Semiotics for Blagsta

Former Member

This for instance is all arse about tit. If you're arguing that the visual is analogue, then surely a small change in the form of the visual would change the meaning and if the auditory was digital, then a small change would not have any effect on meaning. You have said "but the "meaning" remains constant if it is visual" which rather contradicts yourself and anyway isn't true, as any graphic designer will tell you. As for the auditory - as has already been demonstrated, a small change in the form can utterly change the meaning and from your earlier link - " It differs from a digital signal in that small fluctuations in the signal are meaningful."

Only if words actually have "meaning". I don't think they do. The fact that form can change the "meaning" of a symbol or word means that "meaning" isn't a property of the word or symbol.

a small change in the form can utterly change the meaning

So it's a brand new word, not a modulated or changed one. Which is then digital either beig spoken or not being spoken. Either 1 or 0.

Former Member

klintock wrote:

Only if words actually have "meaning". I don't think they do. The fact that form can change the "meaning" of a symbol or word means that "meaning" isn't a property of the word or symbol.

Yes, we both accept that words don't have inherent meanings, meaning is arbitary. You're being contradictory however. You say that "the "meaning" remains constant if it is visual but cannot as easily if it is auditory." but then accept that it doesn't. Can't you see this contraciction?

klintock wrote:

So it's a brand new word, not a modulated or changed one. Which is then digital either beig spoken or not being spoken. Either 1 or 0.

So the word love and the word LOVE are two different words? In semiotics, they would be considered two different signs, yes. But two different words?

Former Member

Thank you.

Yes, we both accept that words don't have inherent meanings, meaning is arbitary. You're being contradictory however. You say that "the "meaning" remains constant if it is visual but cannot as easily if it is auditory." but then accept that it doesn't. Can't you see this contraciction?

Only for an individual. Semiotics says that "meaning" is shared. This cannot be. What contradiction?

The word love and the word love have the same "meaning". If you were to whisper "love" and then shout "love" at the top of your lungs, the "meaning" would definitely change. So they are therefore different words.

It's easier if you think of a tonal language like some Chinese dialects, where the same word "means" many different things dependant on how it is said.

Former Member

the word love and the word love are the same word - it doesn't matter how much you use the font size button.

It doesn't become a different word in a different context, it changes what it signifies.

Plus the meaning does change for the visual.

A gollywog toy on the tv being valued on the Antiques Roadshow would have a very different meaning to a gollywog toy being handed to a small boy by a member of the KKK at a lynching and would illict a very different response. (well enless you were extremely autistic)

Former Member

klintock wrote:

Only for an individual. Semiotics says that "meaning" is shared. This cannot be. What contradiction?

If meaning is not shared in some way, how is communication possible? How is art, literature, poetry, drama, cinema etc possible? As to how it is shared, well i guess we'll have to explore structuralism, something I haven't got the brainpower for at the moment (and no doubt you've never heard of it and will dismiss it as "bollocks" without finding out anything about it). Here's a tip - if you want to discuss philosophy, find out something about it first.

Former Member

the word love and the word love are the same word - it doesn't matter how much you use the font size button.

and

Plus the meaning does change for the visual.

A gollywog toy on the tv being valued on the Antiques Roadshow would have a very different meaning to a gollywog toy being handed to a small boy by a member of the KKK at a lynching and would illict a very different response. (well enless you were extremely autistic)

So the "meaning" is stored in the individual. Okay. You have hit on what i think is the whole of this. You "illict a very different response". This is what language does. It does not convey "meaning" it gets responses.

This is how "communication" occurs. I shout "fire" and you leave the building. The purpose of communication is not "understanding" it's to get results. Usually to induce a frame of mind in whoever you are talking to.

If meaning is not shared in some way, how is communication possible? How is art, literature, poetry, drama, cinema etc possible?

Because you have learned your responses. As long as a majority have similar responses to the stimuli then the pretense of "understanding" is maintained. If a madman comes along and questions the existence of one of the key "response" words, oh let's say "Britain" then there can be no "meaningful" response. He's just "mad". Why? Because he keeps hitting the trigger that will prevent understanding just by continued use of the word.

Here's a tip - if you want to discuss philosophy, find out something about it first.

Thank you for the tip. I will go and read about "structralism", find the flaw and report back.

Former Member

klintock wrote:

and





So the "meaning" is stored in the individual. Okay. You have hit on what i think is the whole of this. You "illict a very different response". This is what language does. It does not convey "meaning" it gets responses.

