ONT Re: Effective Logical Formalism -- Literature Notes
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ELF. Literature Note 7
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JA: Jon Awbrey
MA: Murray Altheim
JA: Under "B", it is time to pin the tines of
the forked tongue down to the ceratin wax
of the linguistic dissecting tray, and to
label their prevaricated duplicities with
more certain discernments than heretofore.
JA: In my dissecting tray, I will use the labels "referent" and "semiotic"
to distinguish the independent tines of "interpretation" that concern,
on the first tine, relations between objects and signs, on the second
tine, relations between signs and signs. Let us also observe in this
connection that the referent sense of "interpretation", from language
to world, is frequently read in the reverse sense of "representation",
from world to language. Of course, usage varies wildly on this point.
MA: In the Robert Persig world, do we need to tie down any intermediate
layers between objects and [...] and signs? Or are we simply talking
about the whole category of interpretation/representation relations?
Hmmm, I wonder, Persig/Pirsig, is he trying to mess with my mind?
The objects are there and here.
The signs are here and there.
The have relations, I guess,
preceding our primal scene.
I'm just guessing now what you are worrying over.
It does remind me a bit though of the literature
that I've read coming from the "symbol grounding"
crowd. Let me know if that's close. If so, the
answer, if I fathom it, is that it's not our job
to connect things up, as though everything would
fall apart without us connecting up the sides of
every distinction that we think to have drawn in
the world -- the bit that we do is to draw lines
that may or may not line up with any real joints
in the world. What this means is that sometimes
the aptest way to unify the manifold of sensuous
impressions is just to quit keeping up the split.
The chief idea is that we are talking about formal relations,
but their forms can engender formidable forces all their own.
MA: I.e., am I getting ahead of you again?
If so, I know from past experience it's
not good for my mental health.
Lagging, leading, it's all the same, you know.
Jon Awbrey
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