Semiotics - I think, therefore I agree with you // GRGR 1,7 Pointsman's eyes

[Michael Bailey]

On 12/18/05, Sean Mannion wrote, re using images to picture concepts:
> it's just as purposeless as introducing the concept of 'the
> division of labour' in the earlier example - so you're introducing concepts
> that don't need to be here.
>

they don't demand, but they desire (-:

In the context of (I'm pretty sure) agreeing with your objection to
the quoted passage (which, originally, I quoted in the context of a
lightweight reductio ad absurdum, taking it as license to misinterpret
Pynchon, which is not what I'm about - I hope you would agree with
that), it occurred to me that other discernible entities come into
play in interpretation of a written sign.

That there is a general consensus among those entities (my teachers
didn't vary on spelling rules, the publishers of Gravity's Rainbow
didn't vary the text between editions except perhaps to correct typos,
or - in the case of a "No Smoking" sign - the placement wasn't random
or capricious, and is backed by social consensus even to the point of
physical action - by authorized persons - against other
interpretations) may not pertain directly to the power of T to produce
in R the desired interpretation, but it does illuminate the situation
for me.

To wit, the statement (which, again, I certainly wasn't quoting as
Gospel) ignores a situation one might deem as "mainstream" where T is
conforming to the rules or conventions for encoding and can expect a
reasonable R to utilize the same or similar conventions in decoding --
and to the degree that the message conforms to those rules, can expect
others to rally towards the correct interpretation even in his
absence.  So the "division of labor" that I clumsily cited isn't (in
my view) an unnecessary multiplication of entities, but a recognition
that accepted canons aren't the work of one person.

As to using images to make my point, I find it helps to reduce a
certain drift away from comfort that takes place when I use only
abstractions.  YMMV, of course

>
>> "The transmitter (T) is embedded in a tradition of transmission (many
> >speakers, artists, etc over time) and the receiver (R) likewise an
> >instantiation of a tradition of perception. The sign, too, is embedded in a
> >process (P) of palaver down through the ages."
>
> Singular, not plural - there are traditions of transmittion - you can't
> gloss over differences - oral transmission isn't the same as visual
> transmission, which isn't the same as written transmission - and, in short,
> I don't think anything penetratingly accurate can be said by mainlining
> everything into a single tradition of usage and reception

In all humility, I'm not sure anything penetratingly accurate can be
said by _me_
in any case.  But, I don't think an isolated exchange means much
without a surrounding tradition (and a possible future), so to make
those concepts parties to the discussion isn't completely wanton, is
it?

>(I highlight these
> two because I'd wager that, again, the 'process (P)' you isolate here just
> *is* what occurs through transmission and reception, therefore not
> warranting a seperate clause here. I use 'reception' rather than
> 'perception' because of the main fact that any kind of perception is bound
> up with the information received; propositional states have to be 'about'
> something.)
>

in the particular case of a written text, the text itself is a 3rd entity

> criticism succeeds or fails in the degree of which it sheds
> light upon the meaning of the work discussed - a text has to be capable of
> reflecting the colour of light perceived in it, and in this sense schools of
> criticism are no different from the average reader; an alternative
> perspective can only be successful in this if the work supports the weight
> of interpretation applied to it. There are obviously influences from outside
> the text present in different schools of criticism, but if it ain't in the
> text, it just ain't in the text, and if it is in the text, then you must
> demonstrate how, correspondent to the level it is demonstratable - you
> cannot claim a central organising principle from the variable meanings of a
> handful of terms and a couple of metaphors.

No, certainly not!  That tendency to build grand concepts without
sufficient data is what I was lampooning (having been set off by the
mention of what seems to me like a gross misinterpretation of
"Entropy" by a certain critic - wondering now about this Douglas
Keesey - is he a point man for some new "devalue Pynchon" movement? -
I'm idly speculating, of course, from too few facts)

>
> Of course none of this is a demonstratable defence of authorial intention in
> fiction, but we're talking about degrees of variance here in the sense that
> while I'd never suggest that the entire range of meaning within a given text
> is determined by the hand of an author, I'd like to conclude that major
> tracts of meaning didn't get there accidentally. Discriminatory use of
> language in the composition of a literary text is based upon an intended
> meaning, and while not all of what a reader finds is a part of that intented
> meaning, the major organisational weight of what that text consists of is
> geared towards this.
>

right, to use another analogy, one could buy a convertible and use it
for a planter
but why

> "You lost me.  "Expending the time and energy to read a book" is indicative
> of a demand, rather than a desire? How so?  On whom? (or what)  (and, is
> demand not an extension of desire?)"
>
> Because the act of reading demands our being able to know how language is
> being used (to at least a comprehensive degree), to know the rules of
> language function (even it is to know how far those rules are being
> stretched), to know the difference between aunthenticity and irony, the
> difference between the metaphorical and literal. Reading isn't just a desire
> to 'participate in this matter' - it is a demand that we 'participate in
> this manner'. And no, a demand is not necessarily an extension of desire.
>

if a demand doesn't spring from a desire, then isn't that like the
undesirable Deleuze and Guattari state of mindless consumerism?
I like to think my demands stem from my desires

> "My distinction is that liberalistic (to me) would mean, that having
> lawfully acquired the book, the reader is free to use it in any way they
> wish  but that Nihilist (to me) would be rejecting helpful ordering schemes in favor
> of nothing."
>
> You've taken this in completely the wrong manner - I'm talking about the
> original sentence of theory  - it's too liberal in it's scope, it seeks
> acceptance as a general picture about the way that language operates between
> individuals; it cannot function and it's implications do not follow because
> the premise is incorrect. It can be narrowed down to the scope of certain
> types of power-relations, but nowhere in the original tenet is this narrow
> scope expressed. That's all. It's not truly nihilistic because it cannot
> enable us to reject what it claims we can reject.
>

...which, for lack of a better word, I'm thinking of as "obedience" --
but historically, nihilism hasn't been all that successful either in
rebelling against that, has it?

the odd thing is that the offending sentence occurs in a discussion of
Peirce, whose intricate theory of signs certainly demands close
scrutiny, and offers a picture of semiotics which does depend on the
receiver obeying convention

I appreciate your objections, which give me a good reason to clarify
my thinking.
Thanks, Sean.

-----------
GRGR 1,7 the eyes of Pointsman
1 -- not all-seeing
"a toilet bowl he has not, so intent on his prey, seen" (V 42,17)

2 -- colorless (maybe a tendency to see things in black and white?) and hostile
at least from Jessica's POV
"Jessica sees two eyes of no particular color glaring out the window
of a Balaclava helmet" (V 43, 7)

3 -- vague, again from Jessica's POV
"the vague eyes in the knitted window" (V 43, 21)

4 -- obscured (at one point, anyway, from Roger's POV)
"Roger seeks his eyes to see if he means it, but the window of the
Balaclava helmet now contains only a white ear and fringe of hair" (V
45, 40 to 46, 2)

5 -- naked (pre-lapsarian?)
"...Roger glances again across Jessica's dark wool bosom at the
knitted head, the naked nose and eyes..." (V 46, 20)



--
"Acceptance, forgiveness, love - now that's a philosophy of life!"
-Woody Allen, as Broadway Danny Rose