ON SEMIOTICS
Beyond the Psi*Phi Event Horizon

With nothing but the best intentions, too often the karass
falls into the memetic trap of nailing Jello to a tree. I’ve quite frequently wished we could establish a common psi*phi domain from which to move on to more important matters. Herewith, a few observations and hypotheticals to
hopefully bring some clarity. So we can at least know what we’re disagreeing about!

By way of illustration, allow me a brief syntactic fugue:

<<DM: Synchronicity IS basic implicate causality; attractors ARE teleology; metarecursion IS system diagnostic; meaning IS the implicate-explicate hologram. Definition IS always recursive. Mind IS the meaning of Universe.
SR: I'm tiered, it's late, and I dont understand the above. Too many ISes.>>

This was Swinton’s last-gasp closure at the end of an arduous and assiduous (exiguous too!) attempt to clarify some of my semiotic ravings. I guess what is needed is for me to clarify further. The entire text, by the way, can be found on RAS’ (& my) website, at: http://home.earthlink.net/~sroof/index.htm

So - That farrago translates thus: ‘Synchronicity is basic implicate causality’ states that the innate causality of unfolding from the implicate to the explicate is in fact nonlinear/synchronistic; “Attractors are teleology” notes that unfolding causality is elicited by attractors, (as in ‘emergent order accretes to attractors by synchrony’); ‘Metarecursion is system diagnostic’ means that the definition of a functional system (as opposed to some ‘simple’ random collision/collusion of logistics) is that the system is metalevel recursive; and ‘Meaning is the implicate-explicate hologram’ relates to how the class of semiotic/memetic categories we assign as ‘meaning’ are a holographic mapping of the entire implicate-unfolding-to-explicate psi*phi ‘process’.

Further, ‘Definition is always recursive’ says that as we assign/define ‘reality’ in the face of Goedel’s theorem, we must necessarily depend on recursive terms. Finally, the point of ‘Mind is the meaning of universe’ is that our holographic mapping of the phenomenal ‘universe’ (read: ‘meaning’) fits all criteria for what we label as ‘mind’. And likely without ‘mind’ the universe would be meaningless.

That wasn’t so bad, was it?

<<"A clear understanding of consciousness and the self compressive force at the non mechanical level" This rung a bell with my belief that compression is the key for sifting out the random from the self-similar.>>

This quote and comment are from a recent email Swinton sent me. My own take on this is that the ‘compression’ and ‘sifting out’ he mentions are precisely the same as the memetic process by which I endeavor to winnow out sense from the multifurcative heuristics of my thinking; and thereby the very specific actuarial pattern of my ‘terse’ and ‘aphoristic’ writings!

I do keep trying...lately I think Swinton may feel I’m somewhat more accessible.
Now: let’s get down to cases. Semiotics is the field in which the uses of abstraction, the assignment of symbols, and the development of self-similar, self-referent systems of number, notation, and entity are examined on the basis of quantifiable terms. Thus semiotics, at its core, must needs deal with the ways in which we conceptualize phenomenal processes and how our concepts relate to observed event.

Semantics (the study of meaning: theories of denotation, extension, naming and truth); Syntactics (the formal relations between signs or expressions in abstraction); and Pragmatics (the relation between signs or symbols and their users, hence our selection and application of signs), comprise elementary semiotics. This applies to mathematics as well as to linguistics. Chomsky has theorized that children learn language with ease because there is a ‘hardwired’ capacity for grammar and syntax in the human brain. I’d say rather that, just as there is an intrinsic semiotic framework to phenomenal Universe, so is there likewise a self-similar aspect of ‘mind’ manifest in the brain.

Note here that, as defined, ‘semiotic’ is consistent with the usage of the word ‘metaphysic’, i.e. ‘The system of principles underlying a particular study or subject.’ I submit that semiotic is metaphysic - psi*phi is the subject. Call it Ozmic Consciousness.

Following various strands of semiotics (e.g. Hofstadter’s ‘Eternal Golden Braid’) leads to more refinement in terms of relationships among abstractions, as myriad modes of heuristics, and so on. Ultimately any such house of cards runs smack into Goedel: it ‘turns out’ to define, better than anything else, its own limits. The failure, as I had once expressed it, ‘of its own cartographic coherence’.
Put simply, any self-consistent system of abstraction (e.g. mathematics, English, DNA) can never fully contain its own definition. Semiotics eventually encounters its own Event Horizon. And, like the event horizons of the phenomenal Universe, there’s a singularity on the other side. (Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!)

The good news is that singularity isn’t the Death Star of semiotic definability: singularity isn’t a place, but a state-space. Where every level connects, just out of sight, as it ‘pops’ to the next higher level. The ‘hole’ in the system is the wormhole through which each level can metarecurse. In this respect the Dandelion Model is an aptly chosen metaphor. And since we can’t define a system from the inside, the central singularity state gives us an exogenous point of reference from which to conceptualize the whole shebang; this is why semiotics evolved in the first place.

