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Hypnotherapists in and near Pease Pottage
40 results within 15 miles
Browse our list of 40 qualified Hypnotherapists in or around Pease Pottage. Refine by area (quit smoking, weight-loss, childbirth and more) and view information on fees, availability and contact details.All hypnotherapists comply with our policy
Becky Wells Dip. Hyp & CS, GHR reg, CNHC reg
Say goodbye to the issues that hold you back. Kick open the door to a new, successful and positive you! You have nothing to lose!
Mark Reader FAPHP - Hypnotherapy, Psychotherapy & Counselling
I am a long established full-time therapist with a simple on-going mission 'to ensure that I am one of the most professional, approachable, knowledgeable and effective therapists in the South East'.
Paul Milham - Solution Focused Hypnotherapist
Hypnotherapy can help you perform to the best of your potential. It can rid you of crippling unwanted habits, addictions, stresses, anxieties, depressions & phobias & support you in stopping smoking or improving sleep. Appointments available now.
Nicola Edwards Dip. Hyp CS, Dip.APCH, Dip.VGBH, Dipl.MP.NLP, DipHB(KG), BWRT
Why do we believe that it has to take months or even years to resolve our problems? As a therapist I want to help you resolve your thoughts and worries as quickly as we can so you can get back to enjoying your life. Contact me for a free consultation
Nicola Preston Bell
Hello, I have been a Hypnotherapist and Brief Solution-Focused Therapist since 2003 and have enjoyed helping many people overcome all kinds of challenges in their lives.
Natalie Wickenden HPD DSFH - Solution Focused Hypnotherapy
Are you coping with stress, depression, anxiety, phobias, sleep issues, your weight, low confidence or motivation? Then hypnotherapy may be for you. I will help you make significant, positive changes & move forward. Immediate appointments available.
Belinda Dimmock
Feeling overwhelmed, stressed/anxious or unable to cope. These symptoms are simply a sign something is wrong. As an accredited member of the NHS/NCS, I work in Epsom and Crawley offering day, evening and weekend appointments at £50 per session.
Sarah Stanley
I use solution focused techniques to help you get the confidence and motivation to change your life in a positive way. I have 20 years Nursing experience, and have additional training to work with children and young people.
Christine Tompolski - Clinical Hypnotherapy & EMDR
I am a fully qualified Clinical Hypnotherapist and practitioner of EMDR techniques based in Horsham, specializing in the treatment of stress, anxiety, fears and phobias, resolution of trauma and confidence issues.
Mandy O'Driscoll
There are points in our life when we need a little helping hand whether it be financially, emotionally or socially, it is good to clear away any negativity that is holding us back from reaching our potential........ that is where I come in. I am a...
June O'Driscoll
June O'Driscoll is a Licensed Master Trainer of NLP, Professional & Clinical Hypnotherapy Trainer, Business & Life Coaching Trainer, Past Life Regression Trainer, Master NLP Practitioner, TFH Kinesioligist L4, Executive, Business & Life Coach and...
David Ridgeway
Hypnotherapy and Personal Advancement since 1990. I have practiced in Horsham since 1990 and at New Street Clinic since it opened in 2000. I also operate a client visiting service by arrangement, I have a growing on-line practice and treat clients...
Nicole Wetherell D.Hyp,C.Hyp,CNLP,MNCH, Paediatrics (NCH&CNHC Registered)
I am a Hypnotherapist, NLP and CBT Practitioner based in Horsham and providing services throughout Sussex and Surrey. I have a passion for my work and the difference it can make for people.
Judy Sharp Dip Hyp; Dip PLT GHR and CNHC registered
My approach blends clinical hypnotherapy with past life and spirit release work to provide a very different - and highly-effective - approach to a wide range of issues. My clients say, "Jude this is weird, but it works!" It could work for you too!
Evie Bentley
I work using an eclectic approach, based on compassion and support for those who want to change themselves in some way. I have had a variety of issues brought to me by clients, including concerns about sports performance, family discord, work...
Janina Jordan Dip.IET Dip.Nlp, clin hyp,coach
Want to make Changes? build confidence, relieve symptoms, unlock your true potential. Using clinical Hypnotherapy, EFT, Nlp and coaching make easy and fast changes
Karen Jones Dip Hyp CS, Adv Dip CP
I am a Hypnotherapist ,Psychotherapist and Mindfulness Coach with clinics in Horsham and Southwater, West Sussex. I am passionate about helping people to live happier, fulfilling lives.
Bradley Dearman Hypnotherapy - Dip.Hyp.Psych, Dip.C.Hyp, EDMR, CTT, GHR, CPD
Are you struggling with issues related to trauma, grief, addiction, anxiety, or major life changes? There comes a time when help is needed from a qualified professional to cope; I m a qualified Hypnotherapist & Tutor in Brighton and Burgess Hill.
Penny Johnson - Master Practitioner / Trainer in Hypnosis, NLP
As an NLP and Hypnosis trainer, I am an expert in these areas. I use a unique blend of advanced mind technologies/therapies with proven results in eradicating resistant problems.
Mia Strbac, MNCH (Reg.), HPD
I trained in Quest Cognitive Hypnotherapy, evidence-based hypnotherapy. A modern therapy framework tapping into the amazing power of your subconscious mind. I have a special interest in helping people to quit smoking having trained in the Simmons...
Kirstie Flood BA (Hons), DIP IDM, CHP (NC)
How can I help? Qualified CNHC and NCHP registered hypnotherapist. Self-esteem, anxiety, panic, addiction, depression, quitting smoking, habits, weight loss, fears, phobias, insomnia & more. Appointments available to suit: day/eve. Horsham District
Sally Nilsson
My name is Sally Nilsson and I am a qualified Hypnotherapist and a member of the National Hypnotherapy Society. I am also a Human Givens Practitioner (Psychotherapist). I help and support clients who feel as though they are not living life to the...
