tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-161109792024-03-13T18:57:11.744-05:00Minds, Texts, and TechnologyA graduate seminarUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1133977965257882122005-12-07T11:10:00.000-06:002005-12-07T11:53:01.180-06:00musings on a central brain...It is difficult for me to talk about a central brain at this stage of the semester because I seem to have no brain at all (or maybe I have reached a higher state of emptiness? Er, I doubt it somehow...)<br /><br />Anyway, I'd like to congratulate myself for learning enough this semester to understand what our esteemed professor was writing about; I'd like to congratulate our esteemed professor for writing so clearly on a topic that poses some central questions that I have to negotiate for probably the rest of my professional life. Now that I am finishing my paper, I'd like to pick up on one of the "challenges to an ecological theory of composing" (200):<br /><br />"If complex systems are not controlled by a central "brain" or processor, how do some agents - particular readers, writers or texts, for instance - come to have a greater influence on such systems and why?" (200)<br /><br />Now here's a thorny question. My own paper (were there time to rewrite it) would focus on this very topic. My particular area is historical in nature, so the recovery of an ecological environment is almost impossible (before tomorrow at 5pm, at any rate). Shore would argue that we focus on culture and the symbolic realm because of the legacy of Victorian ideas of evolution. I would amend this argument to say this: cultural historians focus on the level of symbol because that's all they have, in many cases. To develop an ecological network can ever only be incomplete when it comes to historical texts. Yet, if a cultural historian is to be honest, he or she must look for some "central brain" that pushes through the culture, particularly in charged atmospheres (colonial Ireland being my particular hotbed of intrigue). If you introduce power structures into the equation, it is REALLY difficult for me to say that a particular cultural form is ecological in nature when a central brain like the English colonial system is coming down on the historical situation like a ton of bricks.<br /><br />Of course, in my paper I have said that my topic is ecological in nature. And I believe it. But to argue that I have literally had to leave 700 years of colonial history out of my 15 pages. If I got into that quagmire, you probably wouldn't see me for the next decade, and I would probably be waving to you from the bottom of a whisky bottle. <br /><br />I suppose that I see a chasm between the theory and putting it into practice when there is an absolutely overwhelming psychic trauma going on in a culture and there is very little chance of creating a genuine ecological situation because the information is simply not available. Even if you look at something ecologically in such a charged atmosphere, then the charged atmosphere will inevitably win, and somehow the symbolic argument and the ecological will end up looking the same, ie colonialism was bad, bad, bad, and you can see that everywhere in the culture. <br /><br />I know that this totally simplistic. But as I said, I have no brain at this stage of the semester. Now, where IS that whisky bottle...?Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1133927036659049902005-12-06T21:43:00.000-06:002005-12-06T21:43:56.696-06:00ExplanationsI, too, enjoyed the way Dr. Syverson’s book tied together the works we have been reading It gives the course a pleasant sense of completion. What I found most helpful about the book was the way in which it modeled a method of applying the material we’ve been reading to a different field. I found the “ecological matrix” on page 23 especially useful, for I think it provides a good way of organizing other writing in English using this material.<br /><br />I don’t know about other fields, but I think that for any kind of study of writers, be it in composition studies, literature/cultural studies, or rhetoric, I think the complex systems model provides a good theoretical tool for examining what (I believe) has long been a folk understanding of writers and writing that lacked any sort of theoretical credibility. Very few people would admit that in all cases writing was a simple matter of someone sitting down and tossing off perfect prose or balanced and lyrical verse. The inability of theorists to understand why writing was so hard, why it was difficult to teach, why it seemed like so few people were <I>good</I> at it, gave rise to theories that turned writers into solitary geniuses, who were somehow more capable, more intelligent, or more blessed than the rest of us. The known complexity of writing situations (and the complex results we get when we attempt to write) has privileged these interpretations because there was no other theory that could explain why some writers were successful and others were not.<br /><br />Rhetorical studies are a good example of this phenomena. Since its inception, the primary function of rhetoric has been training speakers (now writers) how to create effective texts. To this end many manuals in rhetoric providing copious examples of “good” writing have been given to students in order to scaffold their understanding of composition. But, still some writers were much “better” than others, and Aristotle’s lists of topoi or psychological analysis of audiences could not explain why different writers could follow the same rules and produce texts that were successful and unsuccessful.<br /><br />In these situations, failure was seen to be faulty application of the rules, a deficiency of the speaker, or a lack of skill on his or her part that led to imperfection. Rarely was the question of why a “good” text produced poor results asked. Complexity theory, as in Dr. Syverson’s matrix, provides a method to explain the success and failure of “good” or “correct” writing through its focus on emergence and embodiment, as well as the social and physical settings of the writing situation.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1133454203674940492005-12-01T10:08:00.000-06:002005-12-01T10:23:23.740-06:00DiversificationThe Santa Fe Instituted is interested in more than just Economics and Physics.<br /><br />The Backstory: Last night, since I was slightly ahead on my coursework, I decided to spend some time relaxing with a little pleasure reading. In actuality, I was under a little pressure to do some pleasure reading, because the book I had intended to read leisurely over the break, Cormac McCarthy's new novel <i>No Country for Old Men</i>, had been recalled by some kind soul, and I had to have it read by next Tuesday. A cynical person might wonder how the library and this person (no doubt someone who has a serious paper due on 20th Century Southern Authors in the New Millennium) had conspired to turn my pleasure reading into an assignment with a due date, but I am not cynical, so I dutifully grabbed the book on the way to bed, determined to knock off a few chapters before sleep.