Ch 2 The Thinking Body
Critique of the idea that the mind (culture) can be reduced to the physical body (biology) eg. Maturana
Reducing consciousness to the brain can never explain human relations to (a) one another (b) the natural world
Parallelism (two different lines of development of mind and body) is a form of dualism
Historical Philosophical Context
Vygotsy quotes Feuerbach: "what for me [or subjectively] is a spiritual, immaterial, supersensual act is in itself [or objectively] material, sensuous"
Vygotsky omitted the words in square brackets
Comment BK: The thinking body is a whole consisting of this double nature: the subjective, supersensual AND the objective, sensual wrapped in to one package. What I am trying to achieve is a description of what the thinking body is. Not thought, not body but an intimate melding of thought and body, matter which has evolved to think. The "thinking body" then becomes a valuable phrase, which I did not previously possess, to consider (more than think about) non dualist reality. It is always a mistake to separate thought from body.
cf. Marx's analysis of the double nature of the commodity:
use value (sensuous, practical side)
exchange value (supersensible side)
Ilyenkov (paraphrased): Body and thought appear to be contrary ... but there is only one single object, which is the thinking body of living, real man ... not two Cartesian halves - "thought lacking a body" and "body lacking thought" ... both are equally fallacious abstractions ... one cannot model a real thinking man from two equally fallacious abstractions.
Comment BK: cf and review Hilary Putnam's brain in the vat thought model
Ilyenkov: in the form of man ... Nature itself thinks ... Nature thinks of itself, becomes aware of itself, senses itself, acts on itself
NB.
Because thinking and acting materially are two modes of action of the same substance, there cannot therefore be the kind of cause-and-effect relationship that is typical of much of psychological and educational research, whereby a person is said to think and then act upon what has been thought ... Just as we can see only a duck or a rabbit in the duck-rabbit drawing, our consideration tends to be oriented to thinking or doing
Comment BK: Denial of cause-effect, thinking --> action is a radical consequence of the thinking body reconceptualisation
A thinking body thinks in the way that eyes see, legs walk and ears hear ... a thinking body does not cause changes in thought ... it cannot act on thought ... the activity of the thinking body is thought in the same way as the activity of the eyes is seeing
Comment BK: How then do we explain change in thought and action? Roth cites Ilyenkov here but more along the lines of what doesn't happen than what does happen --> thoughts leading to words leading to actions is "senseless" (36). But just to say that the thinking body changes as a whole does not provide much insight (for me)
Thought and speech: Vygotsky; thought is completed rather than expressed in the word ... I do not construct thoughts, they occur to me
Spinoza defining a circle: Must define the essence, not a property or attribute. Essence includes it proximate cause and contains all properties
Definition of a circle: a figure described by any line of which one end is fixed and the other movable
The circle has been defined in terms of the real, practical and sensuous action of a real human being
Tie a pencil to a string. Keep one end fixed and move the other end. Both body and thought are involved in this circle!
The difference between a compass which makes a circle and the human being lies in the mechanical aspect of the former and the enormous flexibility of the latter.
This circle exists not just as sound-words (and even less in idealistic 'meanings') but also in terms of the movements of its thinking body, aka kinesthetic melody associated with the production of a real material circle.
Comment BK: Roth's approach to teaching the circle through sensuous action appeals more to me than the Engelmann / DI approach of unambiguous repetition
Spinoza: the capability of the human mind to perceive many things is a function of the different configurations that the body can take
The difference between Marx and Spinoza: Humans are not just acted upon by nature ... humans change the world also making tools to bring about further change, eg. a perfect circle is never found in nature but humans create the mathematical idea of the circle and strive to make it perfect. Perfection is worth striving for!
Comment BK: old quote (Mao?). Tools are made by men. When tools cry out for revolution they will speak through men
Roth: the circle is experienced outside the body rather than within ... it is not a construction of our mind but a real thing ...
Reply BK: But the ideal, perfect circle is constructed internally?
We know mathematics only when we can do it
Ilyenkov: when people say they know knowledge but can't apply it to reality they are making an absurd statement
Comment BK: cf Dennett: Before there is comprehension there is competence without comprehension
The Thinking Body: A Case Study from Elementary Geometry
Second grade class ... hand in the box feels the mystery object ... students told to make a plasticine model of the mystery object
I SKIP a lot of detail here, you would need to read the original for important detail, I am just trying to summarise the knowledge claims:
premise: that bodily experiences are constitutive of geometrical knowledge
Doing 'Defining a Cube'
Movement may be
ergotic: do the work
epistemic: learn the object
symbolic: describe the object
Roth argues that "the body does not have to have schemas to reproduce its own movements. We walk quite well without (consciously) placing our feet; and we ride bicycles very well without telling our bodies what to do. ... The cube (Melissa initially believes the mystery shape is a cube) exists not primarily in the form of some abstract (geometric) idea but in the form of successive movements, the sameness of the different sides is instructably made visible in the here-and-now of this situation" (40-41)
Comment BK: This is only an argument against conscious internal schemas ... as we learn to walk and ride bicycles it seems obvious that something changes internally ... if it is not a schema then what is it?
