I perused an article on the mystery of the evolution of language. Big names in the by-line. They used narrow parameters to define and distinguish the human form of language. Discrete infinity and recursion. There was something that didn’t add up, a dis-harmonious flavor even if distant, in that deleanation. Something about perspective. I go for a walk.
There are lots of carabinieri around - we are in Rome, there is tension - they have armored vehicles covered with rapid-shooting cameras. A bit comical, really, to me anyway. All pumped up, the policemen, those chosen to maintain order if anything, all full of flesh and tattoos. Like Saturday night live Hans and Franz-es. I pass close by. They form groups that from afar, and even up close, resemble nothing less than red and black oversized Smurfs. A comic strip. Too bad they’re not out performing a public service. It would be useful. Then maybe they would inspire a bit of respect. Like this…they mostly provoke at best just a vague human pity. An excuse for their role, a bit like Chaplin. Symbols. Or a symbol. Like instruments waiting. And in the waiting…what are they?
Phenotypes of language. English, Mandarin, Australian aboriginal languages. So similar in syntax, after all. And different from those of other animals, in function, in learning, at least maintaining a narrow point of view instead of a general one, that is, that definition, the one in which articulation is distinguished from intent. The discrete infinite. And yet…isn't that recursive system strongly conditioned by perspective? That is, if a recursive system is not visible, if the observer is not between two mirrors that look at each other infinitely and does not see the reflections - that system becomes very defined. And not very infinite. And if you include intent, and therefore also at least a part of articulation, in certain cases wouldn't there be the possibility that the phenotypic differences of languages between two people even using the same language are greater than those of the different languages themselves? Using words or gestures, how much would my intent, and my language, have in common with that of the muscular Smurfs in the square, especially in a group? Recursiveness. (see recursion, or recursion. Or for mine see that of John, or that of John...)
I cross the square. Head always down - I'm already someone who walks detachedly, often head down or looking up plus these days I'm down-down for my own reasons, and carry an almost absent voice, I always have to repeat myself with others - the voice on a short string. So my head is.... Waaay low. A small group of high school kids comes toward me. They don't move on from the sidewalk. Of course. A guy with a head so low like mine poses no danger. I move.
Then I plop up the stairs- the steps all done by hand hundreds of years ago. I'm the only idiot climbing under the hot sun. Others are sitting in the little shade there is, some come down after having seen that white-white building so, so absurd that looks like a cross between a Polish typewriter and an Hungarian wedding cake. ‘The altar of the fatherland.’ I climb up next to it, a Rocky Balboa in flip-flops, to the top - without having a heart attack, (close but I pretended not to be winded,) despite the Marlboros and the lack of exercise the previous week. I go inside the church.
There’s a wedding. They will be of middle-high social class,given the place and the clothes inside. The priest talks about reproduction as being a part of marriage. The bride expresses a sort of amazement with her body you can note even through her beautiful, elaborate dress. Religions. I leave without approaching. A little deference.
The context of narrative. Changing the context changes the semantics - the significance it gives to symbols, gestures, words. To language. And then how you respond to them, symbols, languages. Recursion makes an initial leap- either here or there. The system changes - a little, in that moment. A head up with an intense gaze, broad shoulders and a firm step, maybe even different pheromones that proceed you - and a group of boys move out of the way instead of you. Remove a wedding from a church and certain thoughts have a different flavor. Because, I think, recursion is not the same thing as the stickiness of information once expressed. Narrative. Some species of primates enjoy watching movies but pay attention to the details in the scene. We instead tend to follow the characters on screen much more. We follow different stories. Different contexts. Same narrative.
There's some natural air conditioning up there, where there's the view of the ruins. The air is channeled between the church and the typewriter and blows hard in the shade. Beautiful view, on one side worked stones from ancient Rome and on the other the city and the dome of St Peters. I take a look at the ruins. Lots of tourists, young couples, girls relatively well dressed and all - but all - with painted toenails. (The red ones make me feel like I'm having to go through a food court in an American shopping mall. I already don't like shopping, except for wine and farmers markets. Add that smell of Chinese-MacDonalds-sour tomato sauce... it's like seeing an imitation of something that never existed. Or walking through a suburb in a one-color nightmare. Beige.) I'm wrong in thinking you can get off on the other side so I veer to the left.
There's a seagull perched on the wall. It's cleaning itself. I whisper 'Freddi' to it. He stops cleaning himself and looks at me. It won’t be Freddi, a seagull I met a while ago. But you never know. I lean against the wall and look at the holes, the Colosseum in the distance. A while ago.
Freddi did not respond to his name-not-name, at least as such, even if certain species of birds can identify a voice among thousands. I do not have access to his understanding. He looked at me, though. Narrative, the transmitter in the eternal present that excludes and at the same time describes other times, is something that distinguishes our species. A system that closes, within which there is a recourse, 'recursion', discreetly infinite, linked to, and closed in, its present. That changes, at times, in dialogue with the past and its influence, the way in which stickiness affects. Codification.
Language, ours, has evolved in that direction, merging structures and developing strategies step by step based on other circuits already in existence. Maybe. The reduction of contexts, from consonance to poetry, to words linked to affectivity, 'affect'. Expression is emergent, and it is there in that emergence, its articulation and at its service, where the engine of evolution will be found.
