Rant 133: Metaphors

[Irreverend Hugh, KSC]

Rant 133
Metaphors;
or, a meander that appears to talk about semiotic fields and spheres of perception.

"Whoever controls our metaphors, controls us."
-Attributed to Robert Anton Wilson and his brigade of friends, followers, and liars (but still a truthful observation.)

Pay attention. Some of the following deals with highly specialized terms that should have never been taken out of context in the way that they have been. The discussion may get abstract, but if you bear with it, it may be helpful to you whenever you next come across those idiots who masquerade themselves as "post-modernists" and who like to say that reality is nothing but symbols in relation to other symbols. I have attempted to take something normally left to linguists and cognitive scientists and bring it down to something the rest of us can understand so we can more easily refute those who get trapped into parroting the elusive borrowed idioms of Robert Anton Wilson and other post modernist writers. This rant (which is really another excuse to attack General Semantics) hopefully will clear up some of the fuss.

There is something to that often quoted statement "whoever controls your metaphors controls you." (Many assume it was Robert Anton Wilson who first wrote it, but he is only one of many writers since the seventies that have parroted this statement - some of them more or less creative and original, some of them simply hogwash.) This statement has some truth to it, but let's not get silly here and attribute to it any ultimate truth. Post-Modern thought can only go so far. Anyone who thinks that metaphors, language-meaning fields, and ways of thinking totally control you is simply taking linguistic and cognitive science terms out of context.

Obviously, if you believe in an all powerful punishing God, then this "belief" or collection of symbols that live in your head are going to color the way you see the world and the way in which you interpret your interaction with everything else. But you are the one who has still chosen to agree with that belief and it can only control you to the degree in which you coerce yourself and your perceptions to its accompanying "semiotic field." (Look that phrase up to see what it means.) Likewise, you may be able to coerce others into agreeing with this basic belief system and even go on to influence society and such, but it wouldn't make the belief set any more true.

Without semiotic fields, meaning - the driving basis of communication - would be impossible because it would have nothing on which to stand or from which anyone (including yourself) could derive anything resembling 'meaning.' For instance, if I start yelling at you to "Turn the duck-stick over the hairy goat," you will say to me correctly "WTF are you talking about?" This is because I have said nothing that relates to anything in our shared semiotic fields. (Though you may find useful information leads from the words themselves.)

And no, contrary to what the bastard-supporters of General Semantics like to claim, semiotic fields, or even spheres of perception (that localized personal sense of "me" or "I" that individuals rely on for personal systems of meaning) are not controlled by the sort of language or the syntax you use in your home language. Much of our complex cognition is accomplished without recourse to language or syntax at all. Even the language-based thoughts we have are not semantically consistent in ways that General Semantics teachers like to claim.

If I say the word "God," most of you will have many different takes on the idea as soon as your brain gets the signal from your ears. I might mean a personalized entity of "love," while you are thinking of some old white dude with a long beard who likes torturing non-believers. Some of you may even have emotional responses to the word "God" based on whatever your own personal histories are. It is complex and rich. So those who say that reality, or our perception of reality is based upon or controlled by symbol sets or language/syntax are simply being naive. The Semanticians want to clear up all of this wonderful complexity by positing we stop using delusionary language constructions such as "he is that." They say that by using sentences like that we actually get confused into thinking that "he" is always and eternally "that." What the ring tailed rambling hell? Do they really think we common folk are that stupid? (By common folk I mean those of us who actually don't live in academic theories and who may actually know a thing or two about the world outside of those theories.)

There is much more going on than any of the purveyors of certain idiot theories have claimed. And herein is the actual truth of what "post-modernism" was all about before it got watered down and endlessly parroted by the bastard children of the post-beat generations who simply got it all confused because of drug use and bad anthropologies. (Yes, that also means Carlos Castaneda.) While there is much truth to explore in the idea that we tend to build up systems of meaning that may have nothing to do with reality, the errors are in whether or not the system of meaning interprets reality consistently and in ways conducive to one's survival/success, not in systems of meaning themselves. And metaphors only control you to the extent that you don't understand them or how they are used. Think about that for a moment. It's the point of this whole rant.

Note that I said "understand them or how they are used." I didn't say you had to agree with them or that you have to know exactly what they mean to other people (though that latter gem can be extremely useful). I said "you" in that sentence, because that is the person that ultimately must gain meaning from metaphors or choose to see them as more debris. Or something else.

When we agree on the basic meaning of a word or set of words (we actually do most of the time since we share the same language and much of the same modern world mindset) it can be said that our semiotic fields either match, overlap or converge. Thus the chances of one of us saying something that the other will not understand is reduced. However, the semiotic field (which is where linguists are now saying "meanings" of symbols like words reside...it's not a real place; just a cognitive term) for you will be colored by your personal experiences and likewise mine. So if I say the word "goat" I will have some reference in my imagination that may or may not match up to yours, but we can still both talk about goats and even explain how we both take up different associations from the word.

That is it. Yet, some bad thinkers have taken this to mean that since there is no inherent meaning to reality, then all of reality is nothing more than sets of symbols without any "reality." I don't know how to explain it otherwise, but it seems like a spiraling-out-of-control exercise in mental jerkery to me. Yeah. Think that that slab of concrete wall you are heading towards at 90mph is just a set of symbols the next time you go out for a drive. See how far that line of reasoning will get you.

That said.

Perception does control a lot about how we think and what we think about. But we are trapped in perceptions only as much as we allow ourselves to be stuck in them. For instance, that wall I mentioned above. If you perceived it to be a bed of flowers, your error could get you killed. If you perceived it as some sort of monster that you had to avoid and you were a good driver, then your chances for survival would be greater. If you saw it as the wall it was, you would hopefully avoid it altogether. Perception is a wonderful thing and rightly exercised it can save your life. So, pay attention to what is going on and to what is around you and to what or who you are. Your sphere of perception can include all sorts of colorful metaphors and beliefs, but remember to not get taken in by any of them. Fluidity is the key and remember that those who are sensitive to their environment are the ones that survive.

In conclusion, I hate General Semantics. It is the enemy of free thinking everywhere.
And this statement has nothing to do with anything else here.

September 19th, 2005

-Irreverend Hugh, KSC
(Under the influence of menthol cigarettes (the White Mouse is in town), semiotics, and health insurance procedural meanders.)