These ideas are rejected:
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: existing linguistic categories - here 'cube' shapes human perception
Others: existing theories drive the nature and content of observation
Constructivist: Melissa 'interpreted' what she had in hand
Merleau-Ponty preferred: What Melissa 'sees' and expresses in the cube is 'a conditioned thought, it is born "at the occasion" of that which arrives in the body, it is "excited" to think through it' (43)
Comment BK: The Merleau-Ponty quote is not sufficiently clear for me
Comment BK: Recall Seymour Papert: object to think with (the logo turtle); Jerome Bruner: doing with images makes symbols
"Melissa was convinced of the mystery object's cubical form right up to the instant when, after having explored the object for an eighth time, her voice marked surprise - 'Oh,oh', together with a facial expression that culturally competent individuals see as her surprise - that a new and different kind of object had emerged from the sensuous movements of her hand"
The mystery object was not a cube but a rectangular prism. The other two girls had felt a rectangular prism and made such a model but up until now Melissa had "seen" a cube in spite of the other two differing from her.
Comment BK: I call these AHA moments (they are dramatic), how does Roth explain this moment?
This new experience arose from her tact (as in tactile), which was, without knowing itself as such, already pregnant with this new form ... there (had been) a lot of talk... and the other girls had built more accurate models ... intended to convince Melissa that she was wrong ... but for quite a time Melissa had felt something different, a cube
Much expressive talk by Roth here about how Melissa changed, (44-46):
Now, as she turned Jane's model over and over to feel it out with her left hand while doing the same with the mystery object in her right hand, a new shape suddenly was born from her hand. The relevance of others' descriptions and models could only emerge from her actions and sensations in a manner that was not anticipated ... she could not intentionally orient toward the <rectangular prism> until it was in her hand as a new sensation, which emerged in excess of what she had perceived ...
Although she apparently changed her mind ... But it was not her mind that had changed ... The mystery object had revealed itself to Melissa's touch in a different way and without (and perhaps against) Melissa's will ... surprise! ...
there is not a lack but a plenitude of experience that exceeds intention. Our actions are pregnant with new forms that exceed the associated goals (intentions). Vygotsky also realised this when he writes in his personal notes: 'we never make precise and only necessary movement ... we do more or less than what is necessary in terms of the situation, the key to the latent sense is in this more or less. It is from this invisible more that the newly felt object is born'
there is an excess of intuition over intention ... initially Melissa felt a cube and for a long time she kept feeling a cube ... but after her AHA moment she felt a rectangular prism and had no trouble continuing to feel a rectangular prism
the hand explores an object ... there is voluntary movement of the hand and resistance offered to the hand by the object ...
"The resistance to the free movement of hand or eye, arising within and from the organ itself, is at the origin of the ability to remember, imagine, and, therefore to intend ... This movement and the associated experienced resistance ... the kinesthesia, are at the origin of the re/cognition of the object
It is not thinking that determined the sensing hand, and the sensing hand did not cause the thinking
My summation BK: Roth is arguing that the thinking body is manifested in living movements of the hand, the eye as it explores the world and meets resistance, that there is an invisible (hidden from consciousness) plenitude, an excess of this hand / eye / kinesthenic activity. Contrary words in themselves, models in themselves or the will are not sufficient for someone to change their opinion although they have some influence. Rather in this case (Melissa changing her mind from <cube> to <rectangular prism>) the change emerged from prolonged and repeated hand / eye / kinesthenic activity, the real manifestation of the thinking body.
Movement Gives Form and Memory
The object / world / experience brings perception of the form to life
cf Rodney Brooks: http://learningevolves.wikispaces.com/AI_behaviour (wikispaces link which will disappear after July 2018)
Embodiment: "The world grounds regress"
The robots have bodies and experience the world directly - their actions are part of a dynamic with the world and have immediate feedback on their own sensations
regress -- a procedure that entails its own reapplication without any limit
Elaboration of Vygotsky quote about how movement expresses our attitude to the goal:
" ... we never make precise and only necessary movements, so movement always has a latent, inner sense of movement, which always expresses the person's attitude to the goal, internal obstacle, struggle, hesitation, additional goal, latent tendency or motivation, hot temper, weakness, exaggeration of the goal, attainment of the goal for show, etc. We do more or less than what is necessary in terms of the situation, the key to this latent sense is in this more and less"
Roth: No memory of movement in the form of schemas or 'internal representations' is required to bring about the movement again. Rather, it is in and of these movements themselves that memory exists - kinetic dynamics and kinesthetic memory are two aspects of the same phenomenon. It is like the case when the eyes move in one way, the rabbit is seen; and when they move in another way, the duck is seen. The next time we look at the sketch, we see one or the other figures not because we have memorised some schema or concept but because the eyes make the same movement again.
