[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] Not "defined away", simply defined as something other than "thought". Again, to me, "non-symbolic thought" is an oxymoron. There is, as I've said, non-symbolic experience, but "thought" is the symbolic encoding of this. [Krimel] I know I sound dense here but I don't see how you are avoiding circularity and I don't see how emotions, sensations, the fireman who saves his crew, the scientist with the revelation of the snake etc. are not examples of thoughts that are unconscious and non-symbolic but thoughts none the less. [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. [Arlo] Sure they do, they "stand" for whatever it is they are an image of. But maybe here we are getting to Peirce's distinction between icon, sign and symbol. If we are using Peirce's terminology, an "image" often functions iconically, may function symbolically, but is always semiotic. [Krimel] I don't see how images work this way. If I bring to mind the image of a rose it is not a picture of a rose it is a replay of the experience of a rose. It is more than a visual image it includes texture, smell, sensation, emotional valance etc. It is not a symbol. It is a cluster of experience held in memory. [Arlo] An audio recording, a painting, and a novel are all semiotically encoded, and semiotically consumed, yes. In all cases, the "artist" makes certain choices about using particular symbols (tones, hues, phrasing, etc) in an attempt to convey specific meaning. Whether you hear this "live" in a concert hall, on an analog record, or as a digital mp3 from iTunes makes no difference. [Krimel] My question had to do with the encoding of memory not external representation. The difference between analog and digital is that digital recording is encoded as ones and zeros analog recording have a near one to one correspondence between the event and the recording. The event on playback is not decoded it is reproduced. My point is that memory is not a matter of decoding but of reproduction and not just in a single modality but multiple modalities. [Krimel] I think there is an innate capacity to emit and understand emotional content both through sound and body language. [Arlo] A baby "learns" to read sounds and body language in a highly social interactive field. As the baby "learns" what this or that "sound" means, and what (even incredibly nuanced) body language means, s/he is at that moment semiotic. The very first moment where s/he understands that a noise s/he makes has "meaning"for another, and this happens very, very early on, the infant begins "reading"and consuming her/his world via symbols. Indeed, prior to this the baby has no concept of "I cry because I am hungry", the biological pain of "she knows not want" causes the infant to cry. As the pain is subdued (though feeding) the infant makes two associations (or more), one that the pain is associated with the pleasure of feeding (of course, not in words like this) and two that the very act of crying is interpreted by the other as a sign to begin feeding. From then on, the baby's cries are semiotic, and the baby learns particular cultural-social concepts such as hunger and taste and how to feed, etc. [Krimel] I think this explanation works for symbolic language but not for the emotional expression of tone, facial expression or body language. If this were true we would see a cross cultural range of emotional expression and body language in the same way and for the same reasons that we see it in verbal expression. Instead at least for the most basic emotions, there is an amazing uniformity of expression and ability to communicate universally in our species. You could say this results from genetic encoding but is that semiotic as well? [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. [Arlo] Yes to the first, no to the second. For example, consider Pavlov's dog, who demonstrated the ability to make the association between the bell and the food. Most semioticians (AFAIK) would say that, no, this is not a semiotic event, but would argue that for humans our associations are so enmeshed in our language (we explain things to ourselves) that we rarely have such unconscious animalistic responses. Others would argue that the dog is indeed engaging in semiosis, primitive and non-elaborate semiosis but semiosis anyways. But I suppose the door is open here. [Krimel] An open door in a house divided? I think this leaves an opening an elephant could walk through. I don't think that unconscious animalistic responses are at all rare. I think they determine our behavior at least as much as conscious responses. In fact I think conscious responses serve mainly to check or curtail these more common and pervasive unconscious determinants of behavior. [Arlo] First, this is more than just "learning by rehearsing verbal instructions". The act of learning to drive involves learning a whole field of textual, semiotic,cultural symbols. We have to read "STOP" correctly, we are told via language "drive on the right side of the road" and "yield means slow down and let other cars have the right of way", and we come into the act of learning the motor skills _through_ this semiotic involvement. And as we are learning the motor skills, we are always mediating our actions by reviewing a host of factors such as what we learned, what did so and so say to do, here, turtle!, etc. Further, we "learn" how to "read" things we see, a deer along the road means slow down, someone flashing their highbeams means a cop ahead or danger of some sort, and these all become part of our semiotic repertoire. [Krimel] I'm not suggesting that verbal and symbolic thought are not involved and involved heavily in this kind of learning. (Even though that is exactly what I said...) But I would argue that there is a large measure of non-verbal non-symbolic tuning of emotional and affective responding going on as well. Now this is probably what you described earlier as the shaping of non-symbolic thought by symbolic thought (oxymoron noted) but it seems a bit arbitrary here to say which is the cart and which is the horse. It also highlights my problem with failing to recognize emotion and sensation as patterns of thought. 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/
