I eagerly grasp at my intention to slip from productive pursuits to lethargy with hands that mean to strangle… I’m grappling with my will to get back to writing from the more alluring computer work that has filled my day. I sit pretentiously in Linear Algebra class filling this page with rhetorical dribble. I’ll pass an integral form of my psyche onto my surroundings just right after my left armpit develops the ability to, at will, create a different recipe for tapioka pudding thrice an hour. At least I have found my bitchin’ pen.

Further elaborating, actually – what is the point to writing if you have nothing to write about? To hone your skills? To entertain yourself at a later date with easy, virtually idea-less writing? Yup Yup…

The anchor must come free. Um, after class.

A few thoughts on “meaning”. Inspired by GEB.

There seem to be three levels in the search for meaning in any particular object:

• the realization that there is, in fact, meaning there to be found.
• the ideas, conceptions, thoughts and notions that allow the actual decoding of the message inherent to the object.
• the actual message.

These three “levels” are found in all types of “decipherings” throughout life, whether one realizes it or not. Suppose a steel box violently crashes through the roof of your house and smashes your new porcelain rutabaga. You could ignore it. You could pick it up, toss it in the nearest dumpster and carry on with your life. You COULD examine it a bit. Suppose you pick this last option. Picking it up, you hear something “clunk” inside. This allows you the first level in meaning mentioned above. You now recognize there is something to be sought. Then you may start contemplating a way to open the steel box. Suppose you decide to go down to the local hardware store, pick up a cutting torch, come home, read its instruction manual (because you should ALWAYS read the instructions) and decide this is a correct method of opening the steel box. You have now proceeded to the second level of meaning, the level that allows you to find the “message,” or in this case, open the box. Your new blowtorch is your decoding weapon. Once you cut the box open and find a package of Ritz crackers, you have the message that was inherent to the box.

Because this entire process was attainable by only two things - the box and your intellect - this box’s “meaning” is intrinsic within the box, but only in the context of human interaction…

Now the package of Ritz Crackers is an altogether new “object”. What if you had never seen a package of Ritz crackers before? Suppose you have never even known the concept of “eat” before, etc… you apply the same rules. GEB used the example of a note in a bottle. The first level of meaning is surpassed when you realize there is something other than a bottle containing a white piece of paper with scribbles. The second level is realized seeing the note is in a particular language, telling you the method of decoding. And, obviously, the message is the text itself. It is unique in that no matter who the decoder might be, and no matter the actual decoding method, the only actually translatable message will always be the same.

And now something that frequently bothers me:

Let us call “music”, “movies”, “television”, “books”, etc.. MEDIA. I think there is an amazing paucity in my observation of the “coming to the conclusion” that the first level of meaning is evident in much of today’s media. Sure, there are possibly many meaningless (in every respect) instances, such as lyrics to the modern pop song (not all - some). Is it an environmental thing? Is the cause for this lack of sight the “context” of many people’s lives? I believe so. (since it is probably not transmitted hereditarily!)

So I shall use the song I fiddled with at another point in this journal, “A fool fancying cliches” … the lyrics this time. Perhaps this song is gaily bouncing out of a nearby amplification system and a passerby stops to consider it. She hears the words. Now, as in several examples above, she may simply walk away untouched, BUT, in an unguarded moment of speculation, she suspects something relevant to the words coursing forth from the speaker. She has identified that there is meaning, that is, the first level has been traversed. Suppose a page containing the words to “fool” is lying near the stereo spewing the song and, of course, that it catches her eye. Picking it up, she may now traipse on to the second level of meaning and attempt to grasp a decoding method. Now, the message is held not in the actual words, but in metaphor and allegory constructed by the words. Our eager subject must use her imagination coupled with any imagery the words inspire. She can then make connections (find similarities) between the images conjured and situations experienced / observed in her lifetime. She has decoded the message.

Is there enough meaning and message, image and allegory, enough representation of an artist’s psyche in his / her word(s) of art to, through sufficient (and this might be incredibly complex) decoding mechanisms, perceive the “meaning” of the artist him / herself? Of course, this would depend on the instance of art, since the artist may not have put “as much of him / herself” in all of his / her works. So, to rephrase: Is there, or could there be, enough meaning and message, image and allegory, enough representation of an artist’s psyche in his / her work (in a SINGLE instance of his / her work – an instance that was clearly NOT created for this or any related autobiographical purpose) to perceive the “meaning” of the artist? Say, in a Van Gogh Painting? A symphony by Beethoven … Etc.? Yes?

“My thoughts mearly drift among the oddities and quirks of how things are (as I seem them). I, humble observer of phenomena, plod along and puff my silly words into the air rather unspectacularly.” –The Tortoise.

