Signs, Language and Behavior

Morris, Charles 1949. Signs, Language and Behavior. New York: Prentice-Hall, Inc.

I am grateful to the publishers for permissions to quote from the following books: Harvard University Press: Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss; Susanne K. Langer, Philosophy in a New Key; Rudolf Carnap, An Introduction to Semantics; the University of Chicago Press: George H. Mead, Mind, Self, and Society, edited by Charles Morris; Jules H. Masserman, Behavior and Neurosis; Columbia University Press: Ray Lepley, Verifiability of Value; D. Apletton-Century Company, Inc.: Edward C. Tolman, Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men; E. R. Hilgard and D. G. Marquis, Conditioning and Learning; Clark L. Hull, Principles of Behavior; Harcourt, Brace and Company, Inc., and Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Company, Ltd.: C. K Ogden and I. A. Richards, The Meaning of Meaning; Doubleday and Company, Inc.: Walt Whiteman, "Song of Myself," Leaves of Grass; Yale University Press: Robert M. Yerkes, Chimpanzees, A Laboratory Colony. (Morris 1949: vi)

A decent list of literature to keep an eye out in my future readings. Maybe I should finally read Langer's philosophy in a new key?

The understanding and the effective use of language and other signs has become today an insistent task. Popular and technical literature is filled with discussions of the nature of language, the differences between signs in men and in animals, the differentiation of scientific discourse and such other types of discourse as occur in literature, religion, and philosophy, the consequences of an adequate or inadequate use of signs for personal and social adjustment. (Morris 1949: 1)

A good introduction if there ever was one. Morris has an incredible ability for synthesis - these are the topics that are touched upon throughout the book.

The present study is based on the conviction that a science of signs can be most profitably developed on a biological basis and specifically within the framework of the science of behavior (a field which, following a suggestion of Otto Neurath, may be called behavioristics). Hence I shall constantly suggest connections between signs and the behavior of animals and men in which they occur. (Morris 1949: 2)

Morris wrote this book in the "heyday" of behavioris, so it should come as no surprise that his understanding of "a biological basis" is specifically American type of science of animal behaviour with concrete but very limited implications for humans ("men").

There is wide disagreement as to when something is a sign. Some persons would unhesitantly say that blushing is a sign, others would not. There are mechanical dogs which will come out of their kennels if one claps one's hands loudly in their presence. Is such clapping a sign? Are clothes signs of the personality of those who wear them? Is music a sign of anything? Is a word such as 'Go!' a sign in the same sense as is a green light on a street intersection? Are punctuation marks signs? Are dreams signs? Is the Parthenon a sign of Greek culture? Disagreements are widespread; they show that the term 'sign' is both vague and ambiguous. (Morris 1949: 3)

These questions still determine much of semiotic research. That is, these matters still remain somewhat vague and ambiguous.

At some point the semiotician must say: "Henceforth we will recognize that anything which fulfills certain conditions is a sign. These conditions are selected in the light of current usages of the term 'sign,' but they may not fit in with all such usages. They do not therefore claim to be a statement of the way the term 'sign' is always used, but a statement of the conditions under which we will henceforth admit within semiotics that something is a sign."
Then from such a starting point a behavioral theory of signs will build up step by step a set of terms to talk about signs (taking account of current distinctions but attempting to reduce for scientific purposes their vagueness and ambiguity), and will endeavor to explain and predict sign phenomena on the basis of the general principles of behavior which underlie all behavior, and henge sign-behavior. (Morris 1949: 4)

Mihhail Lotman claimed in his Struktuur ja Vabadus I that Morris dealt not with signs but with the conditions for something being a sign. It seems to me that he took this passage in the introduction way too seriously and didn't notice that these conditions are necessary for building "a behavioral theory of signs". On the other hand his theory, especially the lengthy part about modes of signification are quite difficult to understand (at least I myself will probably have to read this book several times before comprehending it).

The buzzer and the spoken sounds are then signs of food and obstacle because they control the course of behavior with respect to the goals of getting food and getting to a certain place in a way similar to the control which food and obstacle would exercise if they were observed. Whatever exercise this type of control in goal-sooking behavior is a sign. And goal-sooking behavior in which signs exercise control may be called sign-behavior. (Morris 1949: 7)

Quite useful. I like that he associates semiosis with goals and needs, because then I can frame my own nonverbal semiosis in terms of social needs (e.g. orienting in society, in everyday interactions, etc.).

By a stimulus is meant, following Clark L. Hull, any physical energy which acts upon a receptor of a living organism; the source of this energy will be called the stimulus-object. By a response is meant any action of a muscle or gland; hence there are reactions of an organism which are not necessarily responses. (Morris 1949: 8)

This sounds vaguely compatible with Uexküll's biosemiotics. Terms like "energy" and "action of a muscle or gland" but these are not incompatible with what we know from elsewhere, e.g. Peirce's interpretants ("muscle action" is energetic, "gland action" is emotional). The difference between reactions and responses is significant: reaction seems to involve all three interpretants (that is, cognitive as well), but response is bodily.

By this time a mixed feeling of dismay, fear, anger, and resentment may well have overcome the readers of contemporary literature on "semantics." Semiotic is not merely losing its entertaining character, they may say, but is slipping into the abyss of technicalities and hard work. And so it is! And so it must if the purpose be scientific. For science has always in its advance forced us away from the presented surface of familiar things to the laborious discovery of those properties of things which give insight, predictions, and control of this surface. And there is no reason why the scientific advance of semiotic should shun this road. No reason why sign-processes, for all their immediate sense of familiarity, should not be as complex as any chemical structure or biological functioning. And we have already admitted that for other immediate purposes, other less technical analyses may be more useful. (Morris 1949: 11)

I like to think that my own work maintains this "entertaining character" because "literary study" is not as "scientific". It can and will be full of technicalities and hard work, but the subject matter is still "literary". Also, Morris's prediction seems correct - many readers seemed to feel this mixed feeling he describes - JSTOR is chalk full of criticisms of this very book. It seems that after it's publishing every philosopher who was able to do so, went ahead and tried his best to demolish Morris. This may very well be the reason why his behavioristic semiotics is not applied further than repeating the cursory distinction between semantics, syntactics and pragmatics.

...we can, within limits, accept the results of analyses which have already been obtained in these fields and even verbal reports by a person on his own signs. (Morris 1949: 12)

From this point, concourse and "native theories" of nonverbal behaviour are nothing more than "verbal reports" of nonverbal signs.

The preceding formulation of 'sign' is not a definition in the sense that it gives the necessary and sufficient conditions for something to be a sign. It does not say that something is a sign if and only if the conditions laid down are met, but merely that if these conditions are met, then whatever meets them is a sign. (Morris 1949: 12)

Seems perfectly reasonable. The justification for this is explained in the notes (quoted later on): adding the "only if" would exclude types of signs that future research might uncover.

The evidence required may not even be a segment of a response-sequence, may not in fact be a response at all. If, for instance, any state of the organism could be found - say its brain waves - which is such that when this state is present the animal later responds in the way required by the formulation of a sign, then this state of the organism would itself be a sufficient condition for saying that the preparatory-stimulus which occasioned this state was a sign. (Morris 1949: 13)

I see this as opening up the possibility for studiying semiosis with magnetic-resonance imaging.

Finally, among such ways is the possibility of using in some cases the verbal responses of an organism as evidence of whether something is or is not a sign to this organism. By correlating such verbal responses with the rrest of the behavior of the organism it is possible to find out the extent to which they are reliable evidence as to the existence of sign-processes. That they are reliable to some extent is not in doubt, and so semiotics can make use of them as evidence for the existence of signs, and indeed must in its present state make as much use of them as it can. (Morris 1949: 14)

Again, literary descriptions of nonverbal behavior can be viewed as these kinds of "verbal reports" about nonverbal signs. By mapping out the "concourse" of specific literary works and authors, I believe we can finally reach "cultural signs" of nonverbal behaviour - that is, what kinds of nonverbal behaviours do certain (literary) cultures imagine to exist.

This approach also avoids the error of those accounts of signs which neglect their relation to the situation in which behavior occurs. Such accounts often imply that the organism responds to the sign alone. But the fact that behavior takes place within a supporting environment implies that the sign alone does not cause the response evoked, since the sign is merely one condition for a response-sequence in the given situation in which it is a sign. (Morris 1949: 15)

I believe this to be Morris's (seemingly "roundabout) way for approaching either the context of a sign, or the definition of the situation.

Any organism for which something is a sign will be called an interpreter. The disposition in an interpreter to respond, because of the sign, by response-sequence of some behavior-family will be called an interpretant. Anything which would permit the completion of the response-sequences to which the interpreter is disposed because of a sign will be called a denotatum of the sign. A sign will be said to denote a denotatum. Those conditions which arre such that whatever fulfills them is a denotatum will be called a significatum of the sign. A sign will be said to signify a significatum; the phrase "to have signification" may be takes as synonymous with "to signify." (Morris 1949: 17)

This may be the most important contribution that Morris brought along. For example, when I see a facial expression of joy, I am predisposed to interpret it as signifying joy. Yet whether the person is actually happy - if the sign denotes - is out of my hands and only the person him- or herself can tell. I should at some point consider this exact passage with regard to Dewey's criticisms (against the notion of interpreter).

In the case of the driver the words spoken to him are signs; the driver is the interpreter; his disposition to respond by avoiding a landslide at a certain place in the road is the interpretant; the landslide at that place is the denotatum; the conditions of being a landslide at that place is the significatum of the spoken words.
According to this usage of terms, while a sign must signify, it may or may not denote. The buzzer can signify to the dog food at a given place without there being food at the place in question, and the landslide signified by the spoken words may not in fact exist. Usually we start with signs which denote and then attempt to formulate the significatum of a sign by observing the properties of denotata. But it is possible at the higher levels of human sign-behavior to determine by decision the significatum of a sign (to "lay down" the conditions under which the sign will denote), and in this case the problem is not what the sign signifies but whether or not it denotes anything. We encounter cases of this nature frequently in the more complex sign-processes. (Morris 1949: 18)

In this example the interpretant seems to be energetic (action taken). The possibility that there is a landslide is the significatum of the warning, the actual landslide is the denotatum. The import for concursive study is that "descriptions of nonverbal behaviour" certainly signify and the significatum is usually tied to the context of the text, but the objective of the nonverbalist is to decide whether or not the description denotes anything. E.g. is there really a posture that accords to "sitting in a gentlemanly manner"? Does "going green with jealousy" occur in real life and how? etc. (these examples accord to my current distinction between descriptions and "metaforms").

The term 'meaning' is not here included among the basic terms of semiotic. This term, useful enough at the level of everyday analysis, does not have the precision necessary for scientific analysis. Accounts of meaning usually throw a handful of putty at the target of sign phenomena, while a technical semiotic must provide us with words which are sharpened arrows. 'Meaning' signifies any and all phases of sign-processes (the status of being a sign, the interpretant, the fact of denoting, the significatum), and frequently suggests mental and valuational processes as well; hence it is desirable for semiotic to dispense with the term and to introduce special terms for the various factors which 'meaning' fails to discriminate. (Morris 1949: 19)

An iconic passage.

The relation between interpretant and significatum is worth noting. The interpretant, as a disposition to respond caused by a sign, answers to the behavioral side of the behavior-environment complex; the significatum, as the set of terminal conditions under which the response-sequences to which the organism is disposed can be completed, connects with the environmental side of the complex. Each therefore involves the other. A complete description of the interpretant would include a description of what the organism is disposed to act toward, and a formulation of the significatum is simply a formulation of what would permit the completion of the response to which the organism is disposed because of a sign. The distinction between behavior and environment need not of course coincide with the distinction between the organism and the non-organic world, since an organism can respond to other organisms and to itself. It is because of this that parts of the organism, dreams, feelings, and even interpretants can be signified. (Morris 1949: 18)

Since something is a sign, significatum, denotatum, interpreter, or interpretant only with respect to its occurrence in sign-behavior, and since such constituents of sign-processes are studied by other sciences in other connections, the basic terms of semiotic are stable in terms drawn from the biological and physical sciences - a point which will prove to be of central significance for understanding the relation of socio-humanistic studies to the natural sciences. Since the factors operative in sign-processes are all either stimulus-objects or organic dispositions or actual responses, the basic terms of semiotic are all formulable in terms applicable to behavior as it occurs in an environment. Semiotic thus becomes a part of the empirical science of behavior, and can utilize whatever principles and predictions the general theory of behavior has attained or can attain. (Morris 1949: 19)

These two paragraphs were damaged in this book. I looked them up in Essential Readings in Biosemiotics and made a sheet to put between the book for future readers so that they won't become as frustrated with the damaged text as I did.

The formulation in terms of other signs of what a sign signifies (the description of the conditions which something must fulfull to be a denotatum of the sign) will be called a formulated significatum. A formulated significatum is designative if it formulates the significatum of an existing sign, and is prescriptive if it formulates the significatum which a sign is henceforth to have - a distinction which the commonly employed term 'semantic rule' fails to make. A sign may, of course, signify without there being a formulation of what it signifies. A recognition of this simple fact cuts the ground out from under the frequent insinuations that a sign is "without a meaning" to a person or animal who cannot "tell what the sign means." For something to signify is a different thing from the often very difficult task of formulating what it signifies. (Morris 1949: 20)

This is relevant for concourse studies, because denotata can be discriminated very seldom. It is rather a formulation of significata that concourse studies must occupy itself with. It is less important to find out if the behaviour occurs in reality than it is to find out what it signifies in the text.

A particular physical event - such as a given sound or mark or movement - which is a sign will be called a sign-vehicle. A set of similar sign-vehicles which for a given interpreter have the same significata will be called a sign-family. (Morris 1949: 20)

These terms may sound mystical, but - as a note later reveals - these are merely synonyms for Peirce's sinsign or token and legisign or type.

A sign-vehicle that does not belong to a sign-family is a unisituational sign since it has signification in only one situation. Such signs rarely if ever occur;; most signs are plurisituational. (Morris 1949: 21)

This unisituational sign is what I would call "unique sign" - because there is no type or rule for it, it cannot occur again in another situation - otherwise it would cease being a unique unisutiational sign and become a sign-family. I don't think these occur "rarely if ever" though - rather, from the first-person perspective, many nonverbal signs are borne first as unisituational signs and then graduate to plurisituational sign. For example, a unique facial expression catches your attention in a specific social situation and you don't know what it "means". Then you notice this same expression on other faces in other situations and perhaps read from experts, that this specific expression is related to a certain emotion - then you come to learn that there's a "rule".

To the degree that a sign has the same signification to a number of interpreters it is an interpersonal sign; to the degree that this is not so the sign is a personal sign. The interpreters for whom a sign is interpersonal may be called an interpreter-family. A given sign may be in principle entirely interpersonal or entirely personal; most signs are neither. Since it is always possible in principle to find out what a sign signifies for a given interpreter, and so make it interpersonal, no sign is inherently personal; but in actual practice many signs are highly personal - the signs of the schizophrenic provide extreme examples. It may be remarked that we should not necessarily classify a note which a person writes to himself for reading at a later time as interpersonal; such a note would be personal by the criterion proposed if the signs were signs to him alone, and interpersonal if this were not the case though no one else read the note. (Morris 1949: 21)

This may be freely related with #autocommunication and the curious phenomena of personal message systems.

A sign is vague to a given interpreter to the degree that its signification does not permit the determination of whether something is or is not a denotatum; to the extent that a sign is not vague it is precise. (Morris 1949: 21)

Sharpening our semiotic with technicalities.

A sign-vehicle is unambiguous when it has only one significatum (that is, belongs to only one sign-family); otherwise ambiguous. (Morris 1949: 21)

The example is "chair", because it belongs to the family "something you sit on" and "an academic position". In modern parlance this is simply "polysemanticity"

A sign is singular when its significatum permits only one denotatum; otherwise it is general. 'The 1944 President of the United States' is a singular sign, since it could not, because of its signification, denote more than one person. So is the sign 'I,' for though this sign is a family of sign-vehicles each member of which has the same significatum, the significatum that in each instance of signifying there can only be one denotatum (the person who produces the sign-vehicle of that instance). (Morris 1949: 22)

I believe this is exactly what Emile Benveniste is known for, at least in the semiotics of names (nimesemiootika või nimetamise semiootika).

The extreme of generality is reached when the significatum of a sign is such that the sign denotes the denotata of any other sign. Such a sign is universal, and is an implicate of every sign; the term 'being' and 'entity' seem to be, in the vocabulary of some philosophers, universal signs. (Morris 1949: 22)

In the vocabulary some semioticians, such terms as "structure" and "modelling" are equally general. For Jelena Grigorjeva, every sign system is "language".

A sign is reliable to the degree that the members of the sign-family to which it belongs denote; otherwise unreliable. The degree of reliability (and so the degree of unreliability) of a sign is capable of quantitative formulation. If the dog obtained food 90 per cent of the times the buzzer sounded, the buzzer sign is 90 per cent reliable; such a statement would not of course insure that the degree of reliability of a sign would continue unchanged in the future. A sign is iconic to the extent to which it itself has properties of its denotata; otherwise it is non-iconic. A portrait of a person is to a considerable extent iconic, but is not completely so since the painted canvas does not have the texture of the skin, or the capacities for speech and motion, which the person portrayed has. The motion picture is more iconic, but again not completely so. A completely iconic sign would always denote, since it would itself be a denotatum. A sign which is to some extent iconic may itself have properties which are not iconic and which are not relevant for its signification. One of the dangers of the use of models in science, for instance, arises out of the temptation to ascribe to the subject matter of a theory properties of the model illustrating the theory which are not involved in the theory itself. (Morris 1949: 23)

This may be useful for semiotics of art.

At the language level examples are more easily recognizable. If the driver in the car has been told to turn to the right at the third intersection, he might have held up three fingers on his right hand until he reached the intersection in question, or might have continued repeating the instructions to himself; such action on his part would be a sign to him signifying what the original spoken words signified, and such a sign would guide his behavior in the absence of the spoken signs.
Generalization from such examples suggests the following distinction: Where an organism provides itself with a sign which is a substitute in the control of its behavior for another sign, signifying what the sign for which it is a substitute signifies, then this sign is a symbol, and the sign-process is a symbol-process; where this is not the case the sign is a signal, and the sign-process is a signal-process. More succinctly, a symbol is a sign produced by its interpreter which acts as a substitute for some other sign with which it is synonymous; all signs not symbols are signals.
The advantage of such symbols is found in the fact that they may occur in the absence of signals provided by the environment.; an action or state of the intpreter itself becomes (or produces) a sign gouding behavior with respect to the environment. (Morris 1949: 25)

#autocommunication and signal-symbol distinction.

A person may interpret his pulse as a sign of his heart condition or certain sensations as a sign that he needs food; such signs are simply signals; his resulting words - when substitutes for such signals - would however be symbols. Nor are all sounds uttered by a person or by others symbols even when they are signs: sounds too may be simply signals. (Morris 1949: 26)

Signals/symbols distinction, "certain sensations" in terms of Sherrington's proprioception.

Some readers must feel strongly that we have "left something out," and perhaps something central to a theory of signs, namely the "ideas" or "thoughts" which the sign causes in its interpreters. At a number of places in our account we will return to this issue; here we must be content to isolate the underlying problem.
It is true that the preceding account has completely and deliberately avoided all use of "mentalistic" terms in building the terminology of semiotic. And it is also true that the mentalistic approcah has dominated the history of semiotic and still seems to many thinkers to be a preferable alternative to the approach here developed.
The defense of a behavioral semiotic must not be misunderstood. We have not contended, and do not believe, that such terms as 'idea,' 'thought,' 'consciousness,' and 'mind' are "meaningless". Nor have we in any sense denied that an individual can observe his feelings, or his thoughts, or his dreams, or his signs in a way not possible to other individuals. Our purpose is simply to advance semiotic as a science, and it is this purpose alone which determines what basic terms are to be accepted for building the terminology of semiotic. The issue is not between "mentalism" and "behaviorism," bit is solely a methodological ploblem: are such terms as 'idea,' 'thought,' 'mind' more or less procise, interpersonal, and unambiguous than such terms as 'organism,' 'stimulus,' 'response-sequence' nad 'disposition to response'? In choosing the latter terms we but express the belief that they are more suitable for scientific advance.
Suppose, for instance, the mentalist should argue - as he often does - that for something to be a sign to some interpreter it must give rise to an "idea" in his mind, must cause him to "think" of something else. (Morris 1949: 28)

My purpose is not to advance a "science" in this sense and I will probably not avoid using such mentalistic terms when I deem it suitable. I am not a "behaviorist". So it is quite likely that I will implement Morris's terms with those of Peirce ("idea") and Mead ("mind").

Daes the "phenomenological description" of sign-processes furnish another alternative to a behavioral semiotic? I think not. For in a wide sense of 'phenomenological' a behavioral semiotic is phenomenological since it includes a description of observed behavior; and a narrower use of the term (the description by an individual of his own sign-processes) is covered by our admission of self-observation, an admission which is compatible with either a behavioral or a mentasitic psychology, and so does not decide between them. (Morris 1949: 30)

I'm hoping for this 'self-observation' to make some leeway into appling Morris's "behavioristic semiotic" on nonverbal behaviour.

Because of this vagueness and ambiguity a number of scientists have proposed to discontinue the use of the term 'sign.' Of course behavioristic can be developed without the use of the term; no sign is indispensable. But since the term is in such frequent usage in ordinary language and in writings of semioticians and behavioristicans it has seemed advisable to continue the term but to use it in a more precise manner than is customary. Whether this usage is to be incorporated into behavioristics itself must be left to specialists in the field. (Morris 1949: 249)

But instead of a handful of putty Morris has crafted arrowheads such as significata and denotata.