Don Ely
Qualified Hypnotherapist.
Sherree Russell (BSc 1st class hons - Clinical Hypnosis)
Sherree Russell is a leading authority in her field, with a distinguished record of achievement. Articles about her work helping clients recover from illness, and sports performance has been published in several newspapers and national magazines.
Alex Severn
My name is Alex Severn, I am an Ex London hypnotherapist with over 10 years experience, and have now relocated to Dormansland. I specialise in all emotion-based issues, from generalised stress and anxiety to fears and phobias. I am passionately...
Stephanie B.Galissian (Dip.Hyp.Psych)
I help with challenges such as stress, anxiety, fear & phobia, confidence issues and addictions. I help you regain control and break free from habits, beliefs and blocks holding you back. I use a mixture of techniques bespoke to you to get results.
Pamela Crane - Senior Level Hypnotherapist BA (Hons) SQHP, GHSC Accred GHR reg
A senior grade hypnotherapist, I will provide for you an individualised intervention helping you to overcome life-impeding issues and behaviours so that you can move forward and get the most out of your life.
Phil Knox - PSCH, CBT, MPH, EHP NLP BHR, SQHP, GHSC, GHR, CNHC.
I'm a Hypnotherapy Expert with 25yrs experience of helping people deal with Anxiety and Unwanted Habits, eg Anxiety issues such as confidence issues, fear of flying and panic attacks, Unwanted Habits like Smoking, Cocaine, Gambling, Internet, SA etc
David Harding MHA, MANLP, Adv DHyp
Help with stress, anxiety, depression, confidence, career, weight loss, health, quitting smoking, addictions, exam nerves & many more. Hypnotherapy, NLP and Coaching in Surrey/Kent/Sussex
Jenny Moxham Cognitive Hypnotherapy
I am a fully qualified and experienced cognitive hypnotherapist and have successfully helped many people. I would like to help you. Please call 0789 9928919 for your initial free consultation. Deciding on the right therapist or coach is a key step...
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Time: 10:00AM – 4:00PM
Location: Downtown Steamboat Springs
Yampa River 06/28/2016 Photo Album
What can I say? If measured by pounds and not fish count, Tuesday June 28 may have been the most successful day of 2016. After my fishing visit to the Yampa River on June 23 was truncated by the reluctance of the National Forest Service to open my preferred campground, I restlessly waited for another shot at edge fishing while flows remained high enough to force the river's residents to the banks. I checked the DWR web site daily, and the river's flows were plummeting by 200 cfs per day, and I was fearful that the window of opportunity had closed.
As I departed early on Tuesday morning for the 3.5 hour drive to the Yampa Valley, I was aware that stream flows collapsed to the 600 cfs range. Upon my arrival in Steamboat Springs I parked next to the gazebo at the Howelsen Hill parking lot and assembled my Sage One five weight rod for a day of fishing. My expectations were low, but one can never predict what the fish and weather have in store for an optimistic fisherman.
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_mUknV5zYO8/V3b6vk8sfQI/AAAAAAABAbs/1N9vfzqitp4df-zO9euUi5Ai_fLxJn4DwCHM/s144-o/P6280009.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500423830633730″ caption="600 CFS Was Still High" type="image" alt="P6280009.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
When I climbed the pedestrian bridge to scout the river it was evident that the flows were in 500 – 600 cfs range, and I was concerned that they may have dropped below my desired level for edge fishing. On a positive note I was able to wade along the edge more easily than June 23, and the flows remained high enough to create a decent buffer between the ever present tubers and me.
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-6Fb9_m_PkNg/V3b6v5C7NgI/AAAAAAABAbw/UJLpJSft-PcXPeQg7IGGt_zEJIzX0Pn-gCHM/s144-o/P6280010.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500429225473538″ caption="Always Holds Big Fish" type="image" alt="P6280010.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
I began fishing on the town side after crossing the pedestrian bridge and then went downstream until a polite distance above a fisherman, who was located just above the fast water near the confluence with a small creek. A fat Albert, bead head hares ear, and salvation nymph adorned my line, and these flies accounted for the first eight fish. In a sweet area below an overhanging tree limb, the fat Albert dipped, and I hooked and landed a fat 17 inch brown on the hares ear. What a start to my day!
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-mWCKMfUHSEs/V3b6vNSLpKI/AAAAAAABAbk/kUnXsorpxzwTLXFiAoUoIPtSYTliKzQjACHM/s144-o/P6280007.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500417478304930″ caption="First Fish Was This Beauty" type="image" alt="P6280007.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
Despite the early success represented by the seventeen inch brown trout, I discovered quickly that the bushes and trees were tight to the water making upstream wading very difficult. In addition the shade created by the stream side vegetation made visibility very challenging, so I crossed the bridge again and then walked down the railroad tracks until I was just above an area popular with kayaks and stand up paddle boarders. I carefully scrambled down some large rocks and tossed my flies into a deep shelf pool. As the flies passed below me and began to swing gently, I felt a sharp tug and set the hook. This reaction resulted in a fifteen inch colorful rainbow squirming in my net with a salvation nymph in its mouth. My first two fish were in excess of fifteen inches, and I was losing my concern about the river level being too low for hot edge fishing.