I am quite amorous of that quote. At times, I feel like these writings are very insipid, banal and quite ignorant and uneducated, as I do now. What to do but keep plundering on, eh? Traipse through stimuli, I do, as most do, absorbing a little here, a little there, making my silly impressions, hoping someone will catch air of their message. I suppose this journal needs quite a number of levels of context - one being the language barrier, another being experience. One might find all of this myriad of meandering musings vapid as a newborn’s first excretion of bodily waste; another might have already thought through every concept I have approached, but still enjoys idle reading; yet another could be fascinated. I suppose I cannot please ’em all, nor, in fact, should the purpose of this be to do so, since it is a highly introspective work. 21 pages in 4 1/2 days is rather impressive (to me) for me, however.

Carrying on in the previous vein:

I just tangled in conversation with this idea, so I shall write it, no matter its relative wackiness. Say knowledge, in a way, is passed genetically, but not the knowledge itself, but only, as i mentioned on the last page, the ability to learn types of knowledge. Use types in the way a common university uses the word to divide knowledge: Chemistry, Physics, English, Photography, etc. A single mutation that slightly alters a few atoms gives or takes the ability (or increases/decreases) to absorb a certain type. This mutation happens infrequently, though often enough that when the whole world is populated from a few individuals, it creates an exceedingly wide variety of ability to or to not learn.

BUT! I’ve always, in the past, believed in the human ability to excel in almost anything by sheer will (I am speaking of intellectual feats, of course, not instances of telekinesis or muscle tone). This has been from my own point of view, however, and it might just be the case that I can intellectually prosper in most all of the subjects I have endeavoured in…. It is impossible to make a testable hypothesis, though, since I can very improbably tackle each and every subject matter in the universe during my lifetime. Unless I tackle the problem of mortality first, of course.

If a human being’s MEANING is not intrinsic, NOT found ONLY in itself, then, naturally, its meaning is derived from ITSELF and its lifelong context (no matter how convoluted). It would seem (to me, anyhow, and I know that is a fucking opinion, but I cannot see how else to express at this late hour), perhaps, that for a “thing” that cannot find meaning within itself to find meaning, and I am assuming that an encoded part of every (living) thing is a desire to find its “meaning”, it would have a goal that is (simply) to look for that meaning. I have many examples. I shall only illustrate one. I could perform this feat in one word: “religion”, which can be generalized out to the word “philosophy” and further out to “ideology.” Every man has an ideology. I believe I can safely make that generalization. To be absolutely positive, though, I shall define the word:

IDEOLOGY:

The manner of thinking OR The content (written or unwritten rules of self-behavior and self-modification) of thinking that any given individual characterizes.

A man or woman develops, seeks out, hybridizes, transforms, rejects, negates, or accepts an ideology to find meaning for his existence. If you want proof of this hypothesis, go visit your local Baptist Student Union.

Slainte Mhath!

Word for the day:

RECHERCHE:

exquisite or choice… also… overblown or pretentious.

Thought for the day:

“If anyone thinks that God will not give victory to His apostle in this world and in the world to come, let him tie a rope to the ceiling of his house and hang himself. Then let him ponder if his cunning has done away with that which has enraged him.” –The Holy Qur’an 22:15

Is metaphor, allegory creation in itself or just very carefully disguised plagiarism?

NEXT UNRELATED IDEA, PLEASE!

Egads! I have come upon an interesting notion that i shall attempt to distill into a (more) concise concept. Further reading in “Godel, Escher, Bach” has unearthed a view on meaning that is bizarre to expand into a new context. Meaning: is it inherent in an object itself, or is it derived from the object’s environment, including, of course, its onlookers? It is silly to say that each and every extant object is of exactly one of these natures of meaning, since it is hopelessly obvious that most “things” have meaning because of a combination of the two. For example, a pencil derives meaning for itself from itself by the elements of which it is made and by the shape in which it exists. It is made of graphite wrapped in wood, tapered to a point on one end and bearing a spiffy eraser (anti-pencil?) on the other.

AND: the pencil derives meaning from its “context” by the way it is employed (or by the way it is passively oriented in space: one could impale one’s foot on it accidentally). The “writing utensil” employment is possibly one of the most often used contexts, though a pencil could easily become a weapon or piece of an artistic mélange.

“Godel, Escher, Bach” takes this idea and asks the questions: Is DNA compete in itself, a complex code that can create an organism, or, more specifically, HAS THE ABILITY to create an organism devoid of any specific chemical context? Can all of the information dealing with the transformation from DNA to organism be found (upon whatever extensive research is needed) in the DNA itself? Using only a molecule and human intellect?

OR - is the DNA incomplete without its chemical environment that spawns proteins, replication, gradual cell differentiation, etcetera; incomplete in the sense that it, in itself, does not possess THE INFORMATION to see the epigenesis from molecule to organism?

