File spoon-archives/avant-garde.archive/avant-garde_1996/96-12-23.023, message 173


Date: Sat, 21 Dec 1996 14:39:57 -0500
From: Whit Blauvelt <whitfb-AT-dorsai.org>
Subject: Re: 


 In a sense, there's nothing 'wrong' with defining 'language' (or any other
 term) to mean 'the entire universe' - since in a trivial sense everything
 connects, reality is holistic. Still, there's another level where language
 is useful for describing particular things (instead of everything) - else
 why have separate terms (or language, even)? At this level, languages such
 as our speech and writing are a small thing, separate from the rest. And
 to confuse it with the rest is to confuse the data of our maps with the
 realities those maps are at best limited sketches of. The error of the
 'dataverse in communication' view is that it denies reality in favor of
 talking about reality, it supports a computational view of mind that
 leaves out the qualities of real experience, it makes of the twin boob
 tubes (TV and WWW) real equivalents for a world whose state the
 multinationals would as soon we largely ignored.

 It's really the same mistake as confusing a book for God (where God is
 taken as a name for the ultimate organization of existence - the
 anthropomorphic mistake is a different discussion, as is the polytheistic
 challenge).

 Data are about things, and no data exhaust the description of a thing
 (except for the special case, perhaps, of things which are artifacts of
 data) - as even a slight acquaintance with, say, quantum theory - or any
 area where mapping has been pushed rigorously towards recalcitrant reality
 - amply shows. 

 As an athiest computer programmer, I find the litcrit notion that all is
 language at best only a wish-fulfillment fantasy that the object of ones
 study should turn out the be the center of everything. Since programmers
 also deal in languages, I've seen the same inflated claims from my own
 field. Embarassing.

 > The problem here is the definition of "language".... In my take there is
 > nothing but "language." The entire universe is a dataverse and it is a
 > communicatory nexus.... from the subatomic level up, particles and
 molecules
 > are communicating, using "language" in one form or another....(the birds
 and
 > the bees and the flowers too) every process in the universe stems from
 one
 > form of transmission and reception, causality and response, all of which
 are
 > language....conscious or unconscious...
 > gravity and mass, light and dark, all these are communications, of which
 we
 > are part in kind of matter's response.... 
 


\/\/ I-I I T   \   whitfb-AT-dorsai.org   /   http://www.dorsai.org   
Blauvelt       /   nyc           usa   \   http://www.isitc.org



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