Signs and the Nature of Reality
This is a copy of a letter/paper that I am going to send to my philosophy proffesor regarding some subjects I have considered recently. I've done some editing to it so that it makes more sense here. If you are sick of my last posts then this will not help. On the other hand, I may change subjects again pretty soon, so relief is on the way.I noticed that in Sartre's essay, "what is writing" he distinguishes between two types of written word: poetry and prose, and claims that the two are fundamentally different in their outlook and origins. He notices that the use of signs are different in the two, also: in poetry, the meaning is not the words on the page, but the signs that are pronounced in the mind. In prose, the meaning and script are one and the same. This led me to two lines of thought.
First, the difference between signs and memes. I came at this problem at first with the idea that they were actually the same thing, one coming out of the line of philosophical thought and the other the result of scientific and linguistic analysis. I was both right and wrong. The difference is noted by Sartre, although he doesn't say it in as many words. There are two uses of language: one to project statements, and the other to wrap our minds around a concept that we don't have words to describe explicitly. Both are interrelated. I don't really think that Sartre thought that only writers who worked with line and meter were poets, and that all those who rhyme aren't really just saying something in a lyrical manner. For writing to be poetry, it must signify something within the reader's mind beyond the mere words on the page. This is the idea of signs. The literal or denotative aspect of writing has more to do with memes, the entities that are copied and repeated. This is the nature of silly jingles. But there is some overlap. The poetry does have its denotative aspect, that can lead to it becoming a meme. On the other hand, authors who do not mean to write poetry often manage to create material that gets meaning attached to it from some outside source. This is especially true when we analyze material from outside our own semiotic realm: we can find significance in a story from the past or foreign authors by trying to understand some of their thought for which we have no words. Imagine listening in on a conversation. If you are trained in linguistics, you can analyze the shifts in subject, the general point of view of each of the participants, and attribute meaning to their every move, but if you cannot do the same when you participate in your own colloquial conversations.
Second, the nature of reality. I just mentioned the difference between being on the outside and being on the inside in terms of a conversation and realizing meaning, and the same holds true with reality. 'Reality is what we make it' goes a popular saying. But for something to be real for you, you must be 'inside' it. This leads to a division in the reality of language. We can be inside language when we use it literally, but we cannot attribute any meaning to it. Realities come at us with various levels of complexity, and we can only attribute meaning to that reality by using signifiers that are part of the nature of that reality. The flip side of this is that the levels of signs or memes within each succesive reality become more and more complex, and leave us less and less likely to be able to understand them directly. Let me give some examples so that it becomes more clear.
Take nature. It is what I would call 'physical reality.' Its signs are very complicated and we are unable to attribute meaning to them, although we can often understand it directly: "it's cloudy, therefore it is going to rain." or "his forehead is hot, therefore he is sick." (This is, of course, based on a human understanding of cause and effect, which Hume pointed out was flawed, but it's how we work, so I'm going with it.) Okay, so natural reality is too complex. The next less complicated form of reality I see is social reality. Between the bonds of any group, like a family or club, a 'spirit' of sorts is created that has life of its own. (Ed. I will probably be doing a post or two on this later) This alters the behavior of the individuals that compose this superorganism but also gives them a sense of belonging and extends their influence much the same way machinery extends their physical capabilities. The signs that compose this reality are the signs between superorganisms and the meaning of the connections between the people involved. This is the level that meaning in ordinary language tries to engage: the universal nature of humans and their connection to other humans. Thus, the next level of reality is the level of thematic reality. There is much dispute on this, but I believe that here is the level of poetry, of music, and of art. These activities have different kind of spirit of their own, but it is a created spirit rather than an extended one. This is the level I should call meaning reality, but that doesn't make much sense so I call it thematic reality. We can't say what these things mean in words (despite what our English teachers say when they ask us to explicate poetry) but they contain the themes that the words we use manufacture. Then we have linguistic reality, the simple reality. If I have been unconsciously using value terms when describing these descending realities, then I apologize, and ask that you don't see them as descending in goodness, but only in complexity. Here we can see the advantages of simplicity. Namely, it is only here that we can explicate explicitly: we can say exactly what we mean. This means that we can create a shadow of the other realities in this one, and then explain them in different terms. We will never get the exact nature of the other realities, but we can get approximations of one view.
This has, I think, applications for everything. Or at least applications for everything academic, which is the only semiotic system I'm interested in. But I think I'll hold off explaining them all here and wait until I write a book, or do a thesis paper or something.
posted by Emmett @ 16:27
9 Comments:
This may seem off topic, but when I was reading this all I could think of was John Roberts. He has a brilliant legal mind. I think that understanding the Constitution and what rights it does or does not give, and how they should be protected, is a matter left to those who understand what the founding fathers understood: philosophy. Have you thought of going into the legal field and perhaps becoming a future Chief Justice of the Supreme Court? When I become president with my simplistic rhetoric and propoganda, I'll keep you in mind.
--That is, if higher education doesn't make you an ultra liberal. I don't think my conservative base would stand for anything but a Teddy Roosevelt mixed with a Johnathan Edwards (fiery preacher, not ambulance-chasing VP loser). That's an interesting mix, isn't it? Anyway, that's what they'll want, so if you want the job you'll have to act the part. At least act. Hey, if Bush can have his old buddy Harriet in then I could have one too, couldn't I?