<br /><br />This particular assignment wasn’t that horrible, really, because I like McCarthy, and I have been wanting to check out his new book for a while. Even though I’m not studying literature, it seemed wise to get away from the Waldrop’s of this world and indulge a few whims and personal interests every now and then.<br /><br />And lo and behold, what should I see on the dedication page but this:<br /><br />“The author would like to express his appreciation to the Santa Fe Institute for his long association and his four-year residence.”<br /><br />They’re everywhere.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1133322909201508832005-11-29T21:54:00.000-06:002005-11-29T21:55:10.726-06:00Complex RhetoricAs I was reading the section of the book where Arthur and Kauffman are discussing bootstrapping and self-replicating systems (‘round page 126 or so), I began to wonder what the implications of these systems were for the study of rhetoric. Kauffman’s genetic networks and the book’s discussion of emergent properties had put me in mind of the connectionist diagrams Hutchins had in chapter 7 (?) and their implication that too much information was a bad thing—it tended to bias all the agents to a particular outcome. This interpretation seemed to dovetail nicely with Arthur’s ideas about the ways in which technology gets a foothold and tends to root out other technologies: VHS tape killed Beta, cars relegated horses to the care of enthusiasts, gasoline engines beat out steam-power. It seemed to me that similar sorts of phenomena occur in persuasive situations. Consider the Al Qaeda link to Iraq. Near as I can tell, this particular link was always a little fuzzy, but it was insinuated so often that it was accepted as true by a majority of Americans long after it had been shown to be ill-founded. Why—when the information that would counter that claim was so widely available between TV news and the Internet—why did it persist? Perhaps Arthur’s theory of “early adoption” or “self replication” indicates how it was initially privileged so that it was almost impossible to eradicate quickly.<br /><br />Does this seem like a plausible reading of that event? Can you guys think of similar sorts of events that would support or contradict a self-replicating kind of rhetoric?John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1132331110019851362005-11-18T10:21:00.000-06:002005-11-18T10:28:18.366-06:00Tufte CourseI thought some of you might be interested in this <a href="http://www.edwardtufte.com/tufte/courses">course</a>. Tufte developed the small multiples that Dr. Syverson uses for grading. He'll be in Austin Feb. 2, 3, 2006. The cost for the course is only $160 for full-time students, and you get his three books for free.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1132098678562484632005-11-15T17:47:00.000-06:002005-11-15T17:51:18.610-06:00Hutchins on LearningFor some reason, I’ve spent some time thinking about Hutchins’s definition of learning, that it is “adaptive reorganization in a complex system.” I think what really got me was his explanation of how it works; he states that this definition “works well for learning situated in the socio-material world, and it works equally well for private discoveries made in moments of reflective thought” (289). It is interesting that he should make that statement because it brings together the reading we’ve been doing up until now. Whereas we began working with the learning that occurs in “the socio-material world” we’ve moved on to discussing how learning occurs in the “mind” (whatever that is). And now, with Hutchins, we are back to group learning, and he suggests that his theory can account for both.<br /><br />Coincidentally, while I am writing this a work crew is in my apartment replacing my smoke detectors. As I type, two men are boring holes in my asbestos-filled ceiling. The first man is short, so he is using small step ladder. He is also doing most of the work: measuring, cutting the holes, hanging the smoke detector. (I’m told the new detector is better than my previous model, and that it will not go off every time I cook frozen pizzas or make coffee. This will a huge time saver for me, since I won’t have to spend a few minutes wildly fanning the smoke detector with my phonebook every time I eat. Perhaps my shoulders won’t be as strong, but I will be more serene.) The second man is taller and can easily reach the short ceiling of my hallway. He helps the first man by giving instructions, but does little of the actual “work.” Here is a portion of their conversation I overheard while the first man was measuring and then preparing the area where my new smoke detector will go: <br /><br />2nd man: “You can’t cut your hole too deep because the screw has to go in there.”<br /><br />[The 1st man apparently incorrectly measured the spots where he was going to cut.]<br /><br />2nd man: “Take a look at this.”<br /><br />1st man: “Oh.”<br /><br />2nd man: “Right, you see how you aren’t lined up there.”<br /><br />2nd man: “Did you use a marker or a pencil?”<br /><br />1st man: “Marker.”<br /><br />2nd man: “Next time you need to use a pencil.”<br /><br />Listening to them, I began to be annoyed by the 2nd man’s constant interruptions of the 1st man’s work. However, it soon became apparent that the 2nd man was training the 1st, and that as I observed the process, it was fascinating to see how quickly the 1st man caught on. The constant interruptions were made to prevent the 1st man from making mistakes that would have lasting consequences. Suppose he mis-measured his holes and cut one that was too wide. The hole would have to be re-cut, and there would be an extra hole in the ceiling. That would mean that every time I had to fan the smoke detector with my phonebook, I would be freeing tiny bits of asbestos to float around my apartment, where they could eventually work their way into my lungs. Though this would be a spectacular bonanza for my lawyers, it would be bad for me and my health. The 2nd man was aware of both of these factors and was working to make sure that the holes were cut correctly. In retrospect, his instructions, though perhaps annoying in another situation, were appropriate for the job at hand. The 1st man learned quickly and for the last 30 minutes that they worked, the two said very little to each other. It would seem in their case that both “socio-cultural” and individual learning had occurred. The 1st man reorganized his activities by following the instructions of the 2nd man until he eventually “knew” how to do the job without constant feedback.