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Re: [xmca] Engestrom's Finnish Proposal



Apologies, Peter. I got Daiute and Schmittau mixed up!
Andy

Peter Smagorinsky wrote:
I'm not familiar with Schmittau, so don't think I've reviewed any books by this author.

Peter Smagorinsky Distinguished Research Professor of English Education Department of Language and Literacy Education The University of Georgia 309 Aderhold Hall Athens, GA 30602

Advisor, Journal of Language and Literacy Education Follow JoLLE on twitter @Jolle_uga


-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 7:39 PM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Engestrom's Finnish Proposal

That is a very interesting article, Martin! I once collected everything I could find in our contemporary literature on Urphaenomen, but this one is very good indeed! At the time Goethe developed the idea (i.e. 1787) and for the next 10 years, he saw his approach as directly in opposition to Kant. But since he reconciled with Schiller, and the two had a close friendship for the last decade of Schiller's life, many people say that Schiller pulled Goethe back to more of an appreciation of Kant. Which would be consistent with the Frankfurter's reading. Interesting! Personally, I don't see that. His last works, such as Part 2 of Faust, are still on the same anti-Kantian crusade.

On Brett's message. I think you make some fair points. Bourgeois society (i.e. the market) is never all-embracing. The family always continues as a site of reproduction of privilege and disadvantage. And Adorno is a very unorthodox thinker! :)

On Mike's search: Look forward to your success in finding this paper by Schmittau. Peter Smagorinsky reviewe a book by Schmittau, maybe he kjnows? "Kernel concept" contines the biological metaphors for "unit of analysis" - germ, cell, seed, generative proposition, etc. I don't doubt that Davydov's method of teaching maths proves to be effective as a way of teaching mathematics. You have reported this and I believe it. My disagreements with Davydov was mainly in his attitude to spontaneous knowledge, which he regarded as a *barrier*. I don't agree. I think of the 1st year civil engineering student who thinks he knows more than a builder, the 1st year chemistry student who tells their mother how to cook, or the 1st year Psych student who is analysing all their friends and family. That's all. He criticised Vygotsky on this point and I think Vygotsky is right about that and about the age at which kids can learn true concepts.

Andy



Martin John Packer wrote:
Then this might have some relevance...

Martin


On Jun 19, 2013, at 12:18 PM, Rauno Huttunen <rakahu@utu.fi> wrote:

Hello,

I totally agree and that is why I prefer Horkheimer's social theory over Adorno's social theory althought their overlapp.

Rauno
________________________________________
Lähettäjä: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] k&#228;ytt&#228;j&#228;n Andy Blunden [ablunden@mira.net] puolesta
Lähetetty: 19. kesäkuuta 2013 18:25
Vastaanottaja: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Aihe: Re: VS: [xmca] Engestrom's Finnish Proposal

Interesting, Rauno.
I would have thought that the family as the germ cell of "society"
either implies a "sociey" which has long, long ago passed into the dim past, or Adorno is using "society" in that peculiar meaning, as in "everyone who is anyone", "society" as that more or less exclusive group of the ultra wealthy elite. Otherwise, "society" is a bad concept. The "nation state," bourgeois society, even "community" have some meaning. But "society" when it is spoken of nowadays, is usually a fiction, I think. Maybe the family is too???

Andy

Rauno Huttunen wrote:
Hello,


Theodor Adorno in his Minima Moralia speaks about germ cell of society meaning family:

"Unpolitical attempts to break out of the bourgeois family usually only lead to deeper entanglement in such, and sometimes it seems as if the disastrous germ-cell of society, the family, is simultaneously the nourishing germ-cell of the uncompromising will for a different one. "

Rauno Huttunen
________________________________________
Lähettäjä: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] k&#228;ytt&#228;j&#228;n Peter Smagorinsky [smago@uga.edu] puolesta
Lähetetty: 19. kesäkuuta 2013 13:38
Vastaanottaja: eXtended Mind, Culture,  Activity
Aihe: RE: [xmca] Engestrom's Finnish Proposal

