From: Arlo J. Bensinger (ajb102@psu.edu)
Date: Sat Apr 30 2005 - 01:01:07 BST
[Arlo previously]
> > Quality is best described, as you suggest, metaphorically as a "force".
Semiosis holds that we do not experience this force "tabula rasa" (as would an
amoeba or quartz crystal) but via contextual patterns that have been formed and
passed down to use, culturally and historically, and solidified into particular
symbolic representae.
[Platt repsonded]
> As Pirsig (and Paul) pointed out, a baby has likes and dislikes (value
> responses) before cultural influences. So experience of the "force" is "tabula
rosa." No doubt that as the child matures, the patterns you speak of come into
play.
[Arlo says]
You're right to point this out. There is a "pre-semiotic" time in which an
infant "experiences". However, I'd argue that semiotic influences begin to
shape the developing infant before the child has the agency to directly
manipulate those symbols her/himself. For example, infants are exposed to
cultural patterns (beddings, colors, sounds, parental "cooing", etc.) very
shortly after their birth. Simply, we surround our infants with sensory
experience deemed culturally valuable. So although it is pre-semiotic
experience on the infants part, it is still experience to culturally valued
sensations.
More on semiosis from Pirsig (Lila, 24): Our scientific description of nature is
always culturally derived. Nature tells us only what our culture predisposes us
to hear. The *selection* of which inorganic patterns to observe and which to
ignore is made on the basis of social patterns of value, or when it is not, on
the basis of biological patterns of value.
I'd extend Pirsig's insight to say that not only does cultural-derivation
influence perception of biological and inorganic patterns, but of social and
intellectual as well. That is, we "see" social and intellectual patterns as we
do because we are culturally-semiotically "told to".
(Of course this makes it sound like we're autamatons, which is absolutley not
what semiotics is about. Only that there is a "filter" at work, as Pirsig calls
it, or "structuration" as Giddens would say, to how we represent experience-
which influnces "how" we experience it.)
[Arlo previously]
> > At any rate, short of the last sentance that I can't understand, I could do
little better than what you've offered.
[Platt responded]
> Thanks very much. It's great we can agree. My last sentence read:
> "This force exhibits design because the initial state and the laws of the
universe actualize the states of value of our experience."
>
> If you believe patterns are designs, and if you believe that the initial
> Big Bang was followed by the creation of inorganic patterns according to
> the DQ force and physical laws, then the resultant patterns (states of
> value of our experience) suggest are larger design at work.
>
> Of course, infinite regress is not far behind -- where did the larger
> design come from? The only thing that can stop that, regardless of the how
creation is explained (God, Chief Buffalo, or whatever) , is someone
> believing, "That's a high quality explanation." The idea that it was all
> luck, chance or accidental explains nothing.
>
> Make any sense to you?
[Arlo]
Maybe a little. You are saying that patterns (inorganic) emerged following the
Big Bang are a result of the DQ force? I would agree with this (although I'd
say that "physical laws" had nothing to do with it, those are
conceptualizations to describe inorganic quality, no?).
Then you say that the value experiences we have suggest a larger design? I think
this is where I am getting confused, maybe because I'm not sure what you mean
by "if you believe patterns are designs"?
Arlo
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