MDDM Ch. 69 World-as-text

[Doug Millison]

At 9:15 AM +1100 8/10/02, jbor wrote:
> Human perception of the world is always textual


Even sense -- visual, aural, touch, taste, -- perceptions that are
communicated and understood without verbalization?   Beyond the purely
sensual, there's a broad range of subjective experience that is never
translated into words (emotional, spiritual).  I agree it is a common
experience people to interpret various sorts of sensations, feelings,
thoughts, experiences, objects, physical realities, smells, sounds,
memories, etc. of all sorts in verbal formulations, but "always textual"
claims a totality of experience I don't think you can successfully defend.



>and, thus, "il
>n'y a pas de hors-texte". Even if you believe in "God", a "god", or "gods",
>then the world is conceived as the text or Text of Creation or an act of
>creation.


In a book like the Bible or other scripture it is, yes.



But, action is action, not text.  The world creates itself -- through
evolution, in all the physical phenomena that make up the universe we know
-- everyday without text, and people perceived the world, in all its
manifestations, for millions of years before text was invented. Also, many
forms of art are created and experienced without textual translation --
dance, music,  painting, sculpture.  The "world as text" is a convenient
metaphor for cultural criticism, nothing more.

If  you define text to equal act, then you've got a deal, I'll buy that
bridge.  That equivalency would seem to erase a rather fundamental
distinction, however, leaving your "world-as-text" the equivalent to
"world-as-action" or "world-as sense perception" -- featureless mush, not
very useful for discussion.