From: Kenneth Van Oost (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sun 05 Jun 2005 - 12:41:55 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: Kate Distin <memes@distin.co.uk>
> Kenneth - I'm struggling to get hold of the distinction you're making
> between objectification and representation. Could you say a bit more
> about it?
You got me good !
Well, it all got to do with words.
At first glance it is very obvious that words are in a certain sense
arbitrary_ that they, even we all accept their meaning, don 't possess
any reality; no guarantee for any objective truth_ where thus objective
stands for a kind of truth which surpasses that what most people are
agreed about. No questions asked !
A pencil is just that because we gave it such a name, it could be named
completely different, and it holds our attention because we gave it a
special function:- it can 't be something else than the thing we invented
it for. We can be sure if people talk in good faith about things that the
words used mean for all parties the same. But to get a real hold of what
is a stick you must have ' objectified ' the very thing in your mind.
Representation of the thing is schematic, symbolic.
Objectification is more detailted, more substantial.
Not sure I 'm making a distinction some how or fusing them together.
Neither I suppose, it is more that one ( the objectification) is part of
the other ( representation), more a completion of what you sees as a
solely representation.
I haven 't read your book, I ought to I know, so can 't be sure what you
really mean by representation, although you refer to them as mental concepts
of specific terms. And it is with this I got, no real a problem, but it
seems
somewhat fuzzy.
Damasio, refers to it as synonym for ' mental image ' as for ' neural
pattern '.
His mental image of a specific face is a representation, and the same can be
said about the neural patterns which come into being when the brain
processes
the perceptual- motoric input.
Maybe I got more of a problem with the word itself, again Damasio, " the im-
plication of its use is not so much its ambiguity but that it suggest that
the neural
patterns of the mind of the brain " represent " any object in one way of
another
as it IS_ thus a literal reliability, thus like the structure of the object
is copied
within the representation."
There is no such thing !!
So in a way I think you should be careful in how you use the term_ do you
comprehend that although we are all biological the same; and any given
object
can drag certain characteristics out of us and we can assume that our
manners
of reaction/ respons to it are likely quite the same, that the
representation of the
artifact we have is then the right one? Although that it isn 't !?
There is a bunch of correlations by which an internal integrated picture is
re-
constructed. We reconstruct a sufficient like image about stick to
understand
eachother. But that doens 't mean that what we ' represent ' points to a
reality
or is a guarantee for accuracy.
That is where ' objectification ' comes in, I suppose_ when we talk about
stick
in the context of baseball we all know what a kind of object we' re talking
about.
And that is the only way we even can ' think ' about the object called stick
!
Without the nominalition, the term that Scott uses, without mastering the
nuances
and the stratification of our language we can 't come to a descent
definition, more-
over we wouldn 't understand what stick all can stand for.
Thus whatever we can recall/ represent about stick depends upon which kind
of
linguistic toolbox we have access to. Although, for the most of us stick is
quite
the same object, but it can be different/ more difficult for someone who is
less
fluent to get his message across.
You need inevitable a certain kind of objectification to uberhaupt represent
anything_ I don 't know if the next is the kind of nominalisation where
Scott
talks about, but giving it a name isn 't sufficient_ we need/ we MUST agree
about any possible couched in meaning.
You need all of the complex of experiences/ ecpectations/ descriptions/ etc
which are never near the truth, which never can/ will pin point down what
you really mean_ only tactful/ useful descriptions are possible.
Representations!!
Is this of some help !?
Regards,
Kenneth
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