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-IvkHS18SVHc/V3b6webZd-I/AAAAAAABAdo/r9VbVrb63385ldwScpB8qRyvkgCxJmJWgCHM/s144-o/P6280012.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500439260231650″ caption="Thrilled to Hold This Creature" type="image" alt="P6280012.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
Tuesday developed into a hot day with temperatures reaching the upper eighties, but by 11:30 some pale morning duns appeared. I continued working my way up the river, and although I was tempted to switch to a dry fly, I never spotted rising fish. Consequently I maintained the dry/dropper set up and landed six additional fish to reach eight by 12:30. Many of the late morning catches were in the 14 – 16 inch range, and unlike my visit the previous week, brown trout predominated. I offer the explanation, that I was focused on edge fishing where the brown trout tend to lurk, and the rainbow trout spread out more as a result of the lower flows.
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/–EhVbLgVBrk/V3b6xb0B4YI/AAAAAAABAdo/QzFCtj2ByI0KCYA5Yd8pOom9Tgw-ascWACHM/s144-o/P6280015.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500455738106242″ caption="Another Fine Yampa River Rainbow" type="image" alt="P6280015.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-_JeRiPeh9X8/V3b6x9qiMvI/AAAAAAABAdo/ml2jc5tyxiAkhnAOcuv4D2XWqYXHvJD5wCHM/s144-o/P6280017.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500464825086706″ caption="Ideal Edge Water" type="image" alt="P6280017.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
At 1PM the presence of an occasional yellow stonefly transitioned into a fairly dense hatch, and these adult insects approximated a size 12 fly. This observance prompted me to shift my offerings to a fat Albert trailing a solo iron Sally. I should have played the slot machines in Blackhawk, because I hit the jackpot with this move. The Yampa River trout loved the iron Sally, and I progressed through a period when I could count on a nice fish whenever I encountered slower water with depth along the bank. Fish numbers nine though fifteen attacked the iron Sally, and this tally included a gorgeous fifteen inch cutbow and three or four brown trout in the thirteen to fifteen inch range. All my reservations about the water level being less than ideal melted in the euphoria of landing many larger than average Yampa River trout!
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9vSQhEOgn48/V3b6yQpghbI/AAAAAAABAdo/k4RJ73MxFx0uX7z-9cP5zJfLvT95eyixACHM/s144-o/P6280020.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500469921056178″ caption="Quite a Fish" type="image" alt="P6280020.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
Two failures accounted for more excitement than the successes that I just described. One twenty plus inch brown that I failed to land will remain in my nightmares for months. I cast upstream a couple feet from a three foot high bank, and as the fat Albert drifted eight feet from my position, a huge object elevated and slurped the large yellow foam attractor. At first I thought it was an animated log, but I set the hook and marveled at the huge moving bulk in front of me. Had this fish remained in place as I waded upstream, it would have tripped me.
At first the massive form was quite docile, as it lumbered back and forth and in a circle within ten feet of where I hooked it, but then it calmly swam down and across to the edge of some faster water. I maintained constant side pressure on the beast, but it was so large that I was forced to relent and feed out line. As the behemoth reached the current seam, it felt like the top fly released from the fish's mouth, and one of the trailers embedded in the fish. This certainly angered my foe, and it reacted by wrapping the line around something. I stripped some line in an attempt to determine if the fish was still connected, but alas my monster catch was free. When I brought my flies close for inspection, I determined that the salvation nymph was gone. I am still shaking as I describe this exciting but frustrating incident.
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-f7y9672LVy4/V3b6z0W0QwI/AAAAAAABAdo/u4ms_yEbYrYsHDCsqx-Y-ybkR_HFYRvdACHM/s144-o/P6280025.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500496686203650″ caption="More Brown Trout Madness" type="image" alt="P6280025.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
Another notable long distance release evolved as I fished across from a couple guys seated on a rock structure. In this instance the fat Albert dipped, and I set the hook instantly and found myself attached to another very large torpedo. The observers let out a hoot immediately, so they must have been watching my efforts. Unlike the previous lunker, this fellow did not mess around, and it charged immediately into some fast water downstream. I allowed the line to zing from my reel, but when the fish turned slightly in the heavy current, the flies released and shot back toward me. The opposite bank observers shouted, "what happened?", and I could only grieve over another lost opportunity at a trophy. Unlike the previous fish, all my flies remained, and a break off was not the root cause of the release.
My last fish of the day, number sixteen if you are counting, was another highlight. I took a break and returned to the river thirty yards below the Fifth Street bridge. By now it was 3PM, and temperature was near its peak, which of course created an inner tube hatch. I found a nice riffle/run area off to the side of the main current, where the river swept most of the rafts and tubes toward the opposite bank in a rush. I now sported a Chernobyl ant as my top fly with an iron Sally trailing beneath it, but the flies were not producing. I glanced to the edge of the river before wading farther upstream, and I was startled to see a very large fish hovering next to the bank in water that was no more than two feet deep. The newly discovered target was only ten feet away, and I attempted a few drifts with the dry/dropper with no success. I was reluctant to toss the two flies too close to the bank, as I feared hooking the dropper in the bushes would destroy any chance I had to interest the big boy in my flies.
[peg-image src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-CeLcYgWZc7s/V3b61ozYLNI/AAAAAAABAdo/lLxpBxmC1dgxUsFeIDKW18-KqKJti5qxgCHM/s144-o/P6280030.JPG" href="https://picasaweb.google.com/108128655430094950653/6302500408766947089?locked=true#6302500527944510674″ caption="Almost Stepped on This One" type="image" alt="P6280030.JPG" image_size="2048×1536″ ]
The long trout next to the bank was quite dark in color, and I suspected that it was a rainbow. As I pondered my next step, I was amazed to see the elongated form slowly float to the surface, and then it sipped a straggling pale morning dun! My dry/dropper combination was not producing, and I therefore had nothing to lose, so I switched to a single size 16 cinnamon comparadun. Two drifts failed to attract interest, but I dropped the next cast four feet upstream and within inches of the bank. I held my breath as the small fly bobbed along the bank and then right over my quarry. I was about to salute my foe, when it slid sideways with the current and then calmly moved two feet and sipped my fly!