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1131661285502464272005-11-10T16:19:00.000-06:002005-11-10T16:21:25.513-06:00Basic Info pageThere is some information that might be useful for grad students on my basic info page, including "What is a Prospectus?" and "Diagnostics for Dissertations and Chapters:"<br /><br /> <a href="http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/%7Esyverson/basicinfo/index.html">http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~syverson/basicinfo/index.html</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1131659577627194292005-11-10T15:52:00.000-06:002005-11-10T15:53:08.300-06:00Hutchins LabHere's the URL for Ed's DCog Lab:<br /><a href="http://hci.ucsd.edu/lab/">http://hci.ucsd.edu/lab/</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1131576135819798412005-11-09T16:25:00.000-06:002005-11-09T16:42:15.850-06:00Hutchins, ultimate theories, and homemade breadSorry this is late...<br /><br />I haven't fully read the next chapters yet for various reasons (like I don't have the book!), but I have already "bought" the whole theory lock, stock and barrel. I want to chime in with Jim, who (unfortunately) beat me to the question: how do we critique Hutchins? The mail from Hutchins that Peg read out last week was exhilarating but also kinda troubling: this is the theory to end all theory, the ultimate scaffolding. The totalitarian reach of it all could make things so clear, but at the same time, dangerous. To look at ways that we can at least walk around the theory and see possible points of critique or ways to adapt/modify it, I think would be extremely valuable. I'm going to check out some reviews to see what the great intellectual unwashed have to say about it...<br /><br />In the meantime, I have an idea: let's rent a boat and sail to Ireland. That way we can test all the navigation stuff and I don't have to buy a ticket home for Christmas. You can all stay at my place and taste my mother's great homemade bread. And we could theorize, drink and be merry. In the process we will come up with a theory to trump Hutchins, become famous and live happily ever after as distributed tax exiles. Then End.<br /><br />Any takers?Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1131315186352934942005-11-06T16:12:00.000-06:002005-11-06T16:13:06.380-06:00Gibbous WaningI was especially intrigued by two points Hutchins makes in this chapter. They are not exactly connected to each other, so that may make this post seem a little scattered.<br /><br />First, on page 221 he points out how external objects act as a “memory” for their users, in this case referring to a blank cell in a log book maintained on the ship. Though Hutchins doesn’t mention this point, I was reminded of our discussion earlier in the semester about how technology like databases obscures information that is left out of their architecture. Similarly, as in the case Hutchins mentions, technology like the cell in the logbook makes certain information incredibly important (or conspicuous in its absence). In the book’s example, the blank in the log book reminded the log recorder that the plotter had missed a fix and needed to complete it. As Hutchins points out, this is not the job of the recorder, but the blank in his book allowed him to assist the plotter in this way.<br /><br />Though this example is non-trivial—if enough fixes were missed, the boat could run aground—it made me think of ways in which similar processes work on more trivial cases. Currently, I’m writing—à la Fleck—on the ways in which thought communities restrict the type of information available to literary theorists and how this restriction plays a role in determining the theories that theorist will produce. It seems that the ideas of other writers important to the theorist would work just like the log book, creating “blanks” in a thought style that, because of their presence, demand to be filled.<br /><br />Secondly, I was fascinated by the comment of Roy D’Andrade which states that employees at an auto manufacturer might in reality be engaged in making social relationships with the production of cars being merely a side-effect of this process (225). This is a fascinating inversion of the intentions of the actor in this situation, implying that the best way to make cars is to try to make social relationships. (This point could be related to one made in class that the best way to play a piece of music is to not think about playing it.) To relate this idea back to my paper, it seems—at least in the case of the text I’m looking at, T. S. Eliot’s <I>The Sacred Wood</I>—that the theory did not come about as the result of an attempt to make theory, but as a byproduct of the activity of critiquing the theories of others.<br /><br />In both these cases, it seems to me that these theories can add to our understanding of the writing process, by making us more aware of the situated nature of the writer in a social/historical context. (I guess the ideas are related after all; I pointed at two disconnected parts of Hutchins’s book, and the lines intersected at me and my paper.)John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1130957712689366362005-11-02T12:35:00.000-06:002005-11-02T12:55:12.893-06:00The Ethics of ComputationI actually cheated and read chapter nine of <i>Cognition in the Wild</i> a few weeks ago (or two weeks ago; it's all becoming a blur for me at this point). He makes an interesting comment in that chapter about what computation is, and I thought it would be valid to bring the point up because he alludes to it in the three chapters we were assigned for this week. (Speaking of which, though it is wonderfully written, it is terribly slow to read; Hutchins embeds his theory in the narrative of his sailing stories, which makes it almost impossible to skim the text to find the “important” parts.)<br /><br />Hutchins makes a point of describing how computation is distributed across many devices (note the way he refers to navigation tools as analog or digital computers). He seems to use the model of computation to refer to processes that were called cognition in our other textbooks (I don’t think this is a problem, or that he is making a necessarily different argument than, say, Shore or Clark; I just thought it was interesting to note). By the final chapter he expands this idea to include groups of individuals operating as computing (cogitating?) “machines.” When computation tasks are being handled by actual human actors, the question of what types of computation tasks are legitimate to ask those actors to participate in arises. For example, Kenneth Burke uses the example of scientists working on weapons technology to complicate the idea that there is such a thing as “pure science” that can be divorced from real-world effects.<br /><br />My thinking has reached a dead end here. Does anyone else think this is a legitimate issue to discuss in terms of cognition/computation?John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1130955139324367192005-11-02T12:09:00.000-06:002005-11-02T12:12:19.356-06:00off the chartsWhat an absolutely thrilling read! The first section of Hutchins reads like a novel…and has inspired me to write completely off-topic. Hutchins’ experience on the Palau forcefully brought home to me how when systems work, you don’t really notice them, but when something goes wrong, the scaffolding that holds the system together becomes so overwhelmingly apparent that it can be extremely disconcerting.