Interesting short read (there are two parts) with many good links and suggestions for further reading. ABN
Tag: anthropology
Repost: Semiotic valence
In a previous post, I introduced the concept of semiotic wells. A semiotic well is like a space-time “gravitational well” within a semiotic network. By this, I mean that part of the semiotic network has some heavy things in it—primary semiotics that pull other nodes within the network toward them.
For example, someone with the view that they have some sort of personality will tend to associate many of their perceptions and thoughts with the features of that personality. Their belief in their personality type will tend to make them see and understand the world in those terms.
I doubt that “having” a personality is all that much different from having a hobby. And I bet most people can move from one personality type to another about as easily as they can move from one hobby to another.
Of course there are constraints and limitations in the development of hobbies just as there are in the development of personalities.
We can gain profitable understanding of the mind by conceiving of it as a network of semiotic units. It is a network because the semiotic elements of the mind are all interconnected. It does not take much imagination to connect any semiotic element in your mind to any other. Apple-red-communism. Or apple-pie-American.
By association we can connect anything in this way.
Every semiotic element in the mind has a valence. In different contexts, the valences for any element will differ, and oftentimes they are neutral, but they are there. A semiotic well organizes valences as well as meaning, intention, belief, value.
For some people, speech is used to socialize, to make friends, to gain and keep access to other people. The valence of major parts of their semiotic network is aimed at socializing with others. People of this type are pleasantly excited when others compliment or reciprocate their social valences.
In contrast, for some other people, speech is used to share ideas, to analyze, to teach and to learn. The valences of their semiotic networks are primarily aimed at sharing ideas. People of this type are pleasantly excited when others reciprocate these valences.
Many semiotic wells and semiotic valences are formed accidentally, randomly, arbitrarily. Once we take on any bit of meaning, even if only slightly, there is always a chance that it will snowball into a significant semiotic well.
The Beatles alluded to this when they sang Had it been another day/ I might have looked the other way/ And I’d have never been aware/ But as it is I dream of her tonight.
This doesn’t just happen with love but with many of our other interests. We form semiotic wells—sometimes very quickly—for what are often very trivial reasons or no reason at all.
Much of what we are comes about through accident or chance. This happens because semiotics and the ways valences become attached to them are frequently very simple. Once a semiotic well begins forming it often grows, and as it does it pulls in or rearranges elements from other parts of our semiotic network.
Once a well is formed or given to us, it can greatly determine how we perceive the world and what we value in it.
This is why propaganda succeeds so well, and is sort of easy to do if you have a lot of money and access to important public forums. All a propagandist has to do is start your mind in one direction and then add more information and more valence. Most people see the world in terms of simple dichotomies, so all the propagandist needs to do is decide what they want and contrast it favorably against what they don’t want.
Want war? Make the public perceive the enemy you want as an enemy, then add info while increasing valence. Columnists will write many thousands of words about the desired war, but the basic sociology of it for the general public is always very simple.
Of course sometimes the trick fails. With Syria the basic formula—terrorists/poison gas/war—failed, probably because the public had been fooled too many times before with similar formulas (Sadam/WMD/war).
If you can see past words and feelings to the core of the semiotic well, you will see that many things in this world are quite simple. It is no accident that people communicate largely in very simple terms.
Edit 3/4/15: This essay was first posted 3/20/14 and references to Syria date from that time. Notice how it seems we will be getting war with Syria now for other reasons. Last year it was gas. This year it is ISIS atrocities. 3/5/15: This just in today: ‘Military pressure’ may be needed to oust Syrian President – John Kerry
A serious conservative issue
The 24-page bill begins: “The following provisions are repealed,” then lists dozens of Texas statutes related to marijuana. If the Legislature were to approve the bill, Texas would have no laws regarding pot. (Texas lawmaker files bill to legalize marijuana)
This is the best way to go. None of the state’s business. Never was and never should have been. This is real conservatism of a type I can happily support.
Here is the other side of our ongoing ridiculous “debate” about marijuana: DEA warns of stoned rabbits if Utah passes medical marijuana.
