Thursday, March 25, 2021
Theory of the structure of symbols and trans generational teaching /learning
---------- Forwarded message -
From: c b
Date: Tue, Jan 18, 2011 at 4:48 PM
Subject: Theory of the structure of symbols and transgenerational
teaching/learning
Christopher ,
Here's another brief statement of my theory of the origin of the human
symbol as a means of teaching future generations without direct
imitation. We don't have to reinvent the wheel. A smart chimp might
invent the wheel, but would have difficulty passing it on to future
generations.
Charles
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/marxism-thaxis/2008-June/022333.html
CB : See also http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2017/09/symbolic-inheritance.html?m=1
/////
http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/05/culturally-inherited-adaptations-give.html
///
http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2020/12/differentia-specifica-of-human-species.html
^^^
CB: The principle of the arbitrariness of the sign or in English, the
symbol, is not only from structuralism. Leslie White, a founder of a
main school of anthropology also articulated this principle. And symbols
in this sense are a main characteristic of culture ( that which socially
constructs , to put it in terms of a frequent refrain on this list.) as
well as language. Both culture and language are systems of symbols
(signs). And , importantly, the human species is defined by its
possession of culture or custom or tradition. No other species has
language or culture. So, signing or symboling , in the forms of both
language and culture, is our species defining activity. And,
importantly , also, most of human _learning_ is through symbols,
culture, _not_ by imitating, like other species. Not by "monkey-see,
monkey do" imitation. Most of our learning ( as opposed to inborn or
genetically based knowledge) is through culture, not from experience.
And cultural learning is learning from the experience of other people,
including learning from people who are now dead.
Just to further explain the concept of arbitrariness, it refers to the
relationship between the signifier and the signified. So, if the sounds
d-o-g are used to refer to things that are dogs, we see that those
sounds do not "imitate" or are not naturally related to dogs. The
arbitrariness of a sign refers to the fact that in a sign something is
used to represent something that it is not. Two _different_ things are
arbitrarily identified, treated as the _same_. Note that this is a unity
or identity of opposites of the dialectic.
So, culture or human social "constructivity" consists in an enormous
system of signs or symbols.
I have theorized that the reason culture became our unique
characteristic is that once some homind discovered them way, way back
when, they were highly adaptive because they allowed past generations to
pass on their experience to future generations across the "death
barrier" .
Why ? Because a symbol represents something by something it is not (
the arbitrary relation between signifier and signified) So, a living
generation can learn from a symbol about the experience of dead
generations, when it could not learn from imitating the dead, since the
dead aren't able to demonstrate things to be learned, obviously, because
they are dead. But since a symbol uses something, a signifier, to
represent something that it is not, the signified, because of this
_arbitrary_ ( non-imitative) relation, the dead ancestor's
"demonstration" can be learned by the living descendent through the
signifier, through the thing (word or cultural object) that is _not_ the
dead ancestor.
Cultural learning allows us to learn from the experience of many,
many...many of our ancestors. This was its main adaptive advantage when
our species originated in founding culture.
Culture also allowed learning more from other living members of the
species. Human children could learn a lot more from their parents than
other species, who were restricted to teaching their young by
demonstration and imitation. Other species have to "give a picture" or
demonstration of what they are teaching. That a signifier is not what it
signifies means it communicates by a non-picture or non-imitation of
what it represents.
You heard it here first (smile)
http://take10charles.blogspot.com/2021/05/culturally-inherited-adaptations-give.html
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment