Pei: > Though many people assume "reasoning" can only been applied to
"symbolic" or "linguistic" materials, I'm not convinced yet, nor that
there is really a separate "imaginative reasoning" --- at least I
haven't seen a concrete proposal on what it means and why it is
different.
I should be supplying a detailed argument that in effect deals with this
soon. However just to keep you busy :) -
here is a v. cool website:
http://www.citrinitas.com/history_of_viscom/index.html
tracing the history of communication. Perhaps you'd like to set out how
logic can explain the invention of ONE SINGLE form of symbolic
communication - from pictograms to cuneiform, ideograms, Greek alphabet, .
etc. right down to the a's and b's of logic, x's and y's of algebra, and
1's and 0's of computers. How, pace Saussure, do you come to associate
"TREE" or "ARBRE" or any of the thousands of equivalent words in different
languages, with the actual object, with branches and leaves, that they refer
to? There is no connection, nothing for logic to work on at all. There is
no physical or other relation between the signifier and the signified. Every
symbolic system is entirely *arbitrary.* How were they arrived at? All those
"A"'s and "B"'s and "C"'s (without which you couldn't function
intellectually). By acts of *imagination* / pure imaginative association.
I suspect - and correct me - that you haven't thought much at all about this
whole area of imaginative and visual reasoning - i.e. how one image is drawn
from another, or how someone delineates a drawing of an object from the
object itself. How, say, do you get from a human face to the distorted
portraits of Modigliani, Picasso, Francis Bacon, Scarfe, or any cartoonist?
By logical or mathematical formulae? Which parts of the face do logic or
semantic networks tell you to highlight or leave out or transpose or smudge
or overlay, or what to blur, and what to sharpen? Which of the continuously
changing expressions on a person's face does logic tell you are most
representative of their personality?
And just as you are blind to the imaginative basis of all symbolic forms, so
you are blind to the imaginative basis of the whole of science and
technology - how,. other than by an act of supreme imagination, do you
think Descartes invented coordinate geometry? (no coordinates or axes in
nature) or Archimedes thought of measuring irregular solids (no baths or
water containers classified under "measuring instruments"?) And blind too to
the imaginative basis of all reasoning, period, including logic. But your
reply has been v. helpful.
P.S. I'm starting to get it here - you can't ahem imagine that one image
(and therefore conclusion) can be drawn/reasoned from another. You in effect
think that if you see an erection bulging through a trouser, the reason you
know that person is sexually excited is because there is a semantic,
symbolic network in your head - "ERECTION" - "SEXUAL" - "SIGN OF
EXCITEMENT" that you use to reason here. No, it's because you've seen direct
sensory images of (concealed) erections connected (via observation) with
other sensory images of excited faces. And when you have sex, you will
engage in thousands of other comparable acts of imaginative reasoning. At
this stage, you will be probably thinking, "well, "ERECTION" "EXCITEMENT"
etc - why couldn't there be such a semantic network in my head?" Well,
actually there could be for that particular one (in addition to the
imaginative connection). But there couldn't be for most of the others. How,
for example, does a partner's panting tell you when they're excited (and not
just heavily breathing)? That and most of your sexual reasoning (and indeed
reasoning for day-to-day activities) will come under Polanyi's "tacit
knowledge." Not under "Pei's Logical Rules of Sex." Entirely imaginative
observations of which object movements/behaviour follow upon which other
ones. Entirely "drawn" conclusions. (We obviously need something like an
Encyclopaedia/ Movie Library of Tacit/Imaginative Knowledge - it's vast. How
do you know Madonna is a toughie just from her face? - you do but it's
imaginative knowledge and you probably don't have the words to hand to
explain. And ditto for most of your knowledge about human beings and
animals).
-------------------------------------------
agi
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