Fairbanks said that at some illegal marijuana grow sites he saw “rabbits that had cultivated a taste for the marijuana. …” He continued: “One of them refused to leave us, and we took all the marijuana around him, but his natural instincts to run were somehow gone.”
This person works for the DEA and doesn’t know that cannabis has to be heated to activate its psychoactive chemistry.
Wrong facts, wrong policies, anti-American interference by government in people’s private lives, more harm done by the laws than the plant by far. Anyway, it is good to see these long overdue changes starting to happen in more places.
Semiotics in game tech
Edit 2/26/15: The article linked below is an excellent example of how a single semiotic is functioning differently in different cultures. Well, there is more than one, but the examples are very clear and concrete. The contention that lies behind FIML practice is that all people all of the time hold many idiosyncratic semiotics and that when they communicate, these idiosyncratic semiotics can have a huge effect on how they listen and what they say. Idiosyncrasies may have cultural origins or they may arise from subjective states or simply be arbitrary. The idiosyncratic individual (all people everywhere at all times) is like a mini-culture. FIML practice is done between two idiosyncratic individuals who are close to each other, care about each other, and spend a significant amount of time together. It is designed to help partners understand how their idiosyncrasies can and do cause misunderstandings, some of which may snowball into serious conflicts when at heart there never was much of anything there save different views of the same semiotic.
If you have been studying or reading about FIML but still don’t quite see what is meant by semiotics or how they function in real-world settings, please be sure to read the article liked below and also here. The semiotics of controller design.
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A friend sent me an interesting article on The semiotics of controller design of the Sony PlayStation.
His comment on the article:
I thought you would find this interesting. The amount of consideration that goes into something so simple makes it practically impossible to experience anything directly without FIML and meditative insight.
The article discusses the meaning of a couple of signs on PlayStation controllers. It shows how cultural inculcation led Japanese and Americans to understand those signs very differently. So differently, in fact, Sony had to change the buttons (or “localize” them) for the American audience.
Most of us will find the linked article understandable and most of us will be able to appreciate how acculturation can and does lead us to perceive signs and symbols differently.
If you can see this it is but a short step to see that individuals do the same. Each of us perceives or understands signs and symbols in ways that are unique to us. As my friend says, it is “practically impossible to experience anything directly without FIML and meditative insight.”
How could it be otherwise? How can anyone expect to understand and be understood intimately without frequent and extensive discussion of what semiotics mean to them and their partner(s)?
Many people claim they don’t have time for discussions like that, and for some I think that is true. For the rest, I don’t agree.
In any case, before long we will have super-smart robots and brain-to-machine interfaces that will utterly change the way we perceive each other as well as “reality” itself.
When that day comes, we bio-humans will have the time and we will have the inclination to buckle down and do the work needed to really understand each other.
In the future, I expect something like FIML will be a major standard for human-to-human communication. When the machines are miles ahead of us, we will at last relent and really try to understand rather than just manage or control each other.
Jeff Gates on the “in between space” and how control of information is control of everything
Gates is an engaging speaker. In the linked interview he describes how the signs, symbols, narratives, and beliefs of American society (and much of the world) have been manipulated by what he calls a “criminal syndicate” that operates primarily in the “space” between facts and what the public sees and hears. This syndicate does this by controlling five basic areas—media, education, pop culture, politics, and think tanks. Well-worth listening to.
Why I have become a (reluctant) fascist
Mussolini said, “Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power.”
Just the other day, arch-corporatist Bill Gates called for one-world government or global government.
The Western powers (US, EU, and other dollar-denominated allies) have shown a relentless will to dominate the world. We can see this wherever we look, and especially in the Middle East, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and the current “pivot to Asia” of US foreign policy.
The only serious contenders to a Western-dominated “one-world” government are Russia and China, and I don’t think they have a prayer.
Nothing at home can stop them either. Most Americans are completely unaware that their “democracy” is a sham, that elections are exercises in mass hypnosis, that mainstream media is propaganda, and that the USA is ruled by and for corporations and other powerful groups and individuals. (See: Testing Theories of American Politics: Elites, Interest Groups, and Average Citizens)
So I give up. We can only hope that a Western-dominated one-world government will at least pay lip-service to Enlightenment values and at least keep us well-fed and warm in the winter. If huge masses of us want cheaper Internet service and stuff like that, we might get it, but not much else.