This genetics discourse led me to ponder on a translation of this to the context of human personality. It seems quite obvious to me that the initial human being (meaning a human upon birth) has a devastating dearth of “things” that will form its personality. Or does it? I once read of a theory which is closely bounded to reincarnation. A human being has all of the knowledge that he will ever possess hidden in his mind, waiting to be unlocked. This would imply (quite blatantly) that a person’s meaning is completely defined by his/herself and all the information necessary for his/her lifetime is contained in the mind initially.

The numerous obvious loopholes in this theory literally pounce from the page, though, and one might be left with the impression that Bob is a daft couch potato in need of a new toy. I, who happen to be Bob, refuse to toss such a theory away so readily. Dampened and padded, this concept (referred to by me as “APERCU”) may hold a sagacious, contemplative idea.

Intellect is somewhat passed from parents to child via DNA. Physical features are taken from parents’ DNA. Balding… sickle cell anemia… average eyesight throughout a lifetime…. on and on.

So, can there, could there, might there, is there… any knowledge passed from parent to child by DNA? For sure a capacity for knowledge, but now about limits to what KIND of knowledge a person can learn? Is that plausible? Might mutations expand or contract at random? This all ties to the human mind being incomplete… not having the ability - the FULL ability - to realize its meaning without environmental context. But HOW incomplete? What does one know (how much meaning - self meaning) without context?

Also, to conclude these jumbled conceptions….

What does it mean to realize one’s meaning? Most things don’t have this particular problem. Example - a pencil has no ability to realize its meaning, no matter its construct (this is possibly only (of course) if the pencil’s makeup stays within the bounds of the typical definition of “pencil”). Once could tie in numerous religious implications to this question, and, as a matter of fact, this question may be at the heart of many religions. I shall not draw any more conclusions at this time.

A theme from “The Shawshank Redemption” that I found especially alluring was the concept of a person becoming “institutionalized.” The sense in which this word was initially used was this:

A man is convicted of a crime at a rather young age (young being between twenty and thirty), and imprisoned. He spends fifty years of his life inside a world that is controlled in a perfectly measured way, giving him no way of knowing how to act if he is suddenly shoved into “reality” - reality being the world outside of prison. I shall draw an analogy which happens to also draw an analogy between this otherwise independent discussion and previous pages.

A score of music begins in the key of D. Now, taking the ideas which were dabbled with earlier (in the journal) and Bach’s XXYY nigh-cliche, this tone center of “D” may easily wander to A, the dominant. The listener “pushes” the “D” onto his/her mental stack and enjoys the current tone center of A knowing full well (as most listeners of music surely consciously do) the piece shall soon return to D. So it doesn’t, though. The A holds fast for, say… 9/10 of the suite… long enough for Mr. Musical to get quite lost in it. “A” is all there is until, suddenly, for the last three bars of the piece… there is D again! Well! We didn’t expect that, now, did we? Should the composer have included these final few measures or were they purely “incidental”?

Let us try another level. What if, after playing around in A for quite a time, the new dominant, E, is introduced and then clearly made the tone center? What of this? The listening guinea pig puts the A away for another day, or at least until Mr. “E” has lost his sway. Again, though, as you (the surely quite omniscient reader) probably figured, the gayly funster of a composer lets E whirl and twirl through its own musical maelstrom for such a time that it would seem odd to reintroduce the A, and by quite an act of outward heresy to drop two full semi-tones to D!

In a technologicesque methodology, it becomes an act of recursive enumeration. Not recursion as in something calling itself, but recursion in the sense of one thing spawning other similar things that are built upon itself.

The piece of music may sound more sensible to, after all of the meandering and longevity after each, resolve to the tonic in which it spent the longest time, in this case, E. (I did stick a “B” in there, I realize, but this simply illustrated a recoverable (or, shall I say “sensibly recoverable”) modulation.)

He ends up killing himself for lack of comprehension of the world he, indeed, came from but no longer can understand. Might he have been better off, or “happier”., or would it have been more “sensible”, to live out his days in prison?

But. What of those who become “institutionalized” in a more abstract sense? What of the man who seeps deep into a religion, lets his only life be a job as a teacher in a Christian School and involvement in church activities? Isn’t this person, too, “institutionalized”? Is he not oblivious to the reality beyond the walls he has found for himself? Does every person, to an extent, find their own personal prison, their own fortress that shields them from the outside world? Should these people … should all people … be awakened in a analogous manner as the old man in “The Shawshank Redemption,” after spending FIFTY years of his life in prison, was? How about those that have walls within walls? What could it take to regain the tonic? Or, in fact, is the tonic worth regaining?

One might ask if there is a wall that can surround that anyone can find that is the “correct” wall, as most religious think of their imprisoning fortress. Is, then, the hypothetical “LEAP OF FAITH” a bound over the enclosure and into this NIRVANA?

Have I gallivanted in a rambling sort of way from the specific to the vague? Hell, yeah!