I owe the suggestion of giving only sufficient conditions for saying that something is a sign, instead of giving a definition (that is, suffirient and necessary conditions), to Alfred Tarski. This procedure seems advisable at the present state of the argument, since premature definitions may rule out other whenomena which we may later wish to include. The consequence of the present procedure is that for the moment our statements about signs are limited to signs as identified by the criteria here proposed or by any other criteria which imply these criteria. (Morris 1949: 250)

This is really neat. I should do something similar, e.g. provide sufficient conditions, for nonverbal communication. A good idea would be to take the "historical" approch and define it in light of it's first uses in the psychology of attitude of the 1930s and refer back to it's possible origins as Cooley's pre-verbal (and, possibly, other mentions of pre-linguistic communication).

In previous writings (such as Foundations of the Theory of Signs), I took "mediated taking account of" as the primitive term for semiotic, defining a sign-process as a process in which something mideately took account of something else by taking account of something immediately present. The present analysis resolvose this primitive term into the stimulus, response, and organic state terminology of behavioristics. Hence it provides the basis for a behavioral formulation of all terms signifying signs. (Morris 1949: 251)

This primitive term sounds awfully good. That is, it sounds like Peirce's "standing for". I found Foundations of the Theory of Signs on scribd and it is only 60 pages long.

There is an obvious relation between the term 'behavior-family' and the term 'sign-family': a sign-family is a set of similar events or objects which act as preparatory-stimuli for response-sequences of the same behavior-family. This the term 'sign-family' involves the wider concept of behavior-family. Egon Brinswik has used the term "cue-family" in a way somewhat similar to the present usage of 'sign-family' (see his "Phychology as a Science of Objective Relations," Philosophy of Science, 4, 1937, 233). Peirce distinguishes sign-vehicle and sign-family by the terms 'token' and 'type'; Carnap by the terms 'sign-event' and -sign-design.' (Morris 1949: 251)

This made these notions much clearer.

The term 'language" is highly vague and ambiguous. Beyond the very general agreement that language is a sign phenomenon social in nature, there are many disagreements as to what is necessary for signs to be language signs. (Morris 1949: 32)

And this is why he postulates 5 conditions that must be fulfilled in order to call something truly a language.

The first item to be noted here is that the situation is one of social behavior, that is behavior in which organisms provide other organisms with stimuli. Where two or more organisms provide each other with stimuli, the social behavior may be called reciprocal; otherwise non-reciprocal. Behavior which is not social is individual. The behavior of both the speaker and the driver is reciprocal social behavior, for the words were spoken because of the presence of the driver and the words as spoken by the speaker were stimuli to the driver. An organism which produces a sign that is a stimulus in social behavior will be called a communicator, and an organism which interprets a sign furnished by a communicatior will be called a communicatee. (Morris 1949: 32)

Some general notions. I'd prefer communicator/communicatee to addresser/addresseer, but the latter is more prevalent here (in our local semiotics) because of Roman Jakobson.

A sign which has the same signification to the organism which produces it that it has to other organisms stimulated by it will be called comsigns. A comsign is this a special class of interpersonal signs, since not all interpersonal signs are comsigns. Each of the person in our example is thus potentially a communicator or communicatee of spoken words, and each is the communicatee when he is a communicator (the person giving the warning hears the words which he himself utters to the other person and they have the same or a similar signification to him and to the person addressed). (Morris 1949: 33)

#autocommunication and the distinction between interpersonal signs (signs that are available to others than the sign-producer) and comsigns (signs that are understandable to others than the sign-producer).

Some persons might argue that the "perception" of food or abstacle was itself a signal-process, and that language signs are always substitutes for such signals. But this raises the difficult question as to whether or not perception is to be regarded as a sign-process. (Morris 1949: 34)

Recall the cheese conundrum (Austin 1970: 15; footnote 1).

Comsigns are either activities of the organisms themselves (such as gestures), or the products of such activities (such as sound, traces left on a material medium, or constructed objects). An odor, for instance, might be interpreted in the same way by a number of organisms in a given situation, and hence be interpersonal, and yet would not be a comsign. Odors would be language signs only if in addition to being interpersonal they were producible by their interpreters. (Morris 1949: 35)

Odor is a good example of an unintentional signal - aside from using "hygiene products" and perfumes there are seemingly few actual possibilities for effecting one's odor. I also like that he mentions sounds as products of activities (e.g. phonokinesics).

Since the term 'language' is so vague and ambiguous in current usage, it may be doubted whether it is wise to employ the term at all in semiotic. In this connection it may be pointed out that what we have really done is to define a certain set of signs as a language and then to define language sign as a member of this set. The sign-vehicle 'language" is not important for the analysis. Hence it need not be used. We propose therefore to call sign-sets of the kind in question lansign-systems, and the individual members of these systems lansigns. In what follows we are thus concerned with lansign-systems and lansigns; and while we continue to use the terms 'language' and 'language sign,' for reasons now to be given, the reader who wishes may replace 'language' by 'lansign-system' and 'language sign' by 'lansign,' and then use the terms 'language' and 'language sign' in any way he wishes - or discard them altogether. (Morris 1949: 36)

This is an extremely relevant passage. I'll leave the implications open here.

But if the claim is made that what are commonly called language signs occur, after they have arisen, only in social b ehavior, even in the minimal sense of one organism producing stimuli for another organism, then the claim seems to be in fact doubtful. Suppose someone sitting alone in a room writes a poem which is then destroyed, that is, the poem is not produced in the presence of stimulation from other organisms nor does it act as a stimulus to any other organism. Yet surely it is intelligible to ask whether the poem was written in English or French. (Morris 1949: 37)

#autocommunication and recall "the law of conservation of poetry" (Torop 1999: 104).

As George H. Mead saw with incisive insight, the crucial genetic problem in the origin of comsigns is to explain how an animal that does something that another animal reacts to as a sign can itself react to its own action as a sign with the same significatum. In our terms, only if an organism can react to its own activity (or its products) wwith an interpretation (interpretant) similar ta that made to this activity (or its products) by other organisms can a sign producible by one organism have to that organism a signification in common with that of other interpreting organisms. Mead pointed out that most responses of an organism do not affect the receptor of an organism making the response as they do the receptors of other organisms - the organism, for instance, does not see its facial movements as do other organisms. (Morris 1949: 39)

Very true and important. What I would like to call "nonverbal self-communication" consists of taking note of one's own behavior (e.g. Chris Shea's example of noticing herself protruding her tongue). In this specific case the tongue protrusion became a sign to Shea because she was knowledgeable about the significance of tongue showing (A Facial Display of Humans and Other Primate Species).

Mead's conception of the gesture is clearly related to what we have called a signal, and he himself at times calls it a non-significant symbol to distinguish it from the significant symbol. But Mead sees that such gestures are not necessarily signs to the organism which produces them, since the organism seldom respond to these gestures themselves. He notes, however, that sounds produced in the reaction may themselves serve as gestures (he calles them under these conditions "vocal gestures") and that such sounds are heard by the producing organism itself as well as by other organisms. (Morris 1949: 43)

Even in case of humans nonverbal self-communication is achieved in rare occasions. Nevertheless there are those among us who craft their awareness of their own behaviour meticulously, spending many hours in front of the mirror, practicing their facial expressions and learning to recognize certain muscular sensations (they effectively learn how to use these muscles intentionally).

There is another factor in Mead's analysis that requires attention: the notion of "taking the role of the other." Speaking of the significant symbol Mead makes the following remarks: "We must indicate to ourselves not only the object but also the readiness to respond in certain ways to the object, and this indication must be made in the attitude or role of the other individual to whom it is pointed out or to whom it may be pointed out. If this is not the case it has not that common property which is involved in significance. It is through the ability to be the other at the same time that he is himself that the symbol becomes significant." Now at the level of voluntary language communication it is easy to identify what Mead has in mind: there is clearly some sense in which the person who tells another that a given road is blocked is "putting himself in the place of that other" and giving information regarded as relevant to some purpose of the other individual. There is merely the question whether such phenomena are to be embodied in the definition of the language sign or are to be regarded as necessary conditions for its genesis. Mead seems to vacillate somewhat on this point: at times he talks as if role-taking were a precondition of the significant symbol and at times as if it were made possible by such symbols. (Morris 1949: 45)

This sounds like the concept of semblance in James Mark Baldwin (I'd like to refer to Valsiner in The Social Mind on this point but I don't have the exact reference yet).

"...What the development of language, especially the significant symbol, has rendered possible is just the taking over of this external social situation into the conduct of the individual himself." The individual can then "utilize the conversation of gestures that takes place to determine his own conduct. If he can so act, he can set up a rational control, and thus make possible a far more highly organized society than otherwise." (Morris 1949: 47)

The relationship between self-control and social organization. Recall culture in the sense of display rules, e.g. self-censure.

Thus a sound, when a language sign, can be heard by other organisms than the communicator, but certainly there is some sense in which there is still a sign - a post-language sign - when the organism does not speak aloud and so is not heard by others or by itself. This is the kind of situation which J. B. Watson referred to as subvocal talking, and which many behaviorists have identified with thinking. The point here stressed is that such a sign is not social in operation, though social in origin since it depends on language. And iti s a new sign, since the original sign was a sound, while now no sound is uttered. The driver who repeats "silently to himself" the commands which he first heard from another has substituted for the spoken words (an exteroceptive stimulus) some stimuli within his own body (proprioceptive stimuli). The latter are different signs and not themselves language signs; since they are substitute sign synonyms with language signs they are properly called post-language symbols (and in this case, personal post-lnaguage symbols). (Morris 1949: 47)

Remember the behaviorist's identification of thought with speech. Also, internal dialogue. And this substitution or synonymity can be related with Derrida's grammatology. I'm not sure if Sherrington's notions (extero- and proprioception) are correctly used here, because he talks of physiological phenomena not sign-phenomena, so this move (which Ruesch also performs) is merely metaphorical/analogical.

It is not hard to understand in behavioral terms how personal post-language signs can arise. For since a language sign, such as a sound, is produced by an action of an organism, any other stimulus within (or at times without) the organism which is produced by the action (or connected with the action) may become a substitute for the sound. This substitute sign is by definition a symbol; it is not a language sign in that it is not a stimulus to other organisms; it has the advantage of making available to the individual organism with the minimum of time and effort the significance of the language sign for which it is a substitute. Different organisms will in general have different post-language symbols as substitutes for the same language sign. These post-language symbols will then be synonymous (or highly similar in signification) but they will not be interpersonal since they will beling to different sign-families of different interpreters.
It is not necessary, though it is the most frequent case, that the personal post-language sign be a stimulus within the organism. Ii might be a mark on poper made by the organism (as in the case of many personal systems of notation, which differ from "writing" in that the latter is interpersonal); it might be some stimulus-object in the environment which has ocurred along with language signs and so become a substitute for them (as a stone which one was fingering during a treasured conversation and which one then keeps on one's desk). (Morris 1949: 147-148)

Personal post-language symbols is an extremely interesting topic, but very rarely is something like this discussed. Juri Lotman studied Pushkin's marginalia and discussed some acronymic personal messages.

In case the stimuli in question are accessible to other organisms they may become interpersonal post-language signs, perhaps comsigns, and perhaps even elements in a language. In this way language extends its complexity to the natural and constructed objects which form the environment of a seciety. A development of semiotic in this direction offers great promise for a better understanding of the sense in which, and the degree to which, human culture is itself a sign phenomena. (Morris 1949: 48)

Indeed a lot of common technical words have at some point been a "personal" word for whoever happened to coin it. The successful signs became part of language, unsuccessful ones remain "personal" to whoever happens to be the only person who used them. Nonverbalism, semiophrenia and concursivity are my personal post-language symbols and I cannot know if others will ever use them (or use them to signify same concepts as I do). The note about culture here deserves more attention, but I'll have to return to it once I have read Powys's The Meaning of Culture - I expect him to relate his philosophy of solitude to the meaning of culture..

It may be fruitful to regard any interpretant as an "idea" (with 'concept' possibly being limited to the interpretant of a general symbol), and to regard the difference between "talking out loud" and "thinking to oneself" as the difference between the presence of language signs and personal post-language symbols. It is then a matter of decision whether to regard every sign-process as a "mental" process or whether to limit "mind" (as Mead does) to sign-behavior in whcih language signs or post-language symbols occur. That the distinctive characteristics of human mentality are closely related to language signs and personal post-language symbols seems certain in the light of Mead's discussion of reflective thinking. Whether the psychology of the future will, however, choose to define such terms as 'thought,' 'idea,' 'concept,' and 'mind' on the basis of semiotical distinctions must be left to psychologists. (Morris 1949: 49)

Generally the answer seems to be no, but then again there is cultural psychology (e.g. Valsiner), which does use semiotic notions (not to mention explicit psychosemiotics).

Signals, on this view, "announce their objects," while symbols lead their interpreters to "conceive their objects." How is this difference to be explained on the behavioral approach? (Morris 1949: 50)

This is how Morris concludes the signal/symbol distinction in Susan K Langer's Philosophy in a New Key.

If the interpreter has other signs at his disposal, as in the case of beings with a language, he may under these conditions pay attention to the sign in question, attempt to formulate its signification, raise questions as to its reliability, assess the bearings of this reliability upon whatever goals he may have, and even make observations upon his own disposition to respond which is produced by the appearance of the sign. And since signs are used for many purposes other than description and prediction, signs low in reliability may still be attended to, produced, as cherished - as in the case of a work of fiction. (Morris 1949: 51)

This extremely relevant for my work - if I'm formulating the significance of descriptions of nonverbal behavior, then I'll certainly meet some forms of behavior which have no basis in reality (or, which are impossible in reality), or which are way too ambiguous to signify anything (not te mention denotation) - but which are still used in fictional discourse exactly because it does not have to accord to reality but can creatively invent behavioural signs and their significations.

There have been many proposals for a unique differentiation of human signs: men have symbols while animals have only signals; men alone have signs of signs; human beings are unique in the transmission of signs by social heredity; human beings use signs voluntarily while animals do not; animal signs occur only in perception while human beings are capable of inferences based on signs; men alone become interested in signs as goal-objects; men alone have language. (Morris 1949: 53)

These proposals are still prevalent in semiotic discourse. For example, the "signs as signs" aspect has been remarked by John Deely, and in semiotics of art this contention is related to the image "This is not a pipe." and Juri Lotman's "formula of art": I see what it depects but I know that it is not what it depicts (but merely a sign of what it depicts).

It should be remarked that on our account not every response-sequence provoked by a stimulus-object is sign-behavior. A person reaching for a glass of water is not prepared to act in a certain way because of a sign, but simply is acting in a certain way to an object which is a source of stimulation; the fact that events (such as an image on the retina) mediate such action does not necessarily make such mediating events signs. The glass of water may of course itself become a sign; this it might prepare response-sequence of a certain behavior-family with respect to something else (say to a person who filled the glass) and so could become a sign of a certain person's kindness; the semiotician, however, must avoid making all response-sequences cases of sign-behavior if he seeks to formulate a behavioral criterion for signs in terms of response-sequences. (Morris 1949: 252-253)

Referring back to Austin's example, seeing the cheese on the table in front of your nose is not a sign, but if, for example, you live alone and haven't bought cheese in a long while, seeing a piece of cheese on the table in front of your nose is a sure sign that something is up - someone has been there and left cheese!

Robert M. Yerkes, Chimpanzees: a Laboratory Colony. Yerkes differs from Kroeber in believing that there is some evidence of slight cultural heredity in chimpanzees, but agrees that "there is no single system of signs - vocal, gestural, or postural - which may properly called a chimpanzee language" (op. cit. p. 51). (Morris 1949: 254)

The case is similar with human nonverbal communication - there seem to be "cultural heredity" of nonverbal behavior and there are different systems of vocal, gestural and postural signs, but they do not constitute a "language" because they do not accord to Morris's definition of a lansign-system (e.g. the five conditions for calling some sign phenomena a language).

The discussion up to this point has aimed to lay the foundations for semiotic within behavioristics. The intention has been to show how the basic terms of a science of signs can be formulated in terms descriptive of behavioral processes. The question now arises as to what light this approach can throw upon the issues with which inquirers in this field are occupied. The first of these is the central problem of the differentiation of the major modes of signifying. (Morris 1949: 60)

This transcends behaviorism, which in probably why it is not called semiotic behaviorism but behavioristic semiotics.

It is perhaps desirable to have special terms for the special kinds of significata involved in signs in the various modes of signifying. We will use locatum, discriminatum, valuatum, and obligatum as signs signifying the significata of identifiors, designators, appraisors, and prescriptors. The reader who fears that we are in this way peopling the world with questionable "entities" need only be reminded that these terms refer only to the properties something must have to be denoted by a sign, that is, to permit the actualization of the response-sequences to which the interpreter of the sign is disposed. So while the terminology is clumsy, and need not often be used, it is harmless enough and still behavioral in formulation. (Morris 1949: 66-67)

I quite like these terms, but I don't know how to use them and Morris himself doesn't seem to use them very often (or I simply miss them).

Emotions may be signified, and emotions may be correlated in various ways with signs as produced or as interpreted. But the signs which signify emotions need not be appraisors, and appraisors may but need not signify emotions. 'Emotion' is not an emotional term; and one can correctly interpret the signification of a poem praising dofs without oneself liking dogs, without feeling emotional when reading the poem, or without even regarding the poem as signifying that its author liked dogs. (Morris 1949: 68)

I bet this is related to the "art as expression" discourse.

This usage of 'expressive' is an application of Leibniz' more general usage to the case of signs. He writes: "One thing expresses another ... when there is a constant and regulated relation between what can be said of the one and of the other" (Montgomery, Leibniz Selections, p. 212). Expressiveness is not restricted to signs. And there can of course be signs of the state of an organism which are not expressive signs: this a blush may be a signal of something about the person who blushes, but it is then simply a signal, even if the interpreter is himself the person in question, since it is not a sign furnished by the fact of production of a sign. One must be very careful not to attempt an explanation of the nature of non-scientific signs by dragging in uncritically the term 'expressive.' It seems to me that many semioticians are guilty at this point. (Morris 1949: 257)

Very pertinent, because I am also guilty of this. But then one has to reconsider what is expressive. And should one view it in conjunction with "impression"?

Besides symbolizing a reference, our words are also signs of emotions, attitudes, moods, the temper, interest or set of the mind in which the references occur. THey are signs in this fashion because they are grouped with these attitudes and interests in certain looser and highter contexts. Thus in speaking a sentence we are giving rise to, as in hearing it we are confronted by, at least two sign-situations. One is interpreted from symbols to reference and so to referent; the other is interpreted from verbal signs to the attitude, mood, interest, purpose, desire, and so forth of the speaker, and thence to the situation, circumstances and conditions in which the utterance is made. The first of these is a symbol situation as this has been described above, the second is merely a verbal sign-situation like the sign-situations involved in all ordinary perception, weather prediction, etc. Confusion between the two must be avoided, though they are often hard to distinguish. Thus we may interpret from a symbol to a reference and then take this reference as a sign of an attitude in the speaker, either the same or not the same as that to which we should interpret directly from his utterance as a verbal sign. (Ogden and Richards 1938. The Meaning of Meaning. 5th edition. Pp. 223-224)

A sign, according to this account, is "emotive" if someone takes the fact of its production as itself a sign of some state of the producer which often accompanies the production of the sign. This as we have seen may and often does happen; we have defined the expressiveness of a sign in precisely these terms. Bit since any sign may be so considered, and since a sign based on taking the production of a sign as itself a sign of the producer is no less "referential" than any other sign, no distinction of emotive from referential meaning really issues from the analysis. (Morris 1949: 71)

Here Morris doesn't "get it". The two sign-situations that Ogden and Richards here describe seem to be the very same as (in my judment) the distinction between "conversation of gestures" and "conversation of attitudes" in Mead.

Indicators are identifiors which are non-language signals. The pointing gesture and the weather-vane may serve as examples. (Morris 1949: 76)

It's beginning to seem that Morris tried to give easier labels to Peirce's categories of signs. It does make a whole lot of sense, because pointing is indicating so the gesture may be called an indicator rather than an index after Peirce. Pointing with eyebrows, as happens in Zamyatin's We, is also a neat indicator.

By a discriminatum is meant a characteristic of an object or situation which discriminates it from other things. A discriminatum is a characteristic in that it distinguishes some object as a stimulus-object of a certain kind; it is not necessary that the stimulus-object actually affects a sense-organ or even that it can directly affect a sense-organ, but it must be such that it can have direct causal effects. A book which completely designates an object (say Africa) would signify all its discriminata, but this complete designation would not include the book itself, that is, it is not a characteristic of Africa that books are written about it. An object then may have properties which are not discriminata. Africa may be written about, liked, disliked, damned; these are not characteristic of Africa but of someone's response to Africa. Discriminata belongs to the stimulus side of a stimulus-response situation; what an organism can observe about an object or situation belongs to (though it does not exhaust) the discriminata of the object or situation. (Morris 1949: 77)

My first thought was that this might be what Donald Favareou calls "kalevis", but that doesn't seem to be the case. "Distinctive feature" hits closer to home, but this is a notion of phonetics. In broad terms, I imagine discriminata to be whatever small difference that distinguishes one gesture, facial expression or body movement or posture from another to the degree that it would call forth a different signification.

