To me the thing about mirror neurons is that the first thought about them would seem to be that they are involved in _imitation_. The subject's neurons guide imitating what is "seen in the mirror" . A mirror image replicates something perceived.
My whole thing about the signs-symbols of language is the _arbitrary_ relationship, not the "_imitative_ " relationship between signifier and signified. The signifier does not "mirror" the thing signified. Neurons involved in signifying would not be "mirrors" but ...well something that unifies or identifies "opposites" or at least differences. In other words, a "dialectical" neuron. A "lying" neuron, actually, one that says two different things are identical. Then I ask why would identifying two things that are not identical arise ? That's where I get to the idea that symbols can cross the death barrier , whereas the bodily actions of the ancestor cannot cross the death barrier. The bodily actions of the ancestor cross the death barrier in the form of signs which are not the body, but which are used to represent that body and its many actions. In other words, the fact that the signifier is _not_ the "thing" or processes that it signified is the characteristic that allows it to get across the death barrier that the body of the ancestor faces. The symboling and language built up allows the accumulation of the experiences over many generations within the group as its tradition and culture. So it would be "symboling" neurons, not mirror neurons that are the ones to be found. We are looking for neurons that symbolize, not neurons that mirror. This doesn't mean that humans don't imitate at all. Humans both imitate and symbolize. One would expect them to have both mirroring and symboling neurons. Monkeys mainly imitate, with diminimis symboling , if any. Chimps mainly imitate, with very little symboling, especially when not taught to symbolize by humans. CB CeJ jannuzi at gmail.com Some more recommended readings with indicative excerpts. CJ http://www.unipr.it/arpa/mirror/pubs/pdffiles/ferrari/Curr_Directions_Psy.pdf Recently we found (Fogassi et al., 2005) that mirror neurons belonging to the parieto-frontal motor system2 differentially code a motor act according to the final goal of the action sequence in which the act is embedded. For example, a certain mirror neuron activates when the monkey observes another individual grasping food for eating it (the action’s final goal) and not when that individual grasps it for placing it into a container. Based on these findings, we postulated that the motor system is organized into neuronal chains, each coding a specific goal and combining different elements (motor acts) of the action. Further preliminary _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
