[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". [Krimel] My point is that this is a very circular argument that elevates the role of symbolic thought and ignores the critical importance of non-symbolic thought which is simply defined away. [Arlo] 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] Numbers and word yes. Images no. Images in memory are not symbolically encoded in the same fashion. They do not stand for something else. They are necessarily part of any symbolic system. Are you saying that a recording is a semiotic system. I might be able to see digital recording this way but I have a harder time seeing analog recording as semiotic. [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] I don't think tone is linguist in the way you describe it. I think there is an innate capacity to emit and understand emotional content both through sound and body language. It may help in learning language to render that skill semiotic just as actors learned to manipulate tone and body language for dramatic effect. Even there the method school of acting teaches actors not to do this symbolically but through the use of imagination to actually feel the emotions and let them be expressed naturally rather than artificially. [Arlo] 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] I think this works in that we have a limited capacity to understand ancient texts. The illusion that we can understand ancient writings is hard for most people to overcome and leads to tragic misunderstanding particularly in the area of religion. This is why for all its faults I prefer the KJV of the Bible. Its style does not allow me the luxury of reading it as a modern work. As for whether ancient could or couldn't have formulated modern concepts that's speculative. The fact is they didn't although it appears that Archimedes may have formulated something very like the calculus 1500 years before Newton and Leibnitz. Still I would not argue that symbolic thought is critical to abstract reasoning and that it builds cumulatively. [Krimel earlier] 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] Sensations and emotions are autonomic yes and this was my original point that thought and symbols emerges from them not the reverse. But associations between sensation and emotion do not require symbolic mediation. As to the issue of memory this raises the digital analog question and I await your response on that one. [Arlo] Point is that we, as humans, are excellent habituated beings. We drive our cars in our latter years almost as if it were an automatic experience. We don't think "now push on the gas, now clutch, now look both ways", we just do it, but his habituated quickness does not bypass words, it merely makes it go so quickly it seems that way. [Krimel] I think this stretches the meaning of verbal mediation way past the breaking point. We can habituate to environmental stimuli without conscious mediation at all. As when we stop hearing clocks tick or trains passing by fail to wake us up at night and we wake when they don't pass by. In fact I don't think we learn motor skills like driving at all by rehearsing verbal instructions. We do them and adjust our performance according to the emotional valance of rightness or wrongness. Again if you are defining memory and the perception of emotional valance as semiotic this seems like a fairly circular process of definition. Its as though you are saying well that not symbolically mediated but it is still semiotic because everything its semiotic so it must be too. Ron: That was my meaning, I tend to want to leave the door open to thought Simply for the reason that intellect is relatively new to the socio-biological scene. This is what I meant by layers of influence it All can amount to an in-accurate perception. [Krimel] I am saying that symbolic thought is involved in the relatively new scene and that's great. But the older stuff emotion, sensation and memory play and much larger role in how we think and act than does "intellect" in that sense. Ron; Just like the Mandelbrot set, One variable can alter the structure dramatically. A false bad feeling can manifest in intellectually poor choices and conceptions all stemming From an iron deficiency or some chemical abnormality. [Krimel] Just a technical point but the Mandelbrot set never changes. We see difference parts of it based on the number we seed into it but the set itself, though infinite is constant. I think Arlo is working around to making even the autonomic response to iron deficiency semiotic but I remain deeply suspicious of this. Ron How We parse up experience in understandable terms. Thoughts are Thoughts are thoughts, that much we can drop for the moment, It's when we do what we are doing NOW, intellectualizing, That it becomes a relevant observation. That's what I'm concerned With. The mind/matter paradox is a intellectual paradox, it Really does not exist. s/o aggregate - grammar. self/other -grammar. I suspect a few folks here to call this absurd For it dashes everything. The house of mirrors comes down And all we are left with is the immediate now. [Krimel] I get what you are saying but I see it differently. From the individual perspective only MY mind exists phenomenologically. All that exists for me is the result of neurological impulses. But to the extent that I experience you and share experiences in common with you, all that exists is matter, that is a set of constant relationships and patterns that you and I agree upon. The paradox is that experience is totally mind but what exists is totally matter. Now I personally believe that my mind and neurological states arise from that external world of patterns and relationships and that the seeming duality does not exist. I frankly admit there is faith involve. I think it is more of a skip of faith than a leap of faith. But this is drifting way off topic. 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/