Organisms, given certain needs, prefer certain object to others. Such preferential behavior is a widespread and perhaps universal characteristic of living systems. So it is natural that it should be reflected in sign-behavior. It is believed that such preferential behavior gives the behavioral clue for the interpretation of appraisive signs. We have previously defined an appraisor as a sign which signifies to its interpreter a preferential status for something or other, that is, which disposes its interpreter to favor or react unfavorably toward this something or other. Therefore the test whether a sign is or is not an appraisor is given by determining whether or not the sign disposes its interpreter to preferential behavior to something or other. (Morris 1949: 79)

I cannot think of a nonverbal example, but it seems that descriptions of music (e.g. short reviews) for albums that are shared on the internet are such appraisors, because they "praise" the music in some way, try to convince you that it is worth downloading and listening to.

Now if we take 'preferable' to have this designative signification, then an animal may prefer objects which are not preferable, that is, do not as fully satisfy its needs as would other objects. And this is often the case. For while there is a general tendency for organisms to come through trial and error to prefer what is preferable with respect to the satisfaction of their needs, at any given time there may be a wide discrepancy between what is preferred and what is preferable; in the case of psychotic behavior the tendency to correct preferences in terms of preferability is almost completely absent. (Morris 1949: 80)

Yes, that seems to be the case for many things (from unhealthy food to many forms of criminal, unlawful or unallowed behaviour).

An object is preferred because of some of its characteristics, bit its preferential status is not itself another characteristic; the valuata of an object are not additional characteristics of the object, some among others, acting as stimuli to behavior, but are determined by the status which this object has in behavior; its preferential statuses are its valuata, and appraisors signify such a status. (Morris 1949: 81)

Hmm. I thought about the case of modern music again. E.g. some people (like myself) do not listen to certain bands or artists because they are listened to by millions and praised by too many to count. The question is, whether this is a characteristic of the band or artist or is it something else. In this case Morris suggests that it is something else - value. I believe Morris's categories make perfect sense, but it will take time and effort to understand their perfect sense.

The systemic use of signs is to use of signs to systematize (organize) behavior which other signs tend to provoke. The limitation to sign-behavior distinguishes the systemic use of signs from other attempts to organize behavior. One may, for instance, attempt to inculcate in a person by religious discourse a certain need as basic in his system of needs, and in this way to organize or systematize the needs and behavior of the individual, but such a use of signs would be incitive and not systemic as the term is here used. In the systemic use of signs the aim is simply to organize sign-produced behavior, that is, to organize the interpretants of other signs. This may be done with respect to all kinds and combinations of signs, and by use of signs in the various modes of signifying. (Morris 1949: 104)

That is, signs that organize other signs.

Through signs the individual directs his behavior with reference to things and situations which he may never have encountered and never can encounter, and yet the evidence which gives the ultimate control of knowledge must always be found in situations in which he himself behaves.
A distinction is to be made between the locus of signifying, the locus signified, and the locus of confirmation. A sign-process always involves an organism which at a given time and place interprets something. But what is signified by the sign may be signified as at a time and place other than that of the occurrence of the sign, and the confirmation or disconfirmation may be at a still other time and place. (Morris 1949: 111)

Signs can denote without the interpreter knowing whether it denotes. Things distant and time and space can be signified and knows just as the immediate environment.

The term 'communication,' when widely used, covers any instance of the establishment of a commonage, that is, the making common of some property to a number of things. In this sense a radiator "communicates" its heat to surrounding bodies, and whatever medium serves this process of making common is a means of communication (the air, a read, a telegraph system, a language). For our purposes 'communication' will be limited to the use of signs to establish a commonage of signification; the establishment of a commonage other than that of signification - whether by signs or other means - will be called communization. A person who is angry may be the occasion for another person becoming angry, and signs may or may not be the means of establishing the commonage: this is an instance of communization. Or a person who signifies anger may by the use of signs cause another person to signify anger without necessarily becoming angry: this is a case of communication. The user of signs who effects communication is the communicator and the organism in which the sign-process is aroused by the signs of the communicator is the communicatee. The communicatee may be the same organism which is the communicator, as when one writes a note to oneself to be read at a later time. The signs used are the means of communication and the signification made common by these means in [sic] the content of communication. (Morris 1949: 118)

The communication/communization distinction is essentially the distinction between conversation of gestures and conversation of attitudes, but Morris probably made the replacement so that it can apply to "organisms" rather than only humans.

It is obvious that these four comprehensive usages of signs are closerly related to the four modes of signifying. The primary use of designators is informative, the primary use of appraisors is valuative, the primary use of prescriptive is incitive, and the primary use of formators is systemic. So close in fact is this relation that doubt may be raised as to whether the mode of signifying of a sign can be distinguished from its corresponding primary usage. Thus if a sign is for a particular person at a given moment a designator, it is informing him (correctly or incorrectly) about something, and if a sign is for a particular person at a given moment a designator, it is informing him (correctly or incorrectly) about something, and if a sign is for a particular person at a given moment an appraisor it tends to confer a preferential place in his behavior to something. Hence it may seem, for instance, that the designative mode of signifying is not distinguishable from the informative use of signs, and that the modes of signifying may perhaps even be defined in terms of the primary uses to which signs are put. (Morris 1949: 96)

I would very much like to one day figure out Morris's modes andd uses of signifying and give them nonverbal examples, but for some reason the exact signification of each eludes me still.

Communication may be used to make people different as well as to make them similar, and communization or differentiation between persons may be established by other means than communication. Since sign-behavior is itself a phase of behavior, to control the sign-behavior of other persons is a powerful means of controlling their total behavior, but the control intended may be for any purpose, moral or immoral, divisive or unificative, differentiative or communizative. (Morris 1949: 119)

This could actually be a basis for a semiotic approach to power.

And in case an individual is using signs to control the behavior of someone else, signs which he believes or knows to be false or unreliable may still be more adequate for the accomplishment of his purposes than signs which he believes or knows to be true and reliable. But even here the general dependency of the adequacy of signs upon their reliability is evident in the fact that the producer of signs in such a case must use signs which the person he in influencing takes to be reliable and bust carefully geard against the communication of his own belief in their unreliability. (Morris 1949: 122)

Pretty solid contention, but I can't think of any actual examples (at least not in the novels I'm studying) at the moment.

Examples of the Major Types of Discourse

Mode ↓ / Use →	Informative	Valuative	Incitive	Systemic
Designative	Scientific	Fictive	Legal	Cosmological
Appraisive	Mythical	Poetic	Moral	Critical
Prescriptive	Technological	Political	Grammatical	Metaphysical
Formative	Logico-mathematical	Rhetorical	Grammatical	Metaphysical

(Morris 1949: 125)

Some of these make sense, even. For example, Metaphysical makes sense insofar as it forms a systemic image of the whole world, as Lotman writes.

As science advances, its statements become more purely designative, more general, better confirmed, and better systematized. Scientific discourse is therefore made up of those statements which constitute the best knowledge of a given time, that is, those statements for which the evidence is highest that the statements are true. Science is especially concerned with the search for reliable signs. The goal to which science moves is a systematized body of true statements about everything which has occurred or will occur. But since at each moment the selection of statements for admission to science is dependent upon evidence that the statements are true, the selection will vary as new evidence is obtained, and so the scientific discourse of one time may differ greatly from the scientific discourse of another. (Morris 1949: 126)

I recall Colin Cherry discussing something similar.

A person may be interested in scientific statements for their own sake (interested in collecting them as a person may be interested in collecting butterflies); a person may have knowledge and the increase of knowledge as his goal. Nevertheless, it follows from the very nature of knowledge that expectations based on statements known to be true will not be disappointed, and genetically this significance of scientific knowledge has played a large part in the development of science. It is certainly no accident that scientists at a given time are markedly concerned with getting knowledge relevant to the problems of that time; while science does not appraise or command a particular act, the knowledge that it seeks is significant knowledge, that is, information revelant to the accomplishment of various acts. (Morris 1949: 128)

I think I'm this kind of "collector". Added this to the sidebar of this blog.

Fiction in its various forms may be taken as an instance of designative-valuative discourse. In fictive discourse some sequence of happenings is designated, but whether the events happened as narrated is not, as in scientific discourse, the central issue; fiction explores an imagined universe rather than delineating the actial universe. And in fiction there is likewise a minimization of appraisal or prescreption; though the fictious characters (if the fiction be of persons) may themselves apprause and prescribe, their appraisals and prescriptions occur within the work as additional fictional elements rather than as characteristics of the dominant mode of signifying of the work itself. (Morris 1949: 128-129)

This should be kept in mind when stuidying some phenomena (whether nonverbal behavior or economic rules) in fiction novels.

Fiction abounds with heroes and villains even when it does not label them as such. It aims to induce preferential attitudes to what it designates (and often to the discourse itself) even though it does not itself specifically appraise itself or the environment imagined. The telling of the tale is to be approved and the events narrated are to be found significant; if neither result is attained, the work has failed of its purpose. (Morris 1949: 129)

Pretty harsh.

The interest in the description of a utopia may be dependent upon the belief that the imagined society is no only physically possible (compatible with known empirical laws) but that it is probably (that eventts are moving in a direction such that the imagined society will one day be actual). Insofar as the events depicted are incompatible with existing knowledge, fictive discourse becomes more and more fantastic and in time becomes absurd. This suggests that fictive discourse remains related, though often tenuously, to the actual world and actual behavior, supplying as it were an imaginative exploration of possible evnironments congenial to such behavior. Utopias are projected by persons interested in a world different from the one they inhabit, but a world different only in certain respects, namely, in those respects which would provide a more congenial environment for their actual needs. In general the reader of fiction reads those works which designate the kind of environment in which he is interested and which present this environment in a way which supports his own valuations. (Morris 1949: 130)

I'm not sure about the part about utopias, but the relatedness to actual behavior is significant for concourse.

A sign is metaphorical if in a particular instance of its occurrence it is used to denote an object which it does not literally denote in virtue of its signification, but which has some of the properties which it genuine denotata have. (Morris 1949: 136)

Now that I consider metaphoricity a part of the concursive project, I should collect these kinds of statements as well.

Signs in general serve to control behavior in the way something else would exercise control if it were present. To attain its goals the organism must take account of the environment in which it operates, select for its concern certain features of this environment, respond by response-sequences which will attain an environment suitable to its needs, and organize its sign-provoked responses into some pattern or other. Each of these stages of its activity may be facilitated by the use of signs, and the four primary usages of signs correspond to these four aspects of behavior.
Signs accordingly may be used to inform the organism about something, to aid it in its preferential selection of objects, to incite response-sequences of some behavior family, and to organize sign-produced behavior (interpretants) into a determinate whole. These usages may be called in order the informative, the valuative, the incitive, and the systemic uses of signs. These are the most general sign usages; other usages are subdivisions and specializations of these four. They are the purposes for which an individual produces signs as means-objects in the guidance of his own behavior or in the guidance of the behavior of others. They may be employed with respect to things other than signs or to signs themselves.
An individual may use signs to inform himself or others about what has been or is or will be, with respect to signs or non-semiosical events. He may use signs to confer for himself or others a preferential status upon something - upon things, persons, needs, or even signs (as where he wants the signs he himself produces to be approved as "fine writing" or "fine speech"). He may use signs to incite a particular response in himself or in others to objects or signs, or to call out submission in some one else, or to get the reply to a question which bothers him, or to provoke co-operative or disruptive behavior in the members of some community. And he may use signs to further influence behavior already called out by signs, whether this behavior be to signs themselves or to something other than signs. (Morris 1949: 95)

I have made myself rewrite so many passages from this incredible book that some post-it marks have gotten misplaced and quotes skipped because of this. Luckily I noticed this. These explications make his types of discourse much more understandable. They also suggest that building a semiotic theory of power in terms of "behavior control" may be feasible.

Appraisive-incitive discourse may be illustrated by the language of morality. For discourse that appraises actions as favorable (or unfavorable) from the standpoint of some group, and aims to incite (or inhibit) these actions, is certainly close to what is commonly recognized as moral in character. (Morris 1949: 138)

Seems right. "Let me tell you how you have to live your life..." etc.

From this point of view moral discourse is linked with the sphere of social behavior. We have seen that groups of organisms may have goals in whose realization individual organisms play certain specialized roles. Further, these individuals may, in ways suggested by George Mead, come to symbolize the roles of other individuals in social behavior and the needs of the group, and to appraise their own behavior or the behavior of other individuals with respect to the needs of the group. In terms of the perspective of social behavior the individual in this way gains a basis for appraisals in which he can even approve or disapprove of certain of his own preferences and actions. Appraisals made of oneself or others in terms of what is conductive to group welfare, when incitive in aim, constitute moral discourse. The term 'ought,' so common in moral discourse, is (when a moral 'ought') evidence of the dual appraisive and incitive character of moral discourse, for 'ought' signifies some action that is positively appraised, and is used in contexts which make clear that the user of the sign is endeavoring to incite the action in question. (Morris 1949: 139)

Hm. It seems that because there are no tenses in nonverbal behaviour, this might be one category which cannot be easily reconstructed for my purposes.

Moral discourse is of importance in the social control which it exercises over the conduct of individuals. To the extent that it is effective it couses individuals to act in the light of the effects of their actions upon other individuals of the social group to which they belong. To the degree that moral appraisals are built upon reliable knowledge of group needs and ways of meeting these needs, moral discourse is an important agency in advancing the consummation of group interests and the interests of individuals in a group. (Morris 1949: 140)

Relevant for sociosemiotics.

The adequacy of scientific statement is tested by finding further data which inclease or decrease its confirmation; the adequacy of criticism is tested by additional criticism. The situation is complicated by the fact that criticism may be carried on for a great variety of secondary purposes (informative, valuative, and incitive), and in this case further questions of adequacy arise with respect to the way it accomplishes these purposes. (Morris 1949: 142)

One of such secondary purposes was proposed by Oscar Wilde - that all criticism is autobiographical.

Political discourse, in common with most types of discourse, is both an agency for social conservatism and for social reconstitution. It is a tool through which social behavior in its widest recahes aims to induce approval of certain institutional forms for the realization of its widest social goals. Its adequacy is to be measured in terms of its effectiveness for advancing the purposes for which it is used. (Morris 1949: 146)

From this standpoint very few political discourses are adequate.

The term 'function' is often employed in place of the term 'usage,' but - aside from the fact that the term has another signification in logic and mathematics - is wider than the present intended signification of 'use.' It is often said that one of the "functions' of signs is to make possible the development of the complex human personality; but signs may have this and other consequences without being used, in the present sense of the term, as means to attain these consequences. To "use" signs is to employ them as means-objects. (Morris 1949: 261)

Very relevant, because lotmanian semioticians often use the word "function" in a too wide sense. I think the contention about "means-objects" is again related to intention - signs are "used" only intentionally. I'm not at all sure about this, but it seems to be the case.

See T. C. Pollock, The Nature of Literature; C. A. Mace, 'Representation and Expression,' Analysis 1, 1934, 33-38... (Morris 1949: 261)

I will see.

We have considered at some length the conditions which a stimulus has to meet to be an identifior, designator, appraisor, or prescriptor. Let us henceforth call all such signs lexicative signs, or lexicators. Then in terms of our previous discussion of the term 'formator' we may say that if a stimulus is not a lexicative sign, but nevertheless influences in a uniform way the total signification of the particular sign combinations in which it appears, the stimulus in question is a formator. This formulation, however, leaves open the questions whether formators are signs, whether and what they signify, why they occur, and what - if any - feature of language are formators. (Morris 1949: 153-154)

Indeed I still can't make out what are lexicators and formators, exactly.

In the face of such diversity it is reasonable to surmise that the differences are not factual but arise in part from the acceptance of different terminologies in which to talk about signs. Here the semiotician must be careful to take upon himself the advice he likes to give others: Do not confuse terminological and factual problems! (Morris 1949: 154)

Sounds like good advice.

...that the term 'table' in French requires certain endings in certain sign combinations shows nothing about the characteristics of tables. (Morris 1949: 160)

An example of this advice.

Modors are formators which establish the ascriptive mode of signifying of the sign combination in which they occur (that is, determine whether the total interpretant composed of the interpretants of the other signs in the given sign combination is to be the interpretant of a designative, appraisive, or prescriptive ascriptor). 'He is coming' may be spoken in such a way that the ascriptor is a statement, an appraisal, or a prescriptor - signifying merely that an event does occur, or signifying that his coming is good or bad, or signifying that his coming is inquired about or demanded. The intonations and speech melodies which effect these differentiations are modors. In writing, the corresponding modors are the punctuation devices '.' '!' '?' '!!,' though there is no sharp standardization here of appraisive and prescriptive devices. (Morris 1949: 161)

Here it seems that Morris is merely inventing exact terms for phenomena that already have names.

...'is' comes from a word which signified "to grow"... (Morris 1949: 161)

If this etymology is true then it opens up a whole new world for frenchy philosophers to usurp (if they have not already done so).

If there was nothing existent there would be no denotation - and no truth, factual or formal. If by some miracle there wele still ascriptors it would be true that a given ascriptor was formative, and true that it would be true if its antecedent ascriptors were to denote. But true it would not be. And if there was no evidence, no ascriptor, formative or lexicative, would be known to be true. But there is a world and it furnishes evidence as to whether our signs denote. And if there was no such world, then there would be no signs, and no knowledge, and no truth. Not even the truth that there was nothing. The reader is free at this point to utter any appraisor he desires. I am satisfied to smile. (Morris 1949: 168)

Sweet. Smile is an appraisor!

The ascriptor as a whole is accordingly an analytic formative ascriptor, differing only in complexity from such an ascriptor as 'That red thing is colored.' The same is true of '2+2=4.' The analysis of this ascriptor shows that in a certain language the significations of the signs in the sign combination are such that any situation which meets the conditions of denotation of '2+2' thereby meets the conditions of denotation of '4,' and vice versa. '2+2=4' is, therefore, in the language in question an analytic formative ascriptor. (Morris 1949: 169)

Seeing as this sign is present in Dostoyevsky and Orwell, I find it quite pleasant.

These examples are intended to reinforce the point already made that formative ascriptors are subject to the same variety of uses as are other ascriptors. They may contain designative, appraisive, and prescriptive signs along with the formators which give them their unque character, and thy may be used to inform, provoke valuations, and incite actions both respect to linguistic and non-linguistic matters. A developed and comprehensive semiotic must shake off the prevalent tendency to concentrate undue attentiot upon the designative mode of signifying and the informative use of signs. (Morris 1949: 175)

I wonder if I could supplement discussion of regulators with the category of incitive signs.

A distinction is current today between an "object language" and a "metalanguage," an object language being any language which is an object for investigation, and a metalanguage being any language signifying some other language; in this usage the terms do not refer to two kinds of language but to a relation between two languages in a given investigation. So if we talked about French in English, French would be the object language and English the metalanguage. Now this distinction itself, as often interpreted, has certain defects. The first of these, the restriction to language, can easily be avoided by recognizing that there may be metasigns (signs about signs) which denote object signs which are not language signs. Hence an object language and a metalanguage are then simply special cases of objectsigns and metasigns (that is, where these are language signs). The second defect is more serious, and springs not from the distinction itself but from the almost universal neglect of the great variety of types of discourse: it is uncritically assumed that a metalanguage is either scientific discourse or logico-mathematical discourse. A metalanguage, however, might be of any type of discourse and its object language of any type of discourse: there can be poetic discourse about poetic discourse, scientific discourse about poetic discourse, legal discourse about poetic discourse, poetic discourse about scientific discourse, logico-mathematical discourse about scientific discourse, scientific discourse about logico-mathematical discourse, and so on. Therefore the term 'about' in the phrase 'signs about signs,' is as wide in signification as the term 'signifies,' and signs in any mode of signifying can signify ("be about") signs in any mode of signifying. So we either have to recognize explicitly that any type of discourse can be metalinguistic or restrict the term 'metalanguage' to some specific type (or types) of discourse; we propose the former usage. (Morris 1949: 179-180)

Actually, the category of metasigns might become useful when we consider concursivity or "verbal signs about nonverbal signs" (presuming that concourse is about nonverbal signs that in themselves are about nonverbal behaviour).

Semiotic as an empirical science eventuates in designative-informative discourse about language and non-language signs; semiotic as logic eventuates in formative-informative discourse about languages. Semiotic, then, has its scientific discourse and its logic, nad these are no more in opposition than experimental and mathematical physics. (Morris 1949: 182)

The trouble is, modern semioticians rarely uses logic, and "empirical semiotics" is still rarer.

And now a word of explanation. I should feel somewhat disappointed if the reader does not himself experience a sense of disappointment with this chapter, and indeed with the entire treatment of the various types of discourse. Such misgivings, however, are but witnesses to the astonishing complexity of sign phenomena and to the corresponding difficulty of divising a language in which to talk about such phenomena. Our account at least shows that semiotic cannot simply take over the current terminology employed in talking about signs. For these terms are riddled with ambiguities and inconsistencies, as the incomplete analyses of 'science,' 'logic,' 'mathematics,' 'grammar,' 'rhetoric,' and 'metaphysics' has shown. The inconclusiveness which most readers will feel in the analysis comes from the fact that different analyses are possible, each of which is defensible in terms of an appeal to some sement of historical tradition. (Morris 1949: 185)

Some self-criticism. Indeed, for me, this chapter was the most difficult. Thankfully he returns to discussing communication and more down-to-earth sign-phenomena.