So you're denying the existence of meaning now? :eek:

klintock wrote:

This is how "communication" occurs. I shout "fire" and you leave the building. The purpose of communication is not "understanding" it's to get results. Usually to induce a frame of mind in whoever you are talking to.

Utter nonsense. Do you actually ever leave your house and talk to people? If you shout fire I wouldn't necesserily leave the building. It would depend on who was shouting it and where. I would look for the meaning in the shout of "fire". If it was one of my mentally unstable clients I wouldn't take it as seriously as if it was my manager. Things do have meaning, they don't just elicit responses. Your understanding is simplistic behaviourist nonsense.

klintock wrote:

Because you have learned your responses. As long as a majority have similar responses to the stimuli then the pretense of "understanding" is maintained

The more I read, the more I think you have autism or a personality disorder. Do you wonder why you have difficulty putting your point across? Have you ever thought its because the majority of people don't actually experience the world in the same simplistic way as you do? Most people do share meaning, most people respond to art, music, literature etc with more than a conditioned response - they respond with feeling, with emotions. These emotions are uinversal across humankind (unless, as I say, you're autistic or have some kind of personality disorder). That's where shared meaning can come from. Yes, the signs and symbols which impart meaning are part of a shared social convention and are different across societies, but this does not mean that meaning isn't shared.

klintock wrote:

If a madman comes along and questions the existence of one of the key "response" words, oh let's say "Britain" then there can be no "meaningful" response. He's just "mad". Why? Because he keeps hitting the trigger that will prevent understanding just by continued use of the word.

Yes, I think you probably do have a mental health problem if you can't see that people agree on things for convenience sake. You may question the validity of them, but to deny that people do it is, well, rather odd.

klintock wrote:

Thank you for the tip. I will go and read about "structralism", find the flaw and report back.

Such arrogance! You can't get your head round semiotics and critique that, so how you're going to do it with structuralism I haven't a clue! You're fucking deluded pal.

Former Member

Blagsta wrote:

It would depend on who was shouting it and where. I would look for the meaning in the shout of "fire". If it was one of my mentally unstable clients I wouldn't take it as seriously as if it was my manager.

:eek2:

Former Member

freethepeeps wrote:

:eek2:

Just trying to illustrate a point (maybe not very well). We weigh up the meaning of things not merely by conditioned responses but by who says them, the context, what they may have done before etc. That is, things have meaning to us, something that klintock is denying.

Former Member

So you're denying the existence of meaning now?

Shared meaning.

Utter nonsense. Do you actually ever leave your house and talk to people? If you shout fire I wouldn't necesserily leave the building. It would depend on who was shouting it and where. I would look for the meaning in the shout of "fire". If it was one of my mentally unstable clients I wouldn't take it as seriously as if it was

my manager. Things do have meaning, they don't just elicit responses. Your understanding is simplistic behaviourist nonsense.

Do you ever talk to people?

You were born knowing context, right? You didn't learn that bit as well?

Words have "meaning" AND your response changes depending on the person speaking?

The more I read, the more I think you have autism or a personality disorder

Nope not at all.

Do you wonder why you have difficulty putting your point across?

Nope. I know why I have difficulty. When and where I do.

Have you ever thought its because the majority of people don't actually experience the world in the same simplistic way as you do?

Again with the agreement frame for determining what is actually happening.

These emotions are uinversal across humankind

Do behave.

Most people do share meaning, most people respond to art, music, literature etc with more than a conditioned response

Proof that we share "meaning" please.

Yes, the signs and symbols which impart meaning are part of a shared social convention and are different across societies, but this does not mean that meaning isn't shared.

You have just said that "meaning" of a word changes depending on context even for yourself. Make yer mind up.

people agree on things for convenience sake

But you are more likely to obey your "manager". How do you know that there can be "managers"?

Such arrogance! You can't get your head round semiotics and critique that

Shall we start again or do you just want to read the thread again?

That is, things have meaning to us, something that klintock is denying.

Ohhhh no. Things can have "meaning" for you. You cannot share "meaning" without a hell of a lot of effort, far more than "semiotics" allows for.

Former Member

This is like debating with a religous fundamentalist. Even when presented with the evidence of the illogicality and inconsistency of your argument, you just see it as proof of your point of view. You're crazy.

Former Member

This is like debating with a religous fundamentalist. Even when presented with the evidence of the illogicality and inconsistency of your argument, you just see it as proof of your point of view.

