h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

//OOD: LJ is dead, long live h2g2

I have to write this down, as its absolutely earth shattering.
I was thinking about abstractions, and abstract art and all the reading I have been doing of late. Abstract art is one of these topics that most people seem to not understand. But I was thinking today, just now, is perhaps this the reason for abstract art! Why not? I mean if people are always interpreting things, and trying to figure out how things can help them and why they want to buy that brand instead of this one why not be abstract about it? Why not just say to yourself "well its all abstract anyway, I may as well buy it." is that what we as a whole are thinking? Is that the entire problem? Are we becoming to abstract? Aristotle certainly started this way back in 356 BC, he showed how we abstract things with words. For example we say a man is a type of animal, and a ox is a type of animal and thus they are related words, these words in Aristotle's own words are related "Equivocally", that means that they have a common "abstract" name, but there definition is different. This is said even in communication theory as the sign, signifier and the signified. You will remember my last rant whereby I proved by abstraction that the entire world is run on a given number of unknowns and knows and that each unknown has at least another known that should be know, but might not be. This is a terribly confusing affair and I can say that going back and reading it even makes my head scratch. But on meditation today I found that if abstract was really what we were doing, abstracting things, then why do we still need symbols and signifiers and signs? To explain:
A sign is something that points to something, that is if a dog is labeled with the word "cat" that is a sign. Although you recognize this a wrong, but how? Its to do with the signifier.
A signifier is something that represents something else, almost like a metaphor.
Something that is signified is something that is already represented.
It has come to my attention that Aristotle was probably the first communication theorist. I have started reading him and seeing how many people who claim they were the inventor of communication theory X, and I say now quite happily that we have invented nothing. Quite like when renaissance painters who thought they had just invented perspective, went into a cave with paintings and there on the wall around a bend was a perfectly proportioned drawing of a ox. The quote in the paper the next day from the artists impression on the cave drawings was "We have invented nothing." I have a rather nicer way of putting this, and that is that "the former self reborn, you find yourself starting back." Quite a number of people claim its called a revolution, but I rather like to think of it as a sudden realization. And of course who can forget context or the setting of communication acts. That is an artwork in a art gallery is going to mean different things to you than a artwork at your house, or a artwork in a store, or a artwork like graffiti on a local underpass. If it was in a art gallery would you consider it art? Context can actually say that, yes you probably would. If this makes you feel like a mindless pink robot, don't disappear, its a perfectly ordinary thought.
Its much better that we see things abstractly sometimes, in some situations. But we are taking it, perhaps a bit to far. For example around the diner table last night we had a discussion about currency. Now as a big left winger, currency makes my fists itch, however I know its uses and means, however here are all these other people who "claim" to be left wing talking about how much they like credit cards. Credit cards to me are the most abstract form of currency there is. Why do you think so many people are in credit card debt? Because they can't see that the money is actually not real. That money you just payed with is not actually real. its a representation. When currency was invented it was used to represent food. That is, it was an abstraction from bartering banna's and camels to saying, this coin is worth one camel. And then it gets applied to work. This successes allowed the pyramids to be built. Without the coin there was no way of paying the workers (and before you say anything, yes they were paid) for the work they did in when they were not farming. This way they were able to get back to there land at the end of the months of work they did, and had money for what they had done, and used it to purchase more tools, better weapons, etc. Its what made the Egyptian empire so great. The Romans copied them and the Persians and so on. And its quite possible that the Aztec and other tribes of south and central America did as well. So this progress was not in fact overrated. But with all good things comes a bad thing. Now we represent currency with numbers (which we borrowed from the Arabs) and print on paper (both the printing press and the paper were borrowed from China) and we used them in our own way. Without the society to use them in this way the chinese did not have the same revolution the printing press brought to us. The printing press took us out of what many now call "the dark times" or as history chooses to call it "the dark ages". With the printing press the Lutheran church and other protestant churches were able to be set up, with the printing press, everyone suddenly needed to learn to read (so public education was soon invented), with the printing press we were able to invent the stock market, which allowed for the British to have such a large fleet, which in turn colonized Australia, which in turn allowed for my birth, and consequently computers, and finally the internet and this rant. This has meant that I came to the conclusion today that quite a lot of the world is so abstract now that we can quite happily even abstract ourselves. For example we try and fit into a stereotype, we try and buy things that people of this stereotype buy, and like things that people of this stereotype like, ect. So it came no surprise to me that after three years of leftist thinking and general annoyance at every other party that I came to decision to join the green party (I still have not, but I will be in 7 days, photographs of my green party card as promised) and have already started thinking like a green, that is I have joined the green-peace cyber activist forum and also the Australian conservation society forum, frequently visit the wildlife fund for nature site and for that matter the UN and other such things. And because I know so much about how people act like they want to, I often wonder if this is really me? or am I just making it all up in some sort of elaborate dance or act, and today because of abstraction I realized that It didn't really matter, its all abstract anyway.
Enjoy the Abstract

As I have already commented...

Notice how the previous rant on LJ isn't here or on the official rant page?