[Krimel] Why couldn't you just as easily say that semiotic structure emerges from the pre-semiotic experience?
[Arlo] I can. The nuance is that it is not only semiotic structure that is mutated by semiosis, but also the very "pre-semiotic" experience itself. Rather, I'd argue, that any particular cultural-historical semiotic architecture both emerges from pre-semiotic experiences and shape those experiences. [Krimel] But it seems as if you are saying that only semiotic thought counts as thought therefore all thought is semiotic. [Arlo] It shouldn't seem so, Krimel, that's exactly what I am saying. Bear in mind we may be using the word "thought" differently. I do not, for example, consider pre-semiotic aesthetic experiences as "thought". I do not consider gut-feelings and pre-verbal sensations as "thought". For me, the very act of "thinking" implies the manipulation of symbols... semiosis. Whether you are manipulating "numbers", "words" or "images", those are all "textual" in the sense that they carry meaning encoded in the semiotic system we have assimilated and deploy. [Krimel] Well sure we have lots of preconceptions and language shapes lots of them. But the shape is also determined by our emotional responses to the language structures and much of the meaning we get is imparted by tone of voice. Layer upon layer indeed but not all the layers are linguistic. [Arlo] Tone is very much linguistic, Krimel. We teach it, for example, as an important part of advanced proficiency in languages (as we do gesture). We "read" the tone of our interlocutor the same way we "read" his words and "read" the meaning of his gestures. All of these are deeply semiotic, if they were not, you would not even notice them. [Krimel] As I said I would even grant that art and music are semiotic and still claim it is just as often the reverse; that concepts shape the rules and forms of language. In other words we verbalize what we intellectualize or that language is the objectification of the subjective. [Arlo] Of course, but bear in mind that there is a particular structurated trajectory of possibility at play. We can only extend language so far. If you read back over the texts of the past two-thousand years, you still understand much of what is said, and differences (language gaps) appear only after you travel back quite far. This is also why no one could have formulated quantum physics in 1295. The concepts that had to precede this, to give it potentiality, did not exist, and the language could not "jump" that far. [Krimel] Among the pre-intellectual thoughts that you are excluding are some fairly complicated cognitions though. Sensation, just plain raw sensory experience, is very complex as are emotions and memories, especially special memory, cognitive maps if you will. In fact all memory is a fairly complex integration of sensory feelings that have very little to do with language. [Arlo] Well, memories are symbolically encoded events, so that's semiosis right there. But sensations and emotions, powerful as they are, are pre-thought. Once we build thoughts around them, even to the point of building visual associations, we are using symbols and words... semiosis. [Krimel] But I don't think this process is ever complete. Each of us retains within us the private sociopath. [Arlo] Of course we do. "We" are the meeting point between the assimilated social consciousness and the unique experiences of our boundedness. Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org.uk/pipermail/moq_discuss_archive/