Funny. I was thinking the same thing.

Former Member

Former Member

klintock wrote:

Proof that we share "meaning" please.

The fact that you can have this conversation at all?

Former Member

The fact that you can have this conversation at all?

There is some overlap, I agree. But you are talking about "conversation" and you will "mean" something different than I do. Basically, you are writing in your own private language and I am reading in my own private language and there is no way of telling if they are the same.

Also semiotics states quite clearly that "meaning" is shared between many different individuals then semiotics must be horseshit.

To give an example of what I mean. -

Think of the word confusion -

What did you think of? A sound, a picture, a smell, what sense?

How much of that sense? How loud a sound? How much treble, how much bass> How big a picture and where in space was it? Can you feel heat or cold on your skin? How many pictures?

Do you think that the answers between any two individuals will be the same? Are my answers to those questions going to be the same as yours?

So words and signs cannot have "shared meaning" (unless you go through that process for every word) and therefore semiotics is bollocks.

Former Member

klintock wrote:

you are writing in your own private language and I am reading in my own private language and there is no way of telling if they are the same.

Yes there is. Imagine in the next room I have placed a bowl containing three balls - a red ball, a blue ball and a green ball. I tell you to go and fetch the blue ball from the bowl. Barring some sort of physical or mental defect, you'll be able to easily identify what it is that I want and bring it back.

Former Member

Klintock really needs to read the links he posts
http://www.cultsock.ndirect.co.uk/MUHome/cshtml/semiomean/semio1.html

You might think that the distinction between sound image (signifier) and concept (signified) doesn't get us very far forward in trying to figure out what we mean by 'meaning'. You're probably right. After all, it's no easier to say what the concept of 'the' or 'of' is than to say what thing those words correspond to. And, of course, I don't know if the concepts 'city', 'woman', 'man' in your head are the same as those in mine. As the British linguist, David Crystal, puts it:

Some words do have meanings which are relatively easy to conceptualise, but we certainly do not have neat visual images corresponding to every word we say. Nor is there any guarantee that a concept which might come to mind when I use the word table is going to be the same as the one you, the reader, might bring to mind.

Crystal (1987)

While that's quite correct, the fact remains that it also explains why Saussure's ideas took things forward. His notion of the sign places the emphasis on our individual 'concepts' corresponding to the sound images. Your mental picture of a car (indeed, for all I know, not only a mental picture, but also a mental smell, mental noise or whatever) will not be the same as mine, for a variety of reasons. (For a discussion of some of those reasons, see the section on Meaning).

Saussure shifted the emphasis from the notion that there is some kind of 'real world' out there to which we all refer in words which mean the same to all of us. Fairly obviously, we in our language community have much of this real world in common, otherwise we couldn't communicate, but, for various reasons, the 'real world' which we articulate through our signs will be different for every one of us. (It is for this reason that Saussure saw semiology as a branch of social psychology.)

Saussure saw language as being an ordered system of signs whose meanings are arrived at arbitrarily by a cultural convention. There is no necessary reason why a pig should be called a pig. It doesn't look sound or smell any more like the sequence of sounds 'p-i-g' than a banana looks, smells, tastes or feels like the sequence of sounds 'banana'. It is only because we in our language group agree that it is called a 'pig' that that sequence of sounds refers to the animal in the real world. You and your circle of friends could agree always to refer to pigs as 'squerdlishes' if you want. As long as there is general agreement, that's no problem - until you start talking about squerdlishes to people who don't share the same convention.

Saussure freely admits that when he is stressing the arbitrariness of the sign, he is stressing something which is actually fairly obvious. As he sees it, though, the problem is that people haven't paid enough attention to the implications of the fact that sign-systems are arbitrary.

Since it is the case that the codes (see Code) we use are the result of conventions arrived at by the users of those codes, then it is reasonable to suppose that the values of the users will in some way be incorporated into those codes. They will, for example, have developed signs for those things they agree to be important, they will probably have developed a whole array of signs to draw the distinctions between those things which are of particular significance in their culture.

In other words, you might reasonably expect that the ideologies prevalent in those cultures will have been incorporated into the codes used:

...'reality' is always encoded, or rather the only way we can perceive and make sense of reality is by the codes of our culture. There may be an objective, empiricist reality out there, but there is no universal, objective way of perceiving and making sense of it. What passes for reality in any culture is the product of the culture's codes, so 'reality' is always already encoded, it is never 'raw'.

