From: clyder@GN.APC.ORG
Date: Fri Nov 17 2006 - 17:19:39 EST
Quoting Dogan Goecmen <Dogangoecmen@AOL.COM>: > > > > A bricklayer has to be as much as an architect as an achitect has to be a > bricklayer. Otherwise they caanot build a house in cooperation. Whatever they > > may do it remains bodily activity. Marx does not say more than that. He talks > > about human beings - not about a particular profession. > > But he is attempting to make a distinction between human and animal labour here, comparing architects to spiders and bees. His claim is that human labour is teleological and goal directed whereas that of bees and spiders is not. We now know that this is untrue: "Anticipatory maze learning has been demonstrated in salticid jumping spiders of the genus Portia. These animals are presented with a maze that can be viewed in its entirety from the vantage point of the spider. The maze consists of a set of wire walkways representing potential paths from the starting position to that of a food lure placed at the maze endpoint (Figure 1). One route reaches the food but the other does not. After scanning of the entire maze, visually following the tracks back from the food source, the spider chooses an entry point to the maze, choosing correctly in 75% of first time trials [11,12]. This remarkable display of problem solving is carried out by a creature with a brain several hundred microns in diameter. Salticid spiders share with insects a rough similarity in body plan and size, and they have a complex brain with structures that somewhat resemble those of insects without being strictly homologous [13,14]. Although not a case of place learning per se, the maze solving behavior of Portia spiders reveals a capacity for planning and anticipation that surpasses mere implicit memory." (Cognitive consonance: complex brain functions in the fruit fly and its relatives Ralph J. Greenspan and Bruno van Swinderen , TRENDS in Neurosciences Vol.27 No.12 December 2004) So the behaviour of Spiders is goal directed too. Since the work of von Frisch, ( (1923) Uber die ‘Sprache’ der Bienen. Eine tierpsychologische Untersuchung: Zoologischer Jahrbücher (Physio- logie) 40, 1–186), it has been known that bees labour is not only goal directed, but involves collaboration mediated by inter-worker communication. So Bees and Spiders too, have goals for their labour, which goals they must presumably store in their heads. What then remains of Marx's attempt to clarify the specificity of human labour. Neither goals, nor, contra Franklin, the use of tools distinguish our work from animals, but : 1. The richness of our speech, whose vocabulary and syntax far exceeds that of the humble bee 2. An enhanced memory capacity allowing us to memorise from imitation or hearing, a longer sequence of actions than other animals These two allow the construction of new action programs for our bodily actions, which can be communicated between individuals. By itself the distinction between us and animals is still a matter of degree, as studies of learned labour culture among Japanese Macaques or Chimpanzees demonstrates. What finally distinguishes civilised labour from that of savage or ape is the invention of technologies of record. There is no architecture without the means of producing architectural drawings. It is these drawings existing outside the body of the architect that allow the coordinated labour required to construct large and complex buildings. It is materialised plans, drawings, moulds, patterns, dies, and software that allow industrial production to superceed handicraft. ---------------------------------------------------------------- This message was sent using IMP, the Internet Messaging Program.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Nov 30 2006 - 00:00:06 EST