re: AUT: Progress

[andrew robinson <ldxar1@xxxxxxxxx>]

"I have identified the real nature of words, rather
than some ideal nature. The meaning I was referring to
was actual meaning, for a subject, not legislated
meaning as in a dictionary." (Tahir)

And your "subject", who is normal and ignorant and
unable to distinguish between conceptual boundaries
and idealised images of essences, is not to be
questioned.  But pray tell, Tahir, how can this
"subject" tell whether a particular thing goes in one
category or another of her/his language, if only using
prototypes?  For instance, the prototypes for the
English stream and river and for the French fleuve and
riviere are much the same, but the boundaries of the
concepts are different (i.e. which of what you call
the "less prototypical" cases go in which category).

And oh yes, I'm sure you see the "real" nature, you
unreconstructed essentialist, because no doubt it
conforms to your own little "prototype" which still
guides your thinking like a cop in your head.

"This is admittedly one type of semantics, albeit
rather antiquated, but it is not one that accords well
with the research data concerning real people."

It's about the structure of language you pillock.
It's about why words make sense.  The research data
is, that the words DO make sense to speakers of a
particular language, and make sense in a way
conforming near-enough to the dictionary usage, or to
a Saussurean schema of concepts.  I fail to see how
"what people say if you ask them to draw a picture of
a cat" has anything to do with it.  If you ask someone
to draw "good", they'll probably draw some guy with a
halo, but that doesn't mean they think you're being
good if you go round with a hoopla ring stuck on your
head.

"As for the other concepts you mention, well they are
different. They are of a higher order of abstraction."

Oh, silly me, I thought we were talking about
LANGUAGE, and it turns out we were only talking about
the BITS of language TAHIR could explain!

"In the case of 'economics' there is a network linking
that term to a range of others, such as 'market',
'money', 'land', 'labour', etc. What defines
the meaning, apart from the specific context, is the
strength of those connections"

Oh look, concepts get articulated to other concepts,
sounds very Deleuzian lololol

"I'm afraid I can't see what this has to do with
anything. All the game does is reflect the notion of
language that has been programmed into it."

But the point is that Pangolin GETS IT RIGHT, and is
able to elicit correct answers which are comprehended
as correct by a human user.  So the modelling of
concepts cannot be inaccurate; it generates a
meaning-production function which is comprehended by
speakers of the language.

"And it may indeed be true that most people (i.e.
normal idiots) use the prototype model some of the
time, " (Andy)
Tahir: "No, everyone, and pretty much all of the
time."

And again with the universalist microfascist crap...
Have these researchers of yours really STUDIED
"everyone", in terms of different kinds of people?
And have they studied the entire range of words?  I
know for a fact that I don't use a prototype model of
language for instance.  But I guess I'm not normal
enough for your neat little pseudo-science - never
mind that I actually use language.  Besides, you've
already admitted that a whole range of "abstract"
concepts have no "prototype".  And you also evade my
point that, compared to a systematic sense of concepts
referring to a range of phenomena with a borderline, a
"prototype" model is clumsy, inaccurate and
misleading, and necessarily produces essentialist
confusions and Barthesian myths.  (Oh yeah, but you're
drawing on "value neutral" science aren't you?!?!)

"NO-ONE at all understands concepts by
putting together in real time lots of little features
to add up to the
concept, as the archaic theory had it; i.e. no-one
goes "claws, fur,
whiskers ..... ah cat!"."

Not consciously.  The point about structuralism is
it's about unconscious functioning.  And besides,
no-one goes around saying, "which prototype does that
animal over there best fit, the four-legged square
table, the barking brown dog, the fluffy purring
cat..." - recognition (in the case of a speaker of a
language) is "spontaneous", which means, unconscious.
So the process of meaning-production is not
transparent to the language-user.

"But what's bothering you is that you don't like the
meanings that some
people have for words; I don't either but that doesn't
lead me to the
same misanthropy as you."

Misanthropy?  I hate the words, not the people, you
arrogant prick.  And it's not just the words I don't
like, it's the clumsy way normal people use (or
rather, abuse) them, and manage to create a disaster
for themselves and for everyone else as well!

"What you want is a set of ideal meanings that
can be prescribed to people as a list of features and
legislated as the
one 'true' meaning."

When exactly did I say that?  All I say is that people
should be clear in their own heads of what their terms
mean, and be able to defend the usefulness of the
terms - and not short-circuit between different levels
of discourse (such as the concept "cat" and the
mythical image you call the "prototype") in ways which
render any kind of dialogue impossible (either "cat"
means the entire range of cats, or only this specific
type; if it is taken to mean both simultaneously, the
result is simply confusion).

"When you find that no-one operates that way you go
into a rage against them."

No, I fly into a rage against people who can't and
won't communicate with me, and who insist on blindly
imposing meanings which are confused, contradictory
and based on mythical formulae which the slightest
logical analysis can instantly debunk.  You, on the
other hand, operate an ascetic moral prohibition
against disagreeing with the masses, who you deify as
carriers of an essential wisdom which is
unchallengeable and before whom you prostrate yourself
in typical slave-morality fashion.  Woe betide if
anyone breaches the moral taboo against criticising
the masses - it might make of them a "moralist"!

"The "prototype" is not generative of a concept, but
rather, is a way to symbolise the concept - a
second-order signification," (Andy)
Tahir: "No, it's precisely the other way round, as can
be verified experimentally. The prototype does not
"generate" the concept. It is that gestalt entity that
precisely IS the concept. Even Saussure had a rough
notion of this, when he spoke of the signified as a
mental image. The list of features stuff comes way,
way later with the inauguration of grammar teaching,
lexicography, etc., a relatively late development."
(Tahir)

And HOW exactly is it verified experimentally, Mr
Know-It-All?  It is not at all clear to me that it
COULD be verified experimentally in the relevant
sense.  Logically, the only way a mental image plus
word could precede a concept with differential
boundaries is if its operation in the first instance
is simply nominal and there is a one-to-one
object-word correspondence.  To then apply this word
to other objects on the basis of the nominal meaning
would be to directly confuse the objects, and not to
form a concept at all.  And again, if you mean that
child development normally goes through the
mental-image stage first, this is irrelevant to how
the structure of the "mature" language operates.

Tahir: "You're way out of your depth, prat."

You're a pseudo-expert, wanker.  The last person tried
this stunt of drawing on supposed expertise in a
specialist field with its own hegemonic assumptions
while dismissing challenges to these assumptions as
simple ignorance, it was a capitalist "economist"
trying to convince me that free trade really helps the
global poor - which should tell you something about
the insidious effects of "experimental", narrow
orthodoxies which avoid examining the broader place of
a specific "discipline"'s "object" outside of their
own self-defined artificial "laboratory" setting.

Tahir: "You would have made a very good prescriptive
grammar teacher. I
can just see you with long tweed skirt, horn rimmed
glasses and a ruler
to smack the pupil on the hand everytime a split
infinitive occurs."

Eeek eeeeeekkkk!!!  He criticised the masses again!!!
This won't do, I'd better throw an insult before this
subversion becomes infectious!!!!  What would be left
of the "value-neutral" endeavours of the
pseudo-experts, if it was actually conceded that the
NORMAL is open to CRITICISM, or worse still,
transformation!!!!! (paraphrase of Tahir's unconscious
motivation in writing the above)

"I would love you to explain to me some time what this
"symbolic structure in the strict sense is"." (tahir)

It's the bits of language I'm on about - the fact that
a word can have a referential meaning which is not
simply nominal, so that one symbol can cover a number
of entities, and so these symbols can then be arranged
in structures to convey meaning about the entities.
The SYMBOLIC operation of language is necessarily
DIFFERENTIAL - even if, for instance, a fantasmatic
use of language (as in some kinds of phatic
communication) may not be.

"As for
develoment and structure, it is extremely foolish to
dichotomise these in the
way you do. As if language emerged in the process of
hominisation and
then suddenly became, something else, a "structure"!"

Oh, obviously you are an embryo Tahir, and also an
ape, a mouse and a fish, and also are a piece of
chocolate cake (assuming that at some point you ate
one), because on a developmental level, you were once
an embryo, your species evolved from apes etc., and
food which became a part of you "developed" from its
previous state into being a part of your body!!!  Do
not deny it, or you are being extremely foolish,
separating development and structure!!!

I am discussing THE ABILITY TO CONVEY MEANING, which
necessarily requires a DIFFERENTIAL LOGIC.  How the
emergence of this ability in normal child development
operates through intermediary forms drawing on other
functions of language, is beside the point.

"You would say that, because it's the only model you
know and you've clearly invested heavily in it."
(Tahir)

Yeah, and I don't like your model because I see normal
people using all this "prototype" shit all the time
and creating disasters as a result, and quite frankly,
if this is the only way language can be used then
bring on fucking armageddon.

In any case, you haven't addressed my point about
autistic language-use in the slightest.

And furthermore, this aside about language has nothing
to do with your objections to Deleuze, who would
object to "prototype"-driven mythical/phatic language
even more than to Saussurean representational
language!  And it says nothing about your defence of
Hegel, who clearly relies on the differential function
of language, and furthermore, on this function being
an accurate depiction of, or identical with,
reality!!!  What are you saying - that language is
primarily affirmative, and that differential uses of
language are a secondary distortion introduced by
grammar teachers?  This leaves Hegel even worse off
than in my critique, because, not only is he reducing
reality to language, he is reducing it to a secondary,
distorted kind of language arising from authoritarian
social structures!!!

BANG BANG  (Tahir just shot himself in both feet)


		
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