I felt like I was watching a slow motion replay of a fishing movie! I calmly set the hook, and after a spirited battle, I slid my net beneath another 17 inch brown trout! I was stunned to discover that it was not a rainbow. This fish was full of surprises. After releasing the prize brown trout, I realized that it was quite hot, and the tube traffic intensified. I was extremely tired from fighting the strong current and ducking in and out of thick bushes, so I quit at 4 o'clock.
Since I suffered through a fifteen minute delay due to road construction at the entrance to the Meadows Campground on Rabbit Ears Pass during my morning drive, I decided to return to Stagecoach State Park. Only two sites were occupied on the McKinley Loop, so I quickly grabbed site number 86.
I can usually remember all my big fish within twenty-four hours of a day on the river, but they were in such abundance on Tuesday, that I lost track. It was another phenomenal day of fishing on the Yampa River, and I was fortunate to enjoy it before the run off window closed. Could Wednesday be another day of intense action in Steamboat Springs? Stay tuned.
Fish Landed: 16

subset: commoncrawl


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Dr Nathalie Courtois manages the rota for the department. St Mary's uses the CLW rota software, you will be sent your username and password.
St Mary's is a 1:8 on-call rota.
At St Mary's 4 registrars and 2 CT's can be away at one time. Leave must be requested 6 weeks in advance and should be requested by emailing the Trainee Leave manager, firstname.lastname@example.com.
It will appear on the rota online if it has been approved. If it's not on the rota it hasn't been approved.
Sensible swaps only please – no elaborate 3 or 4 ways swaps – it just gets too complicated.
Study Leave
All study leave requests need to be emailed to the College Tutors for Study Leave approval & then will be passed onto the Trainee Leave Manager (Dear Leader).
All applications for funding are made via an electronic application form.
Core Trainees - entitled to 30 days inclusive of regional training days, and £600 per annum
Higher Specialty Trainees - entitled to 30 days inclusive of regional training days and £800 per annum.
Private study leave is not supported by the Anaesthetic Department.
With all leave requests and swaps please check the e-rota to see if it has been transcribed correctly.


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Lavezzi 40 – fountaine pajot 40ft catamaran
Lavezzi 40 – Fountaine Pajot 40ft catamaran
Yacht Charter Description
Above decks the Lavezzi 40 continues the innovative design implementations. Most noticeable is the contoured cockpit area. A break from the standard rectangular cockpit seating, this sweeping design brings the bench forward and creates a passage aft of the bench. Exceptional mainsheet accessibility and separation from anyone lounging in the cockpit area. Open passageway from the cockpit to the swim platforms in each hull prevent the need to step over the cockpit coaming.
Below decks the main salon area has received the most innovative design input. The galley is to port and aft providing the cockpit and main salon area with direct access to the galley and the days meal either inside or out. The sliding glass door reveals a counter in the cockpit area accessible directly from the galley countertop area providing storage and serving space while dining in the cockpit. Enhanced storage for place settings, serving platters and staple goods is noticeable when preparing meals. The galley location enables a greater area for the main cabin salon table and bench seating. Room for up to 8 is possible with this new configuration. The main cabin also provides a new nav station configuration joining the instrument panel for a more ergonomic combination. The cabin areas have been reconfigured for more livable space. The aft engines have been installed in the aft holds which are independent from the cabins thus eliminating any noise or odors from the engines themselves. The heads in each hull are identical with large area, shower and port/escape hatch inboard. 25% DISCOUNT FOR LAST MINUTE BOOKINGS.
Yacht Charter Accommodation
The Lavezzi 40 can comfortably accommodated eight people, in private double cabins. In each hull, there are two spacious double cabins and one oversized head with a hot and cold shower.
Yacht Charter Specifications
|Fountaine Pajot 40ft catamaran/2004
|21 ft 4″
|39 ft 10″
|Charter Guest:
|Max Speed:
|6+ knots
|4 dble
|2 x 29HP
|Cruise Speed:
|5-6 knots
|More Yacht Info:
|Fountaine Pajot
|Charter Locations:
|Windward Islands, St. Lucia, Martinique, CARIBBEAN
Charter Amenities and Extras
The Lavezzi 40 has furling sails, wheel steering, an electric anchor winch, GPS, autopilot, depthsounder, VHF radio, transom shower with ladder, swimming platform and a tender. There is a bimini and dodger over the companion way, an ondeck shower, BBQ, CD player, fully equipped galley with gas stove & oven, electric fridge/freezer, pre-charter cruising guides, full boat and chart briefing.
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text:
Lying on the bed, arms under head, staring through the window at the sea. The sea, deep blue, sky lighter. Clouds haunted with lavender
shades. Wind from the northeast, driving white waves onto the distant yellow beach.
"Julia... "
My name like a hollow echo.
"Julia... "
I stand. A woman's voice, below the house, somewhere. To the window, without expectations of seeing anyone.
"Julia... "
A trick of wind whistling through the teeth of trees? No, I see a face reflected in a scrim of water. She is gray-haired, bemused, calling
me. Diane's voice. We've never met, yet I know her well. Phone, internet, blends of words with a photograph apiece passed between
us. Diane, who lives far away.
