Judy writes:
>Let me start with what I take as key assumptions, because not everyone seems
>to share them. I assume (with Jay and Bill, at least, I think) that there's
>no activity that is fantasy free. There's no sociocultural "real" that's not
>defined against the not-real.
I think we share some assumptions, too, Judy. But I would not use "fantasy"
here -- fantasy for me is already an embroidery on the solid background of
the Real. I would use "meaning" or "sense" or whatever makes.
...isn't what we are saying that sense is always _made_ (semogenesis) --
but never unilaterally.
Of course 'meaning' is as full of tricky connotations as 'fantasy'. (So
semiotic mediation says Jay.) But starting with *meaning* or *sense* at
least shows that devices like *nonsense* or *meaningless* are born as
negative markings on the grounds of something (world-of-meanings) that may
sustain our survival in ways that *nonsense* may not. (And when they are,
we also learn something new about *meaning* or *sense*. We poke a little
hole in them.)
But long before that (...I tend to beginnings, althogh I am really in the
dark, there...) the reality of the actual and present is expanded with the
presence of pasts, futures, elsewheres and otherwises: believable
could-be:s and have-been:s. THEN would come the real-isation of what is
neither actually-present or even meant-to-be-believable.
Well, I think I'm just re-saying much of what Judy writes in her beginning
-- only trying to sketch a starting point where there is quite a distance
in the meta- and logical sense to the kinds of not-real that makes Real
look like a special case. The "little holes" take a long chain of semiosis
to start appearing in plain sight. (Never mind what goes on behind our
backs...)
Eva