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Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?



OK, that's clear. Thanks Yrjo.
Andy

Engeström, Yrjö H M wrote:
Dear colleagues, enough of this! Of course the triangular model of an activity system is a representation of a unit of analysis for me, no matter what Andy has dreamed up and continues to proclaim about my thinking.

Yrjö Engeström


On Jun 12, 2013, at 5:57 AM, Andy Blunden wrote:

Antti, I was directing my question to you and your remarks.

In Engestrom's highlky regarded, now out of print, 1987 text "Learning by Expanding", the famous triangle logo is given as Figure 2.6, and after a long consideration of "candidates" for "unit of analysis" he says the following about this triangle: "The model of Figure 2.6 may now be compared with the four criteria of a root model of human activity, set forth earlier in this chapter." and goes on to list and consider the criteria which are commonly associated in this current with the notion of "unit of analysis." (numerous citations are not required). But he never said that the triangle is a unit of analaysis, and it is not, and cannot be. He said it is a root model and it is. The root model is a system concept, not a unit of analysis.

Do you think it possible that this has been the source of some confusion?

Andy

Antti Rajala wrote:
Thanks Andy for sharing the wikipedia text, and your thoughts about the issue! The thoughts about unit of analysis were my own interpretation of the study, and I am not sure if the issue you raised concerns the original study.

Warm wishes, Antti



On Mon, Jun 10, 2013 at 9:20 AM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:

   Antti, here is a link to th eWikipedia on "System concept"
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System
   Why do Activity Theorists in Engstrom's current of thinking mix up
   the idea of a system concept with a unit of analysis?

   Andy


   Antti Rajala wrote:

       Greg,

       You asked:
       ”My question is getting at where we locate "agency". In
       individuals alone?
       Or as possibly being distributed among multiple people and
       perhaps in
       amanner that isn't recognizable to the individual. But maybe
       there is
       aconcept for that that is different from "double stimulation.”

       I think that double stimulation can be analyzed not only at
       the individual
       level but at the collective level as well. Actually, the study
       of Engeström
       and Sannino (2013) that I referred to in my earlier email
       gives a nice
       example. The study also involves in some respects a similar
       situation as
       the one that you described having taken place with the workers
       in Malaysia.

       According to my reading, the study describes a change laboratory
       intervention taking place in a university library. The library
       as invited
       researchers to help them find new forms of work with research
       groups. A
       first stimulus emerges in the course of the change laboratory
       intervention,
       as a member of one of the research groups that the university
       library is
       delivering services says that they can find these services in
       the internet
       without the help of the library. Thus a problem emerges for
       the librarians
       to collectively produce a service that would be genuinely
       helpful for the
       research groups.

       In solving this problem, they organize their collective action
       with the
       help of a second stimulus, namely the concept of knotworking
       (Engeström,
       Engeström & Vähäaho, 1999) that the researchers have
       introduced in the
       beginning of the change laboratory. In particular, a new
       working group, a
       knot, is formed that starts to work with the emergent problem
       of inventing
       a useful service.

       What is in my opinion very innovative, Engeström and Sannino
       also provide
       an example of this second stimulus, the concept of
       knotworking, becoming an
       initial theoretical generalization that is reworked and
       enriched through a
       process of ascending from abstract to concrete as the
       intervention evolves.
       Specifically, in the end of the intervention, the concept of
       knotworking
       gives rise to many concrete, practical applications of the
       librarians' work
       at multiple levels of hierarchy.

       As for the unit of analysis, I think that the unit of analysis
       in the study
       is the intersection of several activity systems, the
       university libarary
       and the research groups, In terms of agency, one can maybe
       talk about
       shared transformative agency in which the subject is not an
       individual but
       a collective. (More about shared transformative agency, see
       Virkkunen’s
       paper in http://www.activites.org/v3n1/v3n1.book.pdf#page=43)

       Best wishes, Antti


       On Thu, Jun 6, 2013 at 6:57 PM, <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
       <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>> wrote:

forgot to send this to XMCA

           -----Forwarded by ERIC RAMBERG/spps on 06/06/2013 10:56AM
           -----
           To: ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>
           From: ERIC RAMBERG/spps
           Date: 06/06/2013 09:05AM

           Subject: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?

           True true, the history of philosophy does lead there Andy.
            But that leads
           to my trepidations regarding ideology lacking in practice.

           What substance within conscious formation is measurable?

           I believe that answer has yet to be found
           perhaps?

           eric

           -----xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
           <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote: -----
            To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity"
           <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
           From: Andy Blunden
           Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
           <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
           Date: 06/05/2013 08:42PM
           Subject: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?