<br /><br />Two years ago I was wandering around Western China (as you do) when the SARS virus broke. Within two short weeks, this sprawling country was transformed. An invisible killer was at once everywhere and nowhere; the media was being secretive and contradictory about the extent of the epidemic; tourists – because we were extremely mobile and painstakingly obvious – were being hauled off buses, questioned by armed police, and subject to mandatory temperature checks. Every country in the world suddenly required people traveling from China to be quarantined for up to two weeks. Since hospitals were the environments where the disease was most commonly spread, this was not an attractive option.<br /><br />I was stranded somewhere up on the Tibetan Plateau and had been refused entry into Tibet proper because an outbreak of SARS in such a poor region would be devastating. Since the concentration of casualties was principally in the East, and Tibet was closed to the West, I headed North, skirting the Taklamakan Desert and eventually hitting the Silk Road. Every few hours, I was hauled off buses to have my temperature checked by inefficient stick thermometers. It was freezing, and by the time the official could read the mercury bar on the thermometer, the reading suggested that I should be clinically dead. This usually prompted laughter from all concerned (mine tinged with a slightly nervous hysteria). Within days, everyone was wearing nasty surgical masks, and I was suspiciously eyed by all locals. Foreign equaled disease, and though I could not speak Mandarin, I gleaned that many media reports were blaming tourists for the spread.<br /><br />Within weeks, this chaotic situation was transformed. Instead of being taken off buses, officials in gleaming white body suits, rubber boots and very complicated masks would come onto the train or bus and point guns at everyone’s forehead with state-of-the-art temperature-taking guns! Everyone was zapped, and those with a high reading were unceremoniously hauled off the bus. The media was awash with anti-SARS propoganda. People were encouraged not to spit (a national pastime); saccharine anti- SARS anthems blasted out from TVs and radios everywhere (think “We are the World” through a helium fog). Even the glorious Chinese fake rag trade cashed in on the delirium: walking down any metropolitan street you could spot fake Fendi, Gucci or Prada anti-SARS apparel. (In the face of an international epidemic, one simply must accessorize.)<br /><br />By the time the spread had been brought under control, I was hiding out in a yurt somewhere close to the Pakistani border, freezing my ass off and surviving on nasty yak-butter tea. When I finally emerged, SARS protection mechanisms had been completely sublimated into the culture. Temperatures were screened as you walked in the door of a public transport building, the masks had disappeared, eerily empty trains were once again teeming with people. In the space of a few short weeks I had changed from a human being to a potential disease-carrier and back to a human being, and no one batted an eye. The whole experience was an incredible lesson in how environmentally tangled we all are, how systems adapt ferociously quickly to change or threat, how radically contingent are entire sense of reality really is. Reading Hutchins, I felt this urgent sense of how networks of communication, technology and human cognition really function – and I am sure that we all have experiences in our lives when who we think we are and how we relate to our environment is radically called into question. And maybe my ultimate point in this digressive narrative is this: while we may sometimes get lost in the theories under discussion, maybe our navigation charts lie not only between the covers of a book, but among the synapses and electrical pulses that connect our lived experience to the world.Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1130366302627004742005-10-26T17:20:00.000-05:002005-10-26T17:38:22.640-05:00Clark vs VarelaOk: Eileen beat me to using this quote as a post, but I am interested in how Clark views the Embodied Mind:<br /><br />Varela et al. use their reflections as evidence against realist and objectivist views of the world. I deliberately avoid this extension, which runs the risk of obscuring the scientific value of an embodied, embedded approach by linking it to the problematic idea that objects are not independent of the mind. My claim, in contrast, is simply that the aspects of real-world structure which biological brains represent will often be tightly geared to specific needs and sensorimotor capacities. (p. 173)<br /><br />Clark’s “deliberate” avoidance of, presumably, the Buddhist aspect of The Embodied Mind is puzzling to me. I am not sure how Varela et. al run the risk of obscuring scientific value; as far as I am concerned, they are placing the scientific value in the wider context of other forms of human knowledge. Moreover, Clark’s claim that “the aspects of real-world structure which biological brains represent will often be tightly geared to specific needs and sensorimotor capacities” is not a “contrast” to Varela et al, unless I am misreading the text. <br /><br />I am also interested in the footnote that Eileen picked up. why bring up the fact that the three authors disagreed on certain points of their thesis? It seems to me that, though a fantastic read, Clark has some real problems with the incorporation of other thought systems into The Embodied Mind. I really would like to know why; the book is so nuanced, thoughtful and clear that it is puzzling to me why he is making these distinctions. Unless, of course, I am missing some crucial part of the text (which is entirely possible).Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1130345428875267822005-10-26T11:48:00.000-05:002005-10-26T11:50:28.923-05:00It all comes back to FleckI really enjoyed Clark’s chapter on language. For me, that was where the ideas in the book came together. I also liked the way he seemed to connect his ideas to the ideas from the other books we have read. On page 212, where he describes how language works with our minds, he says that “it may . . . exhibit types of phonetic or grammatical structure that exploit particular natural biases of the human brain and perceptual system. If that were the case, it would look for all the world as if our brains were especially adapted to acquire natural language, but in fact it would be natural language that was especially adapted so as to be acquired by us.” Here he presents the question of language development in a chicken-or-egg scenario, arguing that instead of our being “especially adapted” for language use, language was “adapted so as to be acquired by us.” Though he does not mention it, it seems like the first scenario, which he seems to indicate is the one that is most readily accepted, could be the result of the kind of linear smoothing that Fleck describes, where messy processes end up seeming inevitable because the steps and missteps that led to their fruition are covered up by history.