About your post. I think your professor will understand it better than I do. It's very complex, and my "own semiotic realm" hasn't caught up with your deep, deep, DEEP train of thought. So much for rewriting so we mere mortals can understand. Let me read it again. My eyes started glazing over after trying to pronounce Sartre in my mind. I got snagged on that. I'll just call him Smarty.
"The flip side of this is that the levels of signs or memes within each succesive reality become more and more complex, and leave us less and less likely to be able to understand them directly."
I hope I understand what a successive reality is. Is it more tangible and describable? I'll assume this, even though I have a feeling you were thinking the other way.
Does your theory hold up to economics? Are national or global economics, within a "superorganism," easier to understand than, say, a single store's profit and deficit? I see your point in looking at less words equals more simple. I could also see more words equals easier to define and describe equals simpler. You can write the equivalent of all the books in the world and more about a young man's daily life, but less and less when you talk about what that boy's feelings are because words cannot describe feelings adequately. We often say feelings are complex, but how do we know if they are complex, or are they so simple, so basic and untainted by outside experience that words are in and of themselves an overstatment of what is going on. Thus the delema of writing a poem, where words are supposed to invoke feelings. It seems like the more you write the more words it takes to create a feeling within the reader. In poetry, fewer words are preferred and respected, so we have to rely on the reader's experience of what has created, or sparked, or rather reminded that boy of something that brought those feelings. We learn by past experiences, sure, but how can we learn love or agony or guilt or true joy? Do we learn by mimicking the outward displays of emotion by our parents and our associates? Can we really LEARN a feeling? Is one girl's sorrow an old man's love? Is the first love the same as the last? Both create tears, you can sob with joy as you can sob for mourning grief. Is there the same feeling for different people when they associate that feeling with, say, sorrow? Is there a way to transfer something that cannot be taught through language or sight or touch? Chemicals are associated with pleasure and pain impulses, but those are responses to physical stimuli and memories of previous physical stimuli, but what of things that don't involve physical stimuli or even language? You don't feel the same 'good' feelings completing a hard history test as you do when you eat a cookie. You don't feel 'bad' mourning a loss of a friend like you feel 'bad' after losing your favorite book. How do we learn to feel more than physically? Can we somehow exist within a "superorganism" to inherit humanity? Are humans carnal, sensual, and utterly senses-based animals when left without a mother or father or friends or city or country? Is humanity, what makes us human, something that evolved via society interaction, are values and beliefs chemical reactions within the brain, or are we inherently given what we have through other means? Can you tell me how to love, and even if you say that love brings physical reactions, chemicals in the brain, how can one chemical and one brain love someone as a coworker or as a fellow stranger? How can you feel love for someone that is a "Good Samaritan" to you? What is gratitude, hate, pure love, friendship, sorrow, joy, grief? The list goes on. There is a difference between joy and pleasure, between warmth from a fire and warmth from a friend, and so on. Does the physical explanation explain every stinking little thing that goes on in our life?
Okay, Chris. Four comments! Where to begin?
First, being supreme court justice would be a cool thing, and being a lawyer is something I have considered doing in order to become a judge. But as for college making me ultraliberal or becoming conservative in order to placate your base, I stand by my usual comment regarding politics: I am a moderate, I make fun of everybody equally.
As for your fourth comment, I think you zigged where I zagged. (I zag because I go to gon-zag-a)
I think of realms of less words being more complex, as we do not have words to describe them. But you pick up the theme anyway, and that's part of the idea- that themes transcend words. Some of your other questions pick up the idea of differences between realities, and some of them ask for meaning, and so transcend realities, and others are the kind of questions I wanted to provoke about the world when I wrote this. But I think you know the answers.
Your post was very long so I thought it deserved more attention and time in writing comments. You surely spent some time writing it, and I thought it might be wrong to only give a brief statement in agreement or disagreement. Sorry about taking over your comment box, though. Paul, Maren, pick up the slack and write!
Sheesh, I feel like I'm the only one here who reads Emmett's posts and says to myself, "Yes, that makes sense." Come on, what's with all this talk about "mere mortals?" Sheesh. He's totally brilliant, I know, but his posts aren't ineffable.
Anyway. Cool thing I just want to point out--according to this model, which is very nice, we create reality, or at least one of them and our perceptions of the others. The lowest reality you mentioned, linguistic reality, is basically something we create to describe the vast unknowns and almost-reachables of the more complex realities. Even such a simple linguistic reality as "I'm hungry" signifies incredibly complex processes in natural reality that, now that I think about it, I understand not in the slightest. We all agree that linguistic reality is a human construct, right?
Now, how it influences our perceptions of the other realities. Going back to my "I'm hungry" example, consider the words "starving" and "fasting." Those two words have an extremely different connotation in my mind, as they do for everyone here (Go Religious Peeps!). The natural reality of it is essentially the same--I'm not eating for longer than my carnal nature would normally allow. When I experience (perceive) them, however, they feel completely different. I once went for 36 hours on no more than a few gulps of water to help me with the antibiotic I was on at the time. Now, going without food for a full day HURTS if all I'm doing is starving. I would be in great mental anguish if I had starved for those 36 hours. I was, however, fasting. There was no anguish in my mind. There was, of course, hunger--the natural reality--but my I experienced (perceived) no pain from it. There was in my mind a clear difference between starving and fasting, and my experience (perception) altered to fit the same natural reality
Cool.
Your turn, Maren.
^_^
I've just discovered (in class! I didn't know you could learn things in class!) that English people refer to word and meaning as "vehical" and "tenor," vocabulary that I might be taking up.
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