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Reply to Clark Goble Wed, 12 Jun 2002 21:37:14 -0600

Hello Clark,
I got my copy of Derrida's "Of Grammatology" (Spivak translation), today.  I
am also studying Wittgenstein's Philosophical Grammar", and some other books
by Talmy, Langacker, etc on grammar.   As to the Dourish book it reflects my
interest in embodiment.  I think his point that phenomenological theory is
important in the embodiment sense, and the technical work of analytical
philosophy provides another source of understanding, that seems justified to
me.   Looking forward to hearing your thoughts on Dourish's views.

CG:  However I wonder about your insistence on a separation between film and
text for embodiment. In the opening of the book I found the following:

Embodiment...denotes a form of participatory status. Embodiment is about the
fact that things are embedded in the world, and the ways in which their
reality depends on being embedded. So it applies to spoken conversations
just as much as to apples or bookshelves; but it's also the dividing line
between an apple and the *idea* of an apple. (Dourish, 18)

DS:  The distinction I am making is the interactivity of a movie versus
text.  Dourish states that he is trying to incorporate lessons learned from
phenomenology so he sympathizes with your concerns in that sense.

CG:  When we speak of *not* separating acting from idea, I'm not sure it
implies that somehow films have a priority over text. (Because they
"resemble" more closely the way in which we encounter these things as they
are given to us in the world) Further it would imply that even if we were to
create a perfect "virtual reality" that the object in this virtual world and
the object in the real world are not the same.

DS:  Of course to me (and not to you) the concept of not separating action
from ideas (interactivity) implies for me movies over text.

I note you use the word 'resemble' in a passive sense, whereas I  emphasize
'interactivity' to indicate media and action.

The concept of virtual reality is a box one steps into out of the real
world.  I use the term language-like use of movies to describe a different
way of thinking about movies.

The technical area which is more interesting to me than virtual reality is
'augmented reality'.  That simply means projecting information on the
landscape.  Not so conceptually different from slide projectors and movie
projectors except the sense we carry the tool around with us and can use
anywhere.

CG:  To make an analogy... Further this alterity of the apple (alterity as
in how it is not constituted by me or my thinking) is a kind of fracturing
of the order of existence that exists for me

DS:  That sounds like a Cartesian concept to me of fracturing of the order
of existence.  I get what you are saying about signification and apples are
not the same things.  Embodiment philosophy concerning the mind advocates
'unity'.  In this case where you above use the word 'resemble' you are
seeking to 'fracture' into separate pieces the continuity of phenomenon.
While the 'resemblance' between my vision of an apple and the apple are not
the same, I am able to reach out and eat the apple.  I can interact with the
apple.  That apple is not wholly an apple once it is eaten.

CG:  Yet when we speak of a text that is simply an other way in which I
encounter things. It has no logical priority over the other ways in which I
encounter things.

DS:  Using your apple metaphor, I write down on paper 'there is an apple on
the table'.  I hand that to a blind person.  They can't see the text.
Nothing happens.  I say to the blind person aurally, 'there is an apple on
the table'.  They eat the apple.  You say there is no logical distinction
between these two different ways of communicating?  To me the priority is
the one that gets food to the blind person.  In an elementary sense we use
communication between us human beings to guide action toward the basics of
survival.  We prioritize around that.

I gather from your comments you would call the spoken word above in my
example more 'natural'.  Just appropriate for the situation.  I'll let you
continue.

CG:  If you think that today we prioritize text over image, allow me to
delve back into history when the opposite was true. In Stoic and
Aristotilean psychology there was the idea of a phantasm. Basically there
was the problem of how the soul could possibly know sensory things. They had
the idea that spirit was a kind of intermediary between material and the
intellect. (Well for the Stoics spirit and soul were the same thing and were
material) The idea was that the body opened up to the soul a window through
the sensory organs. These "codified" the senses into a sequence of
phantasms. These phantasms were views as a kind of impression or imprint on
the spiritual substance. (Very materialistically for the Stoics, but also
materialistically for the late Renaissance Platonists and Aristotileans)
This inner sense is almost a kind of inner language. Now it was, in the
Renaissance conceived of visually. Indeed the key aspect to Renaissance
thought was the metaphor of vision and a stage, as I've mentioned here
before. Since it is the phantasm that is presented to the soul it follows
that the phantasm has primacy over the word.

