Welcome, Guest

• Forgot your password?
• Apply for membership

1. •  
     CommentAuthorDanieru
   • CommentTimeApr 19th 2006 edited

    permalink
   Great outline here of the ways in which advertising tends to abuse our symbolic perceptions of the world around us:

   Any culture contains many familiar narratives, oft-told stories, shared by the cultures' members and used to make meaning...
   
   Because so many narratives are familiar to us, advertisements can invoke a particular narrative and all its associations by just showing us a single image that represents of one moment in the narrative, a "snapshot" that invokes the whole story....
   
   A difficult set of questions remain. What do connotations, narratives, and myths do to us? Do semiotic systems have any effect on human behavior? If we were exposed to different signs, would our lives be different? ...
   
   The power of sign systems lies in this: their role in generating and maintaining shared expectations, shared interpretive frameworks. Signs do not force us to have certain interpretations as much as they create the context for other people's interpretations of us, and even more importantly, our own expectations of what others think... Sign systems are merely tools, but precisely in so far as they become the common currency for communicating, they become something we can either embrace or criticize, but not ignore.

   It was only very recently that I came across these ideas, and they have definitely altered the way I perceive the world. Baudrillard in particular brought the illusionary nature of the human realm into focus for me. Yet greater simulacra gush forth from our internet culture than Baudrillard could ever have predicted.
   
   As we better understand the psychology of the human, and delve deeper into the mysteries of our perceptive systems, I can't help but wonder whether manipulation of this knowledge will become the greatest tool ever developed for the control of society. The Freudian unveiling of human subconscious had a marked effect on the way consumer culture evolved throughout the last century (See Adam Curtis' superb documentary 'The Century of The Self' for more on this).
   
   What effect will the psychology of the 21st century have on the nature of the individual? and, in consequence, how will this new formulation be used to manipulate the consumer cultures simulating themselves in the realm of semiotic cyberspace?
   
   I'd love to know your thoughts...
2. • CommentAuthorjennyology
   • CommentTimeApr 19th 2006 edited

    permalink
   semiotics is interesting indeed
   
   Are you familiar with Barthes? That little outline with Magrite's work reminded me a lof of some of his ideas.
   
   The wikipedia article talks at length about his life's work to reduce semiotics in its literary forms to basic neutrality (which I don't really see how one can do... I feel like language is necessarily bound to cultural constructs and that these are inseparable from its existence).
   
   Anywho, his work Mythologies focuses a lot on this problem of cultural association and consumerism. One of his main points (derived from this signifier/signified dichotomy) is that advertising often plays on or helps to create a culturally distorted notion of history, thus offering the consumer a specific reality with which to place the value of the object within. This leads us to contextualization and the simulacralization of such.
   
   Perhaps from here we can venture into Foucault for his work on discourse and subjective definitions, which the users of cyberspace now have a monopoly over. It will be fascinating to see how power struggles over information and knowledge (i.e. wikipedia, online news sources, etc.) begin to organize online communities. This process may create even more abstracted hyperreal power structures overlaying or perhaps entirely disintegrating the existing ones today. Onward with the new information revolution!
3. •  
     CommentAuthorDanieru
   • CommentTimeApr 19th 2006 edited

    permalink
   Haven't heard of Barthes, look forward to reading up on his work...
   
   Interesting indeed how language is so integral to the reality construct. Orwellian modernity need not come from the 'dystopian' parallels we see being built around us. I definitely think Orwell's most inciteful realisation was that language is the basis for self identity, self expression and, inevitably, freedom.
   
   Perhaps though it is too easy to appeal to post modern interpretations of such form, which often conclude with the dictum that nothing can truly be known, understood or expressed through language (here we are using it to express ourselves for example). I wrote a little about how creativity is expressed recently, and how technology is destined to morph this expression beyond all recognition (Art, Technology and the Progressive hand of Human Imagination).
   
   Do you think it will ever be possible to break through some of these semiotic intermediaries and get to the base form of reality?
   
   I tend to agree with you Jennyology when you say:

   language is necessarily bound to cultural constructs and that these are inseparable from its existence

   Yet it makes me wonder... Is everything we do mere cultural simulacra?
4. • CommentAuthorwhat?
   • CommentTimeApr 20th 2006

    permalink
   think without words..........really, try it.
5. •  
     CommentAuthorDanieru
   • CommentTimeApr 23rd 2006 edited

    permalink
   I was thrust into thought about language manipulator William Burroughs:

   "Language is a virus from outer space."

   This is an understatement. Language is a mass conglomerate for memetic viruses, it is the breeding ground for parasitic thought disruptors.
   
   What aspect of human reality is capable without it? I'd stretch as far as to say none at all, less than none in fact, for without language 'human' would not exist, let alone human culture. Language invaded our brains, those several hundred thousand years hence, and forged the path to the present we currently occupate. Perhaps the virus is attempting to spread beyond the confides of our brains, perhaps its time as a separate organism has arrived.
   
   The internet - technologically governed, digital media of all variety - is replete with viral memes, feeding on the immune system of modern culture, starving the oxygen from the brain of fundamental reality. The strangle hold is so strong, so unrelenting, that humanity has forgotten that their world is a mere simulacrum of a semblance of a forgotten instinctive dream of ethereality.
   
   Is language our memetic slave? or the master of the simulated human race?
6. •  
     CommentAuthorDanieru
   • CommentTimeApr 23rd 2006 edited

    permalink
   Get viral on my ass...
7. • CommentAuthorjennyology
   • CommentTimeApr 23rd 2006 edited

    permalink
   OK...
   
   So this gave me something to think about a bit. As a student of cultural studies, of course I'll tend to say outrageous things like that which rely on a very deeply-rooted assumption of total cultural/psychological linguistic freedom and creativity.
   