Gates’ one-world government will be a corporate-special-interest government. At best it will be a tolerable, if not benevolent, dictator, sort of like the USA today but with nowhere to run to. At worst it will be openly fascist with little patience for dissent or free speech.
We have already seen the demise of free speech in Europe, Canada, New Zealand, and Australia, to say nothing of the rest of the world where it traditionally never existed. Though we still have free speech protections here, it should be abundantly clear to thinking Americans that we have been living in a fascist oligarchy since September 11, 2001. The deed has already been done at home. Now, the world.
I can’t bring myself to say if you can’t beat ’em join ’em, but I can say we can’t beat ’em and I know when to give up.
I am resigned to watching friends debate which identical candidate is better than the other, to listening to them repeat ideas taken directly from TV “news,” and to following their spoon-fed “reasoning” about why we need more immigrants or fewer, or fewer guns or more of them, or more police or fewer, or whatever the latest distraction is.
I along with my corporate masters will calmly follow the progress of the Western powers toward world domination and I am resigned to that.
One-world government today means corporatism, fascism. It does not mean something else. The only thing remotely capable of contending with corporatism is nationalism, peoples united within defined territories against it. But who can do that? Russia is trying but they are not strong enough. They may hold off the inevitable for a few more decades but that is it. Same for China.
The Western powers are moving fast and they are moving now because if they don’t get control soon they may lose the chance. My guess is they are all but certain to win. So I have become a (reluctant) fascist. At least I know that about myself.
This line caught my eye
…Chen, the warden, and top guard Wang exchanged themselves for the other hostages. (Six Taiwan inmates commit suicide, ending hostage standoff)
There surely is more to this story and I do wonder about the six suicides. But respect for the warden and guard who switched places with the hostages. Respect for the inmates if the story is more or less as stated. Rather than kill others, they killed themselves when their escape failed.
More detail: Official Says Hostage Takers Shoot Selves in Taiwan Prison
02/07/14 Combat footage: NAF troops entering Tchernukhino [eng subs]
I don’t know much about this vid, but it provides some sense of what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. Not gory and worth viewing, imo. Sent by a friend who is very well-informed on Ukraine.
500 rabbis urge Israel to stop demolition of Palestinian homes
Honestly, this is way late in the game, but still an inspiring move.
Repost: Our techno-future and the importance of the humanities
As AI and robots continue to develop, humans will have less to do.
Many of the human things that seem so important to us today will no longer be important. For example, how will humans be able to maintain their conceit at having status within some cult/culture when a robot will be able to do whatever they are doing better?
Just yesterday Microsoft announced what appears to be a major breakthrough in the technology for translating speech. A computer can now use a simulation of your voice to translate one language into another. The demonstration is English being translated into Chinese. (See this: Microsoft Research shows a promising new breakthrough in speech translation technology. If you want to hear the demonstration, go to the end of the video.)
As a translator, I can appreciate what this technology does. It’s close to the last nail in the coffin of my profession. By the way, this does not bother me at all. Machine translations, as they are called, are already pretty darn good for most written translations. Now Microsoft is giving us pretty darn good real-time interpretations of spoken language. It won’t be long before machines will be able to do all forms of translation faster and better than humans.
The day before yesterday I read an article—UBS fires trader, replaces him with computer algorithm. The replaced trader used to make $2 million per year. The algorithm cost UBS $100,000 to create. The writing is on the wall for other kinds of traders.
Even a great deal of science and technological development—if not all of it—will be done better by machines than humans. Machines can design experiements and conduct them with little or no human input, and one hopes, zero human cheating.
The writing is on the wall for all of us. Most everyone sees it to some degree, but, seriously folks, the writing is getting very big—it’s all over for bio-human conceits. We will almost have no purpose any more, except to be.
In past centuries, we “conquered” nature and stopped needing to fear it or be in awe of it. We surrounded ourselves with technologies that protected us and made us comfortable. But those technologies have grown so much, we will soon be in as much awe of them as we once were of nature. They will dwarf us as much or more than nature did our ancestors a million years ago.