I throw covers over the unmade bed. The house is a mess. I fuss about, but there is no time. I rush past the half wall by the stairs, past
the forest of potted plants to the door. I grasp the brass knob and stop. A tiny gray bird hides amidst the green leaves. But the bird is
not a bird. It stares with sharp eyes and slowly unfolds gray wings. A bat.
Horrified, I open the door wide and hurry out. The bat hesitates and then flies through, swallowed by sky.
"Julia... Julia... "
I stand in the front yard, staring at the portico, which is supported by square columns carved with hieroglyphics and symbols: eye of
Horus, vulture, half moon, papyrus, etched insets in ivory marble. I've never noticed them before.
"Julia... "
I follow the voice around the side of the house. Sturdy rock bluff and windswept, stiff green grass. A chill crisps the air. Like a searching
ghost, Diane comes toward me, arms outstretched. As she approaches, I study her face, familiar because of the photograph, strange
because she is animate, frowning and smiling, expressions of light and dark, seconds apart.
Diane places her hands on my shoulders. "You must understand," she whispers. Her eyes are hazy blue. Her hair is the color of the bat.
"Please understand."
I listen, wanting to help, unsure of her. Be kind, my mind says.
She points to the columns. "The symbols will tell us."
I shake my head. Confusion.
"About your dream," she says in an urgent voice. "You need to understand. If we add the numbers, the equation will explain it all."
I look at the carved column. 222. "Six?" I don't believe this is the answer.
She smiles. "Two of us and two of us and two of us."
"You and me?"
"Yes. And me and Paula and me and my daughter."
"Too many of us," I reply and mean it. Diane's relationships are boxes into which she often vanishes.
"That all depends on your perspective," she replies. "For me, for now, it works."
Diane guides me toward the hill. The scent of ocean salt mixes with the husky dryness of oak. Sun is bright and blinding.
"Are you okay?" I ask. One question plucked out of thousands.
"How did you get here?"
"Does it matter?" She is serene.
I envy serenity. Yet, as always, I throw pebbles in the still pond. "Why did you come?"
My question spins into silence. We walk. I can't see anything except for her gray hair wings, blowing around my head. I am lulled. Going
along. Time seduced.
Then I fall. Backward into space and darkness -- into earth, a fissure in the black rock. My shoulders pressed under stone. Narrow
crevice with blue rectangle high above. Locked tight, held down by the weight of forty feet of cracked mountain.
Diane leaps over the patch of sky and disappears.
I scream.
Did Diane push me and then jump down the hill, leaving me to die? Or did she lose her balance and fall to her own death? My eyes shut
out the inner sight.
Yellow sunlight stripes my knees, follows my wool trousers to the floor, and crosses the nubs of beige carpet to the tips of her black boots.
"At the very least she abandoned you," she says.
A frightening possibility. "I don't know."
"Or was she trying to kill you?"
My throat tightens. "Maybe."
"What feels like the answer?"
"Like both. I was left alone... "
"Your usual state."
"Yes, it is. It terrifies me." I hate admitting this. She knows.
"So Diane left you there, unable to move."
Analysis is more comfortable than feelings. "But the equation... two of us together... equation of two... that meant... " My mild protest
fades into realization. "That the equation adds up to... I don't know... falling."
"Falling? How?"
"Like in love." This is too facile. We both know it will only save me for a second.
She waits, giving me time. "Julia, how does this love feel?"
I wish the shadows in the room would cover my eyes. "Dangerous... a death trap." I am anxious. When I am anxious, I smile. "I let
myself be trapped, didn't I?"
"Perhaps. Maybe you were trying to make the relationship work, to be helpful, to understand."
"That's what I do. Giving too much. Trying too hard. So much that I didn't attend to what was happening until I literally lost my balance
and fell... or was pushed."
"It sounds like you're blaming yourself. It's typical of you to believe this-- "
"That everything is my fault? My failure?"
She nods. "But you're being harsh with yourself. In this case, no, I don't think the failure is your fault."
Relief. She must often remind me. My second voice, hers, the one I'm learning to hear along with my own.
"What about my history?" I ask, hoping she will erase all that has gone before.
"That was then. This is now. This is different. You did your best."
"Are you sure?" Doubt crawls under my superficial assurance.
Her smile is believable. "Yes, I'm sure."
"But what about the bat?" I ask.
"Tell me about it."
"The bat was pale gray."
"What did it remind you of?"
"It was the color of Diane's hair."
"So she was the bat escaping from your house?"
"She didn't leave until I opened the door, not until I wanted her to go."
"Before that she was content to stay?"
"Yes. She wanted to be with me."
"And then?"
"When I opened the door, she flew outside."
"And you followed her... followed her voice." She tucks one foot behind the other. "Julia, this reminds me of last week. You tried to end
the relationship then, didn't you?"
I nod. "And the next day I gave her another chance." I look at the wall, which is as blank as my mind wants to be. "That's similar, isn't
it? Asking her to leave and then following her." I thought about this. "I guess that as long as she was a good bird sitting calmly in the
plants I would've let her stay inside. Once she transformed into a bat, I wanted her out of the house."
"Tell me about the good Diane... "
"She's very intelligent. The conversations and e-mails are so luxurious and fluid -- like we flow together on the same stream. She's
engaging. Challenging."
"Quite a challenge given the distance and her frequent unavailability... all the times she was late for phone dates or re-scheduled them."
I nod. She's right.
"Diane's constant switches and changes must be very upsetting for you," she offers.
The empathy is a balm, one I am unable to apply myself.
"Going back to the dream... what does your house represent?" she asks.
"What else?"
"A private place." I pause. "My self?"
"So how did the bat get inside in the first place?"
"I don't remember. It was just there."
"She was there."
