Article - Laura Knight-Jadczyk
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Article - Laura Knight-Jadczyk
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Chapter 15
Semiotics is the study of language or any other symbol system that conveys meaning. The Bible tells us that God spoke before all things, and in this way he created both heaven and earth. It was from the Divine Word that the Cosmos came into being. One of the great themes of esoterica is that of the alphabet giver and "namer" of things. Adam is, of course, the one we think of when we think of the "giving of names" to things. In terms of the study of Semiotics, the question is: did he name things based on what they WERE, in ESSENCE, or did he simply create a convention, and arbitrarily name them whatever appealed to him? This is an important issue because conveying things in language is very much like the game in which one person whispers something to another, and on down a line of people, and at the end, the last person announces what was said, and it often bears no relationship whatsoever to the original statement. Being able to communicate the TRUE meaning of something is of paramount importance not only in terms of the thing being said remaining as clear and undefiled as possible, but also in terms of the rapport between the speaker and the listener. According to the Pythagoreans, the true language was mathematics, and sounds were simply a transformation of mathematical principles into an exchange medium. In this sense, the "sound vibration" of a word had a mathematical nature that could convey something much higher than just the ordinary understanding of the world as it applied to objects in our reality. But this leads to a problem because there are many languages, and they utilize sounds in different ways, and this leads to the question of which language is the one that truly conveys the deepest, or widest meaning of a word? The theories of Semiotics propose that there are two levels, or "planes of articulation." At the level of any given language, such as Greek, English, Chinese, or whatever, there is what they call the "Expression plane" that consists of a lexicon, a phonology and syntax. In other words, the Expression Plane is the selection of words that belong to that language, the sounds that the selection of words produce, and the way they are arranged to convey meaning. That is the first plane. The second plane is called the Content Plane. This is the array of concepts that the language is capable of expressing. This last is rather important because, as we have all heard at least once in our lives, Eskimos have many words for snow while people who do not live in an environment where snow and ice are the dominant features, may only have one or two words for these phenomena. So it is that the "Content Plane" of a language becomes crucial to what can be discussed in that language. Whatever a group of people experience the most becomes part of their awareness, and thus the Content Plane of their language is accordingly modified. In order for the sounds of speech to be meaningful, the words formed out of these sounds must have a meaning associated with them. In other words, the sounds relate to the Content. This brings us back to the example of the sea slug that a kind of "associative learning" could take place when a mild shock was delivered with the puff of water. The slug learned to associate the puff with the shock and when the puff came alone, the slug withdrew. For the slug, the Content of the puff of water was "pain." Words are similarly learned. And, as we have also discussed, the pyramidal neurons in the Ammon's horn gather the input of other sensory neurons and fire if two separate inputs arrive at the same time. Once fired, it is easier to fire by one of the two inputs that originally fired it, but not by another input. In this way, we also learn the meanings of words, we establish the Content Continuum of our understanding. The Content Continuum represents the Universe or reality to which our words relate as we are capable of conceiving it. Thinking about this factor, we begin to get a glimmer of the idea that our ability to associate words, to derive deeper and broader or multilevel meaning from them in our process of understanding, is directly related to how we, ourselves, interact with the Cosmos. The words we use, individually and collectively, and the way we use them, are very deep clues to our perspective and comprehension of the Universe. Our words and the way we use them reveal the totality of our experiences - mental and physical and emotional - our sensations, perceptions, abstractions and so forth. Keeping in mind, of course, that no purely verbal system ever achieves total communication; how do you express in words the scent of a rose? We are always required to supplement words with "helpers, " which may include expressive gestures, or even producing a metaphoric example, or finding a basis of comparison to convey meaning. Nevertheless, in our reality, language and words are clearly Divine, and are the rungs on which we may climb to the Stars.
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