Re: [xmca] "Rising to the concrete"

[Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com>]

On 19 August 2012 04:11, Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net> wrote:

> Huw, I suspect you may have misunderstood my comment about "analog " and
> "digital" belonging to a completely different frame than
> "abstract/concrete" and "general/universal." This does not at all mean that
> the distinction is irrelevant. Words and concepts are meaningful only as
> part of a certain system of some kind, and when a word or concept belonging
> to one system or semantic register is introduced into another system or
> discourse (here myself mixing several frames) one must take especial care
> to explain oneself.
>
>
No.


> I suspect that much of what I say on xmca is meaningless or obscure to
> others. To be honest, Huw, I can't make sense of this post of yours. That
> is not I suspect because I am dumb or because you are mad, but we seem to
> be using two different conceptual frames. It's like inserting FORTRAN code
> into a javascript. For example, as someone who learnt my computer science
> before there was such a discipline, I do not see "analog" as meaning
> "continuous," rather it means modelling the material world in some kind of
> artefact whose behaviour is governed by other natural laws which are
> controllable. So the natural, material world itself, in that frame, cannot
> be analog, though it undoubtedly is continuous.
>

The usual language to embed in this way is lisp.


>
> Unfortunately Huw, we live in a world where almost every individual uses
> their own unique semantic register and this makes collaboration, let alone
> communication (which BTW I do not see as synonymous with behaviour) more
> and more difficult, especially if we dance carelessly over the polysemous
> nature of the words we share. The multiplicity of semantic frames is
> something we have to live with because it is part of the individualistic,
> politically and econommically liberal world we inhabit, but the other side
> is that we cannot take understanding for granted.
>
> Andy
>
>
> Huw Lloyd wrote:
>
>> On 18 August 2012 02:33, Larry Purss <lpscholar2@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Huw
>>>
>>> Where do you locate the *as if* structure of understanding?  Wolfgang
>>> Iser
>>> proposes a literary anthropology model that posits the actual/real realm
>>> AND the imaginal realm  MEDIATED by the fictional.  In this model the
>>> distinctions or boundaries between the actual and the fictional are not
>>> distinct and clear.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>> Hi Larry,
>>
>> By "as if", I understand you to mean analogous to.
>>
>> As I understand it analogy has its basis in the analog (continuous).
>> Although we could relate to a digitally conceived arrangement by analogy
>> to
>> another digitally understood thing.
>>
>> In terms of concept formation.  I perceive metaphor to refer to the whole
>> by virtue of something else, and the analog to refer to relevant structure
>> of the conception by virtue of some other structure that is known to you.
>> Neither, however, directly tackle the actual structure of the new concept,
>> rather they help you to orient to it appropriately.
>>
>> I'm not keen on the phrase 'real'.  Everything is real.  The thought of a
>> flying elephant is real.  So to delimit the real, is to disconsider things
>> that are real, as not real.  I think this kind of boundary puts up
>> resistance too, to the uptake of the mentally materialized ideal through
>> mediated activity.  It would be like dividing a tennis court where one
>> side
>> of the net is the real and the other the non-real, and then focusing upon
>> the real and the non-real as two different things.   So there is no
>> boundary between thoughts of the actual and thoughts of the fictional, it
>> just so happens that some of the behaviour of the tennis player on the
>> "non-real" side are particularly appropriate -- they have veracity.
>>
>> Briefly, on the appropriateness of analog and digital, here are a few
>> points:
>>
>> - Dialectics is related to analytics in similar ways, I believe, as analog
>> is related to digital.
>>
>> The material out of which dialectics reveals itself is analytic structure.
>> The creative dialectic thought postulates analytic conceptions from which
>> it can rebound.  The abstractions out of which concepts are formed are
>> analytic formulations.  The digital meanwhile inheres within the analog.
>>
>> - A simple virtue of these distinctions is to assist in heeding logical
>> errors.  For instance, linguists and cognitive scientists conceive of the
>> word or thought coming first.  They may say that communication is speaking
>> or wording.  But this is to put the digital before the analog.
>> Communication is much more than wording, communication is behaviour.
>>
>> - Typologies are implicated too.  I believe they can be related such
>> things
>> as value and inner-form.
>>
>> - Meanwhile in the business of imagination and intuition, of raising the
>> unconscious to the conscious, is, I believe, inherently a raising of
>> analogic to digital.  In a similar way to how words help to build
>> consciousness.
>>
>> So, to say that "analog and digital" is not relevant seems to me to be
>> rather dogmatic (using Davydov's definition).
>>
>> Anthony Wilden's "Analog and Digital Communication" (system and structure)
>> may be a good place to delve further, which may appeal and relate to much
>> of your own studies, Larry, e.g. p173:
>>
>> "The conception of the nip emerging from the bite as a metonymy and then
>> becoming part of the code (as a metaphor) once it has been integrated into
>> a higher level of communication, seems to be borne out of a number of
>> studies of animal and infant communication.  Bronowski (1967:385) points
>> out that "the normal unit of animal communication, even among primates, is
>> a whole message", and Bruner emphasizes McNeills' argument that the
>> child's
>> first semantic system is a holophrastic 'sentence dictionary' in which
>> words correspond to complete sentences."
>>
>> Huw
>>
>> Larry
>>
>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 12:00 PM, Huw Lloyd <huw.softdesigns@gmail.com
>>>
>>>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>       On 17 August 2012 19:03, Ivan Rosero <irosero@ucsd.edu> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> In the interest of understanding you Huw, these two lines in your most
>>>>> recent post jumped out at me
>>>>>
>>>>> To assert that something is not relevant is to prevent such creative
>>>>> thinking...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Going back to the other contention, your assertion that analog and
>>>>> digital belong to a different frame is wrong.  The only possible truth
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> of
>>>
>>>
>>>> the assertion is that they have nothing to do with your frame...
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> The following lines also struck me
>>>>>
>>>>> To abstract is to measure.  To measure is to compare.  Comparison is
>>>>> digital.
>>>>>
>>>>> These assertions create a pretty big universe of seemingly irrelevant
>>>>> things to thinking about abstraction and comparison.  I wonder, for
>>>>> example, if abstraction can be about something other than measuring?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>  And,
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> would the following sentence count as comparison?
>>>>>
>>>>> "A dog is kind of like a sheep."
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Yes, it can count as comparison.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> If yes, is this a "digital" comparison?  If no, what is this sentence
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> in
>>>
>>>
>>>> your estimation?
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>> Yes.   For the dog to be conceived of as like a sheep, you are comparing
>>>>
>>>>
>>> a
>>>
>>>
>>>> model of a dog with a model of a sheep.
>>>>
>>>> Likewise the only means of comparing the two living things is by various
>>>> measurements.  To say that one is like another is to compare conceptions
>>>> made from aggregated abstractions.
>>>>
>>>> But you could say "My dog is a sheep", which is not such a comparison.
>>>>
>>>> I do not like writing that someone is wrong, but then I do not like
>>>> obfuscation even more.  If you think it's out of place, please forgive
>>>>
>>>>
>>> the
>>>
>>>
>>>> harshness.
>>>>
>>>> Huw
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> ivan
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>
> --
> ------------------------------**------------------------------**
> ------------
>
> *Andy Blunden*
> Home Page: http://home.mira.net/~andy/
> Book: http://www.brill.nl/concepts
>
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