semiotics

[aeon blue]

some lyrics in this song, toward the end, the references to cutting it or (i hear 'love' , sometimes) in two... makes me consider the linguistic work of the post structuralists and semioticians. barthes, baudrillard, but also the psychoanalytic, that is ego-building effect this has on us.. as analysed in depth by jacques lacan. they talk about how language essentially divides all external reality into binary oppositions, ultimately based around a 'self/other' dichotomy. inevitably, one is always privaleged in favour of the other. so, being general, you would define certain political beliefs, musical tastes, identity decisions (concious or not) as 'self', and subconciously define everything else as 'other'. whilst it looks like you're choosing what you want and externalising everything else, its often the case that its the other way round. they feed off each other, to the point where it doesn't so much matter what you've defined as self/other, good/bad, right/wrong, love/hate, etc- especially when culture and language, inescapably, mould you in this tradition. its catch 22 and even the indulgent postmodernism of bricolage inevitably fetishises culture and is horribly middle class in doing so.

i've ranted.

thoughts?

[Lauris]

Funny how no one has any thoughts.
still, maybe because my english is not so good, i didnt get the conection of baudrillard with this song? On that way you can conect everyhing to this song like Kants categories?

[Athanatizein]

There is a distinct message of monism in this album in my impression. A revolt against the I/thee dichotomy. See for instance my attempted rant of an analysis of Intension for a related line of thinking.

[aeon blue]

absolutley. i'd agree with monism suggestion; i think theres a lot of reference to states surrounding psychosis; and certainly monism can be seen as the philosophical outlook most akin to that...like living vicariously, its not that everyone else isn't real and products of your imaginations- as in with solipsism - more than despite being part of this world, you've self analysed and thought and thought to the point you're detached from it, or at least you believe that.

about the binary thing i mentioned. especially 'right in two' talks about eden, and cutting love in two. i was thinking of the original jewish text of genesis. the original human creation was called 'hadama' which evolved into the english adam, from whom came eve, etc. hadama translates very roughly as an agendered being. both adam and eve, simultaneously, before human linguistic rationale came in (tree of knowledge, fall from plenitude and grace) and cut everything in the world, but most notably, gender and identity, clear in two. before that there was unity. after that, only loss and disassociation.

[Athanatizein]

The psychosis reference has struck me as well. Instead of interpreting Rosetta Stoned as well... a song about LSD/DTM or whatever, I skip the causal mechanism and look at the de facto (and all too familiar) psychosis as the most important part of that song. Schizophrenia, for instance, is in some cases characterized by the delusion of voices, and one prominent theory of why this happens is that a purported orbitofrontal/cingulate/thalamic network breaks down. This network is presumed to be a substrate of the experience of 'self', including such things as predicting ones own actions and thoughts. This, again, results in, losely, a consciousness where the 'self' is more or less disengaged from the organism- the organism thus acting as unity in the 'released' parts, something the remaining linguistical, predicate based 'self' finds somewhat disturbing, or course. Well, anyhow the point of this is that it seems possible to break free of the constraints of language in psychosis of the right sort. LSD- trips and schizophrenia are closely related, neurochemically and -structurally as well as (reportedly) phenomenologically.

Rosetta Stoned, as such, seems a reasonable depiction of a language-free consciousness returned. A comical depiction, of course, but still. :)

The 'hadama' thing is interesting, if only in its archetypal interpretation. Might be a vestige of the time when language awoke proper and became fuzed with, or created, consciousness and categorization proper. I can't remember exactly where at the moment, but there has been some reasoned speculation in the origins of the religious myths of higher communication being an outspringing of language being reined in by or connected to a coevoluted ability- say for instance that language originally was an exclusively motoric/habitual/semantic ability (based on basal gangila and prefrontal circuits, presumably), that gradually became connected with the spatial/phenomenological ability of imagery (ostensibily a parieto-temporal ability) through the continuing expansion of the frontal lobe, finally creating the tempo-frontal circuit we all love and know as working memory/analytic consciousness at this day. Given the serotonergic functioning of LSD (the Hoffman reference is... blatant), this might just result in precisely the disruption of the fronto-temporal links (medial temporal > basilary gangilia > prefrontal) by strengthening the imagistic circuitries of the hindbrain (presumably through reticulo-thalamic connections), and thus facilitating the experienced one-ness of observation without position- of perspective without atom.

Bit of a rant. Point is, we agree. :)

[Dr. Jake Destructo]

So basically..Self detaches from organism, connects with other?

Or am I way off?

[Window Licker]

i've ranted.
thoughts?

Yes, you ranted. You made no attempt to connect your little linguistics book review to the song. Do some analysis on the song and there might be something to talk about.

[Athanatizein]

So basically..Self detaches from organism, connects with other?

Or am I way off?

More like, 'self' breaks the loop of self-referential, analytic consciousness and rejoins an organic consciousness, i.e. one of process rather than atom, of movement rather than location. Consider it a neurobiological permutation of Heraclitus, Nietzsche and Whitehead. :)

Sorry, I didn't explain it any good the first time, and not this time either. Sleep also has a nice something to do with serotonin efficacy. I'll try to make a less incoherent post later. Naturalist explanations of spiritual phenomena are always oh so much fun.

[aeon blue]

Yes, you ranted. You made no attempt to connect your little linguistics book review to the song. Do some analysis on the song and there might be something to talk about.

im not changing how i write to accomodate you.

fucking interpret it yourself. thiiiiiink. im providing metaphors, yeah.

[T-13h]

I'm of two minds about this thread...

[aeon blue]

I'm of two minds about this thread...

im listening.

[BallsOfSatan]

Both of you are completely full of horse shit. overcomplicating things just to make yourselves look superior. shame on you. If Maynard reads this, I can picture him sticking his index finger down his throat.