[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein and Punctuation

On Thu, Aug 20, 2009 at 3:06 PM, Glen Sizemore<gmsizemore2@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
>
> --- On Thu, 8/20/09, Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Wittrs] Wittgenstein and Punctuation
> To: Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Thursday, August 20, 2009, 4:57 PM
>
> .. it strikes me that one of the things that would have interested
> Wittgenstein at some point would have been what certain marks of punctuation
> do in thought.

<< snip >>

I like your question Sean and agree that Wittgenstein was sensitive to
precisely this kind of thing, for one cuz we're looking at tools with
no obvious referent, or maybe more that's what students would see, as
in the Wittgensteinian gestalt, a 'referent' is but a sliver of
language tucked in some "101 language game" (beginner level) everyone
knows but philosophers dismiss under the heading of "nominalist" (aka
"boring" (as in "whatever you can point to, we don't care about, and
whatever you can't point too, we care about even less" -- sounds
appropriately koan-like eh?)).

I know in my own case I'm somewhat conscious of influences on my
punctuation:  I use the double dash (--) quite a bit thanks to reading
a certain poet a lot; I use nested parenthesis to a quirky degree of
depth sometimes to several levels (any level deeper than one is
considered "quirky" by today's standards), because I'm a computer
programmer (and then I get the parentheses wrong (a kind of "typo" in
my book, and I'm sensitive to those too)); I often put the period
*outside* of the quote marks, I think because of a man named Thatcher
who frequented our Quaker meeting and wrote a manifesto of sorts, on
why he'd change grammar in that way...

Where I'd not put much time is into asking "what does the brain do"
with punctuation as I'm thinking there's no one thing that it does
that'd go with eyeballing code, looking at HTML, scanning music,
poetry... i.e. the idea that every time I encounter a "<p>" or and "<a
ref="http://...";> that my brain is doing some discretely identifiable
"same thing" every time -- I'd regard that as extreme superstition
i.e. *worse* than how many angels might dance on the head of a pin
(which discourse might be relatively sane in contrast).

But maybe you didn't mean it literally as people often use "brain"
just to mean "my sensitive self that pays attention to stuff, so in
making my brain so all-fired alert and aware, I'm really just modestly
saying stuff about "me" -- except self-promotion is a "no no" in
Protestant cultures, so we're habituated to using 'brain talk' as a
way to not sound too much like arrogant bastards ala Lord Byron or
some Little Prince...

And if that all makes any sense to ya, then congratulations, I'm not
an easy writer to grok (professors are deep readers though, sometimes,
know to pick up on those hyperlinks, fold up those polyhedra).

<< just gave $5 to a "help the homeless guy" at my door, didn't do my
"project earthala" rap this time >>

In a related topic, about "tense", imagine if we used different colors
depending on whether we considered the viewpoint "first, second or
third" person (are those all that we have?).  Using color at all is
strange, though they do it in the Bible, some illuminated texts.
Mostly we just use italics though, or bold.  So how do you do Italics
in Arabic (meaningless question maybe).

In a computer game context, 1st, 2nd and 3rd person are what we call
"modes of play" i.e. in a first person shooter, you under attack by
ETs, whereas when you make that into "a team of players on the same
side" (against the ETs) or even "against one another" then it's more
of a "we" type thing (the team thing especially), whereas if you're in
some god's eye game as a civilization designer or doll house player,
outside the action as not any participant -- an "invisible hand"
and/or "invisible eye" of some kind -- then that's what we'd call 3rd
person.

What I find interesting about the 3rd person is it easily becomes the
"assumed default" when we observe in the movie theater, i.e. the
camera is permitted to spy on the private lives of people from points
of view that a real person would not usually enjoy -- part of what
makes movies fun, like novels, in that they "project" an impossible
(immortal's, demon's, ghost's) view.  Indeed, projecting "first
person" would be considered awkward because then there's a body to
deal with, showing that on camera.  Who needs "the gods" when you've
got movie directors right?

So have that strike you as odd:  that we're so easily accepting of
"disembodied viewpoints" in the 3rd person, take those in
unconsciously not only on TV, but even in our own imaginations, e.g.
often see as if "from a bird's eye view" or "as a fly on the wall"
i.e. going back to an event and "remembering it" from a disembodied
viewpoint (so it's not really a memory then is it, more a fantasy, or
a memory of a fantasy).

The ambient patriarchy is so keen that we be "objective" about
everything (i.e. "professional"), but then that seems to involve
assuming authority and speaking from a viewpoint that no mortal human
could actually have, and doing so semi-unconsciously, leading me to
relate "omniscient" to "unconscious" i.e. those who sound the most
completely omniscient in their "authority voices" are actually the
deepest dreamers (in the Walt Whitman sense), the least awake to the
improbability of their having god-like powers (they look like ordinary
folks to me, so not buying it).  That being said, its a view we go in
and out of i.e. "omniscient for a few minutes" might be the view in a
Lightning Talk within Python Nation (our cyberville or cyberia, tribal
HQS python.org -- have a dictator, a chairman...).

Kirby

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