Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?

[Antti Rajala <ajrajala@gmail.com>]

Hello Greg,

I try to give my two cents as a newcomer to the list.

My limited understanding of double stimulation is based on my reading of
writings and talks of Annalisa Sannino, Yrjö Engeström and Anne Laitinen. I
think that in double stimulation you need an ambiguous or problematic
situation, a conflict of motives, that a subject cannot respond without the
help of mediating means. Vygotsky (1997, in The instrumental method in
psychology. Dans The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 3. Problems of
the theory and history of psychology, p. 215) gives an example of Buridan's
ass who cannot decide whether to go to right or left when there are food on
both sides. Human, to the contrary, can for example toss a dice and decide
based on the result. That is, human does not react to the original
situation (first stimulus) but to the mediating means, the dice, that he or
she has created or taken from the environment (second stimulus). In other
words, the second stimulus is created or taken from the environment in the
creative act of breaking away from the problematic situation, and in so
doing express transformative agency. Engeström's group have used the notion
to explain formation of agency in Change Laboratory situations and in their
replication of Dembo's experiment of meaningless situation (quoted by
Vygotsky in Mind in Society)

I am wondering if in the Marilyn Strathern quote the problem to which the
subjects need the mediating means is conceptualized, or if the problem is
only implicitly present. Would the notion of double stimulation direct the
researcher to look why "people draw analogies between different domains of
their worlds". Also, I am wondering if mediated action is more general to
double stimulation. Is the former applicable also in non-problematic and
routine situations, whereas the latter is not? Finally, maybe there is a
difference in time scales between the notion of double stimulation and the
quote.

For those who can read French, a very recent publication about double
stimulation (I used google translator without knowing French almost at
all):

http://ojs.crires.ulaval.ca/index.php/ric/article/viewFile/7/7

Best wishes,

Antti





On Wed, Jun 5, 2013 at 3:31 AM, Greg Thompson <greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>wrote:

> Achilles,
>
> Sounded interesting, but I'm not sure I followed you completely. You say
> that Strathern's quote seems like it has a broader application that "double
> stimulation", but I could use some help with the rest of your message.
>
> If you have a few minutes, maybe you could try rephrasing?
>
> -greg
>
>
> On Tue, Jun 4, 2013 at 4:11 PM, Achilles Delari Junior <
> achilles_delari@hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In my undertanding, this is very broader and more powerful than double
> > stimulation... Double stimulation could be overcoming with another way
> for
> > think signs than "medium stimulus" - See "The problem of consciousness"
> > (1933-34), for instance. The more important will be not the similarity
> > between a nude and a word, but their difference, "before was forgotten
> that
> > sign had a meaning" and "now" the meaning must be take in account. Double
> > stimulation, in my understanding, do not resists to this new point of
> view.
> >
> > Achilles.
> >
> > > Date: Mon, 3 Jun 2013 06:19:04 -0600
> > > From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
> > > To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu; lchcmike@gmail.com; antti.rajala@helsinki.fi
> > > CC:
> > > Subject: [xmca] Double Stimulation?
> > >
> > > I wonder if this quote by Marilyn Strathern can be productively
> connected
> > > (not necessarily geneaologically, but ideologically) to the notion of
> > > "double stimulation" (which I am just now trying to figure out):
> > > "Culture consists in the way people draw analogies between different
> > > domains of their worlds" (1992: 47).
> > >
> > > -greg
> > >
> > > --
> > > Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> > > Visiting Assistant Professor
> > > Department of Anthropology
> > > 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> > > Brigham Young University
> > > Provo, UT 84602
> > > http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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>
>
> --
> Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
> Visiting Assistant Professor
> Department of Anthropology
> 883 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
> Brigham Young University
> Provo, UT 84602
> http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson
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