From: John Wilkins (j.wilkins1@uq.edu.au)
Date: Sat 17 Jun 2006 - 12:05:01 GMT
On 17/06/2006, at 9:56 PM, Chris Lofting wrote:
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk [mailto:fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk] On
>> Behalf
>> Of Robin Faichney
>> Sent: Saturday, 17 June 2006 9:09 PM
>> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>> Subject: Re: What Meaning Means (was: RE: presentation)
>>
>> I think I'm basically in agreement with Tim on this, but would put it
>> slightly differently.
>>
>> Meaning has a subjective component and therefore, strictly speaking,
>> has no place within memetics.
>>
>> I follow Wittgenstein in viewing the meaning of language as its
>> use in
>> a given context. You know what a word means if and only if you know
>> how to use it.
>>
>
> Words are representations of feelings. The basic feelings are
> genetic such
> that we all have a sense of 'wholeness' but what it is applied to
> is up to
> personal and/or collective preferences.
>
> It is possible to communicate with others without speaking the same
> language
> in that as species-members we all have the core meanings as these
> qualities.
> Thus given a novel context any member of the species can guess what
> is being
> communicated based on the 'hard coded' set of meanings we all share.
>
> This gets into the differences of primate emotions vs those derived
> from a
> developed sense of self (starting about 24 months after birth). As
> such, we
> may have problems communicating using derived emotions but will
> find it easy
> using genetically-determined emotions.
It's very arguable whether emotions are genetically determined. Some
emotive responses are, but the actual emotions are socially mediated.
>
> We still depend on over 50% of communication being none verbal and
> operating
> holistically (in parallel). That form of communication may be
> 'vague' when
> compared the precision of our serial forms of communication but it
> is still
> communication and contains universal elements and so not related to
> local
> context.
>
> Since the qualities of meaning are sourced in patterns of self-
> referencing,
> and the universe demonstrates properties of self-referencing, so the
> universe can be found to be 'meaningful' without there being any
> agent of
> communication present other than the perception of that universe by
> individual consciousness.
>
> Since context can push instincts/habits so it can push 'meaning'
> without the
> individual consciousness actually 'knowing' what is going on; the
> species-nature reacts as the consciousness-nature is still trying to
> interpret things; IOW there are cause-effect dynamics going on that
> relate
> to 'purpose' without the individual realising that dynamic.
>
> This moves into the singular/particular-general differences where the
> singular is driven to interpret and so comes up with specialist
> perspectives
> that create a 'new' language to describe something already
> described in some
> other form(at).
>
> Included in the realm of the singular is the creation of specialist
> languages that rely on existing, unconscious, qualities as the
> foundations
> for language creation through application of labels. These basic
> qualities
> are universals in that they are context-insensitive. Thus all
> specialist
> languages are relabelling of these universals and it is the
> universals that
> allow for translations etc.
>
> Specialisations, and so specialist languages, be they of the
> individual,
> general collective (e.g. English), or some specialist discipline (e.g.
> physics), all have a common base that allows for one specialisation
> to be
> used as a source of analogy/metaphor in describing some other.
>
> Children, when first learning what to associate the inbuilt
> qualities with
> the local labels have no idea what the word means, they just
> associate it
> with intuitive qualities of wholeness, partness, etc and develop
> from there
> using heuristics.
>
> Thus the local universals such as the word 'house' are associated
> with the
> general qualities (objects/relationships) and work by rote. THEN
> comes finer
> details analysis and the recognition of abstract terms as well as
> concrete
> terms.
>
> The hard coding of meanings allow for customisation to make one's own
> language and so communicating with self - this is common in
> psychosis as it
> is in general singular development (fundamentalism leads into new
> 'language'
> developments to sharply differentiate the particular collective
> from all
> others).
>
> Given the studies on other neuron-dependent life forms so feelings
> equate
> with meaning derivation - and so there is no need for words per se
> where
> words are serial communication and can be precise and so refine
> parallel
> communication where words are no longer necessary ;-)
>
> Emotional communication is by resonance where it is the only method
> that
> allows us to share the same space with another - where empathy/
> sympathy
> operates, where mirroring operates, where mime operates. No words
> necessary.
>
> Chris.
>
>
> ===============================================================
> This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
> Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
> For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
> see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
>
-- John S. Wilkins, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Biohumanities Project University of Queensland - Blog: evolvethought.blogspot.com "Darwin's theory has no more to do with philosophy than any other hypothesis in natural science." Tractatus 4.1122 =============================================================== This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing) see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
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