File spoon-archives/lyotard.archive/lyotard_2003/lyotard.0308, message 66


Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 16:36:17 +0100
From: "steve.devos" <steve.devos-AT-krokodile.co.uk>
Subject: Re: Thoughts on powerlessness




All

The argument below is that the tool as defined below, tv and radio which 
I understand are a very different experience in the USA than for example 
in the UK and Europe, actually define what we can 'know'? A tool as such 
can 'know' nothing, it is merely a recording and broadcasting device and 
cannot know anything. A singular tool for representing things cannot 
determine what a person knows for the actuality is closer to each person 
being a permanantly split subject, divided  not only between their 
conscious and unconscious motivations, but also divided between their 
psychological, physiological and social constraints. Does this deny the 
wide range determinism of the"knowing human" ? actually not,  for such a 
person is (of course) merely a split subject - existing within the 
constraints of our small and very constrained world... This does not 
make us prisoners of our limited senses because our determined 
physiologies, which we should interfere with very carefully, are what 
makes us human.

I think that the use of such terms as 'prisoner' may not help for they 
are creating a dangerous hostage to fortune - for on the one side it 
continues the implication that either the body and mind can be easily 
improved upon (which is unlikely) or that all "...codes and mores must 
be shattered to enable the free play of negativity, need, desire, 
pleasure and jouissance, before being put together again, although 
temporarily and with full knowledge of what is involved..." (Kristeva)  

Let someone else think of the implications of the objective and 
subjective knowledge statements - 

Written in a decaying body in 35 degrees of heat -

regards
steve

hbone wrote:

>
> All,
>  
> The history of the TV camera and the "set" we view,  determines what 
> it can "know".   The first equipment did not know color or the minute 
> detail presented by modern TV equipment.
>  
> Another "knowing" machine is radio.  Collecting information from 
> distant points of the Earth by short-wave radio's  conversion 
> of of waves striking an antenna into sounds, has been routine for 
> decades.   If a human organism had the sensory and mental power to 
> detect  this information wihout use of a machine,  it would be 
> "psychic",  hearing the words and thoughts of unseen humans thousands 
> of miles away.
>  
> The history of each knowing human (call it "life-history") determines 
> what that person can know.  Show photos of parent, child, and 
> grandchild to each of them,  and ask which picture is most "like" the 
> individual it represents, and you may  get  different answers. 
>  
> This is an example of subjective experience/knowing vs. objective 
> knowing, i.e. the finite objective properties of a photo compared with 
> images in the mind/memory of three individuals.
>  
> In this context, just as we are "prisoners" of our senses,  we are 
> prisoners of our individual histories, our individual life-experiences.
>  
> As the playwright , Albee, once said in a TV interview, a thousand 
> people can see a  single performance,  yet see a thousand "different" 
> performances, because each sees it differently. 
>  
> regards,
> Hugh



HTML VERSION:

All

The argument below is that the tool as defined below, tv and radio which I understand are a very different experience in the USA than for example in the UK and Europe, actually define what we can 'know'? A tool as such can 'know' nothing, it is merely a recording and broadcasting device and cannot know anything. A singular tool for representing things cannot determine what a person knows for the actuality is closer to each person being a permanantly split subject, divided  not only between their conscious and unconscious motivations, but also divided between their psychological, physiological and social constraints. Does this deny the wide range determinism of the"knowing human" ? actually not,  for such a person is (of course) merely a split subject - existing within the constraints of our small and very constrained world... This does not make us prisoners of our limited senses because our determined physiologies, which we should interfere with very carefully, are what makes us human.

I think that the use of such terms as 'prisoner' may not help for they are creating a dangerous hostage to fortune - for on the one side it continues the implication that either the body and mind can be easily improved upon (which is unlikely) or that all "...codes and mores must be shattered to enable the free play of negativity, need, desire, pleasure and jouissance, before being put together again, although temporarily and with full knowledge of what is involved..." (Kristeva)  

Let someone else think of the implications of the objective and subjective knowledge statements - 

Written in a decaying body in 35 degrees of heat -

regards
steve

hbone wrote:

All,
 
The history of the TV camera and the "set" we view,  determines what it can "know".   The first equipment did not know color or the minute detail presented by modern TV equipment.
 
Another "knowing" machine is radio.  Collecting information from distant points of the Earth by short-wave radio's  conversion of of waves striking an antenna into sounds, has been routine for decades.   If a human organism had the sensory and mental power to detect  this information wihout use of a machine,  it would be "psychic",  hearing the words and thoughts of unseen humans thousands of miles away.
 
The history of each knowing human (call it "life-history") determines what that person can know.  Show photos of parent, child, and grandchild to each of them,  and ask which picture is most "like" the individual it represents, and you may  get  different answers. 
 
This is an example of subjective experience/knowing vs. objective knowing, i.e. the finite objective properties of a photo compared with images in the mind/memory of three individuals.
 
In this context, just as we are "prisoners" of our senses,  we are prisoners of our individual histories, our individual life-experiences.
 
As the playwright , Albee, once said in a TV interview, a thousand people can see a  single performance,  yet see a thousand "different" performances, because each sees it differently. 
 
regards,
Hugh


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