Sep 17
several new subscribers who have joined with transparent email addresses (e.g. with a university address) and/or a recognisable name, have had their status changed to “author”. this means that they are now able to contribute new posts without moderation. links, pictures, and videos from other sites with the facility may be embedded as well.
Sep 12
epistemology, language and culture genes, interaction, knowledge 7 Comments
determining who is the writer of the following should be a little more difficult than for the previous excerpt… obviously the ‘random’ is in the finding, not the posting. i’d kept this quotation on file since i read the book at the end of last century.
for those who enjoy playing, the book from which it is taken was published in 1997. recognise the writer?
The odd balancing act of belief and knowledge that is diagnostic of fetishism, along with the related cascade of mimetic copying practices that accompany fascination with images, is evident in many of the biotechnological artifacts that pepper [this book] — including textbooks, advertisements, editorials, research reports, conference titles, and more. Belief in the self-sufficiency of genes as ‘master molecules’, or as the material basis of life itself, or as the code of codes, not only persists but dominates in libidinal, instrumental-experimental, explanatory, literary, economic, and political behaviour in the face of the knowledge that genes are never alone, are always part of an interactional system. That system at a minimum includes the proteinaceous architecture and enzymes of the cell as the unit of structure and function, and in fact also includes the whole apparatus of knowledge production that concretizes (objectifies) interactions in the historically specific forms of ‘genes’ and ‘genomes’. There is no such thing as disarticulated information – in organisms, computers, phone lines, equations or anywhere else. As the biologist Richard Lewontin put it, ‘First, DNA is not self-reproducing, second, it makes nothing, and third, organisms are not determined by it” (1992:33). This knowledge is entirely orthodox in biology, a fact that makes ‘selfish gene’ or ‘master molecule’ discourse symptomatic of something amiss at a level that might as well be called ‘unconscious.’
Sep 12
epistemology, parody anthroplogy 1 Comment
On once more being asked to join another web-log, another drift of voices irregularly heard through the auspices of this one and the other web-logs entertained by these administrators, I was warned – ah, but the term I am wont to use would be threatened for its entailment of a notional accuracy (‘valeur’ as I believe some might say) in relation to the alternative; however, it became obvious as I toyed with its insertion that the grammar of the two words is completely different and thus I was diverted down a path of contemplation regarding the very meaning of the term threaten as appropriate for what I was hoping to explain. It is a matter of projection it seems, which alerts us to the nuances of meanings here, rather than a mere casual glance at the lexicon, and the convention which allows us to threaten something (or someone, I admit), but not to warn something directly… which takes us into much too abstract a territory.
At this point, much more appropriate should I return to the example provided by the invitation I received to offer observations through the medium of this web-log – in addition to my other internet presences I hasten to add. To wit, in tandem with my invitation to contribute, I was warned that I should announce my connections at the outset. As you can no doubt see, although I felt that my interlocutor’s intent was more to threaten me not to fail to reveal my connections with her on pain of later upheaval and accusatory rumblings, I could not express this apperception on my part as “I was threatened that I should divulge my interests at the outset”. No – although I felt that her manner of description and explanation were in the way of a threat, the rider here can only be rendered as I was warned that I should divulge my relationship to one of the administrators at the outset lest dire consequences should ensue. As a matter of fact (to be precise it would be better to say, as a matter of conjecture) I am not sure as to the exact nature of these consequences and to whom they might apply. Nonetheless, I am bound by the code of guest-ship, and hence I needs must reveal at this juncture and before indulging in any further contributions in the forum that I have known eldon for some several years past.
It is a matter of record that she earlier invited me to subscribe to other online forums, to which I acquiesced in my usual fashion. Indeed it seems (I cannot remember) that I made an earlier appearance on the virtual stage of some previous incarnations of other discussion spaces she used to inhabit when they were purveyed in electronic discussion list form, at the time we both lived in Japan (I was about to say “inhabited” Japan, but even I was never so large). My peripatetic lifestyle means that I can occasionally still cross paths with eldon, if we manage to time it correctly, and in this instance it is to my own good fortune that eldon now inhabits (along with two cats and a large P) a terrace with 4 bedrooms in Sydney, to which location I regularly return to recharge my batteries as the quaint expression goes, and to make sure the country hasn’t gone to the dogs in my absence. And also to make sure they will continue to let me in for the foreseeable future – successive Australian governments evincing populist paranoia making it sometimes extremely difficult for refugees to enter its hallowed grounds having once being invaded by Europeans, and after being inhabited for hundreds of thousands of years by the now disinherited original owners. I just wrote owners but in fact that is not the best term to use – unfortunately a more apt term like belongers is not part of the English language lexicon.