That semiotics was evolved to be a human attribute is an anthropological fact. Somewhere between 75,000 and 200,000 years BCE our ancestors developed their rudimentary proto-language into a full-blown mother tongue. Brain structure in the cortex had changed to provide a true speech center. This biological change engendered a paradigm shift: newly expressed capabilities adapted to the birth of grammar and syntax; abstract reason became organized into mathematics and linguistics, i.e. semiotics! So Stephen Hawking was exactly right when he said ‘Then, something happened: we learned to talk’ and ‘All we need to do is remember to keep talking.’

It is interesting to examine the semiotic development and
preservation, from preliterate societies to the present, of the peculiar collections of cultural metaphor we know as myth. Many scholars have acknowledged the manifold and proximal parallels between ancient sacred texts. The often overlooked context of these writings is that they are all essentially transcriptions from oral traditions which were maintained for millenia by prehistoric, indeed archaic and isolate, tribal peoples. The important point here is that, before history, written language, or agriculture (and its requirement of village peasant organization and hierarchy)
people needed a way of keeping track of change and chance. This need was filled by myth. Inasmuch as the exigencies various peoples encountered were predictably similar, this commonality was reflected in their myths. Myth is thus not so much historic as it is semiotic; such concepts as linear time, history, science and progress hadn’t been invented yet!

I think the ‘dreamtime’ tribal lore of the Australian Aborigines (thought to be mankind’s oldest continously ‘living’ cultural folkways) can be seen as a self-evident case in point.

And since keeping oral traditions alive has always been the province of bards and shamans, it is little wonder that the ‘meanings’ they express are more mystic than prosaic. Much as Dogon mystics had ‘seen’ that Sirius had a dark companion, and Asian sages had envisioned their esoteric cosmology.

Looked at in this context, the great sacred writings, such as the Vedanta, the Upanishad, and the Pentateuch (not to mention all the unwritten Tribal American, African, and Australian Aboriginal traditions), can be seen to have many elements in common. And frequently there is more to their collective subtexts than meets the eye.

For example, think of the subtexts within the Book of Genesis from a semiotic point of view. Orthodoxy aside, the text is a mythic narrative which encapsulates human development in terms of sequential metalevel stages. Seen in this light, we note a series of fabulist and didactic scenarios, parables if you will, used to make the message clear.

The point of myth is to give people a simple, clear, and easily remembered set of images with which to timebind and perpetuate their cultural ‘reality’ as a living paradigm of tribal heritage. It’s not really about actual people, places, or events so much as it’s about the gestalten development, through time and space, of their particular group identity, as expressed in metaphor; a psychological anchor for their sense of Self, of place and time. This is not to say there are no factual historical references; indeed there is clearly a considerable degree of overlap. But such mundane details are simply not the point.

Consider, then, that the story of Adam in Eden refers to humankind’s earliest moments of awareness; surviving in a primate social group of cooperating foragers not unlike present-day baboons (we’ve always been more like them than we care to acknowledge - see any street gang for proof); the extended family is our natural pattern. Adam’s naming of the animals around him denotes the emergence of our gift of abstraction and representation: language, as well as semiotics. (Black monoliths notwithstanding.)

(Since the transcription of the mythos occurred around the time of the Diaspora, the Adam’s Rib bit was thrown in by the scriveners by way of retro justification for their own tribe’s repression of women to chattel status.)

Then when Eve ‘tempts’ Adam with the forbidden fruit from the ‘tree of knowledge of good and evil’ they are cast out of the Garden, to ‘till the earth’ and ‘live by the sweat of his brow.’ That is, to forsake the dreamtime paradise for pastoral and agricultural modes of living. And when agriculture led to the development of village society, clothing naturally was required, not only to ‘cover their nakedness’ but also as overt indicators (signs!) of rank and status.

The murder of Abel refers to the ascendancy of agriculture over pastoralism, a paradigm shift which had widespread and deadly repercussions. In fact it marked the invention of large-scale territorial warfare, since croplands reduce habitat. Such conflict can be seen in the history of the Anasazi, or indeed of Native American peoples in general (as well as in Australian and Amazon tribes, in African genocide, etc.) to this day. Manifest Destiny.

The angel with ‘flaming sword’ posted to bar the gate of Eden could only have been a later invention as well; the
development of the sword was a bronze-age technology. Up til then knives and axes were the norm; stone swords don’t work very well. Again this indicates a screed from the period of the Diaspora.

I could continue with further examples in support of my thesis here, but I feel the point is made. Suffice it to point out that Hebrew, Hindi, and English are all memetic and semiotic descendants of Sanskrit; that Sanskrit is an ancient, hieratic (and written!) language; and that our presumptive powers of abstraction and expression cut both ways.



B. DERIC MORRIS
(c) 01.08.01

--"TRUTH is a five-letter word" - bdm