[Fis] _ Re: _ Re: Maxine’s presentation

Mon Feb 22 13:09:29 CET 2016

Dear FIS colleagues,

I didn’t know Maxine’s work, and I’m very glad to have been introduced to
it – I’ve been reading through the 1972 edition of the Phenomenology of
Dance.

In reading this, and in reading the contributions on the list, I’ve found
myself reflecting on the relationship between “ontological speculation”
(e.g., speculations about origins) and measurement. Speculations about
origins can only ever be speculations, yet they inevitably assume the
status of ‘foundations’ where their speculative and tentative character is
(at best) obscured in various ways. Measurement, at some level, rests on
speculations – yet measurement contributes to the ‘solidifying’
(stultifying?) of speculations. I’m reminded that it was precisely this
insight into the foundational assumptions of Frege’s mathematics and their
positivistic implications in the sciences which led Husserl into his
phenomenological search in the first place!

The methodological problem of thinking about the experience of dance is a
good place to look for the weaknesses of existing foundations. Personally,
I have preferred to think about music (it's my background) – but it’s a
very similar problem. These topics are on fault-lines that comprise the
intellectual domain that Searle calls “epistemic subjectivity” – not facts
of common knowledge (epistemic objectivity), physical phenomena
(ontological objectivity) or social structures (ontological subjectivity) –
but feelings and accounts of feelings – like headaches and itches.

I wonder if the problem has to do with indexicallity, or more basically,
“pointing”: In wishing to uncover the structure of consciousness, Husserl
wished for ‘structures of consciousness’ to point at which others could
also point to (and agree) what it was which was being indexed. In the end
what he was able to point to was his method, which most of his followers
were dissatisfied with. The problem was (Husserl knew this well) that what
he pointed to was a relation where the pointing was part of the relation. I
think it is for this reason that intersubjectivity becomes a major theme in
his work – although I agree with Alfred Schutz that Husserl’s concept of
intersubjectivity is deficient (Schutz refines it considerably in my
opinion).

What has this got to do with information?

If I have detected any kind of consensus on this list in the past few
months, it is on the importance of constraint, or absence, in the study of
information. It may be that information is the study of constraint; that in
Bob U.’s words, the most important thing  about information is
“not-information”. As Bob acknowledges, Bateson said it first…

Processes of measurement, and indeed processes of scientific knowledge, are
constrained processes. Scientists deliberately constrain their experiments
within laboratories. How can we characterise that constraint and the
various biopsychosocial constraints bearing upon the ensuing processes of
arriving at agreement about causal mechanisms? Or the constraints that bear
upon the selection of apparatus? This is what recent sociomaterial theories
of scientific practice have been digging at (Barad, Rouse, Harraway).
Whilst I find myself approving of their general point, I also see science
disappearing in a kind beautifully-written mystical haze which I find
distressing, but other seem to quite enjoy!

But what about dance? Is it more or less constrained? If we were to analyse
the constraints of dance, where would we start?

We start with many of the categories which Maxine identifies: rhythm,
weight, space, time, force, and so on. But then there are the interlocking
constraints of human biology, psychology, anatomy, and so on. As an
intersubjective relation, is dance more constrained than a Wheatstone
bridge experiment? And sex and mating rituals? (well, it’s all about sex,
isn’t it?) how constrained is that? What about Wittgenstein’s ‘wriggling
fly’ (Philosophical Investigations, p284) – is it dancing?

I find this a fascinating thought because it asks many questions about the
assumptions of modern science around ‘objectivity’, and the relation
between social and physical science. It also seems consistent (if I
understand him right) with what Bob U. has been saying about ecology. Loet
has been pushing at a similar boundary.

There seems to be many questions about methodologies for examining
constraint. Personally, I think Shannon has a useful contribution to make
with regard to measurement (that’s not to exclude critique of his formulae)
– but understanding what it is to use a relational calculation (which is
what it is) within scientific investigation is poorly understood – it is
not causal relations we are examining. At a broader methodological level,
the cybernetic error-driven approach (Ashby is the key figure here) may be
more profound than current popular realist theories.

I've ended up a question and a sub-question...

“What are the conditions within which a coherent scientific discourse can
address the phenomenon of dance (or music)?”