This is why words alone are not sufficient for Melissa to change her mind ... in the absence of the object she can relive an internal sense of what she has decided the object is (a cube)
Comment BK: Roth is arguing that the thinking body remembers movement (hand, eye) and not schemas. But don't internal schemas exist, eg. a schema of a cube and a rectangular prism, we can comprehend what they are without seeing or touching them.
Instructed and Instructable Moments
Signs and symbols emerge from hands on (ergotic) work
FN 31, p. 49: The Emergence of Signs in Hands On Science (2015) paper by Roth
Better learning occurs from synchronous comparisons
Melissa's new perception was born when she simultaneously felt the mystery object in her right hand and her own model in her left hand
"The goal of education is tradition, the handing down of ways of knowing typical of a culture"
Which culture? Culture changes? As it changes comfort zone becomes an issue. Too much change creates anxiety. Not enough change creates stagnation.
Vision (gaze) and tact (touch) are similar
On Construction, Embodiment and Enaction
Some of the critiques Roth makes of constructivism, don't match my understanding of what they stand for. The critiques are directed at radical constructivism (von Glasersfeld) and Piaget / Inhelder. When I read pp 51-53 it didn't sound like the Piaget that has circulated in and out of Australian schools in the 1980s when Piaget became the preferred flavour of the decade and science curricula were developed around his ideas.
Specifically Roth says that constructivists argue that: (I've bolded the bits where his understanding of Piaget is different to mine)
"the individual mind is ... informationally closed to the surrounding world" (51)
"In a constructivist account, she (Melissa) might be said to incorrectly 'interpret' the object ..." (51)
"As Piaget, modern day constructivists often characterize children's knowing negatively: as lack, deficit ... or deviance ..." (52)
"In the constructivist literature , we can frequently read that misconceptions ... have to be eradicated (53)
Piaget's best known observation were about conservation, the tall and wide glasses, and I've never heard children's responses described as incorrect, deficit or misconception but always as a stage that children have to pass through. It always seemed me that Piaget respected and understood the child's different view of the world.
The version of constructivism that I am most familiar with was called constructionism by Seymour Papert, which combines the internal constructivism with an external construction. (Papert did spend some time working with Piaget). This had real life application in the development of logo-LEGO which evolved into Mindstorms LEGO. The idea was that kids would build things out there and make those things do stuff with the logo programming language and this would change/develop their minds inside.
I'm not saying that Papert's constructionism was without difficulty due to the fundamental idealist nature of constructivism but nevertheless I have found it very useful in thinking about how kids learn.
Papert described the logo turtle as "an object to think with" and tapped into Freud's idea of body syntonic to describe the process. eg. how do you draw a square? The teacher pretends to be a robot and asks the students to direct him / her to draw a square.
Student: "walk forward"
Teacher: robot doesn't understand walk but he does understand forward
Student: forward
Teacher: How far?
Student: forward 50
etc. etc.
This leads to development of concepts of directed motion, angles (right 90) and iteration. Once the square is drawn the teacher goes back and asks students to identify which parts are repeated, and the code eventually becomes repeat 4[fd 50 rt 90]
Papert's framing of the turtle as an "object to think with" and incidentally also Bruner's similar conception of "doing with images makes symbols" do represent a learning theory which combines the kinesthenic with the visual with the symbolic. Does that gel with your learning theory? From my reading it does partly but you would be chary about the symbolic part, I'm not sure.
(my initial comment did mention what I see as a tendency to deny the internal and I intend to post more later on that issue. Repeating what I said then "Moreover internal representations or schemas seem to be denied because that would be a capitulation to dualism, emphasising brain / mind activity whereas the real deal is an integrated thinking body")
It was because of the idealist nature of constructivism / constructionism that I became more critical of it over time and delved more into other learning theories. I wrote about this back in 2008 when there was some discussion about constructivism in the one laptop per child movement. I'll put some a link here for completion and my own convenience https://billkerr2.blogspot.com.au/2008/08/towards-fingernail-definition-of.html
Further notes:
Roth says that Piaget talks about a lack "whereby ... a void comes to be filled" whereas he talks about a "plenitude of experience that exceeds intention. Our actions are pregnant with new forms that exceeds intention"
Meanings
Sublating = both doing away with and keeping something (dialectics)
Sedimentation = something is born; something is forgotten (phenomenological appreciation)
New Reference:
Freud
von Glaserfeld
Mamardasvili
Husserl
Merleau-Ponty
de Biran
Marion
Henry
Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. The Primacy of Movement 2nd edition (2011)
Piaget and Inhelder