Re: Re: object/action/event

Katherine Goff (Katherine_Goff who-is-at together.cudenver.edu)
21 Aug 1996 03:19:50 GMT

Jim Martin writes:
A phrase like making meaning is maybe as close as our language can get us
to not making a distinction between objects and events

In my attempts to use a systems perspective to make meaning out of my
experiences, both direct and through my interactions with others, I have
struggled with the language barrier. I don't intend to refer to differences
in languages like English, French, etc. I refer to the barrier that language
is to our understanding (or that there is inescapably a barrier that is the
result of languate use.) I am currently at the point where I think that
because language is what we use to construct meaning, trying to understand
the meaning of language in the process of constructing meaning is like
demonstrating the use of a hammer when someone asks what it is. Or a better
analogy might be that in trying to understand a hammer, we are only allowed
to use the hammer to communicate; in the handing it back and forth as we bang
out our messages as we pound nails in walls, floors, tables, etc., how can we
separate the limitations of the medium from the limitations of our
neuro-biological design from the events and objects?

Katherine

****************************************************************
****************************************************************""Baby, we
can choose, you know, We ain't no amoeba." ---Bonnie Raitt & John Hiatt

Katherine E. Goff
District Elementary Technology Coordinator
Cotton Creek Elementary Computer Specialist
Katherine_Goff who-is-at together.cudenver.edu