Dear Mike and all,
My observation is that it is much more common for different people to interpret collections of words (or images) very differently and do so dependent on their prior backgrounds, assumptions, culture, cultural, social and personal conditioning.
One example is the word formulations and symbols of one cultured 'tribe' are interpreted very differently by those of another cultured 'tribe'. Compare for example, the different positions on national flags, religious symbols and literalised beliefs, clothing styles cultural behaviour.... thios can currently be seen very overtly in differences in interpretation of texts and images of Muslim culture and US culture by members of each culture.
Much the same differences can be seen in the writing in any book. See, for example, wide differences in understanding of the works of James Joyce, Al-Ghazali, Freud, Shakespeare, Guy DeBord (Larry Law is entertaining on this in Spectacular Times - e.g. https://libcom.org/library/1-2-images-everyday-life ).
We as individuals create and impose meaning and create our individualised knowledge on that basis - books and other objects are simply stimuli interpretable in whatever way we wish or ar conditioned to behave. Consistency of interpretation is only a result of consistency of conditioning/brainwashing/enculturated dogma - not the appearance of the object. It is evidenced perhaps most clearly in the way people can interpret the outcomes of the Post-modern generator as reasonable writing, or interpret as reasonable political argument the outcome of programs of random automated writing of pseudo presidential speeches.
Mike wrote,
<snip>'Research and common experience amply demonstrate that a particular group of words, or a particular set of images done a certain way (my area of study) tend to evoke (my preferred word for how signs stimulate meaning) very similar ideas in people attending to them. The better the writing or designing the more consistent the responses. If there was nothing "there' in the book the response would not be consistent. Because it is consistent there must be something there. But the something is not functional until someone attends to it.'<end snip>
Regards,
Terry
==
Dr Terence Love
MICA, PMACM, MAISA, FDRS, AMIMechE
Director
Design Out Crime & CPTED Centre
Perth, Western Australia
[log in to unmask]
www.designoutcrime.org
+61 (0)4 3497 5848
==
ORCID 0000-0002-2436-7566
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