File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_1999/lyotard.9907, message 162


Date: Sun, 18 Jul 1999 00:40:32 -0700
From: hugh bone <hughbone-AT-worldnet.att.net>
Subject: Re: the reality check is in the mail


Lois Shawver wrote:
> 
> Hugh,
> 
> In what way do you consider the epistemology of the imaginary quilt
> different from the epistemology of the figure of a duck-rabbit?  Recall,
> Wittgenstein refers to the seeing of the duck (or the rabbit) as "seeing
> an aspect" or the the "dawning of an aspect." I see quite a resemblance
> between the two models.  In both cases we borrow the word see from
> another langauge game and give it a little different meaning- as we so
> often do as we construct our complex city of language out of rather
> disorganized family resemblances.  And, while it is true that this
> invites a certain confusion of langauge games, you don't avoid those
> langauge games in order to avoid the confusion --- do you?  The task is
> to avoid being bewitched by the similarity in langauge games, not to
> avoid using terms that invite such confusions.  Right?
> 
> But maybe I'm missing your point.
> 
> ..Lois Shawver

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

Lois, 

I was trying to make the point, with illustrations, that the physiology
of perception is extremely variable, that we have to learn to see colors
and shapes, that individual perception of them depends to a great extent
on individual learning and individual memory, and that memory is highly
conditioned by emotion.  

You you see a duck and Colin sees a rabbit, you both are startled by a
sudden noise, you return to the picture, the image has reversed for each
of you.  Then he says, "Oh yes, it is a duck, and you say of course its
a duck, but just now it looks like a rabbit.

Best,
Hugh 

I think an underlying problem is that for decades, academic philosphers
have tried to emulate the physical sciences.  The worlds within a single
human cell, the trillion of synapses that link elements of the brain 
and central nervous system create unimaginable complexity.  

The easy way is to posit to talk about geometric forms and color is to
assume standard human senses, perceptions, emotions;
those interesting things that make us human be-ings; but are not so
simple as the formulae which describe processes of non-living matter
throughout the Cosmos.



   

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