Re: corporeality
Steve Hardy-Braz (STHARDYBRAZ who-is-at gallua.gallaudet.edu)
Sat, 03 Feb 1996 14:54:44 -0500 (EST)
Chris posted:
Pete's father's adage, "cheap is cheap," IS corporeal, if corporeal is
defined as "of the body." These spoken words are also material
("consisting of mass or matter") since we know (although we may not
thoroughly apprehend or appreciate) that energy -- in this case sound waves
-- does in fact have mass. The confusion arises because some material
things (a voice, a song) seem "less material" than other material things (a
book, an onion). What makes an onion seem more material than a song, I
think, is that we are able to apprehend the onion with more senses than we
can the song; we might even process the onion with all of our physical
senses. Or, in other terms: the song seems to exist only in time; the
onion in time and space. This is not to deny of the power of the song to
move us to tears as readily as does the onion -- only that the onion seems
"material" in an everyday sense in a way the song does not.
******************************************
Chris,
The group that I specialize in working with is the deaf. Speaking in
a very broad general sense, sound waves are not (or are differently) perceived.
Now with that in mind, a sound wave does not have mass that can be experienced
and a song may only be percieved as a written artifact by this group. That
artifact then is percieved not only in time but in space as well and thus just
as "real" as your onion. Perhaps we need to state which form or from which
perspective is a "material" thing viewed.
Steve
Steven T. Hardy-Braz PsyS NCSP
School Psychologist