virus: more on encoding and symbols

Brett Lane Robertson (unameit@tctc.com)
Sat, 29 Nov 1997 23:33:00 -0500


>Hi Brett. The most I can give you is Lacan's own (translated) words. I'm
>always willing to concede that the reason I get nothing out of this
>beyond curiosity about Lacan's unconscious motivation is perhaps because
>the translation is poor.
>If you can get something out of this that you wouldn't have been able to
>understand if it had been taught in plain words, bless your soul:
>
>"...the metaphoric structure indicating that it is in the substitution of
>signifier for signifier that an effect of signification is produced that
>is creative or poetic, in other words, which is the advent of the
>signification in question. The sign + between ( ) represents here the
>crossing of the bar -- and the constitutive value of this crossing for
>the emergence of signification." Lacan, Agency of the letter in the
>unconscious.
>
>I'm certain there are many people who could explain what this means in
>some simpler form, and after they did I would say, "Well why didn't he
>just say so?"
>
Anonymous

List,

This is similar to what I am able to do. Again, the "it" is "I" as vertical
line with dot. Dot signifies infinity. Vertical line with dot signifies
vertical line is infinite. Little "t" is vertical line which crosses itself
with vertical line. It is infinity of linearity crossed by infinite
linearity in an opposing direction. It is the aforementioned "I" with self
reference. The infinity colapses, though, when superimposed upon itself.
When using "word math" one sees that the I superimposed upon itself
incorporates the dot evident in the "i" alone. With the "addition" of "t"
(in "it") we see that the dot is utilized twice--once at the point in the
intersection of horizontal and vertical, once in the "i". Thus, in "it",
there is a "remainder" of "dot" which is not a part of the first term...the "I".

This *could* translate: I am infinite unless I cross myself at which point
an ideal (represented by the dot) is symbolically incorporated into
myself...if I exhibit self-confirmation, I claim to be God; and, God as
ideal becomes separated from my person (as a remainder)...to say "it" is to
say that there is something outside of myself which remains after I am
self-aware.

The truth of this statement and the further assumption that all of this is
contained in the symbolic form of the letters which spell-out this spatial
relation hinges on the idea that a letter is a symbolic representation of a
spatial relationship and that one can come to better understand that
relationship by looking at the pictoriographical ontology of the word in
question (studies of hieroglyphics and cuniform suggest that letters might
be pictures of ideas and that words might be the relationship between these
ideas). I cannot vouch for the validity of the method but enjoy looking at
such relationships andd have found some amazing correlations between certain
words and certain psychological mechanisms.

If we assume that the mind functions in a symbolic capacity, then using such
symbols to probe the mind seems to have a merit which is not exemplified in
the verbose translation. That is, the symbol might encode the process!

Brett