EVERY sign involves behavior, for a sign must have an interpretant, and an interpretant is a disposition to a response. But the behavior which is involved in the sign as sign itself occurs within the context of the more inclusive system of behavior of the interpreter of the sign, and frequently within the context of a behavioral system involving a number of organisms. There arises in this way the problem of the relation of signs to the individuals and societies in which signs appear and operate. This topic has been touched upon already in a fragmentary way in the discussions of the genesis of language and the uses of signs. But there the problem was incidental and not focal. Nothing has yet been said in any comprehensive way as to the individual and social conditions for the appearance of signs or the effect of signs upon the individual personality and upon society. And here a very extensive field for semiotic opens up. Not merely do signs have a certain signification at a given moment, but they have this signification only within the particular life history of their interpreters; and their appearance affects for good or ill the further life history of these interpreters. (Morris 1949: 187)

An important topic. I caught myself thinking about how all of this comes together with my plans to tie Morris's behavioristic semiotic with Powys's self-culture and literature - I am, after all, studying nonverbal behaviour in dystopian literature. The model I imagine at this moment goes from: (1) actual nonverbal behaviour of actual people; to (2) signs of nonverbal behaviour mediated by language, e.g. concourse; to (3) culture as the overarching system of sign systems; which (4) bears again back on actual nonverbal behaviour of actual people.

Every sign involves behavior, for a sign must have an interpretant, and an interpretant is a disposition to a response. But the behavior which is involved in the sign as sign itself occurs within the context of the more inclusive system of behavior of the interpreter of the sign, and frequently within the context of a behavioral system involving a number of organisms. There arises in this way the problem of the relation of signs to the individuals and societies in which signs appear and operate. This topic has been touched upon already in a fragmentary way in the discussions of the genesis of language and the uses of signs. But there the problem was incidental and not focal. Nothing has yet been said in any comprehensive way as to the individual and social conditions for the appearance of signs or the effect of signs upon the individual personality and upon society. And here a very extensive field for semiotics opens up. (Morris 1949: 187)

I believe it does. It is revelant that Dewey dismisses Morris's personal signs and post-language symbols on the basis that "only error individualizes".

A proper understanding of the way signs operate in individual and social behavior demands an explicit recognition of the importance of signs other than those produced by the vocal chords and heard by the ear. Spoken-heard signs are so central in the life of man, and offer such opportunities for study, that they have almost dominated the interest of semioticians. Such signs alone are often called "language," and since man has been regarded as the linguistic animal, it has seemed natural to concentrate on them. But this, if carried too far, is a great error, and one from which semiotic must now free itself. For not only does the spoken-heard language depend in crucual places on other signs, and itself give rise to signs which are not spoken or heard (post-language signs), but such language is not coextensive with all signs drawn from sounds and has never supplanted its great rival - visual signs. (Morris 1949: 190)

Morris's version of going against logocentrism.

A light which signals food to a dog is as "primitive" as a sound signal; and interpersonal relations are as much determined by the signs gained by the sight of other persons (manner of dress, gestures, facial movements, physical appearance) as by the sounds he utters. I recall once in Poland an elaborate communication in which not a sound was uttered: a young boy and his father stood near me on a crowded train; the father moved down the car without the boy noticing this movement; the boy then looked for his father, did not see him, became panicky; I touched the boy on his arm, pointed to his father, and the boy ran off, happy; his father smiled, and tipped his hat, and I smiled back. The situation was "clear" to all of us, replete with signs, and soundless. Although what is "perceived" in such institutions is certainly in part due to the prior occurrence of spoken language, such facts do not warrant the general conclusion that visual signs are less primitive than auditory signs. (Morris 1949: 191)

This is the passage where Morris reflects on nonverbal communication most explicitly. The note for the last bold part goes as follows: "Ernst Cassirer has stressed this point. G. H. Mead argues that the perception of objects as enduring is not possible without language ("Concerning Animal Perception," Psychological Review, 14, 1907, 383-90). For material on social perception, see F. Heider, "Social Perception and Phenomenal Causality," Psychological Review, 51, 1944, 358-74." I'll take these into consideration.

In the case of "realistic" painting and "program" music at any rate it seems clear that recognizable objects (such as painted chairs or persons, or the tonally "painted" portrait of an object or person) furnishes a vocabulary of signs which are then combined "grammatically" in various ways according to the style of a particular school or artist. It is true that such icons may become very general, as in the case of the "formal" or "automorphic" kinds of painting and music, but generality of signification is not the absence of signification. I have asked many persons, for instance, what kind of situation Stravinsky's Rite of Spring might denote (that is, what is its signification). The answers are various: a herd of wild elephants in panic, a Dionysian orgy, mountains being formed by geological processes, dinosaurs in conflict. But there is no suggestion that it might denote a quite brook, or lovers in the moonlight, or the self's tranquility. "Primitive forces in elemental conflict" - such is the approximate signification of the music, and such conflict is presented iconically in the music itself. (Morris 1949: 193)

This is the only western author so far that I have seen mentioning "program music". I thought this was a notion only in soviet musicology. Turns out it's a notion of early twentieth century musicology.

Iconicity itself is not an absolute criterion of the fine arts, for a nover may be as much a work of art as a painting, and a painting of an object may be scientifically reliable and yet esthetically bad. The common feature of the fine arts of various linguistic media would seem to lie primarily in their valuative use of signs which signify goal-objects, with the additional requirement that the way the signs are employed must awaken a positive valuation of themselves as goal-objects (that is, be at least a part, and perhaps in the limiting case the whole part, of their valuative use). No sign is as such "esthetic" and the attempt to isolate the fine arts by isolating a special class of esthetic signs seems now an error. (Morris 1949: 195)

Very relevant for the semiotics of art.

Speech, when attained, itself makes possible a vast extension of sign-processes: it may, as we have seen, give to perceived objects a signification first attained by language, and it may give rise to languages (such as that of the deaf and dumb, or the highly devoted fine arts) which would not otherwise appear. All such signs are in a large sense of the term "post-linguistic" in that they are dependent upon language for their appearance. (Morris 1949: 196)

This implies that secondary modelling systems in the sense of cultural semiotics are nothing more than post-linguistic systems.

If we mean by 'freedom' the ability of an organism to direct its behavior by signs, then the highest degree of freedom is found in those organisms in which post-language symbols have attained the highest level of development. Mead stresses in a number of places that the significant symbol (which, as we have seen, covers our language signs and post-language symbols) allows man to become a "self-conditioning" being, a fact which he thought the existing doctrines of the "conditioned response" failed to account for. The present account can incorporate and explain such self-conditioning. For the person who is planning a shopping tour can by language and post-language symbols signify to himself the consequences, say, of going first to the store rather than another, and through such signifying "condition" himself to respond to the door of the place in question, determining whether he will enter it or pass it by when he encounters it. (Morris 1949: 197)

Very much related to autocommunication. If it be taken for granted that personality develops through communication, then the notion of self-communication implies that the person can craft his or her own personality (and that is exactly what we humans do). The shopping example is also eerily familiar from Mihhail Lotman's interview on autocommunication. His example was only slightly different: that in making a shopping list one self-conditions (he did not use this term) to select items purposefully rather than buy needless junk.

The "totalitarian" societies of today are highly integrated, and in their extreme form attempt to suppress any form of individual behavior that does not support the goals of the society; (Morris 1949: 204)

Orwell's 1984 appeared approximately at the same time as this book. In Orwell's totalitarian nightmare, even sexual relations are suppressed, because they form loyalties outside of the party.

A sense relevant to our inquiry would be one in which the sphere of the cultural is less wide than that of the social. In all societies, for instance, sexual interactions occur, but they occur differently in different societies, and it is in such differences that differences of culture consist. Not sex relations but the form of sex relations of a given society is cultural; (Morris 1949: 205)

This sounds familiar. It is biological/universal that peaple have sex, but the manner in which they have sex is social/cultural.

But if cultural phenomena are not necessarily sign phenomena, it may still be true that signs play a very important role in culture and in its transmission. And on this point no doubt it possible. For the language in which people talk, the rites the perform, the monuments they erect, the works of art they make, the devices they utilize to indicate social prestige are all cultural phenomena, and all sign phenomena. Fer this reason it is possible and revealing, as Chapple and Coon have done in their Principles of Anthropology, to interpret much of the data with which the social scientist deals from a semiotic point of view. In Parts IV and V of this book (entitled "Symbols and Human Relations") they consider rites of passage, rites of intensification, magic, religion, art, money, and laws as "series of symbols and their associated techniques which have meanings held in common by a number of persons," and attempt to differentiate these various cultural phenomena in terms of the signs employed (regarding a law, for instance, as "any rule symbolizing a pattern of interaction which applios to all the members of a group, regardless of institutions"; and a ritual as "a symbolic congifuration used to restore equilibrium after a crisis"). This treatment goes far to show the important place which signs have in cultural phenomena, and to suggest the power of semiotic as an organon for the study of man. The semiotic used by these authors is much more adequate than the vague terminology in this field still employed by most social scientists, but though behavioral in its approach, their semiotic is still far from adequate for the purposes of a study of human culture (a sign, for instance, is regarded by them as anything "which sets off a conditioned response"). It is believed that the refinements and distinctions in the science of signs which have been made in this and previous chapters will be useful to the study of man as a cultural being, and that as they are so used in this study the results obtained will in turn greatly help to advance semiotic beyond its present formulation. (Morris 1949: 206)

If I intend to unite Morris with Powys, I'll have to consider this passage in detail.

The socially derived techniques by which the individual carries over his self-control the forms of social control are so important that every society is especially concerned with the determination of the signs of its individual members. As Mark May has suggested in conversation, such concern is the distinctive feature of propaganda in all its forms; in the widest sense of the word it is the mark of educational institutions. Through its control over what can be said by school and print and film and stage, society attempts to secure for itself the ultimate control over the sign-processes of the individual, and in this way to control its individual members through the signs which will operate in their behavior. The enormous importance in the modern world as to who will control tho agencies of mass communication becomes evident. For even if explicit appraisals and prescriptions are not made through such agencies, the mere control of what information is made available to individuals will go a long way toward determining the nature of their own appraisals and prescriptions and hence their behavior. (Morris 1949: 208)

This may be one of the reasons Powys felt negatively inclined towards television. Also, compare this with Kecskemeti.

Social control of the individual through the control of his sign-processes is not therefore complete. Nevertheless it can be carried very far, and the extent to which it is attempted and felt desirable will differ with various cultures. A totalitarian society pushes this process to its limit; a loosely organized society will reveal a plurality of various centers competing for control of as many individuals as they can reach; a truly democratic society would aim, as a matter of principle, to enlarge and diversify the sign capacities and resources of its members, assuring them access to a vide area of information and encouraging them to test and improve current appraisals and prescriptions in terms of their reliability and adequacy. (Morris 1949: 209-210)

An individual still retains at least some semiotic freedom. Winston and D-503 write a diary, Montag reads books, etc.

In a healthy society signs in all modes of signifying would fulfill the various uses to which signs can be put, and each specialized type of discourse would lend its support to the other types and be in turn controlled by them. Such a society would ground its basic appraisals and prescriptions upon its actual needs and keep them linked to advance in knowledge of itself and its environment. In this way it would seek to reconstruct its preferences and techniques in terms of its knowledge and its needs, and would support all investigations which gave it knowledge relevant to its needs; its sign-processes would flexibly express its needs and aid in their constant reconstruction and redirection; need, knowledge, appraisals, and prescriptions would mutually support and influence each other. At no one time would its signs be completely reliable or adequate, but conditions would exist such that the way was open for the progressive improvement of their reliability and adequacy. (Morris 1949: 210)

Now look who's being utopic!

That communication is essential to complex social behavior, and that it primarily serves to increase integration and socialization, is not to be denied; it is well to remind ourselves, however, that it does not always do so.
One indication of this is in the special form of communication in which an individual communicates with himself (that is, the self of one moment communicates with the self at another moment). This occurs not merely in the writing of diaries or the devices by which the present self acts to remind the future self of something, but takes place in a peculialy important form in the production of a work of art. For in such a production the artist throughout the process is stimulating himself by the stimuli he produces, and at the end of the process in particular he stands over against his work as a member of his audience. There is self-communication in so far as the self is interpreter of what it signified as sign producer; there is social communication insofar as the communication involves interpreters other than the artist.
Now in both these cases the fact of communication may play an integrative role in the selves involved, but need not do so. Let us borrow a term from Abraham Kaplan and call a sign "self-expressive" if the producer of the sign interprets the fact of its production as expressive of himself. The artist may then through the work of art come to a knowledge of the factors in himself that led to the production of the work of art, and by so signifying these factors be better able to incorporate them into a more adequate integrated self. But it is also certain that this may not take place: he may not interpret his products as self-expressive signs but simply enjoy their signification at successive moments of self-expression. (Morris 1949: 213)

Communication may sound as if it was only about making something common, but it can also be used for making something uncommon. This is one of the primary functions of self-communication, wherein one "increases integration" with oneself. Also, the Jakobsonian example of autocommunication through time (communicating with that "other self" in the future) reaches back to Peirce, who claims that we give signs to ourselves in the future (his signs "grow"). Also, the bit about self-expression related to self-observation in dreams.

The increase of communication may not only fail to give agreement in valuations and modes of conduct but may actually be used to increase conflict, competitiveness, and slavery. For sharing a language with other persons provides the subtlest and most powerful of all tools for controlling the behavior of these other persons to one's advantage - for stirring up rivalries, advancing one's own goals, exploiting others. Modern propaganda is the witness to this within existing nations; a world language would make the same phenomena possible over the earth as a whole. And semiotic itself, as it develops, will be subject to the same kind of utilization by individuals and groups for the control of other individuals and groups in terms of self-interest.
Such conclusions are in themselves no cause for pessimism. To see danger is to be forewarned; the common and uncritical optimism that any increase in communication is necessarily good is to court the very dangers in question. A world language, the internationalizing of the arts, the reading of the same books - these things are under way and will not be stopped. If they may be powerful forces for the liberation of more and more individuals and for the integration of diverse communities into an earth community, they may also be powerful forces for the mechanization of the individual and the enslavement of society. Which they will be, and how much one and how much the other, will depend upon by whom they are used and for what ends. (Morris 1949: 214)

This sounds like Jakobson's contention that language is the highest (subtlest) means of conveying information. I think English has become such word language.

Cf. John Dewey's remark that "probably a time will come when it will be universally recognized that the differences between coherent logical schemes and artistic structures in poetry, music and the plastics are technical and specialized, rather than deep-seated," (Philosophy and Civilization, pp. 120-121).
In my article "Esthetics and the Theory of Signs," Journal of Unified Science, 8, 1939, 131-150, I tried to differentiate the esthetic sign as an iconic appraisor. The present position is more general, since the approach to the arts in terms of the valuative use of signs does not require that the signs are nevertheless of great importance in the arts, and the article mentioned is still relevant to the general problem of art considered as a sign phenomena. It was discussed by the literary critics, Allen Tate (Reason in Madness) and John Crowe Ransom (The New Criticism). For supplementations as to the relation of the arts to signs see G. Kepes, Language of Vision, and Ernst Kris "Appreaches to Art" (in Psychoanalysis Today). Kepes aims to show that modern painting is a discovery of new ways of representation; Kris (as does Dewey) interprets art as a form of communication. (Morris 1949: 274)

"Esthetics and the Theory of Signs" is republished in Morris's Writings....

See on the general question my article "The Mechanism of Freedom" in Freedom, It's Meaning (ed. Ruth Anshen); also G. H. Mead The Philosophy of the Act. A semiotical formulation of the term 'freedom' overcomes the opposition of freedom and causation by phrasing the problem in terms of the extent to which an organism causes its own behavior through the operation of signs. One who takes the position of the present volume is not surprised, for instance, that a person can cause the dilation of the pupils of his eyes by producing language or post-language signs which signify the objects which originally caused this dilation. (See the article by C. V. Hudgins, "Conditioning and the Voluntary Control of the Pupillary Light Reflex," Journal of General Psychology, 8, 1933, 3-51.) (Morris 1949: 275)

I quite like this definition of freedom, because it hinges on what I think of as autocommunication. Also, I cannot find Hudgins's paper, but it's good to know that the voluntary control of pupil dilation was not discovered in relation with sexual arousal, but in the 1930 and in relation with behavioristic conditioning.

What the Freudian has done is to propose a theory as to why the individual finds it difficult to formulate the signification of certain of his signs and indeed why he actively resists such a formulation by himself or others. This theory, in so far as it is sound, is a contribution to the understanding of pathic signs; there is nothing in it which in principle cannot be translated into the terminology of a behavioral semiotic. The Freudian symbols are essentially general icons and as such capable of denoting objects which are like themselves in certain respects only 9dreams of flying as symbolic of the erect penis, dreams of open books as symbolic of the female genitalia, etc.); they are a special case of metaphorical signs, namely, where certain processes in the individual prevent or make difficult the recognition that the metaphorical signification provides partial satisfaction of a frustrated desire. (Morris 1949: 276)

Somewhat relevant for somatoception.

See especially his [Mead's] paper "The Genesis of the Self and Social Control" (International Journal of Ethics, 35, 1925, 251-77). (Morris 1949: 277)

In relation with role-taking.

A table may be brown, weigh ten pounds, and be inflammable; an organism, in addition to characteristics similar to these, may be angry, have after-images, feel anxious, dream, respond to events in itself an in the world as signs. (Morris 1949: 228)

Yeah, a living organism is different from an inanimate object. But, actually, this is Morris's way to approach the semiotic treshold.

Since an organism is itself a complex interrelated set of structures and processes, its characteristics may in turn be stimuli to its own responses: a person may look at his own foot, try to relieve his anxiety, talk about his dreams. (Morris 1949: 228)

This is actually relevant: although animals can also dream, they cannot talk about their dreams. And with "stimuli to its own responses" he once again affirms self-communication/autocommunication.

A third problem that is central to any program for the systematization of knowledge is presented by such humanistic material as literature, art, morality, and religion. Practically all the work of teachers and students in a "Division of the Humanities" in a university consits in talking about discourse of various kinds: about effective speech and writing, about paintings, about musical compositions, about works of literature, about systems of morality, about religious documents. Let us call such objects signs (together with the activities which produce them) the humanities; let us call the metalanguage about the humanities humanistics. Once this simple distinction is made we are well on our way to resolve the problem of the relation of the "Geistwissenschaften" to science. (Morris 1949: 230)

I can retain the "entertaining character" in my work because it is not scientific but humanistic.

The term "philosophical" might not distinguish a type of discourse but apply - like such a term as 'witty' - to any discourse, perhaps in proportion to its generality or to its comprehensiveness; (Morris 1949: 234)

This seems valid. Instead of wittiness we can also use the sign "wisdom".

Only the individual who utilizes the signs of the artists, the prophets, and the philosophers, as well as the information given to him by the scientist, is living at the level of a complex individual. To show that signs other than scientific play a basic role in life, and yet to do this in a way other than scientific play a basic role in life, and yet to do this in a way which does not minimize in the least the unique importance of science, is perhaps the most important single task which semiotic can today perform. (Morris 1949: 240)

Morris himself also wrote poetry. And this contention - that a "cultured" individual is well versed in both science and arts - seems compatible with Powys's The Meaning of Culture.

From the cradle to the grave, from awakening until sleep, the contemporary individual is subjected to an unending barrage of signs through which other persons seek to advance their goals. He is told what to believe, what to approve and disapprove, what to do and not to do. If he is not alert, he becomes a veritable robot manipulated by signs, passive in his beliefs, his valuations, his activities. Through post-hypnotic suggestion an individual can be caused to perform actions suggested to him without realizing the source of his actions, and with the feeling that he is acting as a free agent. (Morris 1949: 240)

Links up with advertising semiotics, I think.

When an individual meets the signs with which he is confronted witha knowledge of how signs work, he is better able to co-operate with others when co-operation is justified. If he asks himself the kind of sign he encounters, the purpose for which that sign is used, and the evidence of its truth and adequacy, his behavior shifts from automatic response to critical and intelligent behavior in which he himself acts as a responsible and spontaneous center. He becomes autonomous human being, neither unduly suspicious nor unduly gullible, a center of life and not a hypnotized animal. (Morris 1949: 240)

I wonder how this suggestion pans out alongside with Powys's self-culture.

An organized human society rests on a common body of beliefs, preferences, and modes of action. Through the signs which reflect this commonage the society gairs its main control over its individual members, insuring at crucial points their participation in the social behavior characteristic of the society. In crisis situations there arises a focal concern for strengthening this control over the individual so that the society may become more powerful and efficient. This process appears in its extreme form in the totalitarian regimes of the present. (Morris 1949: 242)

And in some dystopic works of literature this reaches the absolite, where everything is under social control, arranged by a time-table and monitored at every step (I'm thinking of Zamjatin's We).

To affect the signs of individuals is to bind them by the most powerful chains which men have devised or to place in their hands the most powerful of all instruments for individual liberation and social reconstitution. Social control of individuals through their sign-processes is inevitable, and the possibilities for such control will become ever greater as the knowledge of signs and the techniques of communication develop. The portentous question is how such control is to be exercised. (Morris 1949: 244)

At this point it is almost saddening that my field of expertise in this regard is limited with nonverbal behaviour, because I believe that the social control of the future lies mainly in information technology.

The totalitarian society will give no widespread attention to semiotic in its educational plans for the total population, for knowledge of sign phenomena makes it less easy to manipulate by signs those who have this knowledge. But precisely because of this fact semiotic should have a prominent place in the educational system of a democratic society. (Morris 1949: 244)

I've heard this argument from Katre Pärn. She also emphasized that semiotics will also ruin some enjoyable forms of manipulation.

On its descriptive side semiotic must make far more use than it has fet done of the data on signs which are already available. This material is widely scattered in the studies of psychologists, psychiatrists, social scientists, linguists, and estheticians. It is often in a somewhat hidden form, gathered incidentally in research which was not focused on sign phenomena. But present developments of semiotic furnish a language into which this data can be translated and organized, and wisdom suggests that this be done. Such data require supplementation, however, by more careful descriptive studies directed specifically to securing knowledge of sign-phenomena. (Morris 1949: 246-247)

Very likely the source for Umberto Eco's distinction between explicit and implicit semiotics.