Sounds good. Thx,p

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Wednesday, June 19, 2013 6:35 AM
To: eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Engestrom's Finnish Proposal

"Germ" was a term used for it by both Hegel and Goethe, but they did not know about "cells". But when Marx introduced the term "cell form" for the same idea (teh cell as the basic unit of biology had been discovered before 1987 when Marx wrote that), the term "germ cell" became current among Marxists. In Hegel it is the abstract concept of a complex process, and called Urphaenomen by Goethe,. Although to make sense of that, you have to know that a "concept" is as real and tangible as any artefact or ideal (which is also material) and as Davydov helpfully emphasised, (in principle) an observable material thing, not just an idea or schema. It is not some hidden hypothetical something like a force or property of some kind or law or principle (though it doe actually incarnate a principle). But it is the logically primary instance of the complex process, for which it acts as an archetype. This is not quite the same as an "exemplar" (or sample) which may be typical, but not necessarily of all the complex process. A "germ cell" or "unit of analysis" is not only immediately and vicerally understandable, but embodies the principle which unifies the entire complex process, and constitutes its unity. A sample is a concrete thing, but its various attributes have not been abstracted from it. The "germ cell" does not have contingent or accidental attributes; all its attributes are essential.

Does that (off the top of my head) Spiel help, Peter?

Andy

Peter Smagorinsky wrote:

So, how is a germ cell different from a sample?

-----Original Message-----
From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu]
On Behalf Of Andy Blunden
Sent: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 8:32 PM
To: ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
Cc: eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity
Subject: Re: [xmca] Engestrom's Finnish Proposal

Eric, attached is a contraband copy of Engestrom &Co.'s article for the Special Issue on Concept Formation - "Embodied Germ Cell at Work:
Building an Expansive Concept of Physical Mobility in Home Care." I have documented my theoretical differences with this article, but I have also endeavoured to put it into practice in my own one-patient rehabilitation facility here at home. This led me to further differences, but even I, who generally has scant regard for privacy, think it is all too private to share.

This one you have to pay for, but here is the abstract:
http://tap.sagepub.com/content/21/5/598.abstract

This is also the type of Engestrom approach which I appreciate. I don't again completely concur with the conclusions here, but I thnk it is a first class article!


Andy




ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org wrote:


Helena;
Have not read him extensively enough but I do like his clinical approach to activity theory. Something that is tangible and can be conceptualized. Plan on reading him more. I found it interesting that he mentions "germ cell" only in passing and doesn't really expand much on it. I prefer his expanded triangle model of conceptualization and am not understandin why Andy is focused on the "germ cell"
eric

-----Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com> wrote: -----
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>, <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>, <ablunden@mira.net>
From: Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com>
Date: 06/18/2013 11:02AM
Subject: Re: [xmca] Engestrom's Finnish Proposal

Eric et al:

I like to read whatever Engestrom material shows up on xmca; he's a brilliant and stimulating thinker, but sometimes I have to laugh.

The link Eric posted iactually goes to a proposal, as in "grant proposal," although I'm not sure who was going to fund it. Engestrom is proposing an ongoing research project that would take place at three sites, a healthcare provider, a bank, and a telecommunications outfit. He wants to study how his group, the Change Laboratory, works with these entities.

My problem with his creative approach to research is that he acts as if the whole world has moved on to whatever he's studying next. He talks about "the historical development of work," "work..transformed from mass production and mass customization to co-configuration of customer-intelligent products and services with long life cycles", "post-bureaucratic work", 'work as "a living, growing network.never finished," etc etc. This may be true of "work" as it occurs in the Change Laboratory, but for the vast majority of human beings, work has not moved on, is not post-bureaucratic, and does NOT involve being set up in a permanent, "never finished" contract with a hospital, bank or phone company to reflect on one's own process. Kind of like being on a permanent research retainer!

