Stephen, list - I think this is a bit of 'putting the cart before
the horse'; I'm not a fan of Sebeok - and to say that because an
organism does not have the physiological equipment for speech means
that they will not use speech - is hardly a world-shaking analysis.
Perhaps I've missed the point.
Edwina
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On Wed 05/04/17 5:00 AM , "Stephen Jarosek" sjaro...@iinet.net.au
sent:
List,
Allow me to take advantage of this lull in postings to elaborate on
the relationship between pragmatism and the mind-body unity. The
notion of body-as-tool is a very important one because it sheds light
on so many things, from sex differences in most species to gender
roles in culture, to why cats don’t boogie, to why dogs don’t
wear suits.
Or, why can’t dogs ever be taught to drive? Because their
mind-bodies do not predispose them to caring about all the contexts
that must come together to make driving a “thing”. Why can’t
cats be taught to use a fork and knife instead of gulping down their
cat-food from a bowl? Because their mind-bodies provide no basis upon
which they should define table manners as relevant. But can’t you
just indoctrinate the most stubborn of critters by repetition, or
shouting instructions at them more often and more loudly? No, because
you cannot cross pragmatism’s mind-body barrier. If something cannot
matter to an entity, then no manner of shouting at it is going to
change their minds. To a cat with four paws and no vocal chords with
which to voice approval or dissent, a fork and knife will bear no
relationship to food, and it never can. Now you might be able to make
table-manners matter by the force of will and the threat of
punishment, but said “manners” will never matter in the same way
that it matters to humans, the meaning is completely different.
None of this has anything to do with “intelligence” and
everything to do with motivation (firstness?) and bodily
predispositions and how an entity defines the things that matter.
It’s a fundamentally simple idea that is often expressed along the
following lines (variously misattributed to everyone, from Mark Twain
to Abraham Maslow):
“If Your Only Tool Is a Hammer Then Every Problem Looks Like a
Nail”
“A man whose only tool is a hammer will perceive the world in
terms of nails”
“A critter whose only tool is four paws, fur and whiskers will
perceive the world in terms of cat-food.”
(ahem… that last one was me)
Developing upon this theme:
A human whose only tool is a woman’s body will perceive the world
principally in terms of the cultural known;
A human whose only tool is a man’s body will perceive the world
principally in terms of the interface between the cultural known and
the unknown.
(where the cultural known relates to the habits of established
authority, traditions, values, etc, and the cultural unknown relates
to risk, competition, resource management, etc)
Thomas Sebeok was basically on track with his thesis that an ape can
never use language to communicate with humans:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/02/us/thomas-sebeok-81-debunker-of-ape-human-speech-theory.html
[1]
Now whether or not Sebeok’s thesis is 100% accurate, before an ape
can be taught to speak, it has to have the MOTIVATION to speak. And
that can only come about by somehow addressing the ape’s mind-body
predispositions, and the environment with which it interfaces, to
draw those predispositions into actuality.
Now perhaps I am making leaps in reasoning that need to be laid out.
The notion of Self as Sign, for example, might be better understood if
we factored in the DNA entanglement that unifies all the cells
constituting a mind-body (holon), into a single unity. Without at
least an outline alluding to the physics of this unity (the binding
problem), our way forward will remain ambiguous. Either way, my
position is that the notion of body as tool is fundamental to
understanding pragmatism (and consciousness). And this is not
inconsistent with the notion of mind-body, or holon, as Sign. A more
detailed explanation of my line of reasoning can be found in the
Biosemiotics journal (Springer), or at:
https://www.academia.edu/3236559/Pragmatism_Neural_Plasticity_and_Mind-Body_Unity
[2]
My paper on DNA entanglement is scheduled to be published in a
couple of months time in another journal – an outline of the
original relevant concepts exists:
https://www.academia.edu/29626663/DNA_ENTANGLEMENT_THE_EVIDENCE_MOUNTS
[3]
sj
Links:
------
[1]
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/02/us/thomas-sebeok-81-debunker-of-ape-human-speech-theory.html
[2]
https://www.academia.edu/3236559/Pragmatism_Neural_Plasticity_and_Mind-Body_Unity
[3]
https://www.academia.edu/29626663/DNA_ENTANGLEMENT_THE_EVIDENCE_MOUNTS
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