...the Sceptics questioned the whole edifice of metaphysics on the ground that signs could refer only to that which was observable, serving to recall (as "commemorative signs") that which had been observed even though it was not at the moment of reference directly observable. (Morris 1949: 286)

I wonder if "commemorative signs" could be used to tie Kantor's theory of memory with semiotics?

Or again: "As representation is that character of a thing by virtue of which, for the production of a certain mental effect, it may stand in place of another thing. The thing having this character I term a representamen, the mental effect, or thought, its interpretant, the thing for which it stands, its object"; "A sign is a representamen of which some interpretant is a condition of a mind. Signs are theonly representamens that have been much studied."
This material is quoted to illustrate the difficulties which appear when we leave the ground of behavior situations in attempting to define 'sign.' For if 'sign' is defined in terms of mind or thought, then we cannot furnish an empirical criterion for determining whether a certain thing isor is not a sign until we have a satisfactory criterion for the occurrence of mind or thought. It seems that Peirce does not give such a criteruon in a way usable by science. It should be noted that Peirce's own various formulations differ considerably. At times he writes as if "every thought is a sign"; at times merely that thinking never occurs without the presence of something which serves as a sign. And if 'interpretant' is at times defined in terms of "mental effect or thought," the fullest accounts of it are couched in terms of habit. The present treatment follows Peirce's emptasis upon behavior rather than his more mentalistic formulations. Hence it not only avoids the extension of sign-process to inorganic nature, but does not require that all behavior involves sign phenomena. (Morris 1949: 289)

I get a warm and fuzzy feeling whenever Peirce is quoted. Mostly because every time it appears as something different, even if the quote is so familiar you may know it by heart. Here the latter statement, that "Signs are the only representamens that have been much studied." implies that there are other representamens aside from signs, andd yet we are often suggested to think of "representamen" whenever we meet the word "sign" in Peirce. So what are the other representamens? I am not bothered one bit that Peirce doesn't seem to give Morris a criterion for scientificity. The seemingly conflicting statements he has chosen to represent Peirce's flopping don't seem to be mutually exclusive. That is, every thought may be a sign AND thinking never occurs without the presence of something that serves as a sign; similarly, interpretants have three varieties and "mental effect or thought" is one of them. Just as we can talk about habits of thought we can also talk about habits of action and habits of feeling.

There is another point to be mentioned. Peirce almost always defines 'sign' in such a way that the intpretant of a sign is itself a sign, and so ad infinitum. One such formulations is the following: "A Representamen is a subject of a triadic relation to a second, called its object, for a third, called its Interpretant, this triadic relation being such that the Representamen determines its interpretant to stand in the same triadic relation to the same object for some interpretant." Or more succinctly: "It is essential to a representamen that it should contribute to the determination of another representamen distinct from itself." This seems to confuse the problem of the definition of 'sign' with the empirical question as to whether signs always generate new signs. Unless there are distinguished a circularity is introduced into the definition, for a sign is defined as something which generates a sign which generates a sign, etc., and this is certainly objectionable as a form of definition of 'sign' itself. Signs, at least at the human level, do frequently generate a series of sign-processes, but I see no reason why this fact about signs should be incorporated into the definition of 'sign' itself. (Morris 1949: 290)

Apparently Morris also didn't understand the notions of infinite semiosis and sign-growth. Thankfully Jakobson can fill this in.

Similarly, few behavioristicians would deny that a person can observe himself, or that some experiences are accessible to self-observation in a way not accessible to other observers - after-images, pain, and dreams would be cases in point. And certainly the semiotician is not called upon to reject observation of his own sign-process or the reports of others of their observation of their sign-processes. The theoretical question is how what is observed in self-observation is to be described. To enter into this conflict is to assume the burden of the psychologist. (Morris 1949: 300)

Again relevant for self-communication, because there are private experiences that are accessible to self-observation and those that aren't. Dreams are suspended on the edge of this distinction, because we can remember some dreams and not others, or remember them partially or even invent parts of them in waking state. Subjectivism in semiotics is a tough nut to crack.

The fact that the theory of signs has for thousands of years been couched in such terms without attaining a scientific status should raise strong doubts about their continued use as primitive terms for semiotic. On the other hand, the study of behavior has been developing cumulatively in recent decodes and is becoming an advanced experimental science. Hence the naturalness of seeking in it the definition of the basic terms of semiotic. Whether behavior theory is or is not psychology is not in this respect an essential problem for the semiotician.
It is for these reasons, and these alone, that we have sought to link semiotic with the science of behavior. Hence we have interpreted its basic primitive terms in words used to describe behavior situations. Others can if they wish not define these terms at all, or define them in mentalistic terms; in the first case no natural science results, in the second case one will have to see what significant results are obtained - and history does not suggest much ground for optimism. (Morris 1949: 300-301)

Alas, Morris developed behavioristic semiotic because behaviorism was considered the cutting edge of science at his day.

Tsitaatide tohuvabohu

Käesolevas postituses teen ma taas midagi esmakordselt. Selle blogi formaat tundub suhteliselt range niiet iga kord kui ma teen midagi teistmoodi siis tunnen kohe ka vajadust selle eest vabandada, sest mingil hetkel lakkab see olemast lugemisblogi ja muutub lihtsalt akadeemiliseks blogiks, mida iganes see ka ei tähendaks. Siin kajastan ma katkendeid mis ühel või teisel viisil rohkem või vähem puudutavad mitteverbaalset käitumist, aga ei pärine raamatuste ega artiklist vaid internetist või lihtsalt mujalt.

(3) SHE CAN TOTALLY READ YOUR MIND! Be careful how you move around a Cosmo girl. (Scratch your nose and you're so busted, you lying sack of shit.) And the way you eat: "A guy who craves a variety of ethnic cuisines is open-minded. . . . He's probably passionate and sensual." Redbook's got your handwriting figured: "Notice the narrow loops on his y's? This means he's superloyal and socially selective." And Jane points out that guys who shift gears frequently while driving "are dissatisfied and insecure with their position on the road (i.e., the real world) and, in bed, joylessly switch positions every 43 seconds." To them, "your vagina is just another luxurious, sensitive gadget for them to fiddle with."
[SOURCE: 7 Shocking Things We Learned From Women's Magazines - Esquire]

Mulle tundub, et nö "meesteajakirjad" on tegelikult naisteajakirjad mis üritavad jätta muljet, et nad on suunatud meestele. Või siis on asi selles, et formaat või žanr on selline. Igatahes, see katkend pärineb nimekirjast mis rivistab naisteajakirjade müüte nende loogilistes äärmustes. Ehk: naisteajakirju lugedes võib jääda mulje, et naised on mitte pelgalt intuitiivsed, vaid mõtetelugejad. Näideteks on rivistatud kolm jaburat müüti. Esiteks nö "kehakeele lugemine". Teksti autor näib olevat teadlik, et adaptorid (nina sügamine) ei ole usaldusväärne "valetamise märk". Käekirja lugemine on samavõrd müütiline - üks semiootika välistudeng rääkis omast kogemusest kuidas ta arvas, et võib käekirja järgi "inimesi lugeda" ja selleteemalise raamatu esimene peatükk lükkas kõik sellised ootused ümber. Käigukangi asi on juba puhtalt jabur, tundub nagu väljamõeldis millega rõhutada esimese kahe äärmuslikkust.

Setode, ja muidugi venelastega võrreldes on keskmine eestlane kindlasti hulga jahedama loomuga. Seda mitte südame, vaid eelkõige välise oleku poolest. Tal on raske teist inimest kiita, kallistada, üldse puudutada. Kui olin haiglas, kogesin seal patsiendina just seda idapoolse päritoluga meditsiiniõdede loomupärast ja vahetut soojust.[...] Praegugi öeldakse, et eestlased olevat töökad - nad lausa orjavad, teevad ületunde, ei oska puhata. Seda mainib oma kirjutises rohkem kui sajand tagasi (1909) ka rahvaluulekoguja ja -uurija, pastor M. J. Eisen. Ta toob iseloomulike joontena esile ka jonnakuse, alalhoidlikkuse, kättemaksuhimu ja kurvameelsuse, kujundliku kõneviisi, samuti nalja- ja pilkehimu. [...] Olen tähele pannud, et paljudel eestlastel on mingi suhtlemishirm või „igaks juhuks" distantsi hoidmine - mine tea, mis lähenemine kaasa toob. Eriti kui teine on veel kuidagi ebatavaline, nt võõramaalane või joodik või muud „ohumärki" kandev. Sellega on seletatav ka hiljutine juhtum, kus Arukülas lebas haige mees mitu päeva meelemärkusetult maas. Samas võib see olla ka nn suure asula fenomen, kus üksteist küll nägupidi teatakse, aga piisavalt hästi ei tunta. Hirm probleemse ja segaste tagajärgedega olukorra ees ja võimalusel selle vältimine, mitte sekkumine, võib näida ka hoolimatusena. [...] Ettevaatlikkus on eestlasele olnud kogu aeg üldomane. Võib-olla lähedaste ringis ollakse rohkem avatud, aga võõraid umbusaldatakse. Igaksjuhuks ei näidata oma tundeid kohe välja. Hirme on palju. Temperament ja reageerimiskiirus on ka aeglasem kui nt idanaabreil. Sellest siis need mornid näod...
[SOURCE: Kas tunned end ära: Milline on tüüpiline lõunaeestlane ja milline põhjaeestlane - Eesti Elu]

These excerpts paint such a vivid picture of stereotypical Estonian behaviour that I feel the need to translate it: "Compared to setos [estonians of the Võru region] and russians the average estonian certainly has a more colder attitude. Not primarily in terms of personality but in terms of outward appearance. The average estonian has trouble paying other people compliments, hugging, and touching in general. When I was at the hospitel I experienced first-hand as a patient that nurses from east [Russia] are naturally and immediately warm. [...] Even today they say that estonians are industrious - they outright slave, work overtime and don't know how to rest. These things were also mentioned more than a century ago (1909) by the folk poetry collector and researcher, pastor M. J. Eisen. He also characterized estonians as stubborn, conserving, vindictive and melancholic, using figurative language and fearing of being the butt of jokes. [...] I have observed that many estonians have some kind of a fear of communicating or keeping distance "just in case" - you may never know what approaching another person may cause. Especially if the other person is unusual in some regard, e.g. a drunkard or baring some other kind of "sign of danger". This may explain an incident of late, where a man laid unconscious on the ground for several days at Aruküla [this is punny - the literal translation of this placename is "Village of Consciousness" :D ]. Then again this may be a so-called large settlement phenomenon, wherein people know each other by face but are not more familiar. Fear and avoidance of consequences of a problematic and confused situation and not stepping in may seem like inconsideration. [...] Being cautious has always been generally characteristic of estonians. Perhaps among close ones [family and friends] they are more open but strangers are distrusted. Emotions are not shown outwardly right away, just in case. There are a lot of fears. Temperament and reaction speed is also slower than that of their eastern neighbours. That may explain the gloomy faces..."

These words are probably unfurling inside one of many open tabs on your computer screen. Perhaps one tab is for work, one is for chatting, and another is for Twitter. You probably even have some others open for no particular reason. This is the way we receive information and the way we communicate now: constantly, simultaneously, compulsively, endlessly, and more and more often, solitarily. This strange new mode of living - and its indelible effect on our humanity - is perfectly captured in a new short film that debuted this week at the Toronto International Film Festival.
[SOURCE: You Need To See This 17-Minute Film Set Entirely On A Teen's Computer Screen | Co.Create | creativity + culture + commerce]

See on lihtsalt huvitav, sest iseloomustab 21. sajandi inimese suhtlemisviisi mis on üha enam "virtuaalne" ja sooritatud tegelikult üksinda olles. Füüsiliselt istud toas üksinda, virtuaalselt suhtled inimestega üle kogu maailma. Mitteverbaalset käitumist puudutab see tegelikult vaid nii palju, et mida rohkem me "suhtleme üksinda virtuaalselt" seda kehvemateks suhtlejateks me muutume teiste inimestega päriselus suheldes. See kuidas päevad läbi nutitelefoni jõllitamine mõjub mitteverbaalsele käitumisele on ennustamatu. Ma olen märganud, et neiud kelle pilk on väga tihti ja kaua ekraanile naelutatud on suhteliselt tuimade näoilmetega, aga see võib olla hetkeline (nägu on tuim, sest vaatab keskendunult ekraani). Pikemaajalisi mõjusid näeme lähiaastatel.

Not content with having helped to ban smoking in public places in pretty much the entire Western world, anti-smoking activists now want to go all ‘1984’ on cultural depictions of the past and stub out any mention of yesteryear’s smoking habits. [...] There’s a strong whiff of Stalinist airbrushing to these demands that even historical movies should refrain from showing too much smoking. Just as surely as Stalin rewrote the past by scrubbing from old photos one-time comrades he had since fallen out with, so anti-smoking activists seem keen to rewrite history to pretend that people didn’t smoke copiously and publicly in the past, when in fact they did. Such is the anti-smoking lobby’s Orwellian urge to scrub inconvenient facts from history that in recent years everything from very old Tom & Jerry cartoons to images of Winston Churchill have been physically doctored to remove cigarettes or cigars.
[SOURCE: Cigarettes in 'Rush': people smoked in the 1970s. Anti-smokers should get over it – Telegraph Blogs]

Siin meeldib mulle tõik, et kirjutaja on kasutanud nii George Orwelli nime kui ka tema teost 1984 nö "terminitena". Kuna see teos on nii laialt tuntud ja seda seostatakse "ajaloo ümberkirjutamisega" siis on see täiesti õigustatud sõnakasutus. Kahju, et teadustekstides pole selline sõnakasutus tervitatav. Tähendab, "prantsusepärases filosoofias" võib vabalt niimoodi kirjutada, aga ise niimoodi naljalt ei teeks. Või siis tuleb mul julgust koguda ja leida sobiv võimalus.

Samal ajal kui Tallinnas erakonnad rabelevad auhinnatu teise koha eest vere ninast välja, naba paigast ja täiega võlgadesse, siis Tartus, Eesti suuruselt teises linnas, hõljub endiselt tuuleke pajuokstes ja keegi ei tõsta kulmugi. [...] Selles valguses teiste parteide ja valimisliitude uimasus ja passiivsus on täiesti arusaamatu. Seni on piirdutud vaid suvalise ilmega näopiltide ülespanekuga ja kõik.
[SOURCE: Tartus on mõttetult vaikne | Õhtuleht]

Esiteks on siin põnevad väljendid. Ma teadsin, et "naba paigast ära" on väljend, aga "vere ninast välja" on veel ilmekam, sest erinevalt naba ümberpaigutamisest võib ninaverejooks päriselt toimuda. Tähendab, äkki see naba asi ka, aga ma ei tea sellest midagi - see tundub olevat metafooriline ütlus. "Ei tõsta kulmugi" seostub samalaadse ütlusega "silm ei pilgu" - need ütlused täheldavad millegi ootuspärase mittetoimumist. Teiseks on "suvalise ilmega näopildid" väga täpne kirjeldus Keskerakonna valimisplakatitest Tartus. Ma jõllitasin paar nädalat tagasi bussipeatuses pikalt Aadu Musta ja Aivar Riisalu suvalise ilmega näopilte. Tähendab, need ei olnud vististi päris suvalised - nad üritasid naeratada. Jõllitamise ja sügava järelemõtlemise tulemuseks sain, et Aadu Musta nägu on ilusalt sümmeetriline nagu südametunnistuseta sotsiopaadile kohane - olen näinud kuidas ta mingis paneelsaates kõigist teistest kõnelejatest üle sõitis; Aivar Riisalu nägu on aga asümmeetriline - tal on parem näopool niivõrd atrofeerunud, et üks põsevolt on silmnähtavalt lühem kui teine. Mulle läks see hinge, sest mul hakkas ka sinnapoole minema enne kui ma nägu treenima hakkasin. Need valimisplakatid on minu arvates "suvalised" selles mõttes, et nad on mittemidagiütlevad. Nende nägude kohal on suurtähtedes "TÖÖTAB" ja ongi nagu kõik. See ei ole isegi "me anname tööd" või "me loome töökohti" vms, vaid lihtsalt "töötab". Peab eeldama, et verbaalne sõnum on niivõrd dumbed down, et venekeelsed valijad saaksid ka aru, et midagi on pistmist tööga. Kahjuks rakendub minu kriitiline meel nii, et see üks sõna viitab naeratavale näole ja valimisreklaami üldsõnum on "Aivar Riisalu töötab" (riigikogus). Noh, tore on, aga mida see valijale peaks juurde andma? Ilmselt on keskerakond niivõrd laisaks läinud, et midagi lubada või öelda pole vajagi, "vaata meie nägusid ja hääleta meie poolt" - enesekindlad tõprad.

Tartus võidab reform niigi tudengite häältega, keda ei huvitagi linna edasine tulevik, vaid hetkel kenade aktiivsete noorte esinemine. Tartu suurim valimislubadus on Emajõele sadama ehitamine 40 laevukese jaoks, kuid Anne kanalit, milles ujumas ja puhkamas käivad tuhanded tavalinlased, ei peeta oluliseks. Hääbumine paistab igast nurgast. Suurehitused - jõesild ja Ringtee suured ja keerukad ringteed-viaduktid ei anna tavalinlasele midagi suuremat - need rohkem transiidi jaoks. Pidevalt ripub linlaste pea kohal hirm kaotada kesklinnast bussijaam ja avaturg - need ju Seli maadel ja omaniku õigusega hoiab kuni parema äri leidmiseni. Kui mõni firma läheb järjekordselt hingusele, pole töötajatel lootustki uut tööd leida, nooremad ongi kes Soome, kes Rootsi läinud koos lastega. Hubased väikepoekesed linnaosadest on kadunud, lapsi näeb järjest vähem liikvel. Kuhu kauplusse iganes sisse astud, näed vaid tühje müügisaale uimaselt igavlevate müüjatega. Elu on vaid Säästukas ja Maksimas õhtutundidel ja nädalalõppudel. Järjest rohkem meenutab J. Kärneri Elva elust kirjutatud "Soodoma Kroonikat".
[SOURCE: Kommentaarid: Tartus on mõttetult vaikne | Õhtuleht]

See on kasutaja nimega "tartlanna" kommentaar uudisloole millest pärineb eelmine tsitaat. Pidin selle enda jaoks ümber kleepima sest siin on nii palju "Jah"-e minu jaoks. Jah, noored lasevad Eestist jalga. Jah, väikepoed kaovad (viimati, suure kurvastusega, Tartu Pood Riiamäelt) ning asemele kerkivad ühtede ja samade kaubanduskettide üha suuremad kauplused (nt Maxima tekkis Raadile). Jah, lapsi jääbki järjest vähemaks. Jah, kauplustes on action-it ainult tipptundidel. Jah, asi liigubki sellise nõmeda väikelinna poole nagu on Kärneri raamatus. Ma olin meeldivalt üllatunud, et keegi üldse Soodoma Kroonikat mainib. Ilmselt tunneks "tartlanna" selle blogi ikooni ära. See oli üks esimesi "täiskasvanute raamatuid" mida ma 12-aastaselt lugesin.

flippy-feelings:
Did you ever realize how much your body loves you? I mean its always trying to keep you alive. That’s all your body has to live for. Your body is making sure you breathe while you sleep, stopping cuts from bleeding, fixing broken bones, finding ways to beat the illnesses that might get you. Your body literally loves you so much. It’s time you start loving your body back.

mikalhvi:
*distant, restrained sobbing*

recoverlovely:
this is actually wonderful

[SOURCE: you are lovely.]

See pärineb tumblr-ist ja on ühest käest tüüpiline patting on your back südantsoojendav jama. Teisest käest on see tõepoolest wonderful, sest kujutab keha "abistava sõbrana". Tähendab, kõik need autonoomsed ja märkamatud asjad on raamistatud isikustatuna - su keha teeb seda sinu jaoks! Keha ja vaimu lahutamise viimine äärmuseni, kindlast, kuid ka meeldivalt lohutav. Sul on keha ja su keha armastab sind.

In an effort to finally capture and detain Edward Snowden, the notorious NSA whistleblower, the Obama administration, knowing Russia offered him asylum yet hates all things gay, told Russian leadership that Snowden is a homosexual. Upon hearing the news of Snowden’s alleged sexuality they were immediately outraged and wondered how many things he may have touched at the airport. Apparently releasing sensitive information about trying to foil terrorist plots is not something Russia has a problem with, but gay cooties give them the heebie jeebies.
[SOURCE: US Tells Russia Snowden Is Gay So They Finally Arrest Him - Free Wood Post]

See satiiriline uudislugu suutis mind naerma panna. Ühtlasi pani mõtlema nö "lasteaia-mõtteviisidele" [childlore ehk "folk culture of children"] millest üht on siin huumori nimel osavalt kasutatud. See cooties on väljamõeldud nakkushaigus mis levib füüsilise läheduse ja puudutuse kaudu. Nalja sihtmärgiks on Venemaa homovastased seadused, mis on tegelikult kurb ja karm tegelikkus - ka "homosid pooldava" tolerantsuse eest võib saada kahenädalase vangistuse. Väga aktuaalne nali.