<br /><br />Clark’s description of the ways in which language can be used as a tool by the mind are also interesting. The three ways he mentions are 1) to “offload memory onto the world,” 2) to use labels to simplify the environment, and 3) to use “linguistic labels” to simplify learning (201). The concept that stood out for me here is his claim that the “most obvious benefit of the linguistic encoding of thoughts and ideas, is . . . that such encoding formats our ideas into compact and easily transmitted signals that enable other human beings to refine them, to critique them, and to exploit them (204). I wonder how close this idea is to that of using language as symbols for thought to the dreaded idea of thought being symbolic. It seems like he is treading a fine line between the two. I’m not sure he is worried about that because one of his goals is bringing the two back together, but I wondered what the application of this conclusion would be.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1129729097178628372005-10-19T08:36:00.000-05:002005-10-19T08:38:17.226-05:00Self-AwarenessOn page 202, discussing flowers and bees, Varela, Thompson and Rosch say “These two broad and reciprocal constraints appear to have shaped a history of coupling in which plant features and the sensorimotor capacities of bees coevolved. It is this coupling, then, that is responsible for both the ultraviolet vision of bees and the ultraviolet reflectance patterns of flowers.” Further down on the page they add “organism and environment are mutually enfolded in multiple ways, and so what constitutes the world of a given organism is enacted by that organism's history of structural coupling.” Here it seems that the authors are dealing with the perception of an organism’s “world” being “enacted” through the process of mutual interaction between the organism and its environment. What they mean by world seems a little murky, but I think they are making the point that cognition is in effect thermodynamic, that it is made up solely of action and reaction. This seems a fine definition, but I wonder if it leaves certain parts of human cognition mysterious.<br /><br />Take the bee-flower example. In this instance, VT&R’s argument would state that the mutual dependence of bee on flower, flower on bee, was cognitive. The same goes for the Bittorio on pages 151-7. Any system that develops the characteristics of coupling, that “becomes part of an ongoing existing world . . . or shapes a new one” (207) would be considered as a cognitive system.<br /><br />My question is, does this description of cognition account for human self-awareness? Is self-awareness (even the awareness of no-self) a different order of cognition—more complex, perhaps—than that exhibited by bees and Brittorios, or is it something else entirely? Also, is cognition the same as intelligence? I’m curious to see if anyone else thought about this point, or if was just me. One complication, I suppose, is the question of whether or not bees and Brittorios are self-aware, which doesn’t seem answerable. However, I doubt Varela, et al. would argue that either are able to conduct the kind of self examination that is necessary for mindfulness.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1129141950656910892005-10-12T13:27:00.000-05:002005-10-12T13:32:30.666-05:00Games and FontsRe the discussion of patterns in rule-based systems referred to in <i>Embodied Mind</i>: <a href="http://www.trevorrow.com/lifelab/">LifeLab</a> is a game that illustrates this principle. It is pretty interesting to mess around with. (This link is to a Mac version of the game, but I'm sure you could find a similar app for Windows.)<br /><br />Also, I found two companies that create handwriting fonts. <a href="http://www.fontifier.com/template.html">Fontifier</a> only costs $9 and you can have the font almost instantly (if you have a scanner). <a href="http://www.fontgod.com/handfont.htm">FontGod</a> costs more and takes longer to acquire, but it looks like it might have a little higher quality.<br /><br />Enjoy.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1129134899153571562005-10-12T11:32:00.000-05:002005-10-12T11:34:59.160-05:00turning negatives into positivesOne of the more interesting phenomena I have observed since I began graduate school it the push to think negatively: when we examine a particular work, one of our first tendencies is to argue how it is wrong. Only this week, we were given before class a written assignment to criticize the book under discussion. This resulted in 15 people tearing the book apart for the guts of three hours. The instructor had to ask late in the day – “was there anything in this book that you liked?”<br /><br />The move to jump on the negative appears to be institutional. How we progress and differentiate ourselves partly involves thrusting spears into the shoulders of the giants on which we stand. One of the most startling aspects of The Embodied Mind – and there is much starting news in this text – is its inclusiveness. Open practically any page and you will find synthesis rather than division. An example: “the most interesting relation between subsymbolic emergence and symbolic computation is one of inclusion, in which we see symbols as higher-level description of properties that are ultimately embedded in an underlying distributed system” (101). By looking at different, and sometimes opposing, ways of looking at the world, this book shows how it is possible to generate creative thinking that builds on the past rather than divides it. <br /><br />The most radical claim in this book – that there is no self – is not new, although it is the first time we have seen it on this course. How it is presented here is certainly new to me, however. There are two reasons for this: first, the book is written from three perspectives: a psychologist, a philosopher, and an immunoligist-turned-neuro-scientist; second, it incorporates a world faith, Buddhism, and situates it in an emergent-cognitive context. I find the combination of these two elements – the interdisciplinary approach, and the inclusion of a faith-based system of knowledge – terrifically exciting. What it all means, I am not sure. The fusion of such disparate fields means that practically anyone who reads this book is going to be at a loss in some areas. <br /><br />As a template for building new knowledge, however, it is an exciting step; I am looking forward to seeing what we make of it on Thursday.Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1129081586219427472005-10-11T20:45:00.000-05:002005-10-11T20:46:26.226-05:00Self and NoselfI think my main question about the reading is where Varela, Thompson and Rosch come down on the issue of the “self.” There seems to be a tension in the book between “the ongoing sense of self in ordinary experience” (61) and their assertion that the self cannot be identified through investigation. In other words, we all feel that we have a self, but we cannot say if it resides in our bodies in general, in our brain in particular or in any other place. This inability to locate a “self” is called by the authors “noself.” The reason I call this discontinuity a tension, rather than noting that it is merely a discontinuity, is that the authors use the lack of continuity between cognitivism with experience as a way to criticize it, but they seem to ignore this discontinuity when the posit their theory of noself. I’m not trying to say that this theory is wrong; on the contrary, I find their description of it very convincing. I do wonder, though, how we are to deal with the feeling that we do have a self. It is certainly correct to question the validity of this feeling (and, as the authors do, to note the manifold problems that result when selfhood is asserted), but I would guess that cognitive science would be deeply concerned with the source of the feeling of selfhood.<br /><br />I half expect the authors to answer this question by the end of the book (I’ve only read part-way through the section on emergence), though I wonder if it is answerable. Did anyone else have similar questions (or do you have an answer for my question)?John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1128530624402790982005-10-05T11:17:00.000-05:002005-10-05T22:39:42.306-05:00Shore and techno-totemismThis is an extremely interesting and well-written treatise on psychic unity vs psychic diversity. Shore marshals so many diverse sources into a compelling and clear argument. One of the core tensions of the book - the processing of information and the creation of meaning is extremely compelling; however, I want to flag one particular aspect of his argument that does not seem to make sense. The technology chapter focuses primarily on the development of technologies that process information. Shore argues that the worlds generated by what he calls "techno-totemism" results in "the loss of integrating contexts for experience" (159). He also describes word-processing as transforming our experience of language to the degree that "it is the loss of the poiesis of creation, a loss upon which this new technology of the word is founded" (144). <br /><br />Granted, the chapter is way out of date with regard to technology, but what he is arguing seems to go against the grain of the rest of the book. If meaning is created analogically by processing information in the context of elements such as environment and memory, then surely technology and the representations of the world that it produces function in a similar way? Simply, rather than a purely information-crunching apparatus that creates a false simulacra of the world, doesn't technology blend into our meaning-making processes in a more organic fashion?<br /><br />Shore's rather contradictory view of technology stands out among the other more convincingly argued ethnographic chapters. Maybe he just did not really have a good handle on the topic at the time of writing. In any case, it brings up an issue that I think is pertinent to the class: How do we figure technology into cultural modeling and schemas? If anyone has ideas about this, I would love to hear them!Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1128392050096936132005-10-03T21:10:00.000-05:002005-10-03T21:14:10.106-05:00Shore and TechnologyI feel that Shore’s book adds a lot to the our general discussion of the topic of the mind and learning in one particular way: he seems to be the first writer we have read who gives a clear model for how new ideas (schemas) replace old ones. On page 49 he says that “it is reasonable to suppose that dominant cultural models are often accompanied by widely shared but not highly cognized or publicly symbolized alternative models,” meaning that the culture contains many models, some of which are dominant while others are less visible (especially to outsiders). His conception is kind of like a town with a red-light district. The folks who are respectable live their lives as if the red-light district does not exist; they may not acknowledge it or openly condemn it, but, though seem to ignore it, they are all aware of it, and that it offers an alternative—though psychically dangerous—mode of living. This particular conception helps explain why cultures, though they demonstrate widely similar traits, are not completely homogenous.<br /><br />Shore’s distinction between social and cognitive models explains how cultures can adopt radically new social models. Shore explains the phenomenon this way:<br /><br />It is conceivable . . . that under certain conditions, members of a community will fail to fully internalize a cultural model because their personal experiences are incompatible with the conventional model. For these people, the cultural models have become “dead models.” These individuals may well have alternative mental models, models that may be highly idiosyncratic or socially manifested as marginal cultural representations or as cultural innovations (52)<br /><br />Take the example of T. S. Eliot. Did Eliot’s widely popular poetry—expressing a fractured sense of modern life and the despair that accompanied it—really indicate a new feeling on the part of the post-WWI, Western European, English-speaking population, or did he merely find a way to articulate a feeling that was latent in people, an alternative model, that had not been given a popular, representative voice? Or to put it another way, did life stink before the dawn of the 20th century, or was that a modern phenomenon?<br /><br />I wasn’t as pleased with Shore’s chapter on technology (chapter vi), however. His description of modular living that is the result of digital technology seemed to be spot on, but his analysis of this shift—from analog to digital—is about as clear as a record junkie defending his or her refusal to switch to CDs. He sums up the chapter with Heidegger, noting that the author’s “technologically inspired crisis may be understood as the loss of analogically grounded and organically mediated cultural models that can serve as sources for meaning construction” and that “[t]he loss of such models amounts to what Heidegger called ‘the darkening of the world’” (160-61). First, I’m not sure that Shore proves that “meaning construction” is impossible in a digital world or with what he calls the “postmodern mind” (161). Second, I have no idea what he (or Heidegger) means by “the darkening of the world” and why we should fear such a thing. Perhaps someone else can explain that to me.