A little music for the coming summer. Light blues.
There are lots of carabinieri around - we are in Rome, there is tension - they have armored vehicles covered with rapid-shooting cameras. A bit comical, really, to me anyway. All pumped up, the policemen, those chosen to maintain order if anything, all full of flesh and tattoos. Like Saturday night live Hans and Franz-es. I pass close by. They form groups that from afar, and even up close, resemble nothing less than red and black oversized Smurfs. A comic strip. Too bad they’re not out performing a public service. It would be useful. Then maybe they would inspire a bit of respect. Like this…they mostly provoke at best just a vague human pity. An excuse for their role, a bit like Chaplin. Symbols. Or a symbol. Like instruments waiting. And in the waiting…what are they?
Phenotypes of language. English, Mandarin, Australian aboriginal languages. So similar in syntax, after all. And different from those of other animals, in function, in learning, at least maintaining a narrow point of view instead of a general one, that is, that definition, the one in which articulation is distinguished from intent. The discrete infinite. And yet…isn't that recursive system strongly conditioned by perspective? That is, if a recursive system is not visible, if the observer is not between two mirrors that look at each other infinitely and does not see the reflections - that system becomes very defined. And not very infinite. And if you include intent, and therefore also at least a part of articulation, in certain cases wouldn't there be the possibility that the phenotypic differences of languages between two people even using the same language are greater than those of the different languages themselves? Using words or gestures, how much would my intent, and my language, have in common with that of the muscular Smurfs in the square, especially in a group? Recursiveness. (see recursion, or recursion. Or for mine see that of John, or that of John...)
I cross the square. Head always down - I'm already someone who walks detachedly, often head down or looking up plus these days I'm down-down for my own reasons, and carry an almost absent voice, I always have to repeat myself with others - the voice on a short string. So my head is.... Waaay low. A small group of high school kids comes toward me. They don't move on from the sidewalk. Of course. A guy with a head so low like mine poses no danger. I move.
Then I plop up the stairs- the steps all done by hand hundreds of years ago. I'm the only idiot climbing under the hot sun. Others are sitting in the little shade there is, some come down after having seen that white-white building so, so absurd that looks like a cross between a Polish typewriter and an Hungarian wedding cake. ‘The altar of the fatherland.’ I climb up next to it, a Rocky Balboa in flip-flops, to the top - without having a heart attack, (close but I pretended not to be winded,) despite the Marlboros and the lack of exercise the previous week. I go inside the church.
There’s a wedding. They will be of middle-high social class,given the place and the clothes inside. The priest talks about reproduction as being a part of marriage. The bride expresses a sort of amazement with her body you can note even through her beautiful, elaborate dress. Religions. I leave without approaching. A little deference.
The context of narrative. Changing the context changes the semantics - the significance it gives to symbols, gestures, words. To language. And then how you respond to them, symbols, languages. Recursion makes an initial leap- either here or there. The system changes - a little, in that moment. A head up with an intense gaze, broad shoulders and a firm step, maybe even different pheromones that proceed you - and a group of boys move out of the way instead of you. Remove a wedding from a church and certain thoughts have a different flavor. Because, I think, recursion is not the same thing as the stickiness of information once expressed. Narrative. Some species of primates enjoy watching movies but pay attention to the details in the scene. We instead tend to follow the characters on screen much more. We follow different stories. Different contexts. Same narrative.
There's some natural air conditioning up there, where there's the view of the ruins. The air is channeled between the church and the typewriter and blows hard in the shade. Beautiful view, on one side worked stones from ancient Rome and on the other the city and the dome of St Peters. I take a look at the ruins. Lots of tourists, young couples, girls relatively well dressed and all - but all - with painted toenails. (The red ones make me feel like I'm having to go through a food court in an American shopping mall. I already don't like shopping, except for wine and farmers markets. Add that smell of Chinese-MacDonalds-sour tomato sauce... it's like seeing an imitation of something that never existed. Or walking through a suburb in a one-color nightmare. Beige.) I'm wrong in thinking you can get off on the other side so I veer to the left.
There's a seagull perched on the wall. It's cleaning itself. I whisper 'Freddi' to it. He stops cleaning himself and looks at me. It won’t be Freddi, a seagull I met a while ago. But you never know. I lean against the wall and look at the holes, the Colosseum in the distance. A while ago.
Freddi did not respond to his name-not-name, at least as such, even if certain species of birds can identify a voice among thousands. I do not have access to his understanding. He looked at me, though. Narrative, the transmitter in the eternal present that excludes and at the same time describes other times, is something that distinguishes our species. A system that closes, within which there is a recourse, 'recursion', discreetly infinite, linked to, and closed in, its present. That changes, at times, in dialogue with the past and its influence, the way in which stickiness affects. Codification.
Language, ours, has evolved in that direction, merging structures and developing strategies step by step based on other circuits already in existence. Maybe. The reduction of contexts, from consonance to poetry, to words linked to affectivity, 'affect'. Expression is emergent, and it is there in that emergence, its articulation and at its service, where the engine of evolution will be found.
A little music for the coming summer. Light blues.