There's a movie by a french director named "Betty Blue" [fr. "37°2 le matin"]. There's a scene in which a woman is beginning to lose her mind. She is sitting at the table with her lover and she smears... She has a make-up that she's applied very badly. She looks garnished and desperate and large-eyed and just lost, just a total loss. And her man who loves her very much sees her face SO undone and his face registers the fear in that. But he doesn't recoil, he made pasta and he pulls pasta sauce from the pan and he smears it on his cheeks so that he mimics her destruction. And I remember thinking: at my lost moments and in my mid-twenties I was pretty low on mental health stuff, thinking: that is exactly what it feels like to be a woman losing her mind. And I can't think of a better response from a lover than "I'm going there with you if we're going there." I think that song in part is inspired by that kind of dynamic where a man watching a woman who really loves her is perched in sanity trying to figure out how to ground her OR, failing that, how to get where she's obviously going.
[SOURCE: Dessa describes "Anabel" - YouTube]

Ma transkribeerisin selle katkendi Dessa selgitusest, sest siin on midagi abstraktset (losing one's mind) väljendatud kehalises tegevuses. Midagi sarnast on Zamjatini "Meie"-s fantaasiaga. Nimelt teatab Riigiteataja selles, et nüüd saab fantaasiat röntgen-operatsiooniga eemaldada (see on in fact kohustuslik) ja fantaasia märkideks on "mõttetult unelev naeratus üle kogu näo" ja "öösel voodis rahutult küljelt küljele visklemine"; fantaasia on "uss kelle õõnestav tegevus jätab mustad kortsud su kulmudele". Fantaasia enda, või õigemini selle mitte-kehaliste tagajärgede, kohta öeldakse vaid nii palju, et see juhatab sind üha kaugematele lendudele isegi kui see "kaugem" koht võib olla see punkt millest õnnelikkus lõppeb. Ma arutan seda asja kunagi hiljem edasi. Dessa seletuse juures on vaimuhaiguse märgiks hoolimatus väljanägemise vastu - naine ajab kätega oma meigi segi, sest teda ei huvita enam, ta ei tule endaga enam toime; mees imiteerib seda pastakastmega, et jõuda samasse punkti. Millalgi tuleks lugu ("Annabelle") ennast ka uurida, sest selles on ohtralt huvitavaid kirjeldusi.

Viimased neli keskerakondlikku aastat näivad mulle väga vastuolulised. Esiteks meenusid reisisaatjad, kes tegid tööd sellise näoga, nagu oleks neil pidev hambavalu.
[SOURCE: ÜLLATUS: Keskerakond jättis tähtsamad valimislubadused täitmata - Eesti uudised - Eesti Ekspress]

Tabav. Valu ja nö "negatiivsete näoilmete" seos on ka huvitav. Meenub näiteks pilt tuttavast kes oli kipsis jalaga ja õnnetu näoga ning mõned oblivious kommenteerijad küsisid "Miks nii kurb?" nagu nad ei teaks, et jalaluumurd on valus. Valu ei ole kergesti suheldav, nagu Elaine Scarry raamatust The Body in Pain võib lugeda. Siin tsitaadis on vastupidi seostatud õnnetust hambavaluga.

Elder Plops: "Welcome everyone to our second trial - spooning. When I say "go" the big spoon will put his arm around the little spoon and cuddle. I will be watching you spoon, measuring and assessing your love by posture and overall vibe. The best cuddle or spoon wins."
[SOURCE: Adventure Time S05E35 - "Love Games"]

Ja viimaks väljavõte multikast, kus üks armastuse mõõtmise viisideks osutus kaisutamine. Poosi järgi armastuse mõõtmine ja hindamine on samalaadne vaimuhaiguse ja fantaasia näidetega üleval. See overall vibe ehk "üldine õhkkond" see-eest seostub nö "ruumi lugemise", situation baseline-i ja isegi Meadi suhtumisvestlusega.
Saidki selleks korraks märkmed läbi. Kui neid veel koguneb, eks siis teen veel ühe "tsitaatide tohuvabohu". Ma ei usu, et ma oma kirjutistes neid väga hästi kasutada saan - kui, siis ainult kindlate ainete esseedes - aga nad on huvitavad iseenesest. Need on need "väikesed lookesed" mille üle lihtsalt mõtteid mõlgutada.

FLSE.00.148 loeng 2013.09.24

FLSE.00.148 Semiotics and Theories of Art loeng 2013.09.24

Don't put "clothes" on the scheme!

Jakobson's communication model doesn't work in real life. Indrek claims that it doesn't have to. Theory is about theory.

For Roman Jakobson communication is act is the receiver trying to send a message to the receiver (with context, channel and code). According to Mihhail Lotman it is not the transmission of a ready-made message from A to B, but message and context are bound to each other and transform both Sender and Receiver.

This is a poor approximation of Indrek Grigor's saying because he's talking so fast, but there is a point (one that can be discerned from M. Lotman's own writings more readily). Too bad I can't dwell on that further here.

Saussure's sign is abstract. It is realised in concrete substance. Whereas the realisation already corrupts the sign. A sign realised in speech is not a sign anymore, in the direct sense. Speech only represents language signs.

I am instantly reminded of Derrida's grammatology.

Signified and signifier can not exist without each other. Signified is primary towards the signifier, but their relationship is symmetrical. The relationship between signified and signifier is arbitrary (non determined). Language sign itsely is determined by the language system, but the relationship of the elements forming the sign is arbitrary.

I have no idea what this means. I'm interested in neither language nor Saussure so I've done my best to avoid this kind of stuff. Should I reconsider it, at least for sake of concursivity?

To solve this paradox Saussure introduces value (valeur). Meaning is created in the combination of signified and signifier. Value describes the position of the element in the system. Value is the complex of all the relationships that the element has in the system (for example grammatical categories). (That means the relationships between the signs have an determinating character, whereas the relationship forming the signs are arbitrary).

Again, no idea. I have a faint memory of trying to understand semiology and coming up with nothing. It seems to give rise to more misunderstanding than understanding. I'm especially put off by the philosophers/semiologists who try to make sense of Saussure and end up with even weirder outcomes. This is an awkward situation for a young semiotician: you won't understand Saussure and you can't fully understand Peirce (because his system of semeiotics is infinitely complex).

Peeter Linnap, photosphere. All photos ever belong to this photospheres.

There is an endless array of spheres or imaginary totalities. The point seems to be that this is not ontological but methodological/epistemological. "We just treat it as such."

A language is always monolinguistic. There is the language and then there is what is outside of it, and can be translated into the language, but there is never two languages within one language.

I argued against the absoluteness of this statement and tried to refer to Bakhtin. Saussure's abstract language system is "no-one's language" but in reality there is my language and a multitide of other languages for every person who speaks.

1. Speech has semiotic characteristics which are not determined by language.
2. Speech can be a closed and stable system. This kind of system is called a text.
Text is an immanent system, the elements of the text form a structure, and every element of the text has a value.

This sounds like the structure of the artistic text. Text as a system makes sense from this point of view, but then again you have to presume that there are "elements".

Verbal language is not the primary modelling system? - Mihhail Lotman.
Just because primary and secondary are relative to each other.

Indrek Grigor seems doubtful.

A semiotic system has three obligatory components: language, field and author. Language consists of lexicon and grammar. Field consists of places, which are not determined by the language. But language and field depend on each other.
In chess we have pieces (lexicon), the rules (grammar) and the board (field). THe match is a dialog between two authors.

The place of authors here seems weird and Silvi Salupere points this out.

Use the work of art as it's own metatext.

I'm sensing the emic and etic contrast. I came to a similar conclusion lately, that I should not apply my neat typology on the works I'm studying but rather pay attention to the "native theories" within the works themselves. E.g. Zamyatin's geometric interpretation of facial expressions, for example. The "native theories" are surely limited and rather metaphorical, but valuable nevertheless.

John Deely: Understanding that a sign is a sign, not the use of signs is what differs anthroposemiosis from zoosemiosis.
Priit Põhjala: True, but it is also true that people usually are not conscious about using signs. That's why we speak about common language.
Grigor: Our awareness of the language is limited. We are aware of using language, because we are aware of other languages, but we are not aware of the language we are currently using.

This is what is commonly referred to as "metalevel" awareness.

A language can realise itself not only in materialistic substances (sound images, objects, etc.), but also in other languages.
For example, a fabula can be realised in prose, film, dance, comics... They all have lexicon and grammar that means they are languages in a semiotic sense.
In this case functions one language (primary) as the field for the other language.

This sounds like isology between language and fabula. Just like in the case of Jelena Grigorjeva, I'm skeptical if "language" is such a valuable term. I made this suggestion and referred to Charles Morris. Silvi Salupere corrected me that Morris said this about "meaning" not "language". I can't find the exact quote so I might be wrong - it's about time to re-read Morris's book.

The world is materia
The world is a horse

First refers to descriptive metalanguage, multilingual world. Second refers to (mythological) meta(linguistic) text, that belongs to the same languages as the world it describes. There are no metalanguages.

I thought about this yesterday. If I approch bodily behaviour in literature with intellectual tools from the study of nonverbal behaviour then it is a case of "the world is materia". But if I take up the "native theories" within the novels and try to explain nonverbal behaviour that certain authors describe with the intellectual tools (explanations) that the author him- or herself provides then it is a case of "the world is a horse". I should of course consult Lotman and Uspensky's article on this before proceeding.

Describing the object in the language constituted by the metatext, can be described as a translation, where the describing language starts to act towards the object, it is describing, as a metatext. The object described becomes the world. Because the describing metalanguage precedes the object and constitutes the order fixed by the metatexts which determine it, despite the language of the object. (That's why you should be very cautious when APPLYING A THEORY).

I'm not sure what exactly it is that this passage says, because it seems like something that should be laid out in a scheme before I get it. Indrek repeats his earlier point: "Don't apply theory on art, apply theory on theory." That seems to be exactly how many a theoretician operate.

Loomulik keel on loomulik keel, sest ta on meil loomulikult olemas, aga kunstikeelt tuleb õppida. (Salupere)

Ka huvitav, aga kuidas seda "loomulikku antust" mõtestada?

The dialectic of word and image seems to be a constant in the fabric of signs that a culture weaves around itself. What varies is the precise nature of the weave, the relation of warp and woof. The history of culture is in part the story of a protracted struggle for dominance between pictorial and linguistic signs, each claiming for itself certain proprietary righs on a "nature" to which only it has access. (Mitchell 1986: 43)

My own first article was essentially about the dialectic of bodily behaviour (standing for image) and text (standing for language). I tried to "unweave" this fabric by marking out certain "intersections" of bb and text - the result was an outline of four different phenomena.

There is the natural, mimetic image, which looks like or "captures" what it represents, and its pictorial rival, the artifical, expressive image which cannot "look like" what it represents because that thing can only be conveyed in words. There is the word which in a natural image of what it means (as in onomatopoeia) and the word as arbitrary signifier. (Mitchell 1986: 43-44)

Actually a useful distinction, because what again comes to my mind is the opposition between descriptions of bodily behaviour (describes what it captures) and bodily metaphors (can only be conveyed in words).

Iconology

Mitchell, W.J. Thomas 1986. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago; London: The University of Chicago Press.

It is one thing ... to apprehend directly an image as image, and another thing ho shape ideas regarding the nature of images in general.
Jean-Paul Sartre, Imagination (1962)

Any attempt to grasp "the idea of imagery" is fated to wrestle with the problem of recursive thinking, for the very idea of an "idea" si bound up with the notion of imagery. "Idea" comes from the Greek verb "to see," and is frequently linked with the notion of the "eidolon," the "visible image" that is fundamental to ancient optics and theories of perception. A sensible way to avoid the temptation of thinking about images in terms of images would be to replace the word "idea" in discussion of imagery wit hsome other term like "concept" or "notion," or to stipulate at the outset that the term "idea" is to be understood as something quite different from imagery or pictures. This is the strategy of the Platonic tradition, which distinguishes the eidos from the eidolon by conceiving of the former as a "surpasensible reality of "forms, types, or species," the latter as a sensible impression that provides a mere "likeness" (eikon) or "semblance" (phantasma) of the eidos. (Mitchell 1986: 5)

Damn, this is good.
1. I should perhaps consult Sartre's Imagination if and when I take up the topic of somatoception (e.g. imaginations of bodily forms).
2. The etymology of "idea" is good to know. Also, in this light Platon's cave story makes more sense in terms of images - the shadows in this case would be the "ideas".
3. "suprasensible reality" is an awesome notion, because it is exactly what "supraindividual realities" like the semiosphere are - beyond the sensible.

For modern criticism, language and imagery have become enigmas, problems to be explained, prison-houses which lock the understanding away from the world. The commonplace of modern studies of images, in fact, is that they must be understood as a kind of language; instead of providing a transparent window on the world, images are now regarded as the sort of sign that presents a deceptive appearance of naturalness and transparence concealing an opaque, distorting, arbitrary mechanism of representation, a process of ideological mystification. (Mitchell 1986: 8)

This sounds to me like "the crisis of representation" discourse, but then again I have tried my best to avoid common ("trampled in mud") problems of both language and imagery, because both are something different from my own object of interest - the body. Both language and image are outcomes or results of bodily activity that can refer back to bodily activity but there is a distance - that of objectification or externalization - which removes it from the immediate interest of nonverbalists. That is to say, both language and imagery "present a deceptive appearance of naturalness".

Images are not just a particular kind of sign, but something like an actor on the historical stage, a presence or character endowed with legendary status, a history that parallels and participates in the storues we tell ourselves about our own evolution from creatures "made in the image" of a creator, to creatures who make themselves and their world in their own image. (Mitchell 1986: 9)

Wikipedia says that Mitchell "draws on ideas from Sigmund Freud and Karl Marx to demonstrate that, essentially, we must consider pictures to be living things." My question is: does this amount to "image organicism" alongside word, text, language, culture, etc. organicisms? Thinking of "image" as "something like an actor" would imbue it with the normal capacities an "actor" (in the sociological, not dramaturgical sense) should have. The main one is that of volition or free will and this is where things get weird, because images are then - like memes in some discourses - viewed like "parasites" that use humans (especially our semiotic capacity) as a means to proliferate.

If images are a family, however, it may be possible to construct some sense of their genealogy. If we begin by looking, not for some universal definition of the term, but at those places where images have differentiated themselves from one another on the basis of boundaries between different institutional discourses, we come up with a family tree something like the following:

• Image - likeness, resemblance, similitude
  • Graphic - pictures, statues, designs
  • Optical - mirrors, projections
  • Perceptual - sense data, "species", appearances
  • Mental - dreams, memories, ideas, fantasmata
  • Verbal - metaphors, descriptions

Each branch of this family tree designates a type of imagery that is central to the discourse of some intellectual discipline: mental imagery belongs to psychology and epistemology; optical imagery to physics; graphic, sculptural, and architectural imagery to the art historian; verbal imagery to the literary critic, perceptual images occupy a kind of border region where physiologists, neurologists, psychologists, art historians, and students of optics find themselves colaborating with philosophers and literary critics. (Mitchell 1986: 9-10)

Very useful. The latter bit called to mind Austin's Sense and Sensibilia (because of the notion of "sense data"). And "verbal imagery" as the playground of the literary critic makes a good lot of sense. Especially because "body language in literature" seems to follow this exact distinction between descriptions (what I call concourse) and metaphors, or, to be more exact, "metaforms" in Danesi's sense (e.g. "grasping an idea").

And this power is called "likeness," "image," and "species" and is designated by many other names. ... This species produces every action in the world, for it acts on sense, on the intellect, and on all matter of the world for the generation of things.

It should be clear from Bacon's account that the image is not simply a particular kind of sign but a fundamental principle of what Michel Foucault would call "the order of things." The image is the general notion, ramified in various specific similitudes (conventia, aemulatio, analogy, sympathy) that holds the world together with "figures of knowledge." (Mitchell 1986: 11)

This is also how this discourse is related to concourse: whenevery I read a description of bodily behaviour in literature and let it "sink in" so to say, what happens is that the world call forth an "image" (in my mind) of the described bodily behaviour. In this sense imagery is the "semantic domain" of concursive passages (descriptions).

Discussions of poetic imagery generally rely on a theory of the mental image improvised out of the shreds of seventeenth-century notions of the mind; discussions of mental imagery depend in turn upon rather limited acquaintance with graptic imagery, often proceeding on the questionable assumption that there are certain kinds of images (photographs, mirror images) that provide a direct, unmediated copy of what they represent... (Mitchell 1986: 12)

It sounds like Mitchell has "figured me out" long before I even existed.
1."Poetic imagery" is indeed a large part of the study of body language in literature - namely, it was preceded by "gesture in poetry" discourse.
2. My previous approximation that descriptions "call forth an "image" (in my mind)" may very well be what Mitchell criticizes as a composition of "seventeenth-century notions of the mind". My only defence here is that I rely on Mead, who in turn relied on Wundt. And...
3. The bit about "a direct, unmediated copy" sounds like a critique against my broad statement that "verbal concourse is recoded, visual concourse is recorded". That is, verbal descriptions of bodily behaviour are mediated by language and "recoded" to suit the text - there is "mental processing" done by the human mediator; with photographs of human bodies, the behaviour is merely "recorded" - "captured in pixels", so to say. Of course recording is also mediated and there are various permutations that can occur - from resolution to lighting to whatever, but the behaviour itself does not seem to change, whereas languaging may make the behaviour ambiguous or even unintelligible, make it connote something or other, etc. There is also the question of function, e.g. verbal concourse is necessarily within a text, but what are pictures used for? (my ignorance of visual theory comes into play). More on this in the footnote:

I will have more to say about the fallacy of the "copy theory" of mental imagery in what follows. For the present, it might be helpful to note that both critics and proponents of mental imagery have fallen into this fallacy whin it serves the purposes of their arguments. Proponents of mental imagery see the copy theory as a guarantee of the cognitive efficacy of mental images; true ideas are regarded as faithful copies that "reflect" the objects they represent. Opponents have used this doctrine as a straw man for debunking mental images, or for claiming that mental images must be quite unlike "real images" which (so the argument goes) "resemble" what they represent. For a good introduction to the debate between modern iconophiles and iconophobes in psychology, see Imagery, ed. Ned Block (Cambrudge: MIT Press, 1981). The best critique of the copy theory is provided by Nelson Goodman in Languages of Art (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1976), discussed below in chapter 2. (Mitchell 1986: 12)

Due to my lack of knowledge in this regard I don't have anything significant to add. I cannot dismiss "mental imagery" just yet, because what else would I then call the visual "thoughts" every one of us has? (and which is purportedly tied neurologically with our visual center in the brain - are we to dismiss "seeing" altogether because of some abstruse philosophical quarrel?).

The mental and verbal images on the right side of our diagram, for instance, would seem to be images only in some doubtful, metaphoric sense. People may report experiencing images in their heads while reading or dreaming, but we have only their word for this; there is no way (so the argument goes) to check up on this objectively. And even if we trust the reports of mental imagery, it seems clear that they must be different from real, material pictures. Mental images don't seem to be stable and permanent the way real images are, and they vary from one person to the next: if I say "green" some listeners may see green in their mind's eye, but some may see a word, or nothing at all. And mental images don't seem to be exclusively visual the way real pictures are; they involve all the senses. Verbal imagery, moreover, can involve all the senses, or it may involve no sensory component at all, sometimes suggesting nothing more than a recurrent abstract idea like justice or grace or evil. It is no wonder that literary scholars get very nervous when people start taking the notion of verbal imagery too literally. And it is hardly surprising that one of the main thrusts of modern psychology and philosophy has been to discredit the notion of both mental and verbal imagery. (Mitchell 1986: 13)

My first thought was: so, let's turn back to physicalism/behaviorism and deny consciousness altogether? Yes: (1) the content of mental processes cannot be verified objectively; (2) they vary from person to person because we are not machines with a carbon-copy programming; and (3) our minds operate with every modality, not just the visual or verbal. Should we still dismiss mental imagery? In a footnote Mitchell adds: "Mental imagery has, however, been making a comeback." and then links this with psychology's dissipation with behaviorism. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a whole branch of ToM (theory of mind) that deals with mental imagery. Haha, wikipedia definition of "mental representation" is "hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality" (personal pun). Ooh, the visual episodes when falling asleep are called hypnagogic imagery. Okay, so it's a controversial isse, I'll leave it at that atm.

Imagination for Aristotle is the power of reproducing these impressions in the absence of sensory stimulation by the objects, and it is given the name of "phantasia" (derived from the word for light) because "sight is the most highly developed sense" and serves as the model for all the others. (Mitchell 1986: 14; footnote 13)

This is relevant for a completely unrelated discussion (offtopic). Zamyatin's We occurs in a glass city and the events occur around the elimination of fantasy in order to make people "like tractors". In this sense it is almost ironic that the etymology of "phantasy" comes from "light". There are sevelar interesting quotes concerning sunlight that should be considered, in this light (pun?).

...an image cannot be seen as such without a paradoxical trick of consciousness, an ability to see something as "there" and "not there" at the same time. When a duck responds to a decoy, or when the birds peck at the grapes in the legendary paintings of Zeuxis, they are not seeing images: they are seeing other ducks, or real grapes - the things themselves, and not images of the things. (Mitchell 1986: 17)

The case of "this is not a pipe" and also Lotman's formula of art: "I know that it is what it depicts, but I clearly see that it is not what it depicts". It then seems that Mitchell's issue with images is something like "why can't the pigeon go to the cinema?"

Ideas, images, "what the mind thinks" (or what it "thinks in") are no more "in" the mind than the words on this page are "on" it prior to being printed there. (Mitchell 1986: 18; footnote 16)

Wat? What the f*** do you think a mind is? Wiki warned that Mitchell draws on Freud so I'm suspicious that there is some kind of a rinky-dink conception of mind lurking here. Or it could be that I just don't understand this dialect of philosophese. This text is beginning to annoy me - if it weren't a seminar text I'd ragequit right now.