"Yes. Her voice and her words were in the house with me. Through the phone and e-mail."
"Coming in through small holes, like a bat does."
"I suppose so. She contacted me first, if you remember."
"She flew in, perhaps as a bird... "
"A beautiful bird."
"And then the beauty transformed into something you didn't want in your life, in your house." She pauses and studies me with kindness.
"So, Julia, if she left your house, your self, why did you remain outside? Why did you walk toward the bat transformed into Diane?"
I sigh. "I wanted to help her, to understand. She seemed upset."
"Like in the conversations you've had with her?"
"A few of them, yes."
"What does this remind you of?"
"My usual role. Giving by listening." I am silent, observing her. She is waiting for me to say more. "And as usual I didn't listen to my own
warnings... my own concern that this relationship isn't good for me. Then I fell -- or Diane pushed me -- and it was too late."
My chest is crowded with air. I swallow more of it. "When I was looking up at the sky, locked within the rock so I couldn't move, I knew I
was going to die. That I would never get free. Somehow this felt fated."
"Like death by falling in love was your punishment, the end result you always expect?"
"The one that usually happens."
"I don't think you're even angry at Diane, are you?"
I shake my head. "No, I guess not. Her behavior was her behavior. And my history is my history... my equation that equals my death, my
She is quiet, regarding me with my own sadness.
I listen to Diane's explanations and excuses. Tumbles of them. Hypocrisy nips at the edges of my consciousness, that is, her hypocrisy.
Okay for her to cheat on her lover Paula by beginning a relationship with me; unconscionable that her lover should do the same to her,
writing flirtatious e-mails to a woman and leaving them on the computer for Diane to find.
Long minutes pass in which I am silent, foregoing my usual responses, the questions I ask to extend the bridge between us. Diane
doesn't seem to notice and segues to her daughter, who refuses to hear about her mother's lesbianism. Instead of dealing openly with
the issue, Diane compartmentalizes her sexuality, her relationships with women, and no longer mentions them to her daughter, just as
she probably compartmentalizes me and her daughter with Paula and compartmentalizes Paula and her daughter with me. Once again, I
am trapped into a narrow crevice, a thin slice of Diane's time and life.
No, my dream was a warning, I think to myself as she continues to talk. Oh, but the loss.
The loss.
I am weary of subtraction, my counter
to her additions, to all of her two plus two plus two plus two mathematics. Heed the dream's meaning.
When Diane finally realizes I'm not participating, she pauses. "Julia, is there something the matter?"
I hesitate, hating to lose what I never really possessed. "Diane, I can't do this anymore. I'm really sorry."
A hush like a wind comes down the line, as if we're connected on either side of an endless tunnel.
"Our relationship is so wonderful at times and so painful at others." I tell the truth, thinking about the beautiful bird and the frightening
"But I'm in the process of ending with Paula," she explains.
In process
can take a long time."
"You're right. It could."
There is her honesty. Shining, tempting me to continue with her.
"Do you understand why this is so hard for me?" I ask, desiring her understanding and also her forgiveness, to close my eyes and flow
with all that is right between us.
In the background, her dog barks. I hear Diane clip a leash to his collar. As she descends the stairs, she apologizes for the interruption
and explains how long the dog has waited for his walk. Outside, her cell phone signal weakens, and her voice acquires an uneven strength
and an air of distraction. "I suppose I do," she replies, "I mean, understand."
The fact that her dog takes precedence over our conversation makes it easier for me. "I was very hopeful about us." I sit up and place my
feet on the floor, as if I am preparing to walk away. "We were so close to perfect when we were so close to perfect."
Suddenly, she perceives the finality of the situation and stops walking. "I know. I feel the same way... and have from the first time we
talked on the phone."
Diane is trying to prolong the conversation, to re-route the ending. She offers so much -- the dance that enchants, but only when she
allows the music to play; a relationship always on her terms, on her time, limited and fragmented.
"Diane, I wish... " For a second, I freeze, stunned by a collapse of will. No. Open the door and usher the bat out. Close the door and
stay inside, safe. "I wish for what will never happen, at least not now. I'm sorry," I repeat. The words are so thin. "Goodbye."
I hang up the phone and lie back against the pillows, my arm under my head, staring out the window. The sea is deep blue, the sky
lighter. In the distance, a small gray bird flies away.
Main Page
Laury A. Egan
Laury A. Egan has received awards/publications for both fiction and poetry as well as receiving a Pushcart Prize
nomination. Her short stories have appeared in
New York Stories, Paradigm
(online and anthology), and
; her
poetry in
The Ledge, Atlanta Review, Sea Stories,
The Centrifugal Eye.
A full-length collection, "Snow, Shadows, a
Stranger", is forthcoming from FootHills Publishing in 2009. In addition, Laury has written several suspense novels.


text:
Happy Monday?
I've got your Monday morning… RIGHT HERE!
Thank you for your Monday wishes Hello Kitty.
Get ready to watch the new Batman movie in style. We have 7 Dark Knight Rises Tees listed, with about 100 more over at the Super Hero Stuff store.
Use the promotional code listed above to get free shwag on the Super Heroes Stuff website! Gotta love coupon codes.
Bane – Permission to Die
Sexy Catwoman Tee
Batman Bat Signal
Everyone seems to love the pre-screening of the new flick. Grab your gear and get set to party! The Dark Knight Rises is in theaters now. w00t!!
The presidential election race is starting to heat up and we have the tees to represent your anger and discontent.
Al Gore and his Interwebz
Obama Anti-Christ '12
Vote Romney 2012
It doesn't matter who you vote for, just as long as you insult and slander his opponent in the process.
When I go to the gym I prefer to do hack squats on the leg press. WTF!?