In any case, the issue attending my regular visits rests on my having been raised in Australian climes, but not having been born here. I have triple citizenship in fact, with the sub-continent being my favourite, perhaps due to its also having been the place of my bursting forth into the light so to speak. During this particular visit to Australian soil I intend to perform some research-induced agenda, and it may even eventuate, attendant on its success or no, that my own permanent removal from the land of infinite pleasure relating to anthropological curiosities may occur as a result.
I am reliably informed by eldon, then, that this web-log needs the services – or at least the contributions – of an anthropologist. In point of actual fact, I like to see myself as an anthro-apologist, but this is a minor aberration which I hope readers will either ignore or celebrate depending on their point of view. I personally am not sure that I can stand any more tension, and can reliably admit that tension of an inter-stratal nature is definitely not inviting, each stratum being as it is occupied with tribes of conflicting ideological viewpoints, I cannot see that we need to focus on the tension so much as assuage any that comes to light.
As far as the necessity for my services goes, she vouchsafes that the administrators occupy pretty similar disciplinary niches and that should not really auger well for balance of opinion, or in fact any discussion at all, since everyone is keen to behave like the polite gophers in a bugs bunny cartoon at one…er…level, but she has observed to me that often-times instead, perspectival boundaries tend to arise between members and their negotiations over the nature of reality. While I am not in the business of defining reality for anyone else, I am drawn to inspecting and relating in new lights the various representations that different groups attempt to define for themselves in delineating what sections of the cosmos and its knowledge-making facilities they themselves call into being. My own concerns then are outside myself so to speak, and located in groups rather than individuals. Indubitably this definition of my trajectory is simplistic, and yet it will do for the moment as a line along which to align my big toe as I relate (in other words) what eldon wants me to observe, and which in fact I have been desultorily observing since my subscriberhood here began.
She (the L-person) has always taken a participant-observer status with respect to the groups she studies, and I respect this stance on her part, and even applaud the work she has done with it, but I am more inclined to stand apart from the cultural practices on which I am interested to comment – not completely, but in the manner of having one foot fully outside the practices of that group whilst I am in any way ‘studying’ it, and at the same time, I endeavour to maintain another foot (or even feet) within that group, under its superstructure, in the bedrock of the community perhaps. In Japan, this has only been achieved by not studying the Japanese themselves, but rather the antics of expats living there. But this is another story.
To return to the matter at hand via this rather circumlocutionary route, eldon claims that her mien is in the way of a sociologist when approaching phenomenon of human behaviour, while the clown takes the role of grammarian. In the case of pedro, he is the tech-engineer of the outfit, and comes up with gee-gaws, modifications, etc, at regular intervals.
As an antho-apologist, I am more interested in art-making practices that point to elements of the dynamics of any tribe – I believe “community” may now be the word of choice in some spheres? – In any case, the aesthetic, as it will be remembered and no doubt agreed, is not altogether the province of the visual or even the plastic arts, but includes notions regarding beauty and truth (however conceived) relating to sound and music, words and their sequencing, and the sequencing of other elements of experience apart from the usual words, sounds, smells, tastes and graphics – sensations. Although simplification is not my forte, I am willing to extend my head or expose further my neck by saying that aesthetics can be boiled down to (hoping here that no anti-essentialists are reading along to curse me and follow me spitefully on twitter) relationships. Beauty, via this definition, is a not a part of the single act or object, or even a static composition of objects or elements but is imminent in the intricacies of the relationships that obtain between acts and objects, or elements thereof, extending as well to sequences in human interaction and the parts out of which they are composed. Readers jumping ahead will connect this with my anthropological leanings and intuit that they rest on a basis of examining what specific sequences and juxtapositionings constitute a group’s favoured practices, mores and so on, repeated instances, and legitimised, allowed, ratified and lauded sequences of acts or apperceptions of them which in turn realise that group’s “culture”…with, she apologises and accentuates at the same time, scare quotes.