I suspect Maxine is right to point to Darwin's 'descriptive' process. So a
sub-question is:

"What do we do when we describe something?"

best wishes,

Mark

On 19 February 2016 at 13:12, Pedro C. Marijuan <pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.es>
wrote:

> Dear Maxine and Colleagues,
>
> Concerning your presentation I have a couple of questions. About dance,
> first, let me inquire about another important aspect it may have, perhaps a
> "vital" one . In a number of species, dance is related to the mutual
> pre-exploration between potential reproductive partners. The individual
> fitness of the candidate(s) are evaluated quite strategically along the
> movements of dance, at least in the essential adaptive traits. Cultural
> layers of human societies may have created further "meanings" to dance
> (artistic, gimnastic, educative, therapeutic, etc.) but at the very roots
> of this human phenomenon the exploration between genders continues to be of
> the essence, I think. Those qualities you mention of tensional, linear,
> aerial, and projectional are in themselves excellent ways to observe the
> whole person: not only in the motoric dimension, but also concerning some
> related intellectual-emotional capabilities. The "gestalts" Alex mentions
> are colored very differently depending on the social/cultural contexts in
> which the same dance may take place. It is quite interesting that the folk
> inter-gender dance is performed in "safe" public spaces, and that it often
> conveys a feminine advantage (better synchronization of movements, more
> interest for fashionable pieces), etc. etc. Although perhaps it does not
> apply to most of present day "disco dance". Along your points, I was
> reminded that many years ago, someone in fis list wrote about the
> informational implications of "Tango" (originally a dance between castaway
> males in Argentina's immigrant squalors) ... it is a pity I can remember
> very little about that.
>
> And the second comment concerns the paleoanthropological tools. The
> analogy between the two major forms of tools and the two major tooth forms
> is very well developed.I quite agree, and also would like to ad a
> relationship with human gut-microbiome. We needed "artificial" teeth
> because with our terrific brain growth, the overall metabolic needs
> escalated almost 20%. However, at the same time the gut size (& contained
> microbiome) was reduced 50% in comparison with any Anthropoidea of our
> size. This is an impossible budget to maintain, unless the development of
> collective intelligence applied to our feeding and created completely
> original ways. These new ways were made possible by language, group
> identities, tools and artifact creation... but it was the new feeding style
> what pushed along this adaptive loop. We have called the new ways as
> "cooking", but actually it was a pre- or external digestion, achieved with
> those artifactual "molars and incisives", plus boiling, roasting, etc. And
> also by incorporating "external microbiomes"--fermentation-- for our
> service: bread, wine, beer, cheese, etc. The essential new foods of
> civilization. Cooking made us humans... how a "social brain" was created,
> and how our phenomenology became captive of group collective thinking might
> be a topic deserving further analysis.
>
> Thanking in advance for the tolerance!
>
> Best--Pedro
>
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> *Phenomenology and Evolutionary Biology*
>
>
> *(1): Phenomenology *As written in the Preface to the 2nd edition (1979)
> of The Phenomenology of Dance, “Certainly words carry no patented meanings,
> but the term ‘phenomenology’ does seem stretched beyond its limits when it
> is used to denote either mere reportorial renderings of perceptive
> behaviors or actions, or *any* descriptive rendering at all of
> perceptible behaviors or actions. At the least, ‘phenomenology’ should be
> recognized as a very specific mode of epistemological inquiry, a method of
> eidetic analysis invariably associated with the name Edmund Husserl, the
> founder of phenomenology; and at the most ‘phenomenology’ should be
> recognized as a philosophically-spawned terms, that is, a term having a
> rich philosophical history and significance.”
>
> A phenomenological analysis of movement given in The Phenomenology of
> Dance follows the rigorous methodology set forth by Husserl. The
> methodology is integral to understandings of phenomenology as well as to
> its practice. Husserl distinguished two modes of the methodology. One mode
> is termed “static,” the other is termed “genetic.” The aim in static
> phenomenology is to uncover the essential character of the phenomenon in
> question or under investigation. The aim in genetic phenomenology is to
> uncover the source and development of meanings and values we hold.
>
> The abbreviated phenomenological analysis of movement set forth below
> follows a static phenomenology. The abbreviated phenomenological analysis
> of the origin of tool-making follows a genetic phenomenology. The first
> analysis elucidates the inherently dynamic character of movement, and in