Somewhere along the line Engestrom has lost sight of fact that work is significantly related to earning a living, at least for most people. Maybe the concept is lost in translation. I suggest that he use a different word, however. "Creative exploration, " for example. But not "work"!!

Helena Worthen

From: <ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>>
Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
Date: Tuesday, June 18, 2013 7:52 AM
To: Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>
Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: Re: Fw: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?

Here is an paper where Yro discusses the "germ cell".
http://www.edu.helsinki.fi/activity/people/engestro/files/The_Finn
ish _ proposal.pdf thought people might be interested, also rather short eric

-----xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<mailto:-----xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu> wrote: -----
To: lchcmike@gmail.com <mailto:lchcmike@gmail.com>
From: Andy Blunden
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: 06/18/2013 12:17AM
Cc: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>>
Subject: Re: Fw: Re: [xmca] Double Stimulation?

To the extent that we have a consultant who is invited to resolve problems in an institution of some kind, if the impact on that the life of that institution can be validly abstracted from the other projects at work, such as governments, political or ethnic groups with grievances, patients who are campaigning to have a say in their health care, governments imposing cost-cutting and computer work-control systems intended to take the teachers out of education, and the nurses out of health care, etc. ... In other words, to the extent that the idea of a "system of actions" or "system of activity" with a neat boundary accurately reflects the social situation at issue, then I am sure the method of the triangle works fine.

But what about the Egyptian Revolution, when workers (white collar public servants and highly exploited factory workers) and student-intellectuals all enter into a struggle against the US-backed torture-regime of Hosni Mubarak (with a mass of ruraal poor in the background), ... without knowing what they are wanting to achieve, not necessarily trusting the other parties,...? What about when gay men suddenly find themselves not only the target of an unknown deadly disease, but being blamed for spreading it to others, and the medical scientists want to use them as guinea pigs, they are threatened with bring forced to wear the equivalent of a Star of David, ... and yet they manage to not only defeat the disease but come out if it having won a huge victory agains homophobia and much improved social status. Wht about when the asbestos industry is marketing a miracle fibre which is still, a decade after it was eventually banned, killing 1000s in a horrible slow death, and the trade unions representing the workers are hand in glove with their employers, government regulators are being paid off and medical scientists (like the ones who told us tobacco is good for your health) are spreadig disinformation, ... and yet we got asbestos banned. Need I go on?

I don't believe the "system of activity" approach can even get a handle on those situations. As you know I am in the process of editing a volume of studies using (to one extent or another) the "project"
approach, to understand these processes, for the purpose of doing things like this.
It includes idenfiying contradictions in the workings of institutions (such as medical science, health care, industrial diseases regulation, and so on) but it also deals with complex processes of social change, where the participants themselves are only just discovering what it is they are fighting for, and multiple projects are in play.

These are the kind of issues I am interested in, so that is why I am interested in a theory which can deal with such issues,

Andy

mike cole wrote:


I fear this does not help me a whole lot, Andy.
Sorry I cannot grasp the method of Goethe properly. I guess Luria probably failed as well. Or maybe he succeeded and I have misunderstood him? Entirely possible.

I did not ask what what is at odds. I asked for what the empirical consequences of the the distinctions you are making are. I cannot follow the path to reforming all of the educational system of the USSR or Russia, which, so far as I know, neither Vygotsky nor anyone else associated with Activity Theory every accomplished. Nore have I ever seen claims that they have. (The Finns appear to have done well recently using an approach, the relationship to activity theory I have no knowledge of, but perhaps our Finnish colleagues do).

Here is what would help me, and I suspect others on XMCA. Take an already published piece of work that uses the expanded triangle Yrjo proposes in Learning by Expanding. Say, the work on cleaners in the early work. Tell us about the mistaken conclusions that arise because of misunderstandings that confusion of the triangle for "activity" (no
modifiers) causes. Suggest how we might improve our understanding.
Or tell us why that example works, but some other example (teachers in schools, nurses and doctors in a hospital, etc.) does not.

