berman Post-Doctoral Scholar
Department of Communication
University of California, San Diego
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