Clark, list,
You wrote,
A famous example of this that again got Derrida castigated was
noting the sexual connotations of imaginary numbers in mathematical
symbology.
I looked around and found that it was Lacan rather than Derrida who
talked about that.
Thus the erectile organ comes to symbolize the place of
/jouissance/, not in itself, or even in the form of an image, but as
a part lacking in the desired image: that is why it is equivalent to
the √−1 of the signification produced above, of the /jouissance/
that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function
of lack of signifier (−1). [End quote, Lacan 1977b, pp. 318-320]
That could almost be in _Finnegans Wake_, which for its more candidly
playful part seems probably a better source of examples of such wild
polysemy and poly-semiosis; maybe it even inspired Lacan.
What I really had in mind in your quote of my earlier message, was the
idea that from the same rich scrambling of information in natural
phenomena, organisms of different species, life stages, etc., will tend
to seek or be susceptible to often different kinds of information, and
they have to do this because there's too much information, and the
pertinent information needs to be extracted, unscrambled, interpreted,
according to the interests of its species or lineage. A particularly
intelligent organism will have a variety of ends, interests, etc.,
sometimes conflicting, and is able to evolve its interpretive systems
without waiting for biological evolution to do it instead. Thus its own
interpretive systems become, to some extent, its objects too. A main
purpose of this is for one to avoid biological evolution's proceeding by
eliminating one as a misinterpreter from the gene pool. That's why the
really wild polysemy, poly-semioses, etc., seem things more for play.
I'm not sure what you mean by saying the objects and not interpreters
matter. If you're saying that the truth of a given question about a
given object does not depend on variations of interpretation, I agree,
since the interpretive variations may reflect either some falsity
somewhere or variations in the question or in one's identification of
the object.
Best, Ben
On 6/13/2016 1:39 PM, Clark Goble wrote:
On Jun 13, 2016, at 9:55 AM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]> > wrote:
I think that it's worth making the point that the signal/noise
relation involves an idea of what questions or interests the
quasi-mind has in the semiosis, i.e., one quasi-mind's signal is
another quasi-mind's noise, and a phenomenon may appear to involve
different signs and objects of interest to different quasi-minds, and
may vary in those regards for a given quasi-mind through its shifts of
questions and interests; such shifting may itself become involved in
larger semiosis.
This is an important point. (I think it’s largely the point Derrida
raises using Peirce and why so many castigate him as well) That is I
think one implication of how semiosis works is that separating out
connotation from denotation is difficult. Further (and here I’m more
following Eco) any object signifies via it’s sign through codes or
habits of interpretation that get applied. (I’m intentionally using the
passive form here as I think it gets better at the phenomena) That means
that signs carry with them numerous interpretants - some wanted and some
not related to the topic at hand.
A famous example of this that again got Derrida castigated was noting
the sexual connotations of imaginary numbers in mathematical symbology.
Of course Derrida wasn’t denying the proper meaning, but was just
getting at this point about signal/noise and how objects and not
interpreters matter. That is the interpreter can’t shift out all these
other meanings signs carry with them.
This also explains how meanings shift in language since one improper
connotation can happen enough that it takes on the force of habit.
Literally the literal meaning can reverse. (Forgive the pun)
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