File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1998/lyotard.9812, message 112


Date: Mon, 21 Dec 1998 19:41:21 -0800
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: words


Ingrid Markhardt wrote:
> 
> 
> >Ingrid Markhardt wrote:
> >>
> >> >Language, presumably, is not a pre-natal experience.
> >>
> >> Just a note on this assumption:  The baby in the womb hears the
> >> mother's heart, breathing and other body sounds as well as her voice, and even
> >> the voices of others nearby.  This is one way the newborn infant "recognizes"
> >> its mother, a mutual recognition upon which everything depends. And the
> >> rhythms of heartbeat, breath, motion, rest, and so on may give the context
> >> for "learning" everything.  I think it is very difficult to say, then, where
> >> language begins.
> >>
> >> Ingrid M.
> >
> >-AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-
> >
> >Hugh Bone replies:
> >
> >It depends on what we mean by language.  If we mean words exclusively,
> >it would begin with understanding the meaning of words, whenever that
> >happens.
> >
> >A few decades ago we never heard of computer languages, but were
> >accustomed to the idea of sign language.  Some communication is possible
> >between persons who do not understand each other's words.
> >
> >In Le Differend, Lyotard says silence can be a phrase.
> >
> >You describe pre-natal interaction of mother and unborn child.  It could
> >be called a "transaction", which seems to me a way of characterizing
> >any transfer of "information", between two beings, human and/or
> >non-human.
> >
> >A context for "recognition" and "learning" enables mutual communication
> >with pets.  We communicate with dogs for, example, using sounds,
> >gestures, silence.  They reply.
> >
> >Wild dogs and wolves do the same.
> 
> Just a few notes on the above:
> 
> Even if we narrow the definition of language to the scope of logos, words, (and
> the implication[s] of silence), communication, wordless or worded, is not
> really about exchange of information.  That we tend to think communication in
> these terms, even with the example of mother and infant, is an indication of
> the destitution of our technological age, non?
> 
> Ingrid M.

-AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT--AT-

Reply:

Pas du tout.

Language is far more extensive than words.  You indicated recognition
and
a preparation for learning.  Of course that is what happens, 
and whether you call it information, communication, whatever, two human
bodies are changed; each influencing the other in complex ways.

Such phenomena are "what happens".  Science and technology experiment
and
comment, but don't "make" anything in the process you decribe. 

At least that's one opinon, maybe there are others.

Best,
Hugh



   

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