After Assimilation...

The Meaning of Meaning

We

saw how one word, that of the

'Jaguar'

could take over the realm of another word

'car'

and imbue it with new meanings. We saw how something on a different level -

the frame of a picture, for example, could do the same for the picture

it contains. It contains the Meaning it wants you to Focus on.

The gallery it hangs in, too, says something about it.

It may not take it over to the same extent,

but you know that what you

see hanging in the

Art Society of the Upper

Wisbury Women's Institute will

not be a van Gogh or a Gainsborough.

The blurb in the catalog will also take it

over in its own way - and if the painting has

a deep hidden meaning which had previously

escaped you, then it may take it over to

a great extent. This will be the

Meaning that comes to

mind when the

picture is next referred to.

In each

case a 'Title' on one level

appropriates a Realm on another. The

Title becomes the container for some or much of its Meaning -

the

bit it

wants

you to

Focus

on.

And the longer its 'ownership' goes unchallenged

the more automatic that Meaning

will become, and the less

conscious. Until

it is simply

Habit.

With Zero Focus

.

Its place in episodic, conscious memory has faded,

and it exists just in conceptual, unconscious memory. There is no longer any Focus on its

ownership, and the two are equated.

Which is very useful if the Title is a word,

written or spoken, because this makes language possible.

The Realm the word refers to is part of our real world,

but it can be said a lot quicker. It is like the

title of a book.

Imagine for a moment you have been

asked to write a book. More than a book, a treatise on Love. You

need to describe in this book every act of love that has taken place between two people

- acts of passion or tenderness, acts of sharing and concern, trust and

compromise, every love token given, every physical and mental

sign that love has offered... It would require countless volumes. And then your

publisher wants you to extend it to include every aspect of

love between a person and the objects and hobbies

they love. And between owners and

their pets, and between one animal and another, too.

And say you achieve this monumental task,

and arrive at her office with a truck load of volumes...

and she says... 'no one will read that!

Précis it down to one volume!'

And you complain and moan, but do

it as best you can. And then

on presenting this

masterpiece you

are told to précis it further.

Down to just one word.

Laughable, right?

Certainly impossible?

But of course, that is exactly

what we do every time we use the word...

'love'.

The word is just the Title of the

book, the word is the owner of the

Realm of all that episodic memory,

all that conscious experience

reduced down to a sign

which elicits no

more than a

shadow

of itself - its definition,

its unconscious,

conceptual

memory.

If the Title

is the word 'car', then whatever it may

look like,  the image we invoke when hearing it, if any, is weak.

The word 'car', and any other word we take literally, is a Hidden Portal.

It is handled by conceptual memory, and we hardly notice.

Indeed, we cross such Hidden Portals every

time we utter or hear a word. It is

 the stuff of language.

But if you want

 to bring this Hidden Portal

into the light, bring Focus on it, then

use a metaphor. Call me a human being, or a man,

or a graphic designer, or an art director, then no challenge.

It's what I conventionally 'am', it's habitual, no conscious

thought needed. But if you call me a pig... then is

that because you think I am dirty,

or behave with rudeness, or

because you collect pigs,

or because you have

a Lectoresque

fascination with bacon,

or because you are

... in love?

By giving me the title 'pig',

conventional ownership HAS been challenged,

and I want to know exactly what this new ruler of my Realm

means... Which vital part of me is likely to be affected?

Will my cheek be slapped, or all of me

be either rejected, or collected,

or made love to by a frog?

 Or worse, is a prime

slice of my rump

on the menu?

Yes, it's the Surge...

the Surge you find immediately the other side of a

Portal. A Portal that is in Focus,

of course, not one that is

Hidden.

Focus is

stimulated by the

unexpected ownership

of me by this porcine appellative,

and I am in confusion over the

multitude of meanings it

could bring.

And along with this

Am-pig-uity

(sorry)

there comes human

exploratory behaviour,

episodic memory, the Storyteller

...and consciousness.

So

the Meaning of

'Meaning'?

Meaning is Assimilation. The

Assimilation of one Realm by another.

Literal meaning is when the Assimilation

was so sneaky, or so long ago that

you thought things were

always that way.

Metaphorical meaning

is when there is a coup in

progress.

"Thereby appears the nature of meaning:

it is a force which attempts to subjugate other forces,

other meanings, other languages. The force of meaning depends

on its degree of systematization: the strongest meaning

is the one whose systematization includes a large

number of elements, to the point where it

appears to include everything

noteworthy in the world:

thus great ideological systems which

battle each other with strokes of meaning. The

model for this [..in literature..] is always the "scene," the endless confrontation

of two different codes communicating solely through their interlockings,

the adjustment of their limits..."

[R. Barthes "S/Z" translated by Richard Miller, p154]