David Abram: The Alphabet, the Mind and the World

[MacCruiskeen]

No worries, slimmouse, and thanks for your kind words. I'd just ask you to read the interview through carefully if you're going to comment on it again, because the conversation is long and the argument is subtle and convoluted (and at times a bit rambling). But I think Abram's onto something quite profound there - as is Shlain, and as are several other people interviewed at that fascinating website. It will take me days if not weeks to work through it, not least because I'm very busy with other stuff offline. Right now, my only real response to it is: "Wow! Look at this!" I posted it at RI both as a reminder to myself and in the hopes of getting responses (and leads) I couldn't myself have anticpated from other people who may have knowledge or intuition I myself don't have.

Anyway, Abram did not imply what you suspect he implies, as the lines immediately following the bolded sentence -- and indeed the whole interview -- make clear. The entire thrust of what he's saying is anti-reductionist.

[tazmic]

I couldn't find where I first heard [I mean read, but I do subvocalize] Burroughs talk [write!] about this, so this bit of Burroughs will have to do:

"The proposed language will delete these virus mechanisms and make them impossible of formulation in the language. This language will be a tonal language like Chinese, it will also have a hieroglyphic script as pictorial as possible without being too cumbersome or difficult to write. This language will give one option of silence. When not talking, the user of this language can take in the silent images of the written, pictorial and symbol languages."

http://fendersen.com/Electronic.htm

I always wondered if it was naive to think that a Chinese reader didn't (have to) subvocalize. Any Chinese readers around?

[Wombaticus Rex]

^^The Job discusses that @ length. It's an incredible book for many other reasons, too, but those passages were exceptional.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Job:_I ... _Burroughs

And what then is the written word? My basic theory is that the written word was literally a virus that made spoken word possible. The word has not been recognized as a virus because it has achieved a state of stable symbiosis with the host... (This symbiotic relationship is now breaking down for reasons I will suggest later.)

I quote from Mechanisms of Virus Infection edited by Mr. Wilson Smith, a scientist who really thinks about his subject instead of merely correlating data. He thinks, that is, about the ultimate intentions of the virus organism. In an article entitled "Virus Adaptibility and Host Resistance" by G. Belyavin, speculations as to the biologic goal of the virus species are enlarged: "Viruses are obligatory cellular parasites and are thus wholly dependant upon the integrity of the cellular systems they parasitize for their survival in an active state. It is something of a paradox that many viruses ultimately destroy the cells in which they are living..."

And I may add the environment necessary for any cellular structure they could parasitize to survive. Is the virus then simply a time bomb left on this planet to be activated by remote control? An extermination program in fact? In its path from full virulence to its ultimate goal of symbiosis will any human creature survive? Is the white race, which would seem to be more under virus control than the black yellow and brown races, giving any indication of workable symbiosis?

Taking the virus eye view, the ideal situation would appear to be one in which the virus replicates in cells without in any way disturbing their normal metabolism.

"This has been suggested as the ideal biological situation toward which all viruses are slowly evolving..."

Would you offer violence to a well intentioned virus on its slow road to symbiosis?

"It is worth noting that if a virus were to attain a state of wholly benign equilibrium with its host cell it is unlikely that its presence would be readily detected or that it would necessarily be recognized as a virus. I suggest that the word is just such a virus.

Doktor Kurt Unruh von Steinplatz has put forth an interesting theory as to the origins and history of this word virus. He postulates that the word was a virus of what he calls biologic mutation effecting the biologic change in its host which was then genetically conveyed. One reason that apes can't talk is because the structure of their inner throats is simply not designed to formulate words. He postulates that alteration in inner throat structure were occasioned by virus illness... And not occasion...

This illness may well have had a high rate of mortality but some female apes must have survived to give birth to the wunder kindern. The illness perhaps assumed a more malignant form in the male because of his more developed and rigid muscular structure causing death through strangulation and vertebral fracture. Since the virus in both male and female precipitates sexual frenzy through irritation of sex centers in the brain the males impregnated the females in their death spasms and the altered throat structure was genetically conveyed.

Having effected alterations in the host's structure that resulted in a new species specially designed to accomodate the virus the virus can now replicate without disturbing the metabolism and without being recognized a virus. A symbiotic relationship has now been established and the virus is now built into the host which sees the virus as a useful part of itself. This successful virus can now sneer at gangster viruses like small pox and turn them in to The Pasteur Institute. Ach jungen what a scene is here... the apes are moulting fur steaming off them females whimpering and slobbering over dying males like cows with aftosa and so a stink musky sweet rotten metal stink of the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden...