Cars will drive themselves, machines will translate, good science will be conducted by robots, banks will be run by machines, and eventually our brains will be emulated on computers.
All that will remain then is what we now call the humanities—bio-people will still (I’m pretty sure) want to be with other bio-people, share food with them, talk with them, love them. And they will need to communicate better. The machines, by obliterating the conceits of human status and culture that rule the world now, will show us our need to communicate better.
We will use brain scans to assist us, maybe even some form of technological telepathy. But we will still need deeper and better rules for understanding each other. It is my belief that FIML, or something very much like it, will be the foundation for communication in the future.
We have the problem of assimilation.
We have the problem of intermarriage. (Top Democrat Walks Back Critiques of Jewish Intermarriages)
Why did she say it? Why does she have to walk it back? Can anyone in any culture say this? Who controls culture?
Iceland to build first temple to Norse gods since Viking age
Situation in Ukraine
Below is an email from a friend who is well-informed on Ukraine. I get more out of his emails than I do from most news sources. If you want a quick update on what is happening, read on…ABN
Russia has a large vested interest in keeping the rest of Ukraine together, which will only happen as a federalized state with the East having autonomy, similar to Ossetia and Georgia. The Russians’ reason for this are same as they always have been in that they need the east to balance out the rest of Ukraine. There is a lot on the net about this. Although this is needed less and less as the Right Sector becomes more desperate and thus brutal and separates itself out of the population.
Also the U.S. strategy now is just to create a completely failed state and wreak as much havoc as they can as they have no hope of getting their way now. In some ways this is much more dangerous—they may stage a second Chernobyl etc. There is no way out for Kiev now. The whole country, even those in the Galician region are protesting being conscripted etc. That this is still going on at gunpoint is quite the opposite of winning hearts and minds. The right sector has been completely illegitimized as they show only a face of complete brutality. They are bleeding their soldiers and guns; once these are gone the government will collapse.
The word is that Auschwitz without Putin attending has been a diplomatic debacle as the people were aware the Ukrainian representative that took the place of the liberating soviets was Nazi believer. Also that Poland despite it’s own animosity to Russia can easily see the crazies the U.S. installed are way worse and not people you want at the border.
It looks right now like both Turkey and Greece will be realigning to the Russian sphere. Also Serbia is on the verge of exploding again and the U.S. is looking to color revolution Hungary for defiance and looking out for it’s own self interest.
On the HBD Chick Interview
…at the heart of the argument in CofC is the idea that these movements did not stand or fall on the power of their ideas but rather on ethnic networking (summarized in Chap.6, p. 215ff and especially 222-228). For example, the success of psychoanalysis and the Frankfurt School was not due simply to the intelligence of Freud and Adorno and even less to the (non-existent in the case of psychoanalysis, or fraudulent in the case of the Frankfurt School) data. Their success derived from the group structure of these movements, which centrally involved their co-ethnics, and their ability to gain a foothold in the elite academic world and in the major publishing houses and media outlets, and their ability to ignore or expel dissenters. These movements were like religious cults centered around charismatic leaders (228-230). These movements would never have managed to be successful and influential in a purely individualist scientific culture (pp.234-236). (link)
I agree with MacDonald on this point (and many others). I also believe it is quite easy to see and understand the methods and results of Jewish ethnic nepotism, or ethnic networking.
Jonathan Chait and the End of Liberal Society in the West
The Charles Hebdo affair presents a difficult dilemma to liberals and the left in general. Typically, they have no problem with censorship of views they don’t like. They jump on board campaigns to fire college professors for publishing about race differences or White dispossession, and they shed no tears when some poor soul in the media gets fired for blurting out something about Jewish power in Hollywood. They would love for such people to go to prison. (Link)
It’s not just adults getting fired, but also poisoned, maimed, and harmed in many other ways short of death. And it’s not just adults, but also students with unpopular views being sidelined or undermined by teachers and others. And this sort of thing can occur at very young ages, including severe physical harm.
American Buddhist Net 