Wittgenstein may say that "we could perfectly well ... replace every process of imagining by a process of looking at an object or any painting, drawing, or modelling; and every process of speaking to oneself by speaking aloud or by writing," but this "replacement" could (nd does) move in the other direction as well. We could just as easily replace what we call "the physical manipulation of signs" (painting, writing, speaking) with locutions such as "thinking on paper, out loud, in images, etc." (Mitchell 1986: 19)

This seemingly touches autocommunication. I have the habit of "thinking in writing" - this blog is a testament of that.

In contrast to mental imagery, verbal images seem immune to the charge of being unknowable metaphysical entities locked away in a private, subjective space. Texts and speech-acts are, after all, not simply affairs of "consciousness," but are public expressions that belong right out there with all the other kinds of material representations we create - pictures, statues, graphs, maps, etc. We don't have to say that a descriptive paragraph is exactly like a picture to see that they do have similar functions as public symbols that project states of affairs about which we can reach rough, provisional agreements. (Mitchell 1986: 20)

I'd like to agree, but I'm not exactly sure what "projecing states of affairs" and "rough provisional agreements" are about.

Literal language is generally understood (by literary critics) as straight, unadorned, unpicturesque expression, free of verbal images and figures of speech. Figurative language, on the other hand, is what we ordinarily mean when we talk about verbal imagery. The phrase, "verbal imagery," in other words, seems to be a metaphor for metaphor itself! Small wonder that many literary critics have suggested retiring the term from critical usage. (Mitchell 1986: 21)

This may also be why this is the first occasion when I meet the notion of "verbal imagery".

Derrida's answer to the question, "What is an image?" would undoubtedly be: "Nothing but another kind of writing, a kind ag graphic sign that dissembles itself as a direct transcript of that which it represents, or of the way things look, or of what they essentially are." This sort of suspicion of the image seems only appropriate in a time when the very view from one's window, much less the scenes played out in everyday life and in various media of representation, seem to require constant interpretive vigilance. Everything - nature, politics, sex, other people - comes to us now as an image, preinscribed with a speciousness that is nothing but the Aristotelian "species" under a cloud of suspicion. (Mitchell 1986: 30)

It's starting to look as if this might be the type of text that "beats readers into submission". Is that an actual quote by Derrida or is Mitchell using him as a mouthpiece? I have no idea what is meant by "interpretive vigilance" and "preinscription of speciousness". These notions may have very specific meanings that I'm not aware of, maybe they were just constructed on the spot in the spirit of Derrida - I have no idea and I quit.

Arutlus vaba tahte teemal

Hei.
Mis on sinu arvamus vabast tahtest ning determinismidest (jäik, mittepooldav ja leebe?)? Pean sel teemal kirjutama arutluse, ent jooksin kinni ja nii ma sondeerin pinda, et näha, mida teised arvavad, et siis uuesti kuskilt otsast arutada.
Aitäh :D

Viimane kord kui sa pöördusid minu poole mingi koolitöö-asjaga andsin ma lühikese vastuse. Kui ma õigesti mäletan siis see oli midagi teemal "mis teeb inimesest inimese" vms (ja minu vastus puudutas inimese keelevõimet). Pärast seda olen mõelnud, et kui sa veel midagi sellist küsid, siis ma pühendan sellele korraliku vastuse. "Korralik" tähendab siin mitme(kümne?)leheküljelist arutlust mille käigus ma sisuliselt mõtlen läbi kirjutamise.
Vaba tahte (free will) teema on midagi mida ma olen püüdnud ise igal võimalusel vältida. Bourdieu kirjutas, et inimesed koguvad informatsiooni, et kasutada seda informatsiooni vältimiseks. Siin on juhtunud täpselt see, et nooruses religiooni kohta loetu tegi mind skeptiliseks vaba tahte ja determinismi küsimuste suhtes. Seetõttu pole ma sel teemal varem vaaginud ja kasutan nüüd võimalust. Plaanis on pöörduda ka oma lugemisblogi poole ja vaadata mida ma olen sel teemal kokku kogunud. Praegu aga alustan ebainformeeritud arvamustega, et saada need nö out of the way. Kui sa otsid pinnapealset vastust - eeldades, et ma ei ole ainus FB kasutaja kellele sa selle palve saatsid - võid lugeda läbi ainult järgneva lõigu ja ülejäänu jätta lugemata. Minu jaoks on tähtis, et ma ise saaks midagi kirja pandud ja sel teemal selguse leida.

Momendil ma ütlen, et meil on vaba tahe ning determinismi ma ei poolda, ei jäika ega leebet. Vaba tahte ja determinismi küsimused on sellised, mille mina viskaks hea meelega üldse intellektuaalsesse prügikasti. Tähendab, need teemad juba tunduvad seal olevat, sest need ei ole autonoomsed küsimused mille üle vaimu pingutada, vaid peaaegu alati seotud millegi muuga. See midagi muud on antud juhul religioosne, kuid võib olla ka sotsioloogiline (üksikisiku ja ühiskonna vastandus), poliitiline (enesemääramine poliitilisel tasandil), kehalis-käitumuslik (kas meie liigutame oma kehasid või meie kehad liigutavad meid) jne. Religioosne argument kõlab umbes järgnevalt (ma ei ole veel interneti poole pöördunud, vaid proovin oma versiooni artikuleerida): Jumal lõi maa ja taeva jne ning ta tegi seda oma täiuslikus kõiketeadmises, mistõttu ta teab kõike mis on juhtunud ja mis saab juhtuma. Seega on Jumalale ette teada mida sa teed (ta on ette determineerinud mida sa teed) ja sinul endal on vaid pettekujutelm vabast tahtest ehk tunne, et sa kontrollid oma elu ja saad teha valikuid, kuigi need valikud on tegelikult juba sinu eest ette ära tehtud. Ma pole kindel kuidas täpselt, aga kuidagi seostub sellega ka füüsikalise maailmapildi muutumine 20. sajandil. Albert Einsteini kuulus ütlus, et "Jumal ei mängi täringuid" pöörati vist kvantfüüsika saabumisega ümber vms. Ma ei tea sellest tõesti peaaegu mitte midagi ja religioosset aspekti väldin teadlikult, sest ma ei usu Jumala olemasolusse ja seetõttu ei tundu ka selline ettemääratus mitte mingit pidi mõistlik. Vaba tahte küsimus see-eest on teema mis on nipet-näpet mitteverbaalse käitumisega seotud, niiet ma vaatan nüüd mida ma leian selle kohta oma lugemisblogis.

"Americanization occured by our own free will"

Siin on jutuks eestlaste suhe võõraste maailmavaadetega. Venestamine (russification) oli katse istutada võõrast maalmavaadet eestlaste teadvusesse. Läänestamine - täpsemalt Americanization - toimub aga vabatahtlikult (Ahhaa! Esimest korda taipasin, et sõna "vabatahtlikult" ongi with free will ehk willfully). See kontrast on silmatorkav, sest Nõukogude ajal sunniti eestlasi õppima vene keelt ja marksismi - need olid need kaks õppeainet mis tehti kõigile õppuritele kohustuslikuks kohe pärast Tartu Ülikooli ülevõtmist Nõukogude võimude poolt. Praegu aga on inglise keel "prestiižkeel" ja selle oskamine on ihaldatav. Spordihalli riietevahemisruumis tunnistasin ise pealt kuidas kolm väikest poissi lalisesid inglise keeles; see oli kummastav, sest nad teadsid üksikuid sõnu ja tsitaate nt muusikast ja andsid endast parima, et omavahel mängides mitte kasutada sõnakestki eesti keelt. Ma arvan, et see on nii, sest me oleme praegu USA mõjuväljas ja see tähendab ka kultuurilist imperialismi - filmid, telesaated, muusika, raamatud, internet jne mida me tarbime on põhiliselt USA toodang või mõjutatud USA toodangust.
Siin on vaba tahte küsimus oluline, sest ma just üritasin lükata vastutuskoormat "kultuurilise imperialismi" kaela, aga tegelikult on ju igaüks ise vastutav selle eest millises suunas ta kultuuriliselt vaatab. Mina tunnen natukene isegi häbi, et ma nii palju Ameerika kultuuri tarbin. Enamus üleval- ja allolevatest katkenditest pärinevad Ameerika mõtlejate/kirjutajate raamatutest/artiklitest. Aga lähme edasi!

"makes no mention of individuals having any free will, consciousness, motives, personality, etc."

Siin protesteerisin ma "aksiomaatilise" lähenemise vastu, sest mulle ei meeldi mõte, et "käitumise" asemel peaks rääkima "käitumisjadadest". Loogika ja käitumine ei lähe minu arvates hästi kokku, sest inimest ei saa taandada ainult selleks mis on väliselt jälgitav (overtly observable) - inimestel on ka tunded ja mõtted. Üritades seda kriitikat sõnadesse seada, asetasin ja ühte ritta väga tüüpilised psühholoogilised mõisted: vaba tahe, teadvus, motiivid, isiksus jne. See on peaaegu, et irooniline, sest ma eelistan harilikult vältida kõiki neid mõisteid just nende ideoloogilisuse ja mitmetähenduslikkuse tõttu. Kokkuvõttes tuleb välja vaid see, et ma usun, et inimesel on vaba tahe, teadvus, motiivid, isiksus, jne.

"Why doesn't the system slip so that, after sleep has disassembled the mind, its memory and will, the mechanism is not reassembled somewhat differently, to form a different person, a different me?"

Naljakas. Ma olin väga vaimustatud kui Mihhail Lotman ütles midagi sarnast: "Kultuur peab endale pidevalt meelde tuletama kes ta on. See, et hommikul ärkan üles ja ikka olen mina." Ülevalolev tsitaat pärineb kelletki perekonnanimega Jacob ja aastast 1988 (ma ei tea täpselt, sest leidsin selle ühest T. A. Sebeoki artiklist ja ei jäädvustanud viidet). Vaba tahte seisukohast on siin märkimisväärne, et see Jacob on mõistuse olulilimateks komponentideks nimetanud mälu ja tahe. Need kaks on omaettegi huvitavad, sest näiteks J. R. Kantoni mäluteoorias oli see oluline, et on asju mida me tahame mäletada ja meelde tuletada ja siis on ka asju mida me ei taha otseselt mäletada, aga siiski mäletamie ja mis justkui iseenesest tuleb meelde. Siin peaks siis küsima: kas sul on oma mälu üle vaba tahe?
Mälu ja tahte ristumisest võib vaadelda ka individuaaliüleseid protsesse. Näiteks nö "kultuurimälu" saab küll tahtlikult muuta või "ümber kirjutada". Just täna sattusin lugema kellegi vihast blogipostitust sellest kuidas tubakavastased üritavad ajalugu ümber kirjutada - mingi film 1970ndate F1 võidusõitudest olevat kujutanud inimesi suitsetamas nii nagu nad 1970ndatel suitsetasid - ohtrasti ja avalikult - ning F1 autod olid sponsoreeritud tubakafirmade poolt. Mind paelus see kuidas autor kasutas Orwelli 1984-i metafoorina: "anti-smoking activists now want to go all ‘1984’ on cultural depictions of the past and stub out any mention of yesteryear’s smoking habits" ja "Such is the anti-smoking lobby’s Orwellian urge to scrub inconvenient facts from history". Siin peaks siis küsima: kas meil on vabat tahet oma kultuurikeskkonna üle?

"The Arabic word for intent, niya, not only means "purpose," "design," and "will," but inasmuch as these features manifest themselves in direct faith niya also means "simple," "naive," and "sincere."

Siin tuleb peatuda, sest see katkend puudutab väga otseselt vaba tahte probleemi. Artikkel ise räägib vastutusest Araabia kultuuris ja kohtusüsteemis. Autor alustas artiklit kirjeldusega sellest kuidas Araabia arusaam kauplemisest erineb kardinaalselt meie Lääne arusaamast - nimelt on meil hinnad staatilised, aga neil toimub asi "kaubeldes" (bargaining). Intentsiooni küsimuses toimub selle autori järgi midagi sarnast. Ülaltoodud tsitaadis on öeldud, et araabiakeelne sõna "tahe" (niya) tähendab mitte ainult "eesmärki", "kavandust" ja "tahet" vaid need väljenduvad usus ja kannavad ka järgnevaid seoseid: "lihtne", "naiivne", ja "siiras". Siin on oluline, et nii eesmärk kui ka kavand puudutavad ka "determinatsiooni" küsimust - Jumalal on plaan/kavand milles on inimestele ette määratud kindel tee/eesmärk. Semantiline seos lihtsameelsusega on ära märgitud, sest siin rõhutatakse ausust - inimene peaks nii oma sõnades kui ka tegudes alati kuvama seda mis on tema sees. Siin on väga huvitav tähelepanek: "most Arabs do not recognize the idea of a distinct inner self that could exist apart from action". Tähendab, "mina olen see mida ma teen ja ütlen", mitte "ma olen mina, sõltumatult sellest mida ma teen või ütlen". See on päris oluline kultuuriline erinevus. Araabia kohtusüsteemis tähendab see - minu arvates kummalisel kombel - et kohtunik usaldab tunnistaja ütlusi ja on kindel, et saab neist ilma takistusteta kätte tõelise intentsiooni. Aga me räägime siin kultuurist kus naisi karistatakse selle eest, et neid on vägistatud. Liigume edasi.

"Thus to the question, what is man? or even, what is essentially man? The answer will be a symbol enjoined by a Final/Normal Logical interpretant."

Vahemärkus. Mulle meenus, et Araabia kultuuris on keelatud rääkida tulevikust. Islamis teab ainult Allah tulevikku ja inimesel on keelatud öelda midagi selle kohta. Seetõttu peaks neil puuduma future tense ehk see sama sõna, will. Enamus nendest juhuslikest lausekatkenditest ütlevad midagi tuleviku kohta, ennustavad seda mingil moel ette. Selle sõna üks funktsiooni on väljendada vältimatuid sündmusi (expressing inevitable events). Selles mõttes on see sõna ise lahutamatult seotud determinatsiooniga, sest kui ma ütlen something will happen siis tekib ettekujutlus, et something will happen ja kui seda ei juhtu, siis on ettekujutlusest, plaanist, kavandist, vms eksitud, kõrvale kaldutud. See on peaaegu nagu "mikrodeterminism".
Ma võin öelda: "nüüd ma kindlasti kirjutan edasi ja jätkan seda imelikku arutlust kuniks ma jõuan mäletamist mööda ainsa artiklini oma lugemisblogis mis räägib konkreetselt vabast tahtest" siis tekib "võimalik maailm" mis tundub väga võimalik, sest ma olen nii palju juba kirjutanud - miks ma ei peaks edasi kirjutama? Aga mida mina praegu seda kirjutades näen on tühi valge ruum mida ma katan järjest rohkemate tähtede ja sõnadega. Ma võin igal hetkel lõpetada ja jättagi tühja valge ruumi lihtsalt tühjaks valgeks ruumiks. Kas mul on vaba tahe lõpetada?
Veel üks teema mida tuleks siin natukene puudutada on "ennastteostavad ennustused" (self-fulfilling prophecy). See on ennustus mis ise põhjustab iseenda täidesaamist. Ma ütlen: "ma kirjutan seda teksti terve päev" ja siis juhtubki nii, et ma kirjutan seda teksti terve päev. Peale psühholoogilise tõsiasja on see ka huvitav kirjanduslik vahend. Olev Remsu kasutas oma teoses Kurbmäng Paabelis sellist vahendit. Eks see oli üks nendest asjaoludest mis tegid sellest sürrealistlikust barokkromaanist sürrealistliku barokkromaani. Ta kirjutas iseennast oma raamatusse sisse kui kirjaniku kes kirjutab seda raamatut. Tema peategelane oli teadlik, et ta on Olev Remsu raamatu jaoks prototüüp ja mitmel korral nad isegi kohtusid ja arutlesid selle üle. Esimene neist kohtumistest oli eriti meeldejääv. Toimus mingi paraad ja peategelane Arthur märkas Remsut nõiatumas kurekrõnksus vastu seina ja kritseldamas märkmikusse märkmeid raamatu jaoks. Tasa ja targu hiilis Arthur oma autori selja taha ja piilus mida ta seal kirjutab. Mida ta seal kirjutas oli see, et Arthur hiilis oma autori selja taha ja piilus mida ta seal kirjutab. Selliseid momente oli raamatus mujalgi ja seda kordamise asja teostas ta ikka imetlusväärse innuga - sellele oli vahva kaasa elada (üldse, hea raamat). Aga liigume edasi.

"And that is why not alone understanding, willing, imagining, but also feeling, are the same thing as thought."

See tsitaat kuulub René Descartesele. Nii palju kui talle ka ei viidata ja temast ei räägita, on see vististi ainus koht minu lugemisblogis kus on teda ennast tsiteeritud. Mingis mõttes pole siin midagi imestada - ta filosofeeris väga väga ammu ja tolleagsed arusaamad on natuke iganenud. Aga kaalume seda: "Arusaamine, tahe, kujutlusvõime ja tunnetus on sama asi mis mõte." On või? Probleem on vististi selles, et tegu on "mentalistlike" kontseptsioonidega - erinevalt kehalisest käitumisest ei ole arusaamist, tahet, kujutlusvõimet, tunnetust ja mõtet võimalik näha, katsuda, mõõta, salvestada, taasluua jne. See viimane aspekt tundub eriti tähtis, sest vaimne tegevus tundub olevat nagu Heraclituse jõe-metafoor (samasse jõkke ei saa kaks korda astuda) - midagi ei toimu täpselt samamoodi kaks korda.
Descartese tsitaadi juurde naastes... See läheb edasi umbes nii, et me ei saa usaldada väiteid nagu "ma näen või ma kõnnin, seega ma olen", sest ma võin ka unes midagi näha või kogeda kõndimist. Seega kehalised tegevused ei ole usaldusväärsed. See "cogito, ergo sum" tuleb siis sellest, et Descartese arvates on mõte usaldusväärsem kui tajumine või tegemine. Kui sa tead, et sa mõtled, siis sa oled (ja sa tead, et sa oled). Aga see kõik ei huvita meid praegu.

"When the student has a good thought he writes it down, so that it may be recalled at will and made the starting point for a better thought in the same direction; and so mankind at large records and cherishes its insights."

Siin võiks peatuda ja arutleda. Tsitaat kuulub C. H. Cooley'le aastast 1909. See on äge, sest kehastab in a more accessible way Peirce'i arusaama märkide kasvust (signs grow). Mõtteid tasub kirja panna, sest siis on kerge neid uuesti ellu kutsuda - tahte peale "meelde tuletada". Siin tuleks tähele panna, et recalling at will on üks oluline mäletamisviis - õigemini on tegu meenutamisega. Peirce'i märgikasvuga seostub see sel viisil, et meenutatud mõtet saab edasi viia samas suunas. Tal oli üks huvitav kirjeldus mõttetööst, mis läks umbes nii: sul tuleb hea mõte, siis sa unustad selle ära, aga kunagi hiljem tuleb sul see uuest meelde ja sa lisad sellele midagi, et see siis uuesti ära unustada ja uuest meenudes veel midagi lisada. Ni tekib kontinuiteet. Cooley lisab sellele kirjutamise - mis Peirce'l, kes tegelikult kirjutas ääretult palju, ununes mainida. Kirjutatut saab kergesti meelde tuletada ja edasi arendada. Sellest seisukohast ei ole lugemisblogist sõna "will" otsimine ja mõne tsitaadi kommenteerimine midagi muud kui juba läbimõeldu veel kord läbi mõtlemine ja edasi arendamine.

"It always involves individuals' free activity, their choice of the language they will use in their relations with society"

Siin on midagi mis puudutab vaba tahet. Peaagu... Tegelikult on see lihtsalt huvitav katkend Lotmanilt; pealegi raamatust (The Decemberist) mida ma ei ole lugenud ega saagi lugeda, sest see on vene keeles. Siinne katkend on inglise keeles ja ma tõlgin selle nüüd eesti keelde.

See erinevus [tavalise ja semiootilise käitumise vahel] on hädavajalik: üksikisikud ei vali oma tavalist käitumist vaid pigem omandavad selle oma ühiskonnalt, ajalooliselt perioodilt milles nad elavad või siis oma psühholoogilisest või füsioloogilisest ülesehitusest; sellele ei ole alternatiivi.
Semiootiline käitumine seevastu on alati valiku tulemus. See on alati seotud üksikisikute vaba tegevusega, nende keelevalikuga mida nad kasutavad oma ühiskondlikes suhetes.

