From: Bill Spight (bspight@pacbell.net)
Date: Tue 26 Apr 2005 - 17:10:39 GMT
Dear Kate,
>> Well, what the trumpet player said was a hint. While that triplet
>> pattern is associated with swing, there are plenty of other
>> swinging patterns (if you will), and, even more importantly, I
>> could have played that pattern without swing. The performance as a
>> whole might not have flopped, but I would have. Anyway, a hint is
>> not a representation.
>
>
> What the trumpet player said may not have fed directly into how you
> then behaved, but he did nonetheless impart *some* information to
> you. His words represented some information.
Yes. But as I said, to the extent that it was a description of swing, it
was a thin description.
> What you did with that
> information might not have been what he intended but that doesn't
> mean it wasn't a representation in the first place.
Well, since he intended something different from what he said, it's hard
to say that what he said represented what he intended to transmit. And
what he did transmit. I misspoke. A hint can be a representation, but
not a representation of what is hinted at. That's what I had in mind.
I'm not saying that what he said is not memetic. I'm saying that what he
didn't say was the key cultural transmission. To be sure, for me to be
able to take the hint required some experience, skill, and sensibility.
But I had those already. Something else was transmitted, something
unspoken, and, I submit, unrepresented.
Best,
Bill
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