<br /><br />If one can put aside his fears of word processing, however, Shore’s point about the effect of technology on thought (or schema making) is fascinating. I think the effect of technology on though has been established (Ong, Havelock, and others) but Shore’s emphasis on how it can create culture-wide schemas that dominate our living is relatively new, I think.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1127925476158091952005-09-28T11:26:00.000-05:002005-09-28T11:37:56.950-05:00framing the framesI found S&Q's book extremely stimulating; their account of previous cultural/anthropological theory is an excellent foundational chapter - though some of the works they criticize I do not know well enough to fully comment on (I'm thinking of Jim's and Anthony's comments on Geertz here).<br /><br />What I like about their approach is that they attempt to synthesize theories rather than reject them outright: this, I applaud. They move on from the situated theory that we discussed last week by introducing their schema and connectionism ideas. Very interesting overall, but their own application of the theories, is to my mind, illustrative at best. they admit as much in their final remarks, and what this provocative book offers is a template to build on rather than a ready-to-go theory. <br /><br />Another aspect that I like about this book is that it has more than an anthropological audience in mind: it offers critiques of theories that we are all familiar with from different disciplines and it warns about the limits of their application. <br /><br />Eventhough I am still formulating my ideas on the strength of S&Q's theory, I would without doubt recommend this as a pedagogical text. It is broad-ranging, inclusive of major critical movements, and it offers varied approaches to evaluating and applying theory. It is a book that I will certainly keep at hand. <br /><br />I will be interested to see what everyone has to make of the vailidity of their schema theory tomorrow...Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1127865721996254932005-09-27T19:01:00.001-05:002005-09-27T19:02:03.276-05:00Schemas and EnthymemesI enjoyed the introduction to Strauss and Quinn because it gave such a clear (though long) description of the situation out of which their book arose. I also enjoyed the section on connectionism, which seemed very familiar to me (especially the discussion of how the brain works) though I don’t know where I have encountered those ideas before. Their ideas do a good job tying together all the different theories of the books we have read so far, accounting not only for the societal influences that impact learning and learning’s public characteristics, but it also accounts for how the individual is able to learn in relation to those societal factors. <br /><br />In addition, connectionism supplies an additional way to study context as it impacts the individual learner. Perhaps it was the fact that the book was only preventing a single viewpoint that made its impact more clear to me, but I felt Strauss and Quinn gave a better description of how to study context than I found in Understanding Practice. Perhaps this opinion is based on a misreading on my part, but at the very least the different views provide more than one way to look at context besides the container model.<br /><br />Theoretically, I was fascinated by the idea of schemas. Strauss and Quinn point out that schemas are the knowledge or structures that we keep in mind (or, in a connectionist model, the various weights of neural pathways that connect to each other) that help us to compensate for situations with missing info. They give the example of the beer ad, described not seen, and point out the way in which we tend to fill in—or flesh out—missing details. This seems to me to be an enthymematic process. Like an enthymeme, it leaves out part of the argument that is assumed to be shared or uncontestable. This seems to indicate to me that confusion in communication comes from assuming that schemas are shared, when they are not. I’m not sure that Strauss and Quinn have a method for making sure that schemas are communicated more clearly, but the connection would certainly be helpful for rhetorical studies, since it would give a cognitive basis for good and bad communication.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1127414341665729362005-09-22T13:37:00.000-05:002005-09-22T13:39:01.673-05:00practically understanding Understanding PracticeUnderstanding Practice is the first text on this course that I have managed to get my hands on and read. Since I am new to the class, I want to use this posting to formulate my initial ideas about the kind of theories that we will be exploring this semester by explaining my evolving relationship with this collection of essays. <br /><br />I read the book in a roughly sequential manner, reading some chapters in depth, others with an overview of content and methodology in mind. Lave’s opening chapter on “The Practice of Learning” provoked responses that would frequently recurred as my reading deepened. I found the thesis that “theories of situated everyday practice insist that persons acting and the social world of activity cannot be separated” (4-5) generally stimulating. Yet, it was difficult to parse the different elements of the argument by the end of the chapter; the theories seemed to collapse into one another, and a trajectory of the field’s development remained unclear. Simply put, I felt that the same point was being made again and again. I felt that I either don’t grasp the subtleties of the arguments presented, or that I do not fully understand the applicability of this interdisciplinary movement.<br /><br />My experience of the other chapters reflected my initial reaction. I found many of them stimulating (Hutchins and Keller & Keller in particular), but I also found them lacking. As descriptions of detailed social practice, they were well researched and presented with a high degree of nuance and sophistication. But the ultimate goal of some pieces remained unclear: are these researchers attempting to use theories to develop more integrated knowledge sharing and production, or are they merely applying theories to highly particularized situations? I was baffled by some conclusions. Engestrom’s use of interviews in a medical practice was interesting, and his placement of the situation within the historical context of changing medical practices enlightening. Yet, his conclusions about the corporatization of medicine and the breakdown of communication between practitioner and patient were simply, well, common sense. How the theories elucidated actually could work to either clarify the situation or change it remained opaque.