William: Quite! A favourite example of mine is "cleave" which, in 2008, may
"mean" either: to draw together as in a man shall cleave unto his wife and
to cut as in a cleaver.
I would submit that Cheerskep is right in maintaining that there is a need
to avoid certain types of ambiguity in plays and novels whereas that concern
is probably absent for musical or visual works. I see a richness in a work
in which the amibiguity supports a variety of meanings in viewers or
listeners.
My argument with Cheerskep was not that there is an inherent absolute
meaning that words "have" but rather that, if he's established that meaning
is created when our minds seize on sets of letters and extract a meaning
from them, he need not view every instance in which someone posts a
statement which is phrased casually or even carelessly as an opportunity to
return to a previous discussion if the poster is endeavouring to raise a
point about another issue.
Geoff C
From: William Conger <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: "Certainty" AND "ART"
Date: Thu, 6 Nov 2008 07:36:13 -0800 (PST)
Objects in the world are discrete, measurable, but meaning is an
ever-changing stream of judgment, naming, and all the rest -- those
impertinent "notions". Not even notions can be regarded as make-believe
objects. They emerge and dissolve in a continuous flux of forming and
reforming --to be grasped at by outstretched fingers of purposeful
conciousness.
I think artworks are objects that symbolize that flow of 'notions" the
continual play of associations that emerge, crystalize, become momentary
"meanings" and then quickly dissolve to re-emerge endlessly in new ways.
Our conscious is the witness to this. Or as some posit, our conscious is
created by it for the purpose of witnessing it. That's why I claim
ambiguity and continual referentiality and multiple association as central
to experiencing art with the consequence of futility of seeking specific
"meaning".
This is where I depart from Cheerskep. While I agree that meaning is
constructed from sense experience and is not inherent to anything
objective, I don't think we can mentally constuct a meaning as if it had
the discrete objecthood of things in the world. Meaning just keeps on
flowing through consciousness, always changing.
WC
--- On Wed, 11/5/08, GEOFF CREALOCK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> From: GEOFF CREALOCK <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: "Certainty" AND "ART"
> To: [email protected]
> Date: Wednesday, November 5, 2008, 10:35 PM
> Cheerskep: (Since we seem to be onto this subject again): It
> doesn't seem
> much of a leap from words, or forms, lead to/engender
> associations, to words
> mean something.
> Yes, I know, you still assert that our minds do the
> meaning-finding, but in
> everyday talk, most of act like, words, or smells of cats,
> mean something.
> Geoff C
