http://www.metafilter.com/tags/neuronaut Posts tagged with 'neuronaut' at MetaFilter. Fri, 11 Jul 2003 07:57:32 -0800 Fri, 11 Jul 2003 07:57:32 -0800 en-us http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 60 http://www.metafilter.com/26928/Lev%2DSemyonovich%2DVygotsky%2Dand%2Dthe%2Dneuronauts%2Dguide%2Dto%2Dthe%2Dscience%2Dof%2Dconsciousness We are because of others. We are born into this world with minds as naked as our bodies and we have to rely on others to feed, clothe us, and to teach us to think of ourselves as selves. The key is language -- grammatical speech and human culture build upon the brain's biological capacities to create a mind that is something different again than that with which we are born. We are conscious because we can speak to others and ourselves, because we can speak of ourselves to others and ourselves. Language gives us as individuals, memory, and as groups, culture, the social memory. Or so <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/19990423160218/werple.net.au/~andy/txt/lev1.htm" title="Thinking and Speaking by Lev Vygotsky">thought</a> <a href="http://web.archive.org/web/20010802101038/http://www.bestpraceduc.org/people/LevVygotsky.html" title="It has been said of the Russian psychologist Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky that he possessed a Mozartian genius, yet he lived in a time and place that was not receptive to Mozarts. ">Lev </a><a href="http://www.massey.ac.nz/~alock//virtual/trishvyg.htm" title="Vygotsky: 'the central fact about our psychology is the fact of mediation' - Introduction, Higher and lower mental functions, Intramental vs intermental abilities, The zone of proximal development, Psychological tools, Semiotic potential and the decontextualisation of mediational means,References">Semyonovich</a> <a href="http://tip.psychology.org/vygotsky.html" title="Social Development Theory - The major theme of Vygotsky's theoretical framework is that social interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition. Vygotsky: ''Every function in the child's cultural development appears twice: first, the social level, and later, the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). this applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and to the formation of concepts. all the higher functions originate as actual relationships between individuals.'' ">Vygotsky</a>, among others. Welcome to the <a href="http://www.btinternet.com/~neuronaut/index.html" title="This site is a guide to the study of consciousness and complexity. It's serious - no wacky stuff (although psi, dreams, quantum-C and such-like come in for critical discussion). But it's also easy reading, much of it being based on the four books and many articles I've written on these subjects. You will find this site focuses on three basic arguments about the nature of consciousness. The first is that the human mind is bifold - as much a product of memes or cultural evolution as of the biology of brains. The second is that brain processing takes time - about half a second to develop a settled ''frame'' of consciousness. The third is that the brain is a specific example of something more mathematically general - a complex adaptive system (CAS). To understand consciousness demands getting deep into holism, hierarchy theory, biosemiosis, general systems theory, heterarchical causality and other obscure stuff that is guaranteed to blow the gaskets of any reductionist who dares to venture within.">the neuronaut's guide to the science of consciousness</a>. tag:metafilter.com,2003:site.26928 Fri, 11 Jul 2003 07:57:32 -0800 ape biology brain consciousness culture deaf ephesus feral grammar groups heraclitus historical imagination johnmccrone language levsemyonovichvygotsky memory mentalimagery neuronaut philosophical scientific templegrandin y2karl