> ways quite contrary to the idea that movement is a force in time and in
> space and quite contrary as well to the dictionary definition of movement
> as a “change of position.” The second analysis answers questions that
> paleoanthropologists, archaeologists, and anthropologists leave unanswered.
> The analyses present basic aspects of animation that anchor the
> relationship between phenomenology and the life sciences. In particular,
> the point of departure for both phenomenology and the life sciences is
> *animate* being not just in the sense of *living* creatures, but in the
> sense of *moving* creatures, creatures who, in and through movement, are
> sustaining their lives, mating and reproducing, and so on. In short,
> movement is fundamental to animation, a decidedly significant entrée to
> understanding basic aspects anchoring a relationship between phenomenology
> and the life sciences. Following these analyses is a final section on the
> descriptive foundations of both phenomenology and evolutionary biology and
> on their common concern with origins...
>
> (cont., see attached file)
>
>
> *(**4) Descriptive Foundations*
> While it is common to speak laudingly of the keenness and scope of Darwin's
> observations, it is not commonly  recognized, certainly not explicitly,
> that his observations, as written, describe his experiences. His written
> observations are in fact equivalent to his experiences in the sense that
> they detail what he saw, felt, heard, smelled, and even tasted. Though
> focal attention is consistently--one might even say, exclusively--riveted
> on  his  theory  of natural selection, Darwin's descriptive writings are
> of fundamental significance, for it is these descriptive writings  that
> ground  his theory, that are its foundation. More broadly, evolutionary
> understandings and explanations of Nature are in the end tethered to an
> experientially-derived descriptive literature. Reading this literature, we
> learn a good  deal about nonhuman animals. We learn  that  they are
> perceptive,  thoughtful, and  affectively moved  by creatures and  things
> in their environment, and  we learn further that their perceptive,
> affective, and thoughtful ways are intimately related  to our own. In
> short, Darwin's descriptive accounts of the natural living world reveal
> something about the lives of others and in turn something about our own
> lives.
>
> I highlight the descriptive foundations of evolutionary theory in part
> because these descriptive foundations have fallen by the wayside,
> particularly in the highly visible present-day writings on evolution by
> neuroscientists and cognitive scientists. “Darwinian bodies” are not
> automatons. Neither are they robots lumbering  about  on behalf  of
> selfish genes nor are they head-end neurological mechanisms, as per
> cognitivists of all stripe who collapse bodies into brains. I highlight the
> descriptive foundations of evolutionary theory equally to call attention to
> experience, specifically to the fact that descriptive foundations are
> grounded in experience. Descriptive foundations do not come by way of
> reducing the living world to genes, collapsing it into brains, or modeling
> it along the lines of a computer. Descriptive foundations are laid by way
> of direct experience of the living world. Only by hewing to experiences of
> that world have we the possibility of arriving at veridical descriptive
> accounts of nature and in turn, at explanations of nature.
>
> I follow up these aspects of Darwinian evolutionary biology to show their
> confluence with phenomenology. Phenomenology, like Darwinian evolutionary
> biology, is methodologically essential to understandings of human nature;
> like Darwinian evolutionary biology, it too is tethered to experience and
> is basically a descriptive project; and again, like Darwinian evolutionary
> biology, it too is concerned with origins. What we think of and separate
> academically as disparate fields of knowledge are undergirded by
> descriptive foundations. The descriptive challenge lies in languaging
> experience and being true to the truths of experience, a challenge common
> to both fields of study.
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> -------------------------------------------------
> Pedro C. Marijuán
> Grupo de Bioinformación / Bioinformation Group
> Instituto Aragonés de Ciencias de la Salud
> Centro de Investigación Biomédica de Aragón (CIBA)
> Avda. San Juan Bosco, 13, planta X
> 50009 Zaragoza, Spain
> Tfno. +34 976 71 3526 (& 6818)pcmarijuan.iacs at aragon.eshttp://sites.google.com/site/pedrocmarijuan/
> -------------------------------------------------
>
>
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>

-- 
Dr. Mark William Johnson
Institute of Learning and Teaching
Faculty of Health and Life Sciences
University of Liverpool

Visiting Professor
Far Eastern Federal University, Russia

Phone: 07786 064505
Email: johnsonmwj1 at gmail.com
Blog: http://dailyimprovisation.blogspot.com
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