In a message dated 1/19/13 12:06:55 PM, [email protected] writes:
> "When a drawn curve is said to mean hip it is simply a casual way to say. > . . " > It's a casual way FOR WHOM to say? You're a brave man to assert what everyone who uses the phrase has in mind. > "the > drawn line evokes an association to hip at that time in that context." > Again -- evokes FOR WHOM? One of the ingenuities of Picasso for me has always been his ability to astonish me by his apt associating of a pair of images that very few others on this globe would, without prompting, see as in any way "connected". I'm not against "casual ways" of talking (I often mention "kitchen English"), but we have to be careful with it when the conversation is somewhat "philosophical" -- which is what I take many of the postings on this forum to be. > "(And why, O why does Cheerskep repeat > the point ad-nauseum?)." > It's gratifying when I see evidence I've been persuasive about some point or other, but I far more often notice that no matter how many times I've dwelt on something, very few seem to have heard me. You yourself, William, have remarked about how tedious it is of me to attack yet again the listers' use of the word "art" with no attempt whatever to describe what notion the lister has in mind, and yet you continue regularly to use it in ways that for all the world suggest you think it "has a referent" that will come to the minds of anyone who reads you. > You write: > > "Words or images do not have any -- NONE-- inherent meanings or are they > particular stable signs when isolated from a context/s. But habit and > custom > and mental agility do constrain our awareness of contexts." > I have said repeatedly that certain words are serviceable -- words in the kitchen, on a ball field, on a battlefield. This is not because they "are stable signs" in a suitable context. Those who think of them as "stable signs" convince me that they think of the sound or scription as a mind-independent entity that "has a meaning". At any rate, they think of a "sign" as "signifying", doing something -- something intrinsic to the "sign". But, I tediously (and fecklessly) repeat yet again, those alleged "signs" DO NOTHING. They are inert. They are in a crucial sense of the word "meaningless". When the sound or scription is contemplated by an observer, the contemplator's brain will associate it, connect it, with other notion in the mind at the same time -- concurrent new notion, remembered notion, and new notions as we draw inferences from new connections. This deludes us into imputing "meaning" to the word. The brain may then propound new notion based in the brain's processing. The end result of all this processing is what I've called a "me-meaning" -- a personal notion (that is, alas, indeterminate, indefinite, multiplex and transitory). You seem to assert agreement with much of this, and yet continue to use certain words in ways inconsistent with this. Meantime, it's not obvious to me that a single other lister has been persuaded by anything I've said. I say that not as a whine but as the primary reason I keep repeating my view as new postings arise that appear to be innocent of any awareness of remarks I've made that (claim I) are pertinent to points in the new postings. > > > > > ________________________________ > From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> > To: [email protected] > Sent: Sat, January 19, 2013 10:18:42 AM > Subject: Re: wake up > > In a message dated 1/19/13 9:43:37 AM, [email protected] writes: > > > > On Jan 19, 2013, at 9:28 AM, saulostrow <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > > Though I would suggest that depiction is a semiotic system (one of > > visual > > > signs and symbols) and therefore linguistic. > > > Michael Brady responded: > > > > Thank you. Much more succinct than my reply. > > > > I myself tend to think of it almost the other way around. A visual > artist's > one-line curve of a woman's hip reminds me directly of a real woman's hip. > The memory of a real woman's hip is, for me, a visual memory. My brain, on > seeing or hearing something, "retrieves" from memory quite directly: This > one > ink-line curve on paper "reminds me" of that real curve because of > visual > resemblance, association of like images. > > I reject systems of "signs", "signifying", "symbolizing" in attempts to > explain why the one curve retrieves for me the memory of the other. A > photograph of Lincoln brings to mind memories of the man; it does not do > so > because > it "signifies" or "symbolizes" or "means" him. The image in the photo > visually resembles images in my memory. The non-artist who, confronted by > a > "schematized, abstract" painting, says to himself "This means shoulder, > this > means hip, this means foot. (Means = signifies)," is flatly wrong. The > imputation of "meaning" to a visual mark is a basic error. > > Philosophers are particularly prone to this peculiar form of > self-delusion. > Unwilling simply to accept the simpler truth that, after repeated > juxtaposition of the sound "milk" with the white stuff, a child's brain > connects/associates the sound with the white stuff, many philosophers have > devised > elaborate imaginary schemes called "denoting", "signifying", > "designating", > "meaning". > > The philosophers do this despite their readily accepting that a child, onc > e > painfully burned by a candle, immediately "associates" flame with pain. > That smart puppy, Pavlov's dog, tried to teach philosophers that > association > is > all that goes on when we recall. > > The philosophers are not consciously being dishonest. Craving a more > profound analysis (and a more intricate vocabulary suggestive of > profundity) > they > have sincerely deluded themselves into thinking that in some sense they > "explain" the brain's ability to associate (and to recall by retrieving > associated notions) better by saying that word-sounds "denote", "signify", > "designate", etc. In fact the words DO nothing whatever; all the action is > by > the > brain. > > In any case, all of this about hip-curves etc remains visual for me, not > "linguistic". In fact, I associate "linguistic" much more with aural > sensation > than visual -- but that's another matter.
