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<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Dear BMILISTS,</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Over the last three months or so, I have been
following some of your work with great interest, trying to understand it in
the context of fast developing cognitive science(s?). I do believe that
<STRONG>the mind is embodied</STRONG> and consequently biologists,
particularly brain scientists, (will) have a lot to say about this
ill-defined 'thing'. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>However, educated in the humanities (I graduated in
sinology from Leyden University) and becoming increasingly interested in
the science of complexity, I believe that <STRONG>the mind is
also embedded</STRONG>. For, as Lev Vygotsky already argued in
his book <EM>Mind in Society</EM> (1930): 'The mind cannot be understood in
isolation from the surrounding society', an original idea revisited in
Andrzej Nowak, Katarzyna Winkowska-Nowak and David Brée (eds.), <EM>Complex
Human Dynamics: From Mind to Society</EM>, Springer, 2013.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Culture (that other notoriously difficult to describe
'thing', about which many books have been written) seems to be the
missing link between mind and society. So the conundrum workers in
the natural and cultural (<EM>i.e. </EM>social and human) sciences should
address collaboratively is the identification, characterisation and
understanding of <STRONG>the intimate connection between</STRONG> <STRONG>mind's
embodiedness and embeddedness</STRONG>.<STRONG> </STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial><STRONG></STRONG></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Arguably, there is nothing more complex than a country, or
a culture, being a hypercomplex system of complex systems in context (its
outside world). If 'a revolution is occurring in the social sciences', as the
editors of <EM>Complex Human Dynamics </EM>claim, that easily overlooked point
is to be taken into account. See the article 'Lifting the study of
China onto a higher plane' that I recently posted on the website <A
href="http://www.academia.edu">www.academia.edu</A>.
<STRONG><EM> </EM></STRONG></FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Since I am currently working on a book provisionally
entitled <EM>The Complexity of Countries</EM>, I wonder if anyone of you could
suggest what I should definitely read to be well-informed about
the cutting edge research not only on <U>brain</U>, <U>mind</U>,
<U>society</U> and <U>culture</U> but also (and perhaps in the first place) on
the relationships between these intricately patterned
entities. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Needless to say, I would be most grateful if you could
help me.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Yours sincerely,</FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Hans Kuijper</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>Joliotplaats 5</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>3069 JJ Rotterdam</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT face=Arial>The Netherlands</FONT></DIV>
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