Re: what's the difference

Face Inthecrowd (facethecrowd@hotmail.com)
Tue, 26 Oct 1999 21:56:42 -0400 (EDT) 

I find this kind of exciting, even though I'm lost on parts of this 
discussion.  I'm tempted to prove that meaning can be recognized without 
difference.

Let's say a young girl popped into the world and you were supposed to teach 
her to speak.  She's born with a really nifty brain, in that she can't make 
any kind of a connection between two facts.  Everything she learns cannot be 
compared or contrasted.  She has a remarkable memory, so everything you say 
to her, when you take her downtown and point out the names of different 
objects, such as calling a hyacinth and a geranium, by the term, "plants," 
she remembers.  So she has compartmentalized every definition of everything 
she 'sees' in the world.  She can't tell the difference between a geranium 
or a hyacinth, but she recognizes them as plants.  You might ask why it's 
necessary to differentiate between plants, and it's not very necessary, it 
is only necessary to recognize the plant as potential food, and whether the 
little girl mistakes a hyacinth for poison ivy or not, is her own problem.  
Our focus is on her inability to tell the difference between a hyacinth and 
a geranium.  If you knew the difference, where would you stop dichotomizing 
the qualities of a plant?  WOuld you stop at species, subspecies, 
genera...and the number of cells in the plant?  No, you would be satsified 
with the fact that it's a hyacinth, and different from a geranium because of 
the leaf structure, not because of the number of cells.  So you make the 
distinction between the two based on one difference, but you can make no 
distinction between the two if you chose to overlook the difference in leaf 
structure, in which case the hyacinth is a, 'plant,' again.  Now back to the 
example with the little girl, just because she can't tell the difference 
between a hyacinth and a geranium, does it imply that she doesn't know the 
meaning of a plant?  If she confused a plastic plant with a real one, what 
would be the difference to her?  There wouldn't be a difference to her, and 
there would be a difference to you, but only in your purposes, not in your 
root meaning of the words, "plastic plant," and, "hyacinth."  YOu recognize 
the difference between the two, but on what level?  Let's suppose you were 
asked to differentiate between a Biilkovarkian sculpture and a hyacinth.  
You would know the difference, but what the hell is a Biilkovarkian 
sculpture?  (I should state here that it doesn't matter whether we use 
language to argue the problem, it matters what means we use to identify an 
object, and in this case, we identify the object by sight, not by words)  
YOu would know the plant is a plant, but you have no idea of the 
Biilkovarkian scuplture, only that it is different from a plant.

It's important here to make the distinction that the human mind recognizes 
meaning not by contrasting, but by categorizing the qualities of the said 
object.  In the case of the Biilkovarkian sculpture, the only characteristic 
we know of is that it's not like a plant.  So what do we do when we want to 
learn what a Biilkovarkian sculpture is?  We ask someone to tell us or we 
look at it or try to use it.  If the object has been unnamed as yet, we can 
name it by what we recognize, we compare it to other things.  We don't go 
the reverse process of comparing the unnamed object to everything it isn't, 
that would take a long time.  We recognize it by comparing the similar 
qualities.  We use it by knowing how it's different from a plant.  We don't 
place the sculpture in the sun, so to speak, because it would fade.  
LIkewise with the plant, in the darkness, it would die.

I really have no idea whether I've accomplished anything by saying all that. 
  I'm sorry to have made you read it, I really am.  The problem is I don't 
know if I've proved anything so I don't know where to stop.  All I know is 
that when I want to recognize things I see the one object, not everything it 
isn't.  The same principle goes with words, in my opinion.

Japhe and his twisted tongue.

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