- My photographs are not planned or composed in advance, and I do not anticipate that the onlooker will share my viewpoint. However, I feel that if my photograph leaves an image on his mind, something has been accomplished. Robert Frank
On Sun, Aug 24, 2008 at 10:25 AM, <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > "Meaning" is always in a mind, never in an object. > > Whenever we look upon (or hear, or taste, or smell, or even palp) an > object, > the sense data each mind receives is more or less different from the next > mind's receipt, and each mind then "processes" it differently. > > The processing is largely a matter of associating the immediate sensations > with other notion already stored in memory. That inventory of memories, > plus the > intricacies of our associating apparatus, result in new notion that can be > of > wide variation from mind to mind -- variation and degree of "recognition". > > If confronted by an elaborate mathematical formula, many of us can go no > further than perhaps "recognizing" it as a mathematical formula, while a > mathematician's mind goes bounding on to all sorts of new notion. When > confronted with > a scription in a foreign alphabet, many of us may think, "Well, it's > eastern > Asian," -- and be wrong because it turns out to be ancient African or > something. > > What most of us have in mind when we talk of an object's "meaning" is > solely > in our heads, a somewhat "recognizable" notion. Thus when confronted with a > scription we are told is Attic Greek, we may say with a chortle, "It's all > Greek > to me!" Or, more seriously, "Well it's meaningless to me." When we say > that, > what we have in mind is the fact that our associating mind has not come up > with notion that we can "get a grip on", grasp, recognize to some degree. > > And that's where our lingo begins to mislead us. We commence saying it's > the > scription -- or poem, or painting, or strange sound -- that is with or > without > meaning. > > If a scholarly woodsman sees elaborate markings on a tree, he may wonder > what > "their meaning" is. If the markings turn out to be the clawings of a bear, > he > may say, "Ah! So they're meaningless." But a second woodsman may demur: > "Oh, > no. The markings mean a lot. The only a bear does that is when..." And > their > young companion from the city may say, "I'll tell you what they mean. They > mean > there are bears around here. Let's go home." > > > ************** > It's only a deal if > it's where you want to go. Find your travel deal here. > > (http://information.travel.aol.com/deals?ncid=aoltrv00050000000047)
