Re: The talking going on in one's head

erespess@inil.com
Thu, 21 Oct 1999 11:50:11 -0400

>I understand this objection.  Still, I urge the dark side.  C'mon
>over.  It's fun here.  Anything goes.  I'm not quite willing to
>relinquish "generates," even when it comes to tactile perception.  I
>don't think we can really experience tactile stimulation without
>assigning or attaching a significance to it.

It seems to me that seething pain, whether I have previously experienced it
and named it, is still unpleasant.  Get out of your head.  Haven't you ever
felt or experienced something new and been completely thrown by it until
you figure out what it was?  The next time you feel it, you immediately
recognize it.  But the first time, before it settles in and becomes
entangled with memory and association, it is still there.  Simply as an
experience.

>Maybe the same for
>animals, too.  They have ears; they can hear.

This i don't know enough about.  Animals have memories, so I assume they
symbolic capacity at the base level to which you refer.  But where does
instinct begin and end?  I don't know.  You got me.

>Even beyond this, though, there's an important distinction between
>what Ss calls "linguistic signs" and other "signs," like flags on
>ships (_Cors_, part I).  But maybe it's all for naught at this
>point...

Yes, you've made us all mad now.  We don't want to play with you anymore.  8)

Elizabeth