Herein has lain my self introduction. May it please your honours to accept my humble postings from this day forward – although I cannot promise their regularity or appropriate content.
Aug 08
suggestions solicited for parsing the aphorism
No news is good news
to demonstrate its two subtly different meanings.
Aug 06
The organising principle of the cline of instantiation is attribution (Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 14-5, 145).
Attribution is concerned with class membership.
Attribution + elaboration includes type–subtype relations.
But, the most delicate subtype has just a single member.
The relation between a category and its single member is identification.
The category and the member uniquely identify each other.
The member is the Token that realises the category Value.
An instance is the Token that realises the most delicate category Value.
This is the distinction between instance and subtype.
Aug 05
(1) Agent, Beneficiary And Range From Transitive And Ergative Perspectives
Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295):
These, seen from a transitive perspective, are circumstantial: Agent
is a kind of Manner, Beneficiary is a kind of Cause and Range is a
kind of Extent; and they can all be expressed as minor processes. But
seen from an ergative point of view they are additional participants
in the major process: the nucleus of ‘Process + Medium’ has an inner
ring of additional participants as well as an outer ring of
circumstances surrounding it …
(2) Agent, Beneficiary And Range As Mixed Categories
Halliday & Matthiessen (2004: 295):
Semantically, therefore, Agent, Beneficiary and Range have some
features of participants and some of circumstances: they are mixed.
And this is reflected in the fact that grammatically also they are
mixed: they may enter in to a clause either directly as nominal groups
(participant–like) or indirectly in prepositional phrases
(circumstance–like).
Jul 22
epistemology argument, bateson, description, explanation, logic, validity, value 3 Comments
In science, these two types of organization of data (description and explanation) are connected by what is technically called tautology. …
..Von Neumann, in his famous book [“The theory of games and economic behaviour. 1944), expressly points out the differences between his tautological world and the more complex world of human relations. All that is claimed is that if the axioms be such and such and the postulates such and such, then the theorems will be so and so. In other words, all the tautology affords is connections between propositions. The creator of the tautology stakes his reputation on the validity of these connections.
Tautology contains no information whatsoever, and explanation (the mapping of description onto tautology) contains only the information that was present in the description. The “mapping” asserts implicitly that the links which hold the tautology together correspond to relations which obtain in the description. Description, on the other hand, contains information but no logic and no explanation. For some reason, human beings enormously value this combining of ways of organizing information or material.
To illustrate how description, tautology, and explanation fit together, let me cite an assignment which I have given several times to classes. I am indebted to astronomer Jeff Scargle for this problem, but I am responsible for the solution. The problem is:A man is shaving with his razor in his right hand. He looks into his mirror and sees his image shaving with his left hand. He says, “Oh, there’s been a reversal of right and left. Why is there no reversal of top and bottom?”
(Mind & Nature: 76-77)
Jul 19
epistemology, general observations, language and brain, language and culture, lexico-grammar, mode and modalities, parody 1 Comment
having travelled across australia a third of the way and back just recently, i can confidently assert that there is no grammar today. there is a lot of weather about, and, in rural areas coffee is available but weak and not so milky or firm frothy for the cappuccino-afficionados out there. in addition, one has to invariably state that one would like one’s coffee to be served in a cup, not a mug.
as for grammar, we saw none on the way, and had to make do with random gurgles and unrelated-to-each-other signs or icons.
Jul 08
language and culture No Comments
well, here’s a video lecture
– sorry clown meldrew you cannot see it, maybe you can hear it? – where dan talks about his anthropological research on a language in brazil, and makes points that chomsky and pinker are not really correct… heh…. along the way where he talks about this particular language. most interesting in that it provides evidence for non-universality, but also just in itself.
Jul 04
general observations metaphor 6 Comments
“One always feels a bit sheepish, of course, about bringing the metaphor concept into the social sciences and perhaps that is because one always feels there is something soft and wooly about it.”
[your task, should you decide to accept it, is to attribute.]
[oh no, do not use google, that would be TOO easy.]
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