Head Games: Knowledge and Ambiguity

Zeng Fanzhi: "Self Portrait 09-8-1" (2009)

Because questions of meaning raise the issue of how we come to know anything at all, some theory of human cognition is fundamental to discussions of meaning in general. Recent writing on the subject defines cognition as the manipulation of relationships between data inferred from sensory experience. The basis for cognition is therefore perception, which results from the regulated interaction of sensory experience and memory over time.

The most basic unit of perception is the one-time neurophysical stimulation of a particular receptor with unique parameters of sensitivity. The brain records the event and establishes a rudimentary sense of the parameters involved. As the brain records similar events from the same receptor, it arranges these in relation to one another in time. As the brain records simultaneous events from similar receptors, it arranges them in relation to one another in space. The combined input from all similar receptors is mapped as a field of perceived phenomena which fluctuates over time.

The brain is evidently predisposed to further map any field of perceived phenomena as a collection of relatively stable regions whose boundaries and location fluctuate over time. Each such region constitutes a quality. By similarly mapping the input from receptors with different parameters, the brain builds up layers of mapped regions which it correlates to identify relatively stable qualities across all parameters. The brain interprets these complex bounded regions as objects. The brain further correlates the experience of qualities and objects stored in memory to establish conceptual templates that facilitate future mapping of the total, multi-layered field of perception. The combination of immediate experience and this collection of conceptual templates constitute our perception of the world.

The importance of memory to the process can hardly be overstated since without it perception cannot advance beyond primal consciousness. More importantly, the accumulation in memory of multiple contexts associated with each quality or object permits the establishment of complex chains of correlation based on similar or contrasting associations. This is the source of both the richness and the ambiguity of language as discussed below.

Interaction with the world introduces dynamics even more complex than those involving simple perception because it creates the context for self-awareness. Self-awareness is evidently a function of innate, sub-rational processes that establish, as axiomatic reference, a persistent object (the body) whose interactions generate more information than the interactions of other objects. This persistent object has a number of defining peculiarities, including: (1) the immediate proximity of the persistent object to the self, (2) the self’s ability to reliably influence the behavior of the persistent object, and (3) the self’s experience of pain corresponding to the location of the persistent object in time and space. As the self explores its relationship with the world, it notes the relative appeal of specific interactions, and the ability to predict or influence these interactions becomes the criteria for reaffirming or reevaluating the reliability of established conceptual templates. Self-aware interaction with the world therefore introduces the need for cognition, i.e. the manipulation of relationships between data inferred from sensory experience.

As the self explores the world, it also discovers relatively information-rich objects in the world, other than the subject, whose behavior indicates that they too have self-awareness and practice cognition. A predisposition to expect the existence of others like ourselves is apparently innate, as is the desire to interact with them.

This brings us to social language, which arises from the impulse of one individual to manipulate another’s chains of correlations by reproducing or alluding to some significant aspect of a shared field of perception. The interplay of such communication will predictably lead to the establishment of a common vocabulary and rules of syntax that serve as placeholders for previous exchanges. Given the interactive origin of language, this model predicts that language will favor the more influential participant(s) in any ongoing exchange, with languages evolving and fragmenting as the general influence of privileged participants wanes in the face of new participants or contingencies.

This inherent drift renders language a Rosetta Stone of uncertain authority, and discourses that rely on language to regulate conformity cannot therefore guarantee their own integrity. The unsettling nature of this realization constitutes the so-called “post-modern condition.”