For all of you Internet celebrities and wannabes out there, this one is for you. With any luck one of these t-shirts will be so funny that it will go viral on Facespace, Diggupon, Twittrest, Pinned In, MyTube+, or one of these other social medias, and make Comical Tees an Interwebs celebrity…
Yeah, that's pretty much not going to happen. Just enjoy the music video!


text:
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text:
Something handmade for someone special. By making and selling handmade cards and notes, I hope to encourage others to continue the time-honored tradition of the hand written note.Project Website
Even as a child, I loved colors and working with my hands. Over the years that work has taken many forms; coloring, crochet, drawing, ceramics, beading, tole painting, and paper crafting. Handmade things are always my favorite gifts to give and receive.


text:
The Price-Rite grocery chain is relatively new to Rochester. In the last couple of years, three locations have opened in the Rochester area – 375 Driving Park Ave, 1230 University Ave, and 3333 W Henrietta Road. I'm a little embarrassed to say that I've never shopped there, but to open three stores in such a little time frame, they must be doing something right!
I decided it was high time to check it out! So I started out to answer a couple of questions:
What is the overall experience shopping at PriceRite?
And more importantly, can you save money at PriceRite?
As part of my experiment, I picked a recipe and set out to purchase my ingredients at PriceRite. The ingredients I needed to buy are highlighted in red.
The recipe:
2 acorn squash
1 lb pork sausage (you can substitute vegetarian sausage)
1 cup apple, peeled and chopped
½ cup onions, finely chopped
¾ cup dried bread crumbs
1 egg
¼ tsp ground pepper
½ tsp sage
2 tsp hot sauce (You can use more or less to taste.)
So I bought the items I need at PriceRite and then I headed over to Wegmans to check out what I would have paid there. I tried to find the lowest prices that I could at Wegmans (I admit I may have missed a lower priced item somewhere in my list but I probably would have done the same thing had I actually bought the items at Wegmans anyway.) Here were my results:
$2.99/lb (Bob Evans – only choice)
$1.49/lb (Store Brand)
Onion – Spanish
$1.69/lb (Wegmans Brand)
$.99/2 lbs (Cento)
Hot Sauce
$1.19/5 oz (Franks Red Hot)
$.99/12 oz (Store Brand)
Total Cost
All in all, I saved $2.80 or about 30% shopping at PriceRite instead of Wegmans. In addition, I got more breadcrumbs and more hot sauce for my money. The recipe came out great and I didn't notice any differences between the PriceRite products and Wegmans products that we've used in the past.
While I can't see myself doing all of my shopping at PriceRite, this experiment shows me that I can't afford to ignore PriceRite anymore. The store seemed to be filled with good deals and I liked shopping there. I see myself checking the store maybe once a month or so and picking up any items that I need with particularly good prices. My advice...check it out!
, on 4/5/2010 10:51:55 PM Said:
The store seemed to be filled with good deals and I liked shopping there. This experiment tell us that we cannot ignore this store.
John Sposato
, on 6/7/2012 11:14:59 PM Said:
Whenever I'm in town I go to the University and Culver store and its just right. Its too easy to go to local boys Wegmans, multi-national Walmart or Wall Street owned-Tops. I'm in Syracuse and PriceRite are coming soon and I can't wait. After the ShopRite truck supply the Monroe County stores they go through my area anyway and now they'll stop there first before going to the Binghamton store. There are a handful of other locations in CNY that PriceRite could get like an older inner-city Wegmans thats closing soon that people need there (Driving Park used to be a Wegmans and the Pond Street one I refer to is like the Fairport one as far as the old school design). The border communtiy also have PriceRite and even Los Angeles.
Notify me when new comments are added


text:
|obverse Chapter 13·
|Turning Signs (Contents)
This webpage is the current version of rePatch ·13 (the reverse side of Chapter 13·) of Turning Signs, as of 20 December 2018. Each point is independent but some terms are hyperlinked to their definitions or to related contexts elsewhere. Tip: You can also search this page or the whole netbook or the gnoxic blog for any term.
Only you personally can mean, at the moment, the sign you are reading. You can do that by investing in it your own experience of the object of the sign. That is the water of life which can revive the dry bones of a published text. But that's a third-person view. From your point of view as reader, what you do is to let the text speak from experience. Without this 'letting it mean', the text is just a bag of tricks and traps – canned information, facts, opinions, stories and so forth. Reading those things into the text, rather than 'letting it mean,' is another kind of trap, though. For a maxim that might avoid both traps, try this: Let your body mean the text.
Real learning can occur only in dialogue with one's body.— Gendlin (1981, 160)
Gendlin's 'focusing' technique requires the practitioner to let the answers to her questions come from her body, rather than getting caught in a repetitive verbal routine. The body, then – rather than some external authority figure, or some 'visionary' projection – is trusted as the source of revelation which can turn into new guidance. Once this has been grounded in the practice of attending to the immediately felt body, then the habitual boundaries we draw around what can be felt as 'body' can fall away. Perhaps it is only when the whole earth is your body that you can really learn from scientific inquiry. And only when precepts are realized in the practice of interaction with other earthlings can you really learn what they mean.
