Friday, August 13, 2004
Little insight into Saussure
-The article seeks to make it simpler to understand the concepts of Saussure, talking through the “Course in general linguistics”
-It takes us through the history of the time, concentrating on the emergence of holistic thought that was emerging at that point in time.
a) Saussure uses the paper analogy, saying that you can’t cut up one side of paper without cutting out the other, so thus also the “signifier” and “signified”
b) He argues that language is a central element in human society, and thus can not be analysed separately in the field of linguistics
c) He distinguishes between ‘langue’ and ‘parole’ – language and speech, stating that language is like the building, which is comprised of many bricks, but exists only as a whole. Speech is central in understanding language, but is not the structure – or the building
d) Context is also essential – even though words may have the same meaning, the value attached can not be seen as the same, given that the words function within different structures – thus five francs, once exchanged into German marks, will not buy the same amount of bread, even though they are to some degree exchangeable and comparable.
-The study of language must be separated into two types – diachronic and synchronic. Diachronic analysis is the analysis of the evolution of languages, whereas synchronic is the study of the language as frozen in time. Synchronic analysis must preceed diachronic, as there can be no strudy of the movement before there is study of the static.
-Saussure’s view means that we have to discard the notion of the evolution of languages, wherein certain phonemes and structures survive as a matter of course. It can not be argued that certain sounds naturally survive and naturally evolve into other structures – only those that are of use in the new systems will survive, i.e., survival of the fittest. Certain elements may survive throughout time, but quite often in an entirely new system, if and only if they can be assimilated. There is no study of the evolution of sounds, without the study of what values are attached to them.
-Relations between sounds and values are purely arbitrary. They lose their arbitrariness only due to the syntagmatic relations we attach to them. This is the relationship between those words and the surrounding sentences and images. However, symbols on their own can easily be swapped around – it is only when they are placed in context that these shifts can seem strange.
-Two ways in which symbols can be analysed
a) by exchanging them for something dissimilar, i.e., and idea or physical representation
b) by comparing them to other words
c) these analyses always happen only within a system – we are dealing with abstract equivalences, not real world ones – it is the exchange system that is the primary concern for study, not the actual exchange that occurs
-Absolute and relative arbitrariness: One argument against Saussure is that a system where meanings are absolutely arbitrary cannot be structured. Saussure replies by claiming that there is absolute and relative arbitrariness. Relative arbitrariness happens when two arbitrary symbols are used to form a new symbol that is then less arbitrary as it is linked in meaning to other symbols.
fon @ 4:15 AM link to post * *
Friday, August 06, 2004
The terminator's approach to the self
In the film Terminator, the character played by Arnold Schwarzzenegger inevitably fails to kill John Connors. Had he been successful, the story would have been inconsistent and paradoxical. The reason for this is that had John Connors died in the womb, the chain of causation would have led to a future where Arnold would not have had the task of coming back to alter the past. Arnold cannot, in the straightforward model of time we are looking at, (although this possibility would exist were we to consider branching time), both go back and not go back in time to kill Sarah Connors.
In order for one to speak of actions that occur in the future in the past tense, one has to make the distinction between personal and external time. Personal time is the time as measured, roughly, by any individual’s wristwatch, and resulting in the natural aging of a person. External time, however, is time as seen as the 4-dimensional plane as a whole, strung together in the chronological order of causation. Kyle speaks of Sarah’s future actions as occurring in the past. This is possible because in external time, he comes from a time where Sarah’s actions occur in the past. However, these actions occur in the future of her personal time (which, because she does not time travel, coincides with events in external time). The events that occur in the future of both Sarah’s personal time, and in the future of external time as seen from the vantage point of the year 1984. However, from the vantage point of Kyle’s personal time, these events occurred in the past, as he has memories of what comes to happen in external time and in Sarah’s personal time.
Sarah’s knowledge of the future presents a problem of freewill for her. She cannot continue to believe that she can freely act to change the future, because if she does, then the chain of causation will not proceed in a manner in which Kyle Reese would have travelled back in time to inform her of the events yet to occur. Should Sarah change the future, then there is no way in which she can have the foreknowledge of what will occur, thus, she is now logically bound to follow the path that is set out for her. For the events in Sarah’s future to occur differently, they have to be consistent with events that will occur and her knowledge of this. Thus, Sarah’s foreknowledge of the future is not compossible with events occurring otherwise.
Townsend argues that even though there is foreknowledge of the temporal order of things, this does not affect the causal order. Due to reverse causation, an agent can act freely in the present, as seen in the temporal order of things, to affect events in the past. Townsend uses the example of the ace-predictor, who has predicted that a free agent will choose a box containing one million dollars, if and only if that agent chooses that box only. Thus, he can act in a manner that will cause the ace predictor in the past to foretell that he will pick only that box. In this example, a agent would freely choose only one of the boxes, causing the ace-predictor in the past to foretell that he would choose that box. The same applies in any two-way communication in time – causal order need not occur only in one direction in a four-dimentionalist view of time.
fon @ 4:05 AM link to post * *