From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 31 2004 - 15:11:29 BST
Hello Ham (all)...
Ham answered my "feral human" hypothetical...
> Sensibility to Value, unlike empirical knowledge, is probably present to
> some degree in all living creatures; but only man has the discriminative
> capacity (and intellectual freedom) to choose those values which give
> meaning to his life-experience.
My question is, restated, from where does man get this "discriminative capacity"
and ability to "give meaning to his life-experience"? Is it "hard wired" into
the brain (a biological affordance), or does it arise out of "learning" a
symbolic system?
Affordance, sorry, a term used in critical theory, means what you have surmised,
something that is made "doable" by something else.
I have stated in my thesis that realization
> of conditional (existential) value is not universal but is unique for each
> individual and will vary in accordance with the individual's "personal
> tastes and proclivities". These contingencies would of course include
> influences from the "social milieu" in which the individual is raised;
If the individual's personal tastes and proclivities "includes influences from
the social milieu", does it include things that are not? If so, how?
> so that in your hypothetical example one would expect to see less
> discrimination in the feral human's choice of values and a less finely tuned
> sense of value.
But one would see a measurably "human" discrimination of Value?
I would certainly
> hope that Wolfman's values would be different from your own, if that's what
you're getting at.
Oh, absolutely.
> I must confess that I'm not up on semiotics, and I really don't see their
> relevance to this concept.
Semiotics, which I think are quite relevant, extends that "man" thinks through
(not "with") symbols. And these symbols, a semiotic system, not only shape and
skew one's "individual cognition", they are the entirety of his cognition.
Simply, as Wittgenstein proposed, man cannot think outside his language, because
he thinks *through* his language. Any internal system (memory, cognition, ego,
whatever you want to call it) is a symbolic representation of reality, as
filtered through one's semiotic systems (language).
This is discussed when Pirsig states in ZMM:
"We take a handful of sand from the endless landscape of awareness and call that
handful of sand the world." Pirsig continues, "Once we have the handful of
sand, the world of which we are conscious, a process of discrimination goes to
work on it. This is the knife. We divide the sand into parts. This and that.
Here and there. Black and white. Now and then. The discrimination is the
division of the conscious universe into parts.” And importantly, "it’s
necessary to see that part of the landscape, inseparable from it, which must be
understood, is a figure in the middle of it, sorting sand into piles. To see
the landscape without seeing this figure is not to see the landscape at all."
You can only divide "experience" into "black and white" if you have a language
(semiotic system) that values (1) these categories, and (2) their polar
opposition. To use the snow example, an Eskimo could easily divide "experience"
into "qanik" and "anijo", since their language makes this categorization
salient. Pirsig continues in LILA discussing the "green flash of the sun",
something he only saw once it became salient, or valuable, to him.
Your categorizations of "individual" and "collective" are defined through your
language and culture, because our culture makes these terms salient. But they
are illusory, as are the the categorizations of "black and white" and "qanik
and anijo". They exist only within the semiotic system. This is what Anthony
and Pirsig were discussing about the "killing of the self", to see these
categories as illusory. The greatest goal is to see that these walls, primarily
the one that separates the individual from "the world" are imaginary.
That is not to say that they have no value within a particular culture as useful
ways to organize experience. But that is all they are, useful constructs not
absolute categories.
As innuendos, linguistics and symbols play a
> role in society and the media, I guess; so do sex and rap music. But how
> does that relate to the sense of value?
Media is entirely "symbols". To "mediate" is to stand between. This is
semiotics. As for "society", would it exist without semiotics? How?
I don't recognize the term
> "affordances" [nor does Webster's], so I'm not sure what you're asking. If
> the question is whether freedom of choice is restricted by the traditions of
> a specific culture, the answer is yes.
Restriction is the opposite of affordance. Thus, "traditions" (something that
can only exist through a semiotic system) both restrict and afford certain
activities and perceptions.
However, except for the culture's
> influence on values, intellectual freedom is not affected.
Intellectual freedom is not a process of valuation?
I recall Pirsig
> (who apparently likes to think of himself as an anthropologist) mentioning
> that the Eskimo has 20 words for "snow" in order to demonstrate the
> difference in values between cultures. The "zero vs. one" anecdote seems
> more applicable to cognitive (quantitative) knowledge than to Value.
Systems of "quantitative knowledge" represent what is "valued" in any particular
culture. It also demonstrates that we are blind to what is not valued. Was no
one in Europe capable of seeing the number zero? Or did it not exist because
the "persons sorting the sand into piles" had not categoriztion for "zero"
within their semiotic systems?
Again,
> values will differ from culture to culture as they differ between
> individuals, and the native language tends to reflect such differences.
>
Agree.
> > Would the individual be cognizant of reality in the absence of
> > socially-constructed semiotic systems, or is it that partaking in
> > socially-constructed semiotic systems allows the individual to create an
> > internal, symbolic representation of "reality"?
> >
> > Which is pretty much a restatement of my first question.
>
> Good! Because I've answered your first question in full and wouldn't even
> attempt to decipher this one.
>
Let me restate, just to be clear:
Would an individual have any cognition of "reality" if that individual had not
semiotic system (such as language) with which to work?
If so, how would that individual "represent" reality?
Pirsig mentions the idea of an amoeba responding to heat with simply an
awareness of "low quality". Since the amoeba has no semiotic system (no
"language"), can that amoeba ever know the concept of "heat". Man, with a
semiotic system at his disposal, would respond immediately to "low quality",
but then would be able to represent symbolically this event with the word
"heat". Thus, man can represent reality, but only with a semiotic system.
If you disagree, how else does one do it?
> > Can individual sensibility exist with a social semiotic to define it?
>
> Damned if I know. If you can come up with a semiotic definition for
> sensibility, I'd love to see what it looks like.
Me too. :-)
Arlo
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