DS:  When I hear soul talk I start wondering who let Descartes into the
discussion.

For me the Renaissance stage metaphor philosophically incurs an infinite
regress.  Who is in the head to watch the play in the head?  And inside that
observers head who is watching the stage in that entities head?  And so on.
In that sense the phantasm doesn't exist.  Can't exist because the physical
possibility of the structure violates boundaries implied in the concept of
infinite regress.  So one has to solve the unity problem of consciousness in
some other way.

From a connectionist point of view words are not like text.  They arise from
the neural networks and have the properties of neural networks in their
pathway from the brain to the 'interface'.  Where vision is involved in the
construction of words a word connects to a specific activation of a vision
based network.   How am I to know that activation structure once the word is
written on the page?   See my last posting where I elaborate on factorial
properties of lines in photographic surfaces.

Here is a good place to make movies and show the difference between text and
movies.  Betcha some interesting things would appear out of your writing
about something and I shot a movie of that something.

CG:  Here's the problem. You seem to be moving back to this Renaissance view
of thinking. Basically you follow the same inversion that Derrida critiques
in _On Grammatology_. Instead of suggesting that texts must be converted to
utterance to be understood, you are suggesting that even utterance must be
converted to this phantasm-film that is the prime language of the soul. (Yes
I know you aren't putting it quite that way) Yet it seems obvious that we
can think in terms of text. We can think in terms of utterance. There
appears to be no "ideal language" of the soul.

DS:  Well you are arguing with Descartes not me when you perceive me with a
Renaissance point of view.  Words aren't sentence like structures somewhere
up in the head someplace.   Of course Chomsky thinks there is an UG
(Universal Grammar in the brain)

CG:  The fact is that in our everyday encounter with the world, we
experience images, texts, utterances, sounds and all else. To give any of
these priority is an incorrect ordering of the phenomenal of our
experiences.

DS:  I think it contradictory above to say something is 'incorrect' when you
are denying priorities elsewhere.   Conflicts with your point about
priority.

CG:  The problem with the Macintosh way is that while some ways of being in
the world are more natural, some *new* ways are often more efficient. For
instance typing "rm *.tmp" is quicker than selecting and dragging all the
files with a tmp extension. Further we have plenty of examples of
"everydayness" gone horribly awry in computer interaces. So "the natural"
doesn't mean a mimicking of the material. For instance the advances in
science over "renaissance magic" was the change from images ala the "theatre
of the mind" to a precise textual abstraction. That change of, for instance,
how we encountered the planets led to a massive improvement and
understanding.

DS:  GUIs work a lot better for most people than command line prompts.  I've
used command line prompts and they are a pain in the rear end to figure out.
We both agree on your point here.  I am agin scientism.  Though how does
this relate to movies?

CG:  Thus the move from the phatasm images of earlier renaissance thought to
a more general textuality led to an improvement in our experiencing of the
world. However, like the problem of nominalism, this also led to treating
texts as higher than the things themselves. This led frequently to nihilism
and was the reason for Heidegger's critique of science. Yet the solution
isn't simply to go back to the phantasms of Renaissance thought. Rather it
is to recognize the great diversity of modes of being. We should try and get
as many perspectives as possible.

DS:  A networked global civilization would be one, diverse, or two, single
minded?  I tend to think we want to have diverse perspectives.

One technology from IBM, Via Voice, is being geared up to take dictation
from one individual in a crowded room of talkers.  That an illiterate could
speak to the computer, and the computer can speak back.  That person doesn't
need to learn to write, that person can just make movies (language like use
of movies) to express themselves.  That seems to me to be a very simplistic
projection into the future, but one possible outcome of the evolution of
words during the next hundred years.

We want to have communication tools that solve our real world everyday
problems.  I'll let you have the last word for now;

CG:  For some things (philosophy in my opinion) texts work best. For other
things I think film is far superior. This isn't because one is privildeged
over the other. Rather it is perhaps because one is more natural. More
importantly (given my critique of "natural") it is to find the mode of the
thing examined we wish to examine or express and use the most effective
vehicle for this purpose

Thanks for the conversation,

Doyle Saylor