CHRONICLE
The metasystems theory II
THE MEANING OF MEANING
This is the title of the book of Richard and Ogden about the various definitions of the word, which are as numerous than those of the word "system".
The general concept of meaning deals with De Saussure statement about the nature of language. For the first and the greatest pioneer of the linguists, a word as a sentence, a symbol or a sign, are like the both sides of a sheet of paper : the first is the signified SG the second the signifier SN. When you cut the sheet with scissors you cut in the same time the two sides.
The signified SG bears the meaning. It is the object itself: a cow, a headache, your mother... The SN is what stands for the signifier : the words [COW] or [MUCCA] or [VACCA] or the drawing of a cow... or the sentence [MAL DI TESTA],or [MAMMA], [MUTTER] etc... The SN can be too a statue, a drawing, a painting, a symbol etc.
In the set theory the relations between the SG and the SN is named a mapping and the various kind of mapping describe approximatively the typologies of meanings.
The systems theory add complexity to the concept of mapping, because one's consider not only the mapping between the elements of the first and second set, but too the mapping of the relations (structure or characteristic). In other words, the relation between the word (or the model) and the thing, can vary from a purely conventional (code) to a trompe-l'oeil which leads to fraud and deceit.
You remember perharps that there was in ancient Greece a contest between Phidias the greatest sculptor of the classical style and another talented artist. The day of the contest, two paintings were exhibited, both hidden behind a red curtain. The Phidias challenger pulled the curtain of his masterpiece, and a magnificent bunch appear, so lifelike that very soon the painting was covered by a lot of birds, which wanted to pick up the grape. Under a thunderous applause the triumphant artist summoned Phidias : open your curtain, and show us if you can surpass my tour de force! But Phidias did not move and the curtain was closed. "Draw the curtain! " protested the assistance. Phidias told them : it is the painting you see, the curtain is the painting. If my challenger deceived birds, I deceived men.
As I tried to tell it, this story is revealing of the present mix up of reality and fiction. More and more, people confuses virtual images and facts and reality. But the birds could not eat painted grapes, and you cannot grasp the feeling and humanity which permeates the on-live concert or the real love. Pornography on the screen kills sensuality and even sex.
I would like to give you another revealing example of the confusion between reality (the Signified) and the model which stands for it (The Signifier).
You know what voodoo is. A shaman or a wizard moulds the image of an enemy. This small statue is the model of the real man. When the wizard drives a stake into the heart of the figurine with a long needle, the enemy will be felled by a heart attack, and in a similar way if it is the brain that is touched, the enemy could be struck by a brain desease.
THE MAGICAL THINKING
It appears when we believe that the word (or the symbol) could retain properties for the thing. I.e. that when the reality could be substitued by a mediator. Alfred Korzybski and S.E. Hayakawa, were the most celebrated researcher in the field of the discipline named Semantics which explores the relations between the signs and symbols and what they represent. General Semantics, founded by Korzybski, struggles against the pitfalls of abstraction. He points to an object and declares : "Don't say this is a pant, show it with your fingers! The meaning is not the word, it is the thing!"
An American told ten years ago to a japanese engineer : "You're great! You get a computer for the price of a steak. " The japanese answered smiling : "We are miserable. We sell a steak for the price of a computer! But nobody can eat a computer!"
WHY MODERN ECONOMY IS A MAGIC THINKING ?
One of my colleagues at Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers, in Paris, the celebrated Jacques Lesourne, a national glory, made a scandal. He claimed at his inaugural lesson, that one of factor of success in a entreprise was the quality of the management. For the economist orthodoxy, only external measurable factors were admitted. Dogma was most important of common sense, not to speak of reality.
Nothing is changed in the magic world of finance and of economy. In a study of monetary evolution, in the last papers, I demonstrated how the link between the sign (the coin or the numerical computerized statement) was built, then enriched by aesthetic and propaganda values, until the money unit was deprived of all its substance. The gold standard which insured the link between the signifier (the coin, or the numerical computerized statement) and the signified (the gold, military power,worldwide domination, industrial wealth) or, in the archaïc era, between 650 BC, a bull, a wife or two slaves.
When the US had to affront the enormous expenditures of Vet-Nam war, all the gold of Fort Knox was in shortage, it was not sufficient enough to insure the convertibility of dollar in gold. Instead of stopping the war, or reduce government and military expenditures, they decreed the breaking of the semantic link between Signifier and signified. (Bretton Woods, 1944)
Henceforth the meaning of a signifier was a signifier! They could print banknotes ad infinitum .
To tell the truth, the signifier doesn't always stand for another signifier, but with a virtual, ghostly signified. For example, the counterpart of the banknote, is not the gold or any physical good, but hope of future huge benefits, the conviction that the country cannot collapse, that monetary system will be inescapable, that, as all wants the monetary worldwide organization it will be eternal.
Unfortunately this is wishful thinking. Nowadays, the states are in bankrupcy, and rich of debts. The computer and electronic industry don't creates any wealth, but the hope to reduce costs, hope all the time deceived. The Central Banks don't help producers of real wealth, as cars, houses for middle class, schools or planes, but bankers which are responsible of present state of affairs. If technology is well oriented with sustained development, it degenerates with internet, gigantic servers etc...
A proof of the artificiality of the economic system, is that it plays with soap bubbles. A pinprick is sufficient to reduce it at a vacuum cleaning state. Consider the Lehmann Brothers case. The hatred of two men, was enough to get rid of a prosperous bank 150 years old. Years of dedicated work and ultracompetent employees were destroyed in few days. What remained was empty space, complete vacuum. Why?
It is because the vacuum was yet in the bank, as in other banks. The activity of the bank represented figures, numbers, accounting units, not anything you could touch, feel, eat or use for your pleasure and every day life.
It would be much more difficult to get rid of machines, ground, in a car factory! Hatred would be not sufficient, the only thing it would do, is a transfer of share holders. The material goods and services would leave a trace.
NEXT NOTES
HOW TO GET RID OF THE INTERNET?
WHY A MONETARY SYSTEM?
THE POWER OF THE MASS DISTRACTION ARMS
THE SEMANTIC THRESHOLD
Bruno Lussato