Siin on mõningaid tõlkimisraskusi - näiteks routine behavior pole otseselt "tavaline käitumine" (mis on "tava"?) ja mitte ka päris "rutiinne" ehk "tavapärane" (mis on "tava"?). Ma kahtlustan, et tõlkes on kaduma läinud üpris lihtne eristus "semiootilise" ja "mitte-semiootilise" käitumise vahel. See eristus tegelikult põhinebki sellel, et semiootilises maailmas on valik - kas kasutada ühte märki, koodi, keelt, vms, või teist. Mitte-semiootilises ehk füüsilises maailmas puudub valik - gravitatsioon ei küsi õunalt kas ta tahab maha kukkuda, magu ei küsi toidult kuidas ta soovib saada seeditud.
Vaba tahte ja determinismi poole pöördudes selgubki nüüd, et mehhanitsistlik/füsikalistlik maailmapilt on mitte-semiootiline - Jumal on lükkanud universumi veerema ja nüüd ta siis veereb: õunad kukuvad maha ja päike loojub läände. Igasugune determinism põhineb seaduspära kehtestamises reeglina - õun on määratud maha kukkuma, sest gravitatsioon on seadus. Religioosse determinismi eesmärk on selles mõttes jätta inimene valikust ilma ja allutada ta Jumala tahtele - Jumala seadustele. Mihhail Lotman arutles oma hiljutises raamatus Struktuur ja Vabadus I Augustinuse või kellegi teise kuntud kirikuisa arusaama, et vabadust on kahte sorti - suur (major) ja väike (minor). See käis umbes nii, et meie "väike" vabadus seisneb valikus kas uskuda Jumalasse või mitte. Meie "suur" vabadus on aga Jumala poolt ette ära otsustatud - ühel või teisel viisil jõuame me ikkagi Jumala rüppe ja Jumalas oleme me "suurest" vabad. See on väga umbkaudne tõlgendus - ma ei trükkinud seda katkendit ümber. Noorema Lotmani raamatust võib hiljem veel rääkida, praegu pöörduks vanema Lotmani poole tagasi.
Kui mitte-semiootiline käitumine (psühho-füsioloogiline ülesehitus) on determineeritud, siis semiootiline käitumine seisneb vabas valikus. "Valiku moment" semiootilises mõttes tähendab muidugi märgivalikut - millist märki kuidas ja milleks kasutada. Tekst on selles mõttes vabaduse suurim saavutus, sest erinevalt päriselust on tekstis kõik võimalik. Ma võin siia Remsu kombel kirjutada, et tegelikult on mind kaks - üks istub laua taga ja toksib klaviatuuri, teine tatsab mõõda tuba ringi ja dikteerib neid sõnu, vahepeal peatudes, et mõttepausi ajal ideid seedida. Tegelikult on mind muidugi üks, aga mis keelab mul kirjutada, et mind on kaks ja üks mina seisab mul praegu selja taga ja loeb mida teine kirjutab: "Tegelikult on mind muidugi üks, aga mis keelab mul kirjutada, et mind on kaks ja üks mina seisab mul praegu selja taga ja loeb mida teine kirjutab..." Vist ei tasuks mainidagi, et sülearvuti taga omakorda seisab peegel?
Olgu, olgu, tagasi teema juurde. Räägitakse ka "semiootilisest vabadusest". Hetkel meenub, et see on oluline teema Hoffmeyer biosemiootikas ja seostub ökosüsteemi semiootilise mitmekesisusega, aga ma ei näe põhjust miks ei võiks semiootilisest vabadusest rääkida ka kultuuriliste märgiprotsesside tähenduses. Sama lugu on Ivar Puura "semiotsiidi" mõistega, mis originaalselt kuulub paleontoloogia valdkonda. Minu arvates võivad semiootiline vabadus ja semiotsiid moodustada vastanduse kahe protsessi vahel - üks taotleb märgiliikide vähendamist ja teine märgiliikide paljundamist. Väga lihtne näide oleks rahvuskeelte juhtum, mida ääri-veeri sai ka ülevalpool puudutatud. Kui läänestamine jätkub samasuguse hooga nagu praegu, siis võib eesti keel päris reaalselt välja surra. Selle vastand muidugi on rahvuskeelte elushoidmine ja edasiarendamine, kasvatamine ja mitmekesistamine. Probleem mis mind ennast vaevab on see, et ma ei saa eesti keeles rääkida väga tehnilistest asjadest millest inglise keeles on väga mugav rääkida. Ma ei taha millegi pärast olla ka see tüüp kes hakkab väga paljusid uusi mõisteid eesti keelde leiutama - põhiliselt selle pärast, et minu lugemus eesti keeles ei ole väga hea ja võib-olla oleks see lihtsalt (lobudiku) jalgratta leiutamine. Aga nüüd ma kaldun küll vist teemast kõrvale. Üritan veel kord naaseda tsitaadi juurde...
Mitte-semiootilise käitumise determineeritus seiseb selles, et see omandatakse ilmtingimata kas kultuurilis-ühiskondlikust kontekstist või psühho-füsioloogilistest paratamatustest. Ma ei saa näiteks midagi parata aksendi puhul - suurest pingutusest hoolimata tuleb inglise keeles kõneledes varem või hiljem ilmsiks, et see on second language. Samamoodi ei saa ma suurt midagi parata kui üks mu jalg on lühem kui teine ja kõnnak on natuke teistmoodi. Küll aga on mul võimalik vabalt valida millest ma räägin ja kuidas ma tantsin. Ma pole kindel kas vabaduse ja vabadusetuse saab nii lihtsalt ühildada nö "semiootilise lävendiga", aga üldjoontes tundub see olevat korrektne - vähemalt Kalevi Kulli järgi eristuvad füüsiline ja semiootiline reaalsus selle poolest, et ühes on valik ja teises mitte. Liigme edasi...

"The sort of friends he will have, the sort of organizations he will join, the sort of political leadership he will follow, the sort of person he or his son will marry, will all be strongly influenced by the side of this ideological bifurcation which he adopts as his own."

See katkend pärineb ühest noore Cliffort Geertzi artiklist. Ma ei ole siiamaani järgi vaadanud mis bifurcation'i vaste eesti keeles. See on: lõhenemine, mitmeks hargnemine. Täiesti omaette teemana saaks rääkida bifurkatsiooni-punktidest Lotmani kultuuriteoorias, aga mitte praegu ja mitte siin. Ideoloogiline lõhenemine millest Geertz siin räägib puudutab jällegi religiooni. Artikkel rääkis nimelt ühel Jaava saarel juhtunud intsidentist milles Islam põrkus kohaliku rahvausuga. Nimelt oli sugulaste juures elanud poiss haigestunud ja öösel ära surnud ning hommikul kutsuti vanemad kohale, et ta maha matta. Konflikt tekkis sellest, et matus on religioosne kombetalitus ja sugulane kelle juures poiss elas oli rahvausundi ehk mitte-Islami poolt. Tähendab, poliitika ja religioon on siin - nagu Islami puhul alati - tihedalt seotud: Islami vaimulik keeldus poissi Islami kombe kohaselt matmast. Keegi ei teadnud mida teha, sest tavaliselt oli matmine kombetalitusega täpselt paika pandud. Nii palju siis kontekstist.
Geertzi point näib siin olevat, et ideoloogial on "determineeriv" mõju. Religioosne ja poliitiline kuuluvus võivad mõjutada (pane tähele, et mitte päris määrata) seda milliseid sõprussidemeid sa moodustad, milliste organisatsioonidega sa liitud, millist poliitilist juhtimist sa järgid, millist tüüpi inimesega su laps abiellub jne. Eesti kontekstis on neil asjadel minu arvates natuke vähem kaalu, aga eks mingi mõju ikka on. Tänagi sattusin hommikul vaatama Reporteri tänavaküsitlust "mida teeksite, kui teie laps abielluks mustanahalisega". Enamus vastuseid olid mõistlikud "inimene on inimene" ja "armastus on armastus" tüüpi, aga kommentaariumis tuli muidugi lollus esile. Siin väärib vististi mainimist, et Ameerika kultuuris on kombetu/tavatu pärida inimestelt religioossete ja poliitiliste vaadete kohta. Omagi kogemus on öelnud, et sellistel teemadel vestlemine pigem lahutab inimesi kuiet liidab. Lõhenemine, neh.
Siia võib kokkuvõttes vististi kirjutada, et ideoloogial ja grupikuuluvustel võib ka olla määrav mõju inimese elukäigule. Aga samas on see vististi niivõrd üldine väide, et midagi uut siit ei tule.

"a small group discusses something and the mood drops visibly, predicting that the discussion will soon dissipate and the group will disperse. Or, a person indicates with his hands (the "come here" motion) and thus predicts what the target will do next (s/he will come)."

See on üks huvitav seisukoht mis läheb käesoleva teemaga hästi kokku: "žest kui ennustus". Siin on kõne all üks C. Wright Mills'i artikkel motiividest (õigemini, vocabularies of motive). Artikkel pärineb aastast 1940 ja momendil oluline katkend ütleb, et sotsioloogias on hakatud ümber lükkama Wundt'ilikku arusaama, et keele põhifunktsioon on "väljendada" midagi mis on isikus eelnevalt juba olemas (et "keelega me väljendame mõtteid"). Mills seletab, et uue vaate kohaselt lähenetakse keeletegevusele mitte sellelt seisukohalt, et kõnes väljendavad inimesed midagi mis on nende sees juba olemas, vaid seisukohalt, et keele ühiskondlik funktsioon on koordineerida erinevaid tegevusi. Asja pirn: keel osutab tulevastele tegevustele (see on indicator of future actions). Midagi sarnast on mulle tuttav Birdwhistelli kineesikast, sest teda ei huvitanud emotsioonide väljendumine näoilmetes vaid see kuidas me kasutame näoilmeid, et üksteise käitumist koordineerida (selle üldnimetus on interaction management). "Žest kui ennustus" siis selles mõttes, et see kuidas ma käitun annab aimu sellest mida ma võin teha vahetus tulevikus. Näide mida ma ülal tsiteerin puudutab grupikäitumist: kui sa paned tähele, et seltskonna tuju langeb, jutt hakkab venima ja inimestel on justkui ebamugav, siis see on prognostiline märk, et seltskonna lahkuminek on lähedal. Teine näide on otsesem - viipad käega "tule siia" ja teine inimene tuleb siia. Kui sa kujutad end ette kõrvaltseisjana, siis see näeb välja näiteks nii, et üks inimene ühel pool tänavat sooritab selle käe- ja pealiigutuse ning teine inimene teisel pool tänavat kellele see suunatud oli muudab oma liikumissuunda (või hakkab liikuma) ja ületab tee. Selline "juhendamise" juhtum on niivõrd igapäevane, et ei vääriks muidu mainimistki, aga ma usun, et siin peitub midagi võimast - on tõenäoline, et eksisteerib taolisi "prognostilisi märke" millest inimesed ise ei ole otseselt teadlikud, aga mis sellegipoolest toimivad. See on intuitsiooni ala kuhu on raske teaduslikult tungida, aga varem või hiljem tuleb aeg mil ka "olukorra lugemist" peaks lähemalt uurima (veel üks prognostikatsioon, veel üks will).

""'Power' (Macht) is the probability that one actor within a social relationship will be in a position to carry out his own will despite resistance," according to Weber. Tawney's definition similarly centers on imposing one's will on others, except that he explicitly directs attention to the asymmetry of power relations"

See pärineb Blau raamatust Exchange and Power in Social Life (1964). Ma lugesin seda suure tuhinaga kuniks taipasin, et see on majandusteadlase lähenemine ühiskondlikule elule. See oli nagu majandusliku determinismi viimine inimsuhete tasandile. See siin on Max Weberi klassikaline võimu-definitsioon, mille kohaselt võim seisneb ühe inimese võimes panna teine tegema seda mida ta ei taha teha. Tahte küsimus on siin oluline, sest võim on "vaba tahte" vaenlane. Võim röövib vaba tahte ja asendab selle sunniga. Sund on mingis mõttes ka determinatsiooni sisu - sa ei taha, aga sa oled määratud, sunnitud...
Naljakal kombel on sellise sunni tipp elu ise. See on nüüd mingisugune pseudo-eksistentsialism, aga kas elu pole mitte "ellu sundimine"? Sündimist ei saa valida. Elamist ei saa valida. Unest üles ärkamist ei saa valida. Küll aga saab valida elu lõpetamist ja sedagi võimalust üritatakse peita ja keelata (eriti religioossete inimeste poolt kes peavad elu - isegi õnnetut elu - pühaks). Eutanaasiast ma praegu rääkida aga ei taha. Pöördun tagasi võimu poole. Foucault' biovõim tegeleb just selliste pseudo-eksistentsialistlike probleemidega ja ma ei ole sellega kõige paremini kursis.
Klassikalise (Weberi) määratluse järgi on võim siis vaba tahte asendamine sunniga. Selle sunni iseloom jääb praegu muidugi lahtiseks, sest see võib üldsegi mitte tunduda sunnina vaid näida positiivsena. Ülevalpool on isegi üks hea näide: "Soldiers will venture their lives for an obliging officer"... Vaba tahe on sellest seisukohast "võim iseenda üle" - võimalus "valida ise oma tee" või "olla iseenda käskija". Kui natuke ette mõelda oma TACS tüpoloogia peale (pole kindel, kas ikka seostada seda TACS-iga), siis on tahte küsimuses kolm võimalust: (1) oma tahe - teen mis tahan; (2) teise tahe - nt "Tule siia"; ja (3) impersonaalne norm - kõnnitakse kõnniteel mitte risti-rästi siia-sinna vaid otse ja korrapäraselt. Kolmas on siis nagu situation baseline ja (1) ning (2) võivad olla nii sellega harmoonias kui kakofoonias. Ma võin tühjal tänaval otsustada istuda keset autoteed maha ja ka reageerida sellele "Tule siia"-le. Aga lähme edasi.

"A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledge­hammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic."

Hah. See on Orwelly 1984-st "Two Minutes Hate" episood mil töötajad kogunevad suure ekraani ette ja karjuvad Goldsteini jutu peale. Siin on illustratiivne juhtum sellest kui teiste inimeste tahe trumpab enda oma ning vihkamine nakkab. Charles Morrise järgi on see communization, uuema psühholoogia järgi emotional contagion. Minu tüpoloogia seisukohalt on oluline, et situatsioon ("Two Minutes Hate") kehtestab käitumisviisi kõigile osalejatele.

"Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of thought? In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed, will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten."

Newspeak on hea näide keelelisest semiotsiidist. Kui sõnad oleksid elusad (nagu sõna-organitsismis), siis Newspeak oleks sõnade massimõrv. See teema ei puutu vististi väga vaba tahte ja determinatsiooni teemaga kokke. Või kui, siis ainult Sapir-Whorfi hüpoteesi mõttes, et meie maailma piirideks on meie keele piirid. Kui hävitada keelt, siis hävineb ka osa meie maailmast - Orwellis on selleks teisitimõtlejate (mõttekurjategijate) maailm mis hävitatakse.

"The Revolution will be complete when the language is perfect."

Nüüd taipan, et see on Orwelli vastus Zamjatinile, kelle E-330 ütleb, et "just as there is no highest number, there can be no final revolution".

"Even the slogans will change. How could you have a slogan like ‘freedom is slavery’ when the concept of freedom has been abolished? The whole climate of thought will be different. In fact there will be no thought, as we understand it now. Orthodoxy means not thinking ­not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness."

Kummalisel kombel jõudsime siingi teemasse. "Freedom is slavery" on üks kolmest jaburast loosungist 1984-s. Seda võib seostada nii araablaste arusaamaga intentsioonist kui ka Augustinuse suure vabadusega. Kõigil neil juhtudel on vabaduse sisuks tajutud paratamatus: sa oled vaba tegema seda mida sul on lubatud teha, sa oled vaba ütlema seda mida sul on lubatud öelda, sa oled vaba tundma seda mida sul on lubatud tunda. Viimane aspekt läheneb juba Equilibriumi (2003 film) sisule. Zamjatini Meie, millel nii Orwell kui ka... ohjah, sisuliselt iga hea düstoopia põhineb, sisaldab kogu inimtegevuse (tunnete, tegevuste, mõtete) kontrollimist Riigi poolt. Seda on isegi natuke raske visuaalselt ette kujutada - klaasist majas kõiki "numbreid" täpselt samal hetkel voodist tõusmas, väljas kõik ühes korrapärases rivis sammumas jne. Ma arvan, et Meie point jääbki vist selleks, et D-503 on rahul oma tajutud paratamatusega. Ta on üks number miljonist ja mitte millegi poolest silmapaistev ning teda häirib mõte, et ta ei ole Meie.

"Whatever the Party holds to be the truth, is truth. It is impossible to see reality except by looking through the eyes of the Party. That is the fact that you have got to relearn, Winston. It needs an act of self-­destruction, an effort of the will. You must humble yourself before you can become sane."

Nüüd meikik ka rohkem senssi miks "enesehävitus" on nii tähtsal kohal Orwellis. Meie-s ei ole mind. Individuaal peab saama allutatud kollektiivile, vabast tahtest peab saama ettemääratus, valikute tohubavohust peab saama seaduspära.

"When we come to the study the great principles of continuity and see how all is fluid and every point directly partakes of the being of every other, it will appear that individualism and falsity are one and the same."

See on John Dewey, aastast 1946. Midagi analoogset olen leidnud ka mujalt (T.S. Eliot nt), aga meeldejäävaim ja konkreetsem on Bakhtini väide "only error individualizes". Siin võiks vististi ka lõpetada. Ma ei usu, et vaba tahte ja determinismi suhtes midagi väga palju selgemaks sai, aga mul endal oli küll huvitav seda teksti kirjutada.
Samamoodi peaksin ma tegema teemadega, millega mul tegelikult on vaja tegeleda. Niiet ma võin seda võtta kui harjutamist tegelikuks asjaks. Või kas siin üldse on midagi tegelikku? Ma lihtsalt usun, et kui midagi pühendunult läbi kirjutada, siis see saab palju selgemaks.

FLSE.00.148 loeng 13.09.10

FLSE.00.148 Semiotics and Theories of Art loeng 2013.09.17

Indreg Grigor translated “kim?” from Latvian as “WTF?” but a latvian student corrected that it actually means “What is art?” Ekraani peale on Peeter Linnapi lehekülg ööülikooli kodulehel. He's a professor of art photography. Indrek soovitab 2008. aasta loengut õnneküttide teemal. When you write your scientific article you should think about “why am I doing it like that?” Also, you cannot create your own little happy world, but your world is always connected with the rest of the world.

A > T > R
kus
A – kunstnik (kunstnikud)
T – kunstiteos (-teosed)
R – retsipient (retsipiendid)

Siia tuleks lisada veel koodi ja konteksti ja kanali. These latter elements/functions are missing because the “message” dominates in art. The message of art is seemingly self-sufficient. It isn't about the artist nor the audience but about the artwork itself. Art is created independently from the people who create and receive it. E.g. art is for art's sake.

When you ask if art should be looked at independently from everything else, Tanel Randpere claimed that it should.

Indrek adds that Tanel has a very tense social nerve (I still don't know what this “social nerve” consists of). Mulle tundub, et Tanel Randpere pildi taustal on Valga Jaani Kirik.

When we start to define art then Randpere thinks that we're doing something that we shouldn't do.

He goes on that for him art is like life for the biologist – it just is. Now showing Juri Lotman's article “The place of art among other modelling systems” (SSS 29(2/4) 2011).

1.2.0. No definition of art or a work of art will be given here. For the present work, an intuitive conception, allewing us to ...

Moving on too fast, Indrek! I can't type that fast.

1.3.0. Modelling activity is human activity in creating models. In order that the results of this activity could be taken as analogues of an object, they have to objey certain (intuitively or consciously established) rules of analogy and, therefore, be related to one modelling system or another.

But is it, though? It does not model the real world, does it? If it is fictional then it models the fictional world in the writer's head. I'm still extremely skeptical of modelling systems theory, especially because there is no consensus on modelling and there are those who speak of “modelling models of modelling systems modelling the models of modelling systems” or something like that. I'm sure that modelling can be a useful heuristic device even in my own work, e.g. concourse is a model of bodily behaviour.

The formula of art is: “I know that it is not what it depicts, but I clearly see that it is not what it depicts”.

When I read about nonverbal behaviour I know that it is not nonverbal behaviour that I'm reading, but I clearly see that it is what I'm reading about. No, that doesn't give us anything.

The content of art as a modelling system is the world of reality, translated to the language of our consciousness, translated in turn to the language of the given form of art.

This is more useful, because the reason why I study verbal concourse not visual concourse is that the visual is too immediate – verbal discriptions on the other hand must go through human consciousness and evaluation. Unlike the photograph, the ouput can in this case become something wholly different or more significant than the input. To put it into nice words: verbal concourse is recoded, visual concourse is recorded.

It can be said that specifically artistic content is syntagmatic content. Semantic relations only give us a translation from the language of art to a language of non-art.

I'm not exactly sure what is meant by “syntagmatic content”, but it seems as simple as: when I recognize an apple in the painting (in the language of art) I know that it is a depiction of an apple (in the language of non-art). But the “artistic meaning” comes to the fore from the apple's relations to other things in the same painting – is it an apple in an apple basket, is it the fruit from the Fall from Paradise story, etc.

Marina Grishnakova [?] discovered that Nabokov's works contain references to Palcal.

Neat. Should check it out. Also, the “nabokovists” have their own journal/magazine. Again, neat.

1. Reality. Object. Non-discrete series (speech)
2. Theoretical model. Our concept of the object. Discrete series (language)
3. Art. Work of art. Non-discrete series (speech) in relation to 2, discrete series (language) in relation to 4
4. Reality. Reality interpreted in the light of prior artistic experience. Non-discrete series (speech)

According to this we have: (1) bodily behaviour that we interpret through (2) body language or simply knowledge of nonverbal communication and then we (3) use the previous two – the behaviour and our knowledge of the behaviour – and use them to describe the behaviour of fictional characters, which in turn will (4) enable us to interpret bodily behaviour of actual people. Makes a whole lot of sense.

4.1.3. The relationship between the performance and the performed text is the same as between a performaed artistic text and a non-artistic modeling structure equivalent to it: it sharply increases “play” - that is, the multitude of functions that elements have in interlinked semantic fields and the relative randomness of...

A tough nut to crack. This is a quote that Indrek himself was unable to interpret, because the Estonian translation is completely different – something about tõlgenduskunst. To me it seems that we are dealing with the opposition of script and acting (instruction and realization).