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Posted by dorayme on 02/20/07 21:11
In article
<1171973546.077490.239830@q2g2000cwa.googlegroups.com>,
"Andy Dingley" <dingbat@codesmiths.com> wrote:
> On 20 Feb, 01:50, dorayme <doraymeRidT...@optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>
> > (in Australia, we call it bullshit).
>
> That's why the two most important publications in post-modernist
> theory are Sokal's
It did no good except entertain us all, people reaching high
honours in postmodernist courses on the continent still get
professorships in otherwise reputable universities. It is like
religion, no amounts of argument or parody or anything else can
make the slightest dent in its proliferations... Its attractions
have to do with the penchant of people loving the feeling of
sounding intellectual. It is simply sad and I don't really want
to get going on this too much, when would I stop?
>
> > There are words and sentences and these have meanings. We do not
> > need some third ghostly intermediary called a concept.
>
> Of course we do! As a HTML author, haven't you felt its acute lack?
No, I most definitely have not. My problems have always been low
level technical ones (guess why I am really here?), not chasing
after ghosts.
> My overall point here, in all these thousands of words, is that good
> HTML authoring practice demonstrates the validity of the Structuralist
> approach (at least within this narrow field). There _is_ an underlying
> and hidden "concept" within our sites and shared between our pages.
We are at cross purposes here. I was referring to a lack of need
of an intermediary between a word or sentence and its meaning.
You are talking about what might be common features across pages,
various template notions. These have various levels of
sophistication as can be seen by trying to identify what might be
common:
A young child will see they "all have the same same picture of a
frog at the very top"
An older child will see that "all have the same picture of a frog
at the very top and the same text bigger and blacker than the
rest"
A teenager will notice the common shapes and areas, and even the
functions of the areas "the left bits are all links so you can
get around the site"
And it goes on and on and on. There is no fantastic, magical
language that has been invented, and certainly not from the
European philosophers to make any of this easy or clear in a
general fashion.
Bottom line, I know, it does not matter, who am I, I simply flat
disbelieve the usefulness of your "European" studies to help out
in this matter. I think you have enough natural abilities and
insights to do quite without these mumbo jumbo linguistic
superstructures.
> Good authors are already recognising this (if unconsciously)
With respect, you are entrenching a confusing idea. They are not
recognising some ghostly object called a concept. They are
recognising patterns and similarities. These are things we know
about in general and various specialists in various fields
identify them in particular. They are extremely interesting and
valuable in different ways to different people in different
fields. But there is no one thing they all are: concepts. It is
an unfortunate and confusing terminolgy.
....
>
> > The whole terminology of "signifier" and "signified" is
> > hopelessly based on false ideas.
>
> Which are?
>
I gave you some in last post. In general, we all know after only
some reflection that there is a difference between a word, for
example, and its meaning. To try to generalise this across all
words and signs and sentences and (help! webpages) into the
terminology of the "signifier" and "signified" gives no new
insight about what the various relationships are. They are so
diverse, so dependent on context that this terminology lulls us
into a naively false perception. I can simply see you shoring up
this great illusion with your use of "concept" What is common to
the signified? Ah... a concept. It is all bullshit. You do not
need this language.
> > "only the signified conveys real meaning"? What?
>
> Yes. That's what we define it to mean. We invent these new term-usages
> and we define them as "expression of" and "thing expressed". Thus far
> I don't see much scope for bollockspeakery. Signifiers don't have
> meaning, they just point to the thing that does carry the meaning.
This is just false. They point to no such thing. There is no such
thing. It is an illusion you are chasing, a ghost. There is no
"thing" that carries the meaning in most cases. The closest you
will ever get to a thing being "meant" is a proper name and the
thing named. And even then, the name does not mean the object.
But at this point, I better stop, no?
> Sometimes this pointed direction is short and direct, sometimes it's
> vague and torturous.
>
> As it is, a simplified "60-Minutes" English has no ability to discuss
> such concepts. I totally and utterly reject any attempt to make me
> stupid by limiting the language I can use to express thought (this is
> one reason I don't own a TV). Humpty Dumpty was right, sometimes you
> have to make words mean whatever you wish them to mean, but you have
> to do this carefully and to take notes of how you did use them so that
> others can follow.
>
>
> > I shudder to think of a panel of folks making a wsiwig anything
>
> That's the camel design problem though, not the concept.
I'm sorry to sound so disagreable, but again, no. It was not the
camel problem I was really shuddering at. A bunch of people using
the language you favour, would just make the venture even harder
than it would be if just you used it. I would still shudder for
you.
--
dorayme
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