We agree well enough. But I'm pretty sure I agree more with Dave's suggestion that Adams and Trump are similar, or at least that Adams thinks so. And, as long as we fudge the meaning of "Great Communicator" to mean something Adams might like (poet?), then we might get closer to understanding (and agreeing with) the position. So, if we disagree, it's only in that.
Re: signalling -- I'm not at all well-read in PoMo. My guess is that everyone on this list has read more than I have. The only reason my name might come up is because I make an effort to *defend* it when I see the dogpile/groupthink against it. It's so tiresome to see dogpiles on anything. (If you've never been dogpiled, I highly recommend it. It fscking sucks, especially for weirdos who don't like to be touched. I was dogpiled a handful of times back at aTm. They soon learned that I wasn't into that kind of homoerotic bonding and stopped.) Having waxed about my ignorance, I'll say that I don't think signalling plays any larger role in PoMo reasoning than it does in Mo (or even scientific) reasoning. Peirce's semiotics is a grand example. But *what* is being signaled does play a role in PoMo. The allowance of purely manufactured reality and stigmergy are, to me, the PoMo triggers. A pasty stick boy might wear a trucker hat because he likes hats or he might wear it as an ironic signal to his hipster friends. PoMo leans toward that power/status relationship, whereas Mo leans toward the former. I think its similar with your birds. Re: registration -- Registration, in my ignorance, means something like classification or binning. But it's classification *without* pre-programmed categories. So more like clustering, I guess. You simply "look" out into the milieu and if you see a cluster, you register it. The process can take time, which then leads to the timing of one's registration. Let's say you walk into a snake handling Pentecostal ceremony and you immediately think "Batsh¡t" and walk out. Well, that's *premature* registration. You should give it a little more time, time to appreciate who's into it for the snakes and who's into it for the religion. 8^D If the Catholics handled snakes, I might *still* be going to church ... because ... snakes! But premature binding might be a good description of the process where your categories are (mostly) well-pre-defined, especially if you have multiple categorizations. And there's a good argument to be made that *none* of us could ever have a clean slate, without pre-programmed categories. So, binding vs registration becomes a bit of a useless distinction. Re: negative space -- I *think* my perspective is different from yours. I think in terms of duals, the negative space is exactly as representative as the positive space. It seems to me you think of the negative space as having more openness/unboundedness to it than the positive space. So a manipulator like Trump actually wields the closed/bounded negative space purposefully. It's not that he allows for *any* binding. He whistles so that the number of interpretations are MOST LIKELY to be drawn from a small set. If we were talking about something other than Trump, someone like Walt Whitman or whoever, *they* use negative space more like the way you seem to. On 1/12/21 1:09 PM, Steve Smith wrote: > Touche'... > > Well riposted! (to remain within the metaphor) (EricC can probably help > us groom our metaphor, we might be mangling it, I haven't held a foil > for 40 years and don't read nor watch "swashbucklers" excepting > "Princess Bride" every decade or so). > > I can't really quibble with anything you say here, though maybe I'm just > being lazy for not fine-toothing it enough... or else we are in the > proverbial "violent agreement"? > > Digging into your distinction between words (talk/type) and actions, > PoMo caricatures would suggest the everything humans do IS signalling, > right? Symbols all thew way down? I believe you to be PoMo literate > but not PoMo allegient, so maybe you can sort this for me a little > more. Similarly, I sit in front of a picture window most of the time > with an ad hoc array of elements that attract bird life (feeders, > birdbath, screen-of-branches, small cottonwood with lots of > "water-suckers", some rock-art piles, wooden bench, empty water > trough. I call this bird-TV and it lives up to it with it's near > telenovella quality of a caste of more characters than I can keep track > of signalling a wide range of intentions I can barely guess at among one > another. > > I trust that they actually eat what they eat, shit where they shit and > nest where they nest to respond to their most primary urges, but the > melodramas they play out at our "watering hole" also includes a great > deal of signalling. The birds of a feather (e.g. flocks) do seem to be > co-mmunicating to establish and maintain their flockness, to share in > finding food and avoiding danger, but the ones with disparate appetites > and perching/roosting/nesting habits still seem to signal with > vocalization, posture, trajectory a great deal. I wonder if you can > tease this experience/observation/milieu apart for me as well? > > I did read (when first offered) and appreciated your link to > "Transportation Theory" and it aligns with much of my own experience. > I suspect that there is a weaker version of this in the less (obviously > or familiarly) domain of animal communication. I once watched my > (outdoor) cat grab a robin and almost immediately a small flock of Pinon > Jays dropped their Pinons and swarmed the cat who, alarmed, released the > Robin. I wonder if they would have done the same if had been a tiny > grey bird or a mouse instead? If birds have vocal languages (Nick, > EricS, ?) then I suspect there is a huge Pidgen/Creole overlap between > species and their body-language would seem to overlap well too, > especially if their gross morphology (robin and jay for example) is > similar. I'm guessing that whatever the vocal/body language the robin > was emitting "Transported" the jays enough to make them "attack the > bully" out of some simple knee-jerk resonance (which is my inspiration > when an altercation erupts in public). There is definitely some > fascinating inter-species mixing going on on my Bird TV and I often > wonder if the different species are "learning" anything from one another > as they "mix it up"... they definitely (my projection?) seem to be > enjoying the milieu. > > Regarding "binding" vs "registration", you have corrected me on this > before and I acknowledge the utility of the difference (former being > primarily CS and the latter being Linguistic?) if there is a broader, > more useful explication of the difference in your usage? This also > seems to be your primary criticism of metaphor, that it invites (or > metaphor-ophiles are prone to) premature registration? > > I don't know if you addressed something I gesture at or write between > the lines often, which is my belief/assertion that the truly interesting > stuff is what is "between the lines", "in the white space", "in the > negative space", "in the gesture" which I think is the basis of your > criticism of Trump-as-Poet, that by leaving too much (everything) to the > receiver's imagination, nothing is achieved except (perhaps) a > superposition of delusions, tied only loosely by an emotion (grievance, > arrogance, self-righteousness)? This evokes (for me anyway) an > estuarial metaphor where a great deal of richness of life occurs between > the salty and the pure waters? -- ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ - .... . -..-. . -. -.. -..-. .. ... -..-. .... . .-. . 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