Media Taxonomy
The world through which our minds navigate and which our minds create is the medium of our lives. Ultimately the medium through which we understand what "is" is our own thought and perception, and the way that we understand that thought and perception. Our own particular way of understanding our world is created through our past, both in the sense of our actual experience and the way that we have understood that experience. Memory along with our perception and thought, are the three basic mediums through which we understand our world. All other forms of mediation are subordinate to this triad and rely on this triad.
Physical reality - Air (terrestrial), water (aquatic), earth (sub-terrestrial), are three basic forms of experience different life forms have. Each of these three are mediums in which particular life forms live.
Physical Language - Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Olfactory, Taste. Each sense has its own particular physical language. Every stimuli indicates something. These stimuli become most interesting when they facilitate communication between two beings which interpret and understand the stimuli. Talking to your cat is not as interesting as talking to a person but cuddling and touching your cat is interesting. Tasting, smelling and touching another person are a very important way in which we can communicate, which does not rely on visual or auditory information. These physical languages have both an inborn and a constructed quality to them. Everyone in the world may agree that a certain food is salty but the associations with that taste and the value placed on it would differ greatly.
Symbolic Languages – Alphabetic, Phonetic, Words, Picto-language. These symbols are used to constitute other symbols and ways of understanding the world. Letters and phonemes come together to form words. Words and pictures (such as the diagram of the organelles of a cell) designate particular beings, types of beings, or concepts. These words and pictures are building blocks used to formulate and describe complicated concepts, although each word and iconographic picture also represents more simply concepts.
Conceptual languages – Mathematic, Scientific, metaphoric, philosophic, schematic, historical, Identities/roles/personas. Concepts become embodied; they take on physical form in our thought. Words and Icons represent individual concepts or a particular set of concepts. Through symbolic languages we build more complicated conceptual frame works. These conceptual frameworks come into relation with other concepts and affect the way we understand those concepts. It is through our conceptual frameworks that we understand and come into relation with the world. It is with these concepts that we "imagine" our world.
Dialogue, Books/essays (scientific and literary), Sculpture, Painting, Photography, Music, Dance, and Cinema. These are the medium through which we express our ideas. These are the ways that we give our concepts form and bring them into the world. These are the ways in which we communicate conceptually with other people. All of these creative mediums are first and foremost relying on physical, symbolic, and conceptual, languages. They differs from physical languages in that they are creations of other people. They are necessarily a product of human imagination, while physical languages arise from other sources as well.
Albert Nunez
Winter 2003
The world through which our minds navigate and which our minds create is the medium of our lives. Ultimately the medium through which we understand what "is" is our own thought and perception, and the way that we understand that thought and perception. Our own particular way of understanding our world is created through our past, both in the sense of our actual experience and the way that we have understood that experience. Memory along with our perception and thought, are the three basic mediums through which we understand our world. All other forms of mediation are subordinate to this triad and rely on this triad.
Physical reality - Air (terrestrial), water (aquatic), earth (sub-terrestrial), are three basic forms of experience different life forms have. Each of these three are mediums in which particular life forms live.
Physical Language - Visual, Auditory, Tactile, Olfactory, Taste. Each sense has its own particular physical language. Every stimuli indicates something. These stimuli become most interesting when they facilitate communication between two beings which interpret and understand the stimuli. Talking to your cat is not as interesting as talking to a person but cuddling and touching your cat is interesting. Tasting, smelling and touching another person are a very important way in which we can communicate, which does not rely on visual or auditory information. These physical languages have both an inborn and a constructed quality to them. Everyone in the world may agree that a certain food is salty but the associations with that taste and the value placed on it would differ greatly.
Symbolic Languages – Alphabetic, Phonetic, Words, Picto-language. These symbols are used to constitute other symbols and ways of understanding the world. Letters and phonemes come together to form words. Words and pictures (such as the diagram of the organelles of a cell) designate particular beings, types of beings, or concepts. These words and pictures are building blocks used to formulate and describe complicated concepts, although each word and iconographic picture also represents more simply concepts.
Conceptual languages – Mathematic, Scientific, metaphoric, philosophic, schematic, historical, Identities/roles/personas. Concepts become embodied; they take on physical form in our thought. Words and Icons represent individual concepts or a particular set of concepts. Through symbolic languages we build more complicated conceptual frame works. These conceptual frameworks come into relation with other concepts and affect the way we understand those concepts. It is through our conceptual frameworks that we understand and come into relation with the world. It is with these concepts that we "imagine" our world.
Dialogue, Books/essays (scientific and literary), Sculpture, Painting, Photography, Music, Dance, and Cinema. These are the medium through which we express our ideas. These are the ways that we give our concepts form and bring them into the world. These are the ways in which we communicate conceptually with other people. All of these creative mediums are first and foremost relying on physical, symbolic, and conceptual, languages. They differs from physical languages in that they are creations of other people. They are necessarily a product of human imagination, while physical languages arise from other sources as well.
Albert Nunez
Winter 2003