Or suggest an entirely different way of looking at matters so that when we go into classrooms, housing projects, work places, we can more effectively understand what is going on and be of more help to those with whom we work that publishing another article in MCA.

I guess I am asking that you rise to the concrete here, keeping the object of analysis constant.

My apologies if this seems unreasonable. Perhaps it is approaching senility, but I am failing to track you.

mike


Lost in the words here.
mike

On Sun, Jun 16, 2013 at 6:57 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net


<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>


<mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> wrote:

Yes, in Yjro's (1986) words, it is a "root model". (The derivation of it is a beautiful piece of work, too, close to Hegel's early "System of Ethical Life". Deserves to remain in print).

But modelling a complex process is not the same as the method of Goethe, Hegel, Marx and Vygotsky. As you know, Mike, in order to understand this approach, which Luria called Romantic Science, I had to go back to its origins c. 1787 when Goethe was doing his Journey in Italy, studying all the plant life, and its variation by altitude, latittude, nearness to the sea, etc., and in conversation with J G Herder, arrived a his conception of Urphaenomen. The Urphaenomen is not a model.

It is an abstraction, true. And yes, the understanding of a complex process by the "romantic" method is indeed, the rising to the concrete, the logical-historical reconstruction of the whole process from this abstract germ.

As I remarked (somewhere) I find Yrjo's work over the past couple of years, which focuses more on the germ cell than the triangle, closer to what I am trying to do. The germ cell is not a model either.

What is at odds here is whether a real, complex situation (such as reforming the education system in a nation in Africa, rather than in the USSR or Finland) can be based on a conception which isolates a "system of activity", whilst dozens of different ethnic groups, NGOs, government(s), trade unions and so on, are all contesting the aims and benefits of "education." Every person in such a situation is committed to more than one project, and deploys concepts (institutionalised projects) frequently at odds with one another. What is needed is a process whose basic units are (1) units and not systems, and (2) processes of development, processes in which people are struggling to realise ideas, processes of formation. And we need the algebra through which such units interact with one another, rather than declaring any single such interaction to be an entire new "unit" - i.e. coupled systems.

Andy
mike cole wrote:

Isn't the trangle a "model, " Andy? A model of the root metaphor.
Still an abstraction... waiting to see if it can rise to the concrete? Perhaps?

Empirically speaking, what is at odds here? For whom?

mike

On Tue, Jun 11, 2013 at 7:57 PM, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>>> 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> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <mailto: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>


<mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>


<mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
<mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>>
<mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org
<mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>
<mailto: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> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net>> <mailto:ablunden@mira.net <mailto:ablunden@mira.net> <mailto: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

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<mailto:-----xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>


<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>>
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
<mailto: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> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> <mailto: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>
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
<mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu
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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> <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org>> <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org <mailto:ERIC.RAMBERG@spps.org> <mailto: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

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From: Achilles Delari Junior
Sent by: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu>
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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_deve
lop
ment.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-consc
iou
sness.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>
<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>
<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>> <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com> <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>> <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu <mailto:xmca@weber.ucsd.edu> <mailto: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>
<mailto:achilles_delari@hotmail.com>
<mailto:achilles_delari@hotmail.com
<mailto:achilles_delari@hotmail.com>>

<mailto:achilles_delari@hotmail.com
<mailto:achilles_delari@hotmail.com>
<mailto: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>


<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>


<mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com <mailto:greg.a.thompson@gmail.com>>

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antti.rajala@helsinki.fi <mailto:antti.rajala@helsinki.fi> <mailto:antti.rajala@helsinki.fi> <mailto:antti.rajala@helsinki.fi <mailto:antti.rajala@helsinki.fi>>
<mailto:antti.rajala@helsinki.fi
<mailto:antti.rajala@helsinki.fi> <mailto: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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http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson

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