<br /><br />It was not until I reached Chaiklin’s conclusions that I could contextualize the preceding chapters. As Jim rightly pointed out in his posting, Chaiklin’s piece is an important piece because of it reflectiveness: he situates how these disparate pieces work toward a common theoretical goal; the development of this interdisciplinary movement and its growth out of previous theoretical traditions is clearly mapped; how it does (or does not) contribute to social change is honestly and provocatively presented. <br /><br />It is one of the best theoretical pieces I have read in a long while and I am already beginning to “situate” these readings differently because of it. The relative infancy of the field (if you can call it such) makes sense of the provisional nature of some of the conclusions. To this novice reader, how important this theorizing may actually be is beginning to sink in: the synthesis of different disciplines that engage with an idea as complex and protean as shifting contexts is, I now realize, a massive undertaking.<br /><br />Finally, I would like to applaud all the bloggers. All are stimulating in their own fashion; some made me feel comfortable in my own confusion (!) while others made me rethink what I was reading. I apologize for the length and lateness of this posting, but I would just like to say that I look forward to working with you all this semester.Seanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03849764029253570570noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1127254999901388962005-09-20T17:22:00.000-05:002005-09-20T17:23:19.906-05:00Open Technology and the Writing CenterI enjoyed the connection between Chaiklin and Lave’s book and the previous two we’ve read. The anthropological examples, especially, gave me not only a sense of the theories the authors were trying to examine, but also of the methodologies for research in a field I’m not very familiar with. The chapters that interested me most were Hutchins’s on Navy quartermasters, Mehan and McDermott’s looks at the ways in which learning disabilities are diagnosed, and Minick’s study of the ways children learn to think in representational language.<br /><br />Because of my interest in the way technology aids thought, Hutchins’s study of the quartermasters intrigued me, especially his comment on the openness of the technology used by the sailors allowed for mistakes, but allowed for them in a framework that corrected them and thus allowed the mistake-maker to learn on the job. I was particularly interested in how his view of open technology can be applied to composition studies. It is odd, I think, that most people who write on the computer, edit on paper. Where I work at the Undergraduate Writing Center, we require the students to bring in a print copy of their papers for us to go over with them. This practice has the benefit, seen by Hutchins, of making the document accessible to us both, but I wonder why computer files could not serve the same purpose and eliminate the paper. Besides, it seems a retrograde activity in light of the fact that all the papers are created on the computer. Perhaps we work on hard copies to eliminate concerns that are beyond the scope of the UWC but vital on the computer, like setting margins and picking font sizes and styles. Or perhaps it is that our current software (Word) does not quite allow us the easy of notation that is available with pen or pencil, but tablet computers could change this fact. Would peer editing on a computer change the way the students write, or think about writing?<br /><br />I was drawn as well to the role that language plays in the final three chapters I mentioned. I found McDermott’s description of the disability acquiring a child to be extremely plausible, and it connected nicely to the surrounding chapters, all of which focused on the role social settings play in creating learning disabilities. Whether existing just as a convenient label or as a way of responding to a person that hinders their intellectual growth, all of the views of learning disability are created by the community, not just in the heads of the children in question. The lessons learned by Minick in studying how school children learn their tasks through abstract and representational language could apply to these studies, helping teachers to respond to students in a way that would not be detrimental to their development.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16110979.post-1126472785790625282005-09-11T16:05:00.000-05:002005-09-11T16:06:25.796-05:00Fleck and 'Situated Learning'I read Lave and Wenger almost immediately after I read Fleck, and the juxtaposition of the two was interesting. First, as the class pointed out last Thursday, the sense that Fleck was far ahead of his time is only reinforced by ‘Situated Learning’. The ideas about cognition and what “learning” is in the two books are remarkably identical for works separated so far apart in time.<br /><br />The chief difference between the two, I think, is that Lave and Wenger place more of their theoretical focus on the individual as a part of a community and the way in which learning takes place as part of the individual psyche. For them, knowledge is created in Fleck’s thought communities (someone could probably help me out here; I’m almost certain L&W did not use Fleck’s terminology, but I do not remember what term they did use for this concept). Learning, however, occurs in the individual; it is legitimate peripheral participation that explains how learning occurs.<br /><br />The focus on the individual is an important addition to the concepts of Fleck. Not only does it begin to explain one possible process by which learning and progress can occur (Fleck merely indicates how a particular advancement occurs; the closest thing to an idea of reproducing that kind of success is his suggestion that the early mistakes of scientists are not purely accidental, but the process of directed thought aimed at a particular problem), it also, as Lave and Wenger indicate, can serve as a checkup for learning situations, whereby the achievement/accomplishment of individual participants can be monitored. I do not see how a similar focus on individual progress can be possible in Fleck’s theory, mainly because he places almost all of his emphasis on the social/historical aspects of knowledge making. By closing this gap in the theory, Lave and Wenger make a major step forward in allowing the ideas of social cognition to be put to practical uses.<br /><br />I’ve always thought of myself as kind of a theory-head, that I am interested in ideas and their relationships to each other more than their execution, but in reading these books, I’ve noticed that the more abstract the theory, the more I am both excited by it and interested in practical applications. In regard to the latter, Lave and Wenger are a little maddening. Though they provide the examples of five apprentice-like situations and give a fairly complete explanation of what they think constitutes legitimate peripheral participation in each, they leave a lot of ground uncovered. I will be interested to read everyone else’s comments to see how L&W’s ideas are worked out in relation to the many different fields represented in our class.John Joneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778994524246166730noreply@blogger.com0