File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2002/lyotard.0206, message 119


From: "fuller" <fuller-AT-bekkers.com.au>
Subject: Re: 44 and 38
Date: Fri, 28 Jun 2002 13:49:02 +0800


Hey Hugh/All.

> A person can refuse to name, or protest the act of being named.  Things
> can't.
> Robots are things, as the telephone robots, and they "speak", but I don't
> think that's what you have in mind..

The some thing outside the process of naming cannot be named because the
namer does not have the ability to name it, so it is suppressed, repressed,
or the namer is changed in his/her perception of his/her reality so that
naming is possible.

> Perhaps your "mind" deceives, makes you think you perceive. Perhaps you do
> not speak, but think you speak.

Yes, we are in agreement, or rather I could be in agreement with myself in a
conversation with myself and merely have the simulacra of the thought or
awareness of otherwise.

>
> > > > What he seems to consistently say, in my reading at least, is that
> there
> > > > is a genre we call science which follows certain rules of cognition,
a
> > > > game which is paralogical because it permits developments to occur
> that
> > > > may overturn its assumptions. However, this genre is limited because
> it
> > > > restricts itself to the interpretation of empirical facts.
> > > **Disagree.  Scientists continually invent new theories, modify old
> > > theories, and accuse each other of bending the facts to fit the
> theories.
> >
> > Hugh, don't you think that 'Science' is a meta-narrative, which
conditions
> > subjects to think in a certain way, to behold a particular reality?
>
> Some scientists speak in that certain way. Science is a non-speaking
> abstraction.

Do you think meaning is a product of language?

> > I would
> > take it further than Eric and suggest that this genre is limited in the
> way
> > it restricts itself (not limited by the restriction itself, for the
> > restriction is the source of agency and authority, hence power).
However,
> it
> > would notnot be a restriction because they may notnot know of it. At
> least,
> > not until they encounter the differend, then the differend may open the
> > subject up to an Event in the Badiou sense.
>
> I don't think genres resttrict themselves. Genres are concepts in the
minds
> of humans. They consist of words and word-usage available from past
> generations.  As language evolves, words, phrases, usage, evolve.

Concepts in the minds of humans that require a particular way of thinking,
IF the concepts are to have a certain meaning. When this certain meaning is
contradicted by another's (of the same concept, or at least the simulacra of
the thought that it is  of the same concept) then it would also work to
(possibly) efface a certain way of thinking. For some this may not be a big
deal, you say rockmelon, I say cantelope, (I would ask "What the hell is a
rockmelon?"), however in other circumstances in may be a very big deal, you
say God's Children, I say Devil's Spawn, or perhaps, you say you are the
bigger victim and I am the agressor, I say I am the victim and you are the
agressor.

> > > > 1. The Ideal does not exist.
> > > **Can I or anyone else prove that an Ideal in your mind or the mind of
> any
> > > other person does not exist?  When asked, you might lie and say no.
If
> > you
> > > describe the Ideal it obviously exists (for you).
> >
> > Can you prove that an ideal exists in your own mind?   Saying "yes" is
> merely
> > agreeing with the prompt, and only a proof of (at least, the simulacra
of)
> > cognition.
>
> You have a thought, it exists.  You have a body, it exists. We write
words,
> each word a thought.  Do words exist?  Are words ideals?

But thinking and writing are not generating ideals they are generating
(supposedly poor) copies of the ideals.

> > > > 3. If it can be known it cannot be communicated.
> > > **Unless you can find the words, and the addressee understands the
> words.
> >
> > Not possible.
>
> You just found the words to communicate about art.  I think Lyotard is not
> pessimistic about the eventual possibility of finding words.  The wrong is
> caused when the words have not been found, commmunication must await their
> finding.

I spoke about art, I didn't speak art. Although you could argue language is
always only a metaphor. What about those things for which no metaphor can be
found? Something that is absolutely terrible (an act perhaps), and I mean a
terrible that generates absolute terror, I would argue is unnameable. There
are other generic examples mostly containing absolutes (absolutes in the
frame of reference (referents) of the 'namer' or adressee, as the adressor
would already have a name for it, and be speaking that name for the adressee
to notknow what the named is).

>  > > >
> > > > Thus, the differend is always somewhat paradoxical in nature and it
> > > > derives from the fact that reality is not a given, but can only be
> > > > established by certain procedures or protocol.
> > > **The differend is a concept, a general term for all the differends of
> all
> > > the peoples of all the world.  Reality requires an instance, a
> happening,
> > a > > wrong to give meaning to the concept.  Presumably Lyotard
> experienced such
> > > an instance, and that led to his invention of the concept/term/word.
> >
> > The singularity you mention, the instance, can send the subject two
ways.
> To
> > (re(re))inforce the Same, or to be forced through pure will of self to
> > efface the cartisian "I am" so it becomes something other.
>
> Sorry, I don't understand. "Other" is used as if it means the same thing
to
> anyone who hears or reads it.  Which other?

Same/Other to the frame of reference (referents) of the adressee. That
discursive practice in which the adressee is embedded and gives his/her
language meaning. The complex intersection of meaning could be shifted (if
the trajectories of sociality and their relative meanings are imagined in a
space).

> >
> > > > I hope this makes things a little clearer. The abstract-concrete
> > > > distinction you are making fails because it does not say how values
> > > > originate or how we should deal with them and this is the central
> > > > concern of Lyotard in the first chapter. He radically distinguishes
> > > > between Ideals and cognition.
> > > **Ask  yourself how your values originate, and I'll probably find my
> > > situation is much the same.
> > >
> > > "Ideals" is a generalization, cognition is a process.
> >
> > I would argue an Ideal is the authority by which cognition operates. The
> > differend (can) cancel the authority of authority.
>
> I think the concept of le differend implies that justice is possible when
a
> tribunal recognizes the need for both parties to a dispute to find the
> idiom(s) both can accept.
>
> If the tribunal does not fulfill that requirement, justice is not rendered
> and, the authority of the tribunal is suspect.

But also that justice is also not-possible if both parties choose to fight,
and use the differend as the very reason for conflict. I am assuming that
there is no tribunal high enough for all disputes (Yep, God is dead).

I wonder if Lyotard only meant in a tribunal sense? I must read on...

> > I think we read LD first to understand, second to agree or disagree with
> > its
> > > content.
> > haha, I agree, I have been distracted be A Clockwork Orange (I saw the
> Andy
> > Warhol version, wtf??).
> I never saw the Warhol version.  Liked the original version.

The book? Yeah I just reread it. The Warhol was six years before Stanley's.

> Take any key word/phrase of Le Differend.   Get three or four of us to
> furnish our own definition -  they will all be different.  Like computers,
> we play words against  capabilities of our software (memories accrued as
> life-histories) and since all life histories are different there are
> differences in the meanings key words/phrases evoke.

Yes! And it is fun! I quite enjoy playing the game. The differend can be
fun!!

Cheers,
Glen.


   

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