Fiske (1987 pp 4-5)

Semiologists generally prefer the term 'reader' to 'receiver' (even of a painting, photograph or film) and often use the term 'text' to 'message'. This implies that receiving a message (i.e. 'reading a text') is an active process of decoding and that that process is socially and culturally conditioned.

One of Saussure's fundamental insights, then, was that sign-systems are arbitrary systems, a set of agreed conventions. Since there is no simple, natural sign=thing relationship between sign systems and reality, it is we who are the active makers of meanings. The sign-systems (or codes) which we use provide us already with sets of meanings (the 'always already encoded' reality which Fiske speaks of). We activate the meanings within the repertoire which the code offers us.

(italics mine)

Former Member

Yes there is. Imagine in the next room I have placed a bowl containing three balls - a red ball, a blue ball and a green ball. I tell you to go and fetch the blue ball from the bowl. Barring some sort of physical or mental defect, you'll be able to easily identify what it is that I want and bring it back.

Leaving aside the fact that no two eyes see the same way - metamerism.

I do not understand exactly what you mean by "blue ball" until I experience it for myself. Even at this basic level I am misunderstanding you albeit it on certain discrete lines. That may be useful or may not. The important thing is that I respond to your stimulus effectively, not that I take "meaning" from your words.

Blagsta, i will get around to your post when i have ten minutes to spare.

For now though, tell me again how you would prove a "countries" existence under the rules of evidence of a court.

Former Member

nope, don't reply about a countries exsistance - that debate was in another thread and everyone said their piece, this is a thread about semiotics, either stick to that topic Klintock or leave this thread

Former Member

klintock's already demonstrated that he's incapable of discussing semiotics

Former Member

regardless, doesn't mean the topic can be changed at whim

Former Member

I agree. I've got the lunatic on ignore now anyway, along with his alter ego seeker.

Former Member

No worries.

The question has been answered because it has been read.

I will move on when I get a minute.

Former Member

klintock wrote:

I will move on when I get a minute.

You believe in "minutes" but not in "countries" (sic)? Weird...

Former Member

Funny. I was thinking the same thing

he's right about you though

Former Member

As long as there is general agreement, that's no problem - until you start talking about squerdlishes to people who don't share the same convention.

I don't know if the concepts 'city', 'woman', 'man' in your head are the same as those in mine.

I have shown repeatedly that they are different.

Some words do have meanings which are relatively easy to conceptualise

"conceptualise" how?

I have already shown that a word is a trigger for past experience through the senses. So this is bunnies. Or to put it another way - unspecified referntial index - making a conept how and to who in what way?

Nor is there any guarantee that a concept which might come to mind when I use the word table

No, it's guaranteed that you will think of a different one.

His notion of the sign places the emphasis on our individual 'concepts' corresponding to the sound images.

"Sound images" - type of synesthesia otherwise impossible.

Saussure saw language as being an ordered system of signs whose meanings are arrived at arbitrarily by a cultural convention

All individuals hold different meaning and there can be a group meaning as well. Obviously horseshit. You can have a group response but that isn't meaning.

As long as there is general agreement, that's no problem - until you start talking about squerdlishes to people who don't share the same convention.

As long as there is the illusion of agreement due to similar responses then there is no problem. When someone reacts in a different way to the stimulus than his/her fellows then the fact that their is no "meaning" becomes clear.

The rest of it I really can't be bothered demolishing a bit at a time.

You believe in "minutes" but not in "countries" (sic)? Weird...

Nope I don't believe in UFO's either but I can still use the term. See my earlier post about the nature of time - how it's completely subjective.

he's right about you though

Let's bring up a funny point. Despite the knowledge that I have frequently presented reagarding "meaning" Blagsta has never asked me to breakdown mine properly. For all he knows I am talking about what he thinks is confusion. As he has never bothered checking how does he know?

Former Member

erm he has asked you on a number of times, are you blind?

Former Member

Really?

Where did he ask me for my internal representation for meaning?

I missed that entirely.

Former Member

do you realise klintock that every time you type a word on this site and every time you read something on this site, including this post now, you're contradicting everything you "believe" in...it's impossible for anyone to read what i wrote above and think i'm talking about yellow elephants on a bus journey to taiwan...is there now...

Former Member

.it's impossible for anyone to read what i wrote above and think i'm talking about yellow elephants on a bus journey to taiwan...is there now...

Which is why semiotics is bullshit. It says "meaning" is shared and you have just shown that is bollocks.