[Perelandra]

I'm well aware, by the way, that I'm not really presenting any kind of cogent argument here myself. I am just fascinated by various ideas opened up by David Abrams, many of which are pretty new to me, or at least presented from an angle that's new to me, and which I find illuminating.

There's lots more very interesting stuff at that site. This is from an interview with Dr. Leonard Shlain:

I read Shlain's book a few years ago and was unimpressed. In order to save you time, here's a bit from one of the many bad reviews of it, which fairly sums it up.

Shlain has written a really entertaining book that covers a lot of ground, and synthesizes several disciplines. But the basic problem is that very very many of the "facts" cited in support of his arguments are demonstrably false, and that he doesn't bother noting or dealing with the many counterexamples and counterarguments that spring to mind. The author demonstrates profound ignorance of evolution (espousing Lamarckian principles that were discredited a century ago by Darwin), biology (arguing that a "metaphorical" equivalence for which even he must admit that there is no evidence is somehow relevant), history and linguistics. Things are pretty bad when somebody can take apart a page and demonstrate that every single sentence is factually untrue!

That said, I appreciate your OP and will spend some time on those articles. Thanks, Mac.

[tazmic]

^^The Job discusses that @ length. It's an incredible book for many other reasons, too, but those passages were exceptional.

Thanks But I got distracted looking it up....

"But what's right here, right here and from here out is this thing which, no matter how much science fiction you've done, no matter how much William Burroughs you've read, no matter how much time you've spent in the company of the weird, the bizarre, the autre, and the peculiar, you weren't ready."

"Something comes out of you, and you discover you can do it, that you can use language to condense objects into existence in this space."

"What these creatures want, according to them, is they want us to transform our language somehow. And I don't know what this means. I mean, at this point in the weekend and in my life, we all are on the cutting edge, and nobody is ahead of anybody else. Clearly we need to transform our language, because our culture is created by our language, and our culture is toxic, murderous, and on a downhill bummer. Somehow we need to transform our language..."

http://deoxy.org/t_weeke1.htm

[MacCruiskeen]

Thanks, Perelandra, but that authoritative "review" you cite is a casual comment by the reader Joe Blow (or something) at Amazon. As is well known, anyone is allowed to have any opinion whatsoever (however valuable or worthless) about anything whatsoever, not least at Amazon. That's the glory of Freedom. But it may be worth pointing out that the average review of Shlain's book gives it four stars.

This is neither a defence of nor an attack on Dr. Leonard Shlain, of whom I know next to nothing. I haven't read his book, and I only skimmed the (very lengthy) interview I cited. But I find what he says interesting and not easily dismissable, and I am less than convinced by anonymous Joe Blows who pose as Renaissance Men* and who say, essentially, "That frog prick Lamarck was a total loooooooser, Darwin totally pwned him!!!!" So call me unEnlightened.

*Yup, it's always men, or nearly always.

[Perelandra]

I wouldn't dream of your being "convinced" by a single review. It was an example of several areas in which the author makes serious errors, with which I mostly agreed and took issue back when I read it. It's been so long that if I were to attempt to furnish my own criticism, I'd have to re-read the book, but I don't plan on it. Just my opinion, as you note.

Looking forward to reading the Abram interview, though.

[MacCruiskeen]

OK, Perelandra. Pardon my tetchiness. We live in tetchy times (not that that's an excuse).

[Wombaticus Rex]

I thought we were full circle on Lamarck in 2011? Epigenetics, right?



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/genes/

I really don't think it's as clear cut as "DARWIN PWNT THAT SHIT" -- Lamarck formulated his theories demonstrably wrong based on limited knowledge at the time, but his concept has traction (and experimental validation) once again.

From their "Ask an Expert" FAQ:

Q: Is there any evidence that mental activity, as opposed to nutrition or exposure to environmental hazards, affects children? Is, say, the child of a chess player likely to be better at chess than someone who does not play?
Steven Meyer, Melbourne, Australia

Q: The discredited Russian geneticist Trofim Lysenko claimed to have discovered that acquired characteristics could be inherited. Is it possible that he may in fact have discovered some phenomena (behind all his false science) that were true after all?
Paul Sinclair, Austin, Texas

A: The chess player scenario is another example of the French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck's theory of the inheritance of acquired characteristics where individuals are proposed to inherit the traits of their ancestors. For example, this theory proposes that giraffes have long necks because they were gradually lengthened by stretching to eat leaves high up in trees—an adaptive trait then inherited by their offspring. It also claims that sons of blacksmiths have well-developed arm muscles because their fathers strengthened those muscles through their work. The theory of Lamarckism was revived in the Soviet Union during the 1930s by agronomist Trofim Lysenko, because it was compatible with Stalin's ideological opposition to genetics.

Epigenetic regulation of genes acquired during early development is inherited not only during cell division (mitotic inheritance), but it also can be passed on from one generation to the next (meiotic inheritance). (For review see: Whitelaw, N.C., & Whitelaw, E., Hum. Mol. Genet. 15 (Spec. No 2): R131-R137, 2006.) Nevertheless, there is no evidence that enhanced human parental mental activity in adulthood increases the mental acuity of their children through the inheritance of acquired epigenetic traits. It remains to be seen if additional epigenetic research elevates Lamarck's stature in the field of evolution.

[The Consul]

Spell of the Sensuous was cool and quite readable. Perhaps this will be, perhaps not.

[Perelandra]

^^I think I have that book, although it may be stored in a box at present. Now I have to go search a bit.

Pardon my tetchiness.

Already done.

[TheDuke]

This sense of a vast interior to the human being, I think, is also an inheritance from the alphabet itself.

And in a simple sweeping sentence the cart is put in front of the horse (for most of humanity at least ) , and the chicken and egg problem is apparently resolved

slimmouse, did you read any of that very lengthy interview at all before pissing on it, or just the one short line I myself had bolded in the one short extract I posted here? I think we should be told. Because cherrypicking doesn't get much easier than what you just did there, in "a single sweeping sentence".

Firstly Mac, Let me just say that I have nothing but respect for you as a poster. I read youre offerings on this board as a matter of priority.

However, and perhaps its my age, that sentence and the like really sticks in my claw. Perhaps I misunderstood, but it strikes me as he's implying that the "vast interior of the human being" is some kind of mythical fairytale despite the tangible evidence of something intrinsically magical - such as the very product he then proceeds to wax so lyrically about.

If this is indeed his inference then perhaps the ha'penny and the cake is a metaphor well employed here.

craw

[crikkett]

That's the thesis of my book, The Alphabet versus the Goddess. If you look in history and see what happened, the first book that was ever written in an alphabet is the Old Testament. That's about 900 BC. In this book, the most important centerpiece is the Ten Commandments.

Seriously, the Old Testament was the first book ever written in an alphabet, even though cuneiform had by then been around for 2,000 years? And what about the Rg Veda, thought to date between 1700-1100 BC? (so sez wikipedia)

That's quite a declaration from Dr. Leonard Shlain, to brag that he wrote a whole book on such an easily disprovable premise.

If he's so off-base right from the start, should I even bother continuing to read this guy?

[Stephen Morgan]

That's the thesis of my book, The Alphabet versus the Goddess. If you look in history and see what happened, the first book that was ever written in an alphabet is the Old Testament. That's about 900 BC. In this book, the most important centerpiece is the Ten Commandments.

Seriously, the Old Testament was the first book ever written in an alphabet, even though cuneiform had by then been around for 2,000 years?

Cuneiform is a syllabary, not an alphabet. Alphabets were first developed by the Phoenicians, or Canaanites, and presumably began life being used for receipts, shipping lades and account books, like cuneiform and linear B and most other early languages. The Bible may conceivably, but unprovably, be the first book written in an alphabet for appropriate values of "first", "book" and "alphabet". Also "in". And "a".

And what about the Rg Veda, thought to date between 1700-1100 BC? (so sez wikipedia)

Composed, in song form, not written down in an alphabetic script.

That's quite a declaration from Dr. Leonard Shlain, to brag that he wrote a whole book on such an easily disprovable premise.

If he's so off-base right from the start, should I even bother continuing to read this guy?

Might as well, if you've got nothing better to do.

[JackRiddler]

.

Mac, been reading it in sections and quite happy with the thought provocation. Thank you.

.