(mixed-up the sending process here so i'm forwarding mesen)

----- Original Message -----
From: "david bircumshaw" <[log in to unmask]>
To: "Paul Taylor" <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2000 8:45 PM
Subject: Re: playfulness re: 'the feeling for words'


> ----- Original Message -----
> From: cris cheek <[log in to unmask]>
>
> > So when you say 'manic typo motherfucker' you might not hear it as
speech
> > commentaries with humor but see it as ugly expression and you might not
> > hear the syllabic stresses (2-pushed2-4 doesn't sound like a dropped
beat
> > to my ear at all) but simply see 'nonsense'. Well of course I find it
> > pretty funny and generously self-deprecating on an author's part to
start
> a
> > piece of writing with such a phrase.  But enough of Andrews already
> > perhaps. Just that i don't hear it as you do. Isn't that ok?
>
> It's taken me a little while to get back to the keyboard, but let me pick
up
> a couple of points.
>
> It seems we have very quickly run into subjectivist sands on this
question.
> There are always going to be syllabic stresses of some sort, but some are
> more remarkable than others, perhaps when there is an interplay with some
> kind of metre and some kind of sense (i.e. non-randomness).
>
> I can only give a curmudgeonly grunt to the suggestion that such writing
is
> "generously self-deprecating". Sorry not to be nicer about it.
>
>
> > Deleuze asserts that the basic unit of sense is two things put next to
> each
> > other or brought into intimate proximity (Mallarme might help us here as
> > might Cage). He calls that an 'assemblage'.
>
> I don't know if this is a bare assertion of Deleuze's, but I would assert
> that making sense is a few bits more complex than that. My own view is
based
> on the notion of mapping information onto schemata (in the brain).
Proximity
> is a pretty weak relationship to get us started, wouldn't you say?
>
>
> >I have
> > no idea what might be meant by it except a suspicion that conventions of
> > sensibility and meaning making are walking abroad and i wish to
challenge
> > such conventions as not being universally shared and in the process take
> > the temperaure of the waters here
>
> No doubt I am herewith revealing how conventional I must be, but I can see
> that it is valuable to become aware of such things, and appreciate your
> efforts to help me see what you mean.
>
> Paul Taylor.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Paul Taylor" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2000 6:11 PM
> Subject: playfulness
>
>
> > ----- Original Message -----
> > From: pain <[log in to unmask]>
> >
> > > Paul regarding theory and the French --I think one has to allow for
> > > playfulness with scientific ideas -- they shouldn't be taken too
> > seriously.
> >
> > Play is a fine thing. Bungling or pretentiousness are not so palatable.
> >
> > The question of metaphor is complex, not to say vexed, but I think it is
> > possible to say some clear things about it, and I think Sokal has done
> this.
> >
> > "Some people will no doubt think that we are interpreting these authors
> too
> > literally and that the passages we quote should be read as metaphors
> rather
> > than as precise logical arguments. Indeed, in certain cases the
'science'
> is
> > undoubtedly intended metaphorically; but what is the purpose of these
> > metaphors? After all, a metaphor is usually employed to clarify an
> > unfamiliar concept by relating it to a more familiar one, not the
> reverse."
> > (Intellectual Impostures, p.9)
> >
> > It seems to be fundamentally important not to take metaphor literally.
> (This
> > mistake seems to be what's going on in the case of New Agers babbling on
> > about "energy", but that's another story.) It may in many cases be hard
to
> > work out whether a writer like Baudrillard is being metaphorical or not,
> but
> > Sokal quotes passages where literal statements are being attempted,
albeit
> > in a baffingly abstruse way. When Baudrillard is being literal, he seems
> to
> > be just wrong. When he is being metaphorical, he is being wilfully
obscure
> > for no conceivable reason other than to bamboozle the reader. You can
call
> > this "play" if you like, but aren't his supporters admiring his insights
> > into the workings of the world, rather than merely watching him play in
> some
> > academic sand-pit?
> >
> > The epilogue to Sokal and Bricmont's book includes the section, "Science
> is
> > not a 'text'":
> >
> > "The natural sciences are not a mere reservoir of metaphors ready to be
> used
> > in the human sciences [or the arts?]. Non-scientists may be tempted to
> > isolate from a scientific theory some general 'themes' that can be
> > summarized in few words such as 'uncertainty', 'discontinuity', 'chaos'
or
> > 'nonlinearity' and then analyzed in a purely verbal manner. But
scientific
> > theories are not like novels; in a scientific context these words have
> > specific meanings, which differ in subtle but crucial ways from their
> > everyday meanings, and which can only be understood within a complex web
> of
> > theory and experiment. If one uses them as metaphors, one is easily led
to
> > nonsensical conclusions." (p.177)
> >
> > One of the reflex insults against science is the charge of reductionism.
I
> > reckon that many postmodernists are reductionists of a different kidney:
> > they reduce the richness of nature and culture to a heap of texts or
> words.
> >
> > I only trouble the list with these quotes and considerations because of
an
> > interest in the role and "status" of metaphor in investigations and
> > expressions, scientific or poetic or other. Apologies if this is too
much
> of
> > a digression hereabouts. It will ultimately be better to put such
> ponderings
> > onto a web-site for people to visit if they're interested.
> >
> > Paul Taylor.
> >
> > (this a wide-angle response, no critiques intended. 'mind-play' , pace
> Stephen)
> >
> > Interrisante. The scientific quest for parsimony in language, laudworthy
> in its context, (at least, that is, till one encounters the reminders of
> ethics) and the writerly desire for increase in the tonal resources, the
> you'll-not-shut-this-up of expressive language, its range and dexterity of
> feel - 'ah, that's nice' - are Marvellian Definition of Love poles apart.
> I've followed cris's recent posts with interest but outsiderliness - the
> language seems division-of-labour specialised, creating in its
> discriminations a protected sub-species of discourse. 'Zaum' may be fine
and
> a wake-up call but Baudrillard & co, philosophes plc, seem to me to be
> obfuscators of the first degree.
>  It is a bugbear of mine that 'theory' in literature bears no resemblance
to
> theory in science, yet the word is employed with earnest and empire to
> assert the validity of 'theories' that lack disproveable correlations. As
> the Russian astronomer character Alexandrov in Fred Hoyle's novel 'The
Black
> Cloud' was wont to grunt, 'prediction only bloody good science'.
>  That no end of confusion and mis-application has done and does and will
do
> come from the import of 'science' into literary domains I take as ruefully
> regarded granted. Yet where science and literature could combine to
> investigate the terrains of 'Here Be Demons and Anthropophagi', in the
> neuro-physiology of language, there we have so very little. The
physiologies
> of utterance, the postcards we have from Wernicke and Broca, their patches
> and areas, are well-known, but 'The Good Poet's Guide to Cortex-Friendly
> Rhythms' or 'The Effects of Metaphor on Regional Cerebral Blood-Flow' or,
> from the writerly bias, as in Paul's final paragraph, the intriguing
> question of science as made by metaphor-mapping, now there's summat to jaw
> on about.
>
> regards
>
> david
>



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