Thursday, November 19, 2009

you know, like Zeno's paradox

In one of my classes I compared the problem of linguistic indeterminism to Zeno's paradox, in that it seems like it shouldn't work and that we shouldn't be able to communicate to each other because so much of semiotics is like subjective and dependent on individual experience, but in the end, we communicate basic things to each other (we buy food, create friendships, etc.). I hope I wasn't just name-dropping old Zeno there. I should just stop creating connections from disparate fields!

4 comments:

Makayla Steiner said...

No, interdisciplinary work is currently "hot" in literary study.

Adam said...

So, I totally wanted to yell "But Zeno's paradox is easily solvable!" and realized I needed a few hundred words to explain why. So I just posted a bit on my blog about Zeno's paradox. That may have been a wee bit on the geeky side...

Er, does that analogy also mean that semiotics are also solvable when you don't get too caught up in apparent contradictions? I think perhaps it does :).

Rachel Helps said...

Acius: something like that. We were talking about how pain is not something one can objectify and conceptualize, but somehow we all understand what it is.

Rachel Helps said...

bah ha ha http://www.picturesforsadchildren.com/index.php?comicID=133