   Granted, there must be some shared mechanisms, regardless of how much modern science continues to struggle with these implications.
   
   some interesting bits...
   On chimpanzee communication and the differences between instinctual gestural communication and modern-day human communication:
   In true communication, signaling comes under the control of the conscious cortex rather than the subconscious emotional system.
   On similarities between languages and the study of "language groups":
   Statistics show that many similarities can be explained by chance and do not indicate that words from different languages have a common origin. Granted there are plenty of linguists who still lust for the "mother language."
   
   And, of course, good ole' Wikipedia will give you some interesting stuff under "Origin of Language."
   
   *As a sidenote, David Beaver's linguists' web log off his Stanford site is worth checking out.
   
   Basically, it's still really difficult at this point (and may become more difficult as languages continue to change) to discern those overall underlying language tools that reside in humans. My statement that ALL language is necessarily derived from cultural influence obviously ignores these mechanisms which must be in place for all human societies/cultures to subsume the differences in language we perceive today. However, the differences are what give conscious thought a relevant context. Not everything we do is conscious, and evolutionary studies will find more of those shared concepts that pervade our understanding of each other as humans.
   
   These differences are really where most of my interest resides. How much could people from totally different linguistic backgrounds accomplish if thrown all together? Would they have to amalgamate their languages first? What would a child raised from birth in a neutral environment (or one lacking all cultural influence) have to talk about? We have our own anecdotal evidence when it comes to this, and it's been damn difficult for me to make any solid social relationships (and some survival bits rely on this) when there are language barriers.
   
   It's these diferences and specifics and all that weird linguistic shit that makes our thoughts more than just that. That's why I tend towards the post-modernists and why I am interested in culture. Meaning is what yields power, and the implications of this rule many aspects of human interactions (perhaps all in some ways). Meaning is not necessarily derived through fundamental preferences, for we see it expressed in various ways across the globe. What is driving such variety in context? Maybe what we'll find in the end is not so much a 'mother language' as a subconscious need (or void which begs the question?) for creative thought which precludes a set understanding of the universe.
   
   in conclusion, yeah.
8. •  
     CommentAuthorDanieru
   • CommentTimeApr 24th 2006 edited

    permalink
   You should check out 'The Geography of Thought' by Richard Nisbett. I wrote a little about it on my blog some million months ago (here and here).
   
   I know next to nothing about language. It's the part of my university degree I wish I had spent more time pursuing (I avoided most of the philosophy of language modules, opting for metaphysics and phil of science instead). That the language you speak can have as much effect on your perception of the world as 'your culture' is astounding to me. The levels of symbiosis between language and culture run far deeper than I expect we will ever understand (see the posts I linked to above).
   
   I definitely agree with you that humanity's need for creativity is fundamental to our reality. Where creativite consciousness ends and natural evolution begins is a boundary I will long deliberate. Just being in Japan is enlightening in these respects. For instance, how on Earth can Japanese and Chinese be said to have the same origins? There sound vastly different, the placement of the verb/noun is opposite. How much is Japanese syllabic annotation related to their cultural heritage? There must have been at least some conscious direction in the development of their language, otherwise it would not be possible to represent EVERY word in syllabic form alone. I fail to believe that the language just evolved all by itself to that state. Some creative input was required to set their language in stone, and in doing so a perception of the world was equally created (or maybe vice versa, or maybe co-evolved, or maybe something else - Arrrgggh!!).
   
   Definitely check out that book if you can. I read it just after arriving in Japan and it had a huge impact on the relationship I forged with Japanese culture. They really do live in a different reality to us Western thinkers/speakers/verbal manipulators/virally infected cultural indicators....
9. •  
     CommentAuthorDanieru
   • CommentTimeApr 27th 2006

    permalink
   This conversation has kind of spewed into this post too..
10. •  
      CommentAuthorDr. Orphusi
    • CommentTimeApr 27th 2006

     permalink
    What on earth would happen if scientists were to build a large laboratory designed especially for raising two babies from infancy without allowing for any external human interaction or influence (as in, no other humans can be present, they can feed the children with robotic arms or whatnot, and no language must be heard by the children, etc)?
    
    Ignoring technical details, focus instead on how they would communicate… would the two children build a new language out of nothing? How complex would it be? Would they give names to the objects in their simulated world?
    
    If they would be unable to formulate a language, what small additions could you slowly add to their world in order to stimulate the development of language/intelligence?
11. •  
      CommentAuthorDanieru
    • CommentTimeApr 29th 2006 edited

     permalink
    I often think that the main reason I should never be allowed to have children is for the subconscious experiments I would act out through their upbringing.
    
    Sometimes amoralism is the best way to acheive the most detailed and striking of results. The Nazi medical experiments carried out at the height of their infinitely amoral reign pushed medical research decades ahead of where it had been before the war. I'm not saying we should regularly allow the darkness seen in WWII to enrich our understanding of the human entity. All I'm saying is that every child rearing is replete with experimentation on the part of the parents. Perhaps if we began to make note of, and even drive the direction of these wide scale experiments the human condition would come better into focus.
    
    And to answer your question, yes, I do believe the two isolated children would create a language of forms between them. Human language is as natural as walking, as opposable thumbs. If there are brains it will always find a way to make itself known.
12. • CommentAuthorwhat?
    • CommentTimeApr 30th 2006 edited

     permalink
    many examples around of children, twins especially developing complete languages from scratch, vaguely racall the term ideoglossia? hoo nose. remember also your linguistics, two languages overlap through contact giving rise to a simple mix called a pidgin....the children that grow up speaking a pidgin immediately create a fully fledged language known as a creole. nb. all my utterances may be somewhat degraded due to damage incurred in a lifelong drunken arguement with something calling itself god.