From: Wade T. Smith (wade.t.smith@verizon.net)
Date: Wed 28 May 2003 - 22:49:14 GMT
On Wednesday, May 28, 2003, at 06:28 PM, Joe wrote:
> Things are usually explained in terms of their causes, other things
> which are not them, but which demand that they be, and furthermore,
> that they be as they are, and not some other way. Culture could not
> evolve in the absence of brains (furnish a counterexample if you can),
> thus, their causal efficacy has to be considered. Communication,
> likewise, is constitutive of culture, but it cannot exist without a
> message
> held by one to be communicated, and a common code that can be
> transmitted by this person and received by another, who can then
> decode the message the transmitter encoded within it. This code must
> be open-ended and arbitrary and by mutual consent rather than
> instinctually circumscribed, to allow for novel strings of
> sign-referent
> pairs to be created, sent, received and understood. The arbitrary
> nature of such a code means that many of them can be produced.
> When the message is received, it may be rejected or filtered due to
> excessive dissonance; if accepted, it must assimilate with and
> accommodate itself to, that is adapt to, the preexistent cultural
> gestalt
> (which must also co-adapt to it)(in fact, it is accepted only if this
> is
> possible); this co-adaption can change both the message and the
> cultural gestalt, although the cultural gestalt is usually altered less
> than the message. The altered, that is, mutated message can then be
> transmitted by the mutating agent, and its recipients will decide
> whether
> or not the mutation sticks when it collides with their cultural
> gestalts.
I love it when you explain things like this, especially when you do it
without the hand-waving about, well, you know what about....
What you have above described is, in large part, the dissemination and
propagation of the elements of language, which elements are held in a
brain made by nature to be prepared for them.
Culture needs brains, yes. It also needs language. (At least, I think
it does.) It also needs places, and times, and a way to maintain all
these things so that a cultural gestalt can be formed. (I'm happy to
use gestalt instead of venue.) Replace 'cognitive gestalt' with
'cultural gestalt' in the above, and see what happens. All I will add
is that communication is not requisite for either perception or
learning, in a general sense.
"Things are usually explained in terms of their causes, other things
which are not them, but which demand that they be, and furthermore,
that they be as they are, and not some other way. Culture could not
evolve in the absence of brains and thus their causal efficacy has to
be considered. Communication, likewise, is constitutive of culture,
but it cannot exist without a message held by one to be communicated,
and a common code that can be transmitted by this person and received
by another, who can then decode the message the transmitter encoded
within it. This code must be open-ended and arbitrary and consensual
rather than instinctually circumscribed, to allow for novel strings of
sign-referent pairs to be created, sent, received and understood. The
arbitrary nature of such a code means that many of them can be
produced. When the message is received, it may be rejected or filtered
due to excessive dissonance; if accepted, it must assimilate with and
accommodate itself to, that is adapt to, the preexistent cultural
gestalt (which must also co-adapt to it)(in fact, it is accepted only
if this is possible); this co-adaption can change both the message and
the cultural gestalt, although the cultural gestalt is usually altered
less than the message. The altered, that is, mutated message can then
be transmitted by the mutating agent, and its recipients will decide
whether or not the mutation sticks when it collides with their cultural
gestalts."
This is the sort of dynamic and yet stable mechanism that both language
and culture share. The units of language are, what, phonemes? And yet,
they are not, because the formation of language is developmental, not
merely intrinsic.
Was it language's job to create culture, or culture's job to keep
language alive? Both have died in numerous quantities over the eons,
but it would seem that language was a precursor to culture, at least to
me. To others, who see animals without language to have culture, the
egg lays the chicken, and yet, they have a good case for their
argument, and one that should not be dismissed out of hand.
Indeed, there are no cases to be dismissed out of hand around here
these days. The more I've seen, the more it all seems to start to work
together.
- Wade
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