Wittgenstein's Pictures
Cultural Revolution,
Long Sunday,
Jun 06, 2005
Interesting meander through the concept of the picture in Wittegnstein's thought. As I read this I thought about an article I had read over the weekend, saying that things that are found infrequently - such as weapons in baggage or breast tumors in women - are harder to find if detected infrequently. We want, said Wittgenstein, to associate a concept with a picture, especially if it is a new concept. But it seems to me that it can't be a new picture either. We form a vocabulary of images in our minds, generated through an associative process of repetitive experience, and this vocabulary attaches itself to concepts through a mechanism of sub-symbolic similarity. Which is why, every time I butter bread, I think about Babylon 5.
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