From: Erin (macavity11@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Nov 08 2005 - 02:44:48 GMT
Case this is the kind of posts that I was referring to
when I said it frustrates when people argue against
Scott's theory with not taking into consideration his
reconceptualization of language.
This is what you sound like....well if you think
language is _____then it is crazy to think this about
language. Scott has repeatedly said he does not think
language is ____ so in my opinion your point is
pointless. If you want to poke holes in his argument
than you need to do so by showing why his
conceptualization of language is wrong or use his
reconceptualization and show how that leads to other
possibilities.
Erin
--- Case < > wrote:
> Case said:
> Beyond the attack ad hominem, this idea that
> consciousness evolves in fits
> and starts is fundamentally flawed. It is far more
> likely that changes in
> the ways cultures see the world are ratcheted
> forward by technology rather
> than evolution. Inventions like astrology, the
> plowshare, the drainage
> canal, animal husbandry or the development of a
> leisure class more than
> account for the paradigm shifts we observe in
> history and as far as we can
> tell in prehistory.
>
> Scott:
> Do they account for the evidence that the data has
> changed, about which
> understandings of the world are formed?
>
> [Case]
> That is what a paradigm shift is; so yes they do.
>
> Case said:
> I believe it has been readily demonstrated that in
> addition to being
> linguistic creatures human beings think, learn and
> respond in many ways that
> are purely nonverbal, from jumping at the sound of
> thunder to orgasm. We
> "just get feelings about things."
>
> Furthermore to identify the totality of experience
> with language seems a bit
> limiting especially if this is based on semiotics
> which appears to be a
> theory designed to explain language. The Saussurean
> model doesn't even need
> to bother with referents since languages can be
> developed to talk about
> nothing at all.
>
> However, language is not even the only way we
> communicate.
> There is a whole set of unconscious nonverbal
> behaviors that take place
> between mothers and their infants. Both seem to be
> genetically programmed as
> partners in a dance.
> Humans are as easily conditioned as dogs in a
> Pavlovian sense.
> In normal face to face conversations much, if not
> most, of the actual
> information conveyed is not verbal.
>
> Scott:
> I again made the mistake of using the word
> 'language', rather than
> 'semiosis', since obviously there is more to reality
> than English, French,
> Chinese, and so on. What I am saying is that every
> thing/event is a sign.
> It exists *because* it is a sign. Here I am working
> from the semiotics of
> Peirce (together with an important observation of
> Barfield's -- see below),
> rather than Saussure.
>
> [Case]
> Even adding the referent this is still a theory of
> language not of
> consciousness nor even communication. Nor do I see
> how it is relevant to the
> behavioral examples I listed.
>
> Scott;
> Put in MOQ-speak, it is that a static pattern of
> value is a pattern because
> it repeats. An event in a pattern is an event only
> because it takes part in
> a pattern. Hence we jump at the sound of thunder,
> because there is a
> biological SPOV that the sound takes part in. That
> sound acts in the same
> way that a word acts in a sentence. It is a sign. It
> signifies the concept:
> be alert when hearing a loud noise because there
> might be danger, though of
> course the body does not need this English
> translation.
>
> [Case]
> Ones reaction to thunder has nothing to do with
> signs or referents or points
> of view. This startle response requires no previous
> experience to elicit. It
> is more akin to the knee jerk reflex. It is in no
> way similar to a word in a
> sentence. None of that processing is required in the
> response. Translation
> of any kind may be fun post hoc but that's about
> all.
>
> The same holds true of classical conditioning. It is
> not linguistically or
> conceptually mediated except after the fact and not
> usually or even
> necessarily then.
>
> Same with mother-infant interactions.
>
> I submit that very little behavior is linguistically
> mediated. Try driving
> to work in full tilt conceptual analytical mode.
> You'll be lucky to get the
> keys in the car.
>
> Signs, signifiers and referents are part of the post
> game show not the
> leading edge of experience.
>
> [Scott]
> Now on to the (in your view) weird stuff. In another
> post you explain the
> development of intelligence as the expanding of the
> scope of temporal
> buffers. This makes a lot of sense, but leaves out
> one thing: in a strictly
> spatio-temporal world, how can there be a temporal
> buffer? To hear a single
> note in a melody requires that several hundred
> alternations in air pressure
> be smoothed out into a tone. How does this smoothing
> out happen?
>
> [Case]
> There is an extensive literature on how memory is
> processed. I was talking
> primarily about biological temporal buffering but
> mentioned genetics,
> memory, language and writing. The list could go on.
> Memory, in one form or
> another, is precisely the vehicle that removes us
> from the spactio-temporal.
> It provides a degree of random access. This makes us
> other than
> spacio-temporal creatures. The smoothing occurs
> because that's what buffers
> do.
>
> [Scott]
> Barfield starts "Saving the Appearances" with the
> observation that we all
> know that that which we experience (the contents of
> sense perception:
> colors, shapes, etc.) are not at all like the
> entities that physics tells us
> exist in the absence of perception, that is, quantum
> wave/particles. One can
> also observe that what makes quantum physics weird
> is not that it is
> paradoxical (there are no paradoxes in the
> mathematics that is used to
> formulate it) but that what is formulated cannot be
> pictured. Now what is
> picturable is the spatio-temporal. Quantum physics
> tells us of entities that
> cannot be fit into a strictly spatio-temporal
> structure. From this we should
> conclude that spatio-temporal structure is a product
> of perception, while
> what feeds into perception is not spatio-temporal.
> In short, the familiar
> macroscopic world's structure is the product of
> perception, and exists only
> when perceived. We know this, remarks Barfield, but
> then we immediately
> forget it when we ask "where does consciousness come
> from". We forget it
> when we assume that consciousness is a byproduct of
> the brain's
> spatio-temporal activity. In doing that, we are
> attempting to explain
> consciousness with the products of consciousness
> (which Steiner refers to as
> being like Baron Munchhausen saying that he lifted
> himself off the ground by
> pulling on his hair).
>
> [Case]
> It seems to me that quantum physics confirms what we
> see in Macroworld: That
> is there is plenty of uncertainty, so chose your
> metaphors carefully because
> anything can happen.
>
> I see no connection between quantum physics and
> perception in what you have
> said other than that you say they are connected. I
> do see that by our nature
> we access our senses sequentially and memory only
> fudges
=== message truncated ===
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