So what is a memory if not more words? Cheerskep says words are ocasssions for memories and then goes on with a sample narrative memory. Wait! That narrative is constructed anew each time it's remembered and what was it without the words being employed to remember it? I'm suggesting that the word we utter is the outer end of the word we remember. And what of the word we remember? It too is a remembrance of yet another word and so on until we exhaust our quite finite aqrray of words. What are these images that get magically transformed into woirds? Cheerskkep says he can have mental images of small carrots. I say he has no outline or little colored carrot in his head. If he wants to insist that words are not the thing itself he can't simply say that the thing itself is somehow contained in a mental image. No one knows what mental images are other than some sort of excitement among neural zones. Do we have a sensation of diagrammatic images? Some say maybe because some blind from birth people can actually draw rough images of triangles and more complex shapes without ever having seen any and based only on description. They must have some spatial sensation. But what?
Cheerskep rejects my proposal that words create meaning. Why? Do the intricate water pipes and motors create the fountain? Yes, even though they are not the water. A word shapes meaning in the same way a shape determines an image. It gives substance to that which is without substance. The vehicle creates the meaning since there cannot be meaning without substance (a beginning and an end). Can there be meaning without limit, I mean without being confined by word or image? I suggest no, in fact, I suggest that the sensations that enable the formation of meaning are always greater and more subtle, and more ambiguous than any word or image or any collection of words or images. One simple proof of this is out habit of using a whole array of body language when we utter words or even when we draw or dance or whatever. Actually Cheerskep and I should be of one mind on this issue. I have tried to explain why my art is meaningless with the same logic that he employs to say that a word is meaningless, that it is simply an vehicle for meaning (the subject's meaning)/. However, I have also said that I don't think it is really possible to create a meaningless shape (including art shapes) because any shape will contain and "congeal" the non-substantive meaning (sensations of emotion, desire, and the like), and thus make meaning. Changing the shape changes the meaning, or as Wittgenstein said, "the meaning is in the use" My goal is to get as close to an "empty" shape as possible so as to maximize the flow of sensation-into-meaning. In this sense Cheerskep's fatal fuzziness is precisely what art aims at. Fuzzier the better. The best word/shape/color/movement is the fuzziest one. Again, I say there are no mental images as the fundamental consciousness of sensation, emotivion, desire) There are no little carrots in our heads. There are no pictures there. We create them with spoken or unspoken (silently said) words and gestures, sounds, marks. Most of all we tell stories that we may call memories but which are newly created each time we express them. Now I wonder if all meaning is text. No words, then no meanings. Not even with visual art or the performing arts. Which raises another qwuestion: Can sensations be echoed by images and sounds (as in cries or music) that have no meaning until remade as words (with a necessary loss)? WC --- [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > In a message dated 4/24/08 12:56:25 PM, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > > > Word is coded information. > > > No. A word is simply an occasion for memories -- > which will vary with the > associations of all the various people who > contemplate the word. Picture a > tree-stump on the side of a country road. The tree > was sheered one night when you > were driving, veered off the road, hit the tree, and > a friend with you was > killed. Every time you drive by that stump a flood > of associated, bloody memories > of that night come back to you. It is, say I, absurd > to say the stump is > encoded information. It is similarly absurd to say > that a word, like 'carrots', > because it is the occasion for your mind to > associate, is "encoded information". > > > If it is sensed it acts. > > > No. It does nothing. It is inert. It's the sensor > that is doing the "acting" > -- your mind, associating. > > > Words have power. > > > Oh? Say 'carrots' to a shepherd in the Andes. > Nothing ensues. It has no > "power" there. If you're inclined to say that's > because he doesn't know English, > realize that all learning English is, is this: the > piling up of memories of > experiences associated with the word's previous > appearance in your life. So the > alleged "power" of a word is actually the power of > the associating mind. > > > > ************** > Need a new ride? Check out the largest site for U.S. > used car listings > at AOL Autos. > > (http://autos.aol.com/used?NCID=aolcmp00300000002851)