           Eric,
           By posiing the problem as that of the Kantian dilemma, of
           unifying two
           disparate abstractions, you determine the answer as from
           the history of
           philosophy and the answer is Hegel's answer: "a formation of
           consciousness" or Gestalt des Bewusstsein.

           Andy

           ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> wrote:
I believe that this discussion needs to involve "unit
               of analysis" for
               what it is that provides the mediational method.
               What unit of study can properly encapsulate that which
               is being observed?
               Activity? Concept? Word? Mirror Neuron?
               Oh my what a great temptest LSV did let out of the teapot
               eric

               -----xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
               <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote: -----
               To: "xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>"
               <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
               From: Achilles Delari Junior
               Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
               <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
               Date: 06/05/2013 07:04AM
               Subject: RE: [xmca] Double Stimulation?

               Sure, Greg,
               Well, seems to me that "draw analogies between
               different domains of
               their worlds" is closer to "meaning construction" than
               to choice a
               "stimulus medium" to help memory tasks, for instance.
               The "double
               stimulation" is fine because introduces a kind of
               mediation between a
               stimulus and our response to the stimulus. But,
               following Vygotsky's
               formulations at that time this new series of
               "stimulus" (a nude, a
               word, etc) act also as a stimulus, a conditioned one.
               If you change
               you paradigm to the proposition that all sign implies
               any kind of
               "generalization process" (meaning) that differs in
               their structure and
               has a genetic construction (see the studies about
               concepts, for
               instance), a sign could not be only a second series of
               stimuli ruled
               by the same laws that a conditional reflex... As in
               "Instrumental
               method": S-------X-------R. Where the relation
               S---------R is a direct
               stimulus response relationship, but when you introduce
               a second series
               of stimulus "X" (double stimulation) you have an
               indirect stimulus
               response relationship, but the relation between S and
               X, and X and R
               remain a conditioned reflex relationship... "Draw
               analogies between
               different domains of our worlds" seem to mean that we
               are in transit
               between different words of signification, and culture
               is a human
               production that involves the "generalization" from a
               world to another,
               broader, maybe not exactly more precise, but
               "broader", in my opinion.
               I don't know...


               "In natural memory a direct associative (conditional
               reflex)
               connection A?B is established between two stimuli A
               and B. In
               artificial, mnemotechnic memory of the same
               impression, by means of a
               psychological tool X (a knot in a handkerchief, a
               mnemonic scheme)
               instead of the direct connection A?B two new ones are
               established: A?X
               and X?B Just like the connection A?B each of them is a
               natural
               conditional reflex process, determined, by the
               properties of the brain
               tissue. What is new, artificial, and instrumental is
               the fact of the
               replacement of one connection A?B by two connections:
               A?X and X?B They
               lead to the same result, but by a different path. What
               is new is the
               artificial direction which the instrument gives to the
               natural process
               of establishing a conditional connection, i.e., the
               active utilization
               of the natural properties of brain tissue." Vygotsky
               "The Instumental
               Method" (this is 1930)
               http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1930/instrumental.htm

               But already in 1928:

               "Let us now compare the natural and cultural mnemonics
               of a child. The
               relation between the two forms can be graphically
               expressed by means
               of a triangle: in case of natural memorization a
               direct associative or
               conditional reflexive connection is set up between two
               points, A and
               B. In case of mnemotechnical memorization, utilizing
               some sign,
               instead of one associative connection AB, the others
               are set up AX and
               BX, which bring us to the same result, but in a
               roundabout way. Each
               of these connections AX and BX is the same kind of
               conditional-reflexive process of connection as AB."
               Vygotsky (1928)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1929/cultural_development.htm See: "AX and BX is the same kind of
               conditional-reflexive process of
               connection as AB." --> The same kind... This paradigm
               will not be the
               same in 1933-34...

               "(Introduction: the importance of the sign; its social
               meaning). In
               older works we ignored that the sign has meaning. <
               But there is “a
               time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones
               together”
               (Ecclesiastes). > We proceeded from the principle of
               the constancy of
               meaning, we discounted meaning. But the problem of
               meaning was already
               present in the older investigations. Whereas before
               our task was to
               demonstrate what “the knot” and logical memory have in
               common, now our
               task is to demonstrate the difference that exists
               between them.From
               our works it follows that the sign changes the
               interfunctional
               relationships." (Vygotsky, 1933-34)

http://www.marxists.org/archive/vygotsky/works/1934/problem-consciousness.htm And now?


               Thank you.

               Achilles.

Date: Tue, 4 Jun 2013 18:31:23 -0600
                   Subject: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?
                   From: greg.a.thompson@gmail.com
                   <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
                   To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>

                   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
                   <mailto: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
                           <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
                           To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
                           <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>;
                           lchcmike@gmail.com
                           <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>;
antti.rajala@helsinki.fi <mailto: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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