The whole body senses because it is a self-organizing process. Your current experiencing is in your bodymind not as things are inside containers, but as a move is in the game, a scene in the play, an episode in the story. The game has room for more moves while you live: its emptiness is your freedom, for the time being. The 'third-person' view of your body from without is in another, more public process, and only from there can we talk about your brain as 'constructor' of your experience.In his 1993 'Afterword' to A Leg to Stand On (192), Oliver Sacks remarks that 'body-image may be the first mental construct and self-construct there is, the one that acts as a model for all others.' This view seems to be corroborated by Damasio (2010, 2018) and other neuroscientists. The self-construct which is the body-image, the brain's mapping of the body as a whole, is the ground floor, so to speak, of consciousness itself as 'constructed' by the bodymind.— Turning Signs, Chapter 4
Consciousness, thus conceived, is essentially personal: it is essentially connected to the actual living body, its location and positing of a personal space; and it is based on memory, as a remembering which continually reconstructs and recategorizes itself.The brain's construction of the body-image as a whole continues when some part of the body is cut off from the brain for some time by neurological damage. This results in the mental phenomenon called neglect, in which the person does not feel as if that part of the body is missing, but rather does not feel that any such thing exists or has ever existed. For instance, when Sacks saw his badly injured left leg (made visual contact with it), he did not feel that it belonged to his body. Brain damage can also cause such neglect of half of the visual field. When neglect of a body part collides with visual or tactile experience of it, this can lead to alienation, as when Sacks could see his leg but felt as if it belonged to somebody else, perhaps a corpse. A third-person neurological account of such phenomena can explain the experience but does not change how it feels. (Nevertheless, we sometimes resist or reject a theoretical explanation of a valued feeling, as if the theory could "explain it away.")— Sacks (1984/1993, 199-200)
If the wholeness or integrity of the body-image does 'act as a model' for one's mental construct or model of the whole world, it is the primary meaning space. No wonder then that we often neglect parts of the external world, or feel them to belong to somebody else's world, even when we know of their existence and connection to us at some intellectual level. Your world and my world are felt as wholes, even though "everybody knows" that some parts of your world are absent from mine and some parts of mine from yours. We can't help being partial to our own point of view, but we can make some meaning space for others by allowing for the felt integrity of their experience as well as ours.
something we needmeanwhile
to remember but know
will sink into subsoil
its appearance up here
marked by this sinsign planted:
4 October 2016
only if ever to seedaylight
as memento of this moment of
Something forgets us perfectly— Leonard Cohen, 'For E.J.P.'
In logic, showing that a statement refers to each individual of a class separately, and not to these individuals as making up the whole class. The distributive acceptation of such an adjective as all is that in which whatever is said of all is said of each: opposed to collective acceptation, in which something is said of the whole which is not true of the parts.
Now it is precisely the pragmatist's contention that symbols, owing their origin (on one side) to human conventions, cannot transcend conceivable human occasions. At any rate, it is plain that no possible collection of single occasions of conduct can be, or adequately represent all conceivable occasions. For there is no collection of individuals of any general description which we could not conceive to receive the addition of other individuals of the same description aggregated to it. The generality of the possible, the only true generality, is distributive, not collective.— from a dialogue by Peirce, CP 5.532 (c. 1905)
The distinction made here between distributivity and collectivity corresponds to the normal terminology of intension and extension.— Stjernfelt 2007, 7
Intelligent: from Latin inter (between, within) and legere (to bring together, gather, pick out, choose, catch up, catch with the eye, read).('Catch up' is used here in the sense of 'pick up,' not in the more recent idiomatic sense, as in 'Slow down so I can catch up with you.') This etymology gives us a broader sense of what is implicit in the act of reading, and how it is related to the processes of learning and evolution, which are also selective. The prefix inter- also suggests a connection with dialogue.
Of course the study of etymology, like any other, has its pitfalls. Some changes in the evolution of a linguistic form may have nothing to do with its meaning – for instance the historical accident by which the -leg- root changed to -lig- in some combinations (which is why you are intelligent rather than intellegent). A pun may be a revealer of hidden connections, or it may be funny because an apparent connection is illusory. (The root of illusion is 'play.') The Latin verb legere can be traced back to the Greek lego, which has (according to LSG) two distinct meanings: one is about speaking, conversing, meaning and so on, and comes into English in words like 'dialect'; the other is about choosing (as in English 'selection,' 'election' and so on). What motivated the selection of a single verb for these two different families of concepts? Are they related in some hidden way? Or was it just an accident? And what about the connection between lego and logos, dialogue and dialectic?
Questions like these can only be resolved pragmatically: catch up the idea (it's an abduction!) and run with it, and see where it takes your reading of the Word.
A miracle is a materialist's idea of how to escape from his materialism.— G. Bateson (1979, 232)
There are different kinds of existence. There is the existence of physical actions, there is the existence of psychical volitions, there is the existence of all time, there is the existence of the present, there is the existence of material things, there is the existence of the creations of one of Shakespeare's plays, and, for aught we know, there may be another creation with a space and time of its own in which things may exist. Each kind of existence consists in having a place among the total collection of such a universe. It consists in being a second to any object in such universe taken as first. It is not time and space which produce this character. It is rather this character which for its realization calls for something like time and space.In this sense, Secondness as individual existence 'calls for' continuity as Thirdness, while on the other side of the coin of meaning, the niche in meaning space 'calls for' its inhabitation. Semiosic determination, like the 'imprinting' of a new hatchling on its parent, is a reciprocal realization.— Peirce, CP 1.433 (c. 1896)
We know that the newborn chick looking for its mom actually relies on at least two different neural systems, one for orienting toward stimuli that are good candidates for being mom, and another for taking whatever it can get, for storing a memory of anything that the chick might be exposed to. The first system will choose an adult chick (or even a stuffed duck) over a box as its go-to-caregiver, but if there's nothing else around, the second system will lead the chick to settle for the box.The first system here would correspond to the top half of the meaning cycle, the second system to the bottom half. Likewise, a reader looking for guidance in a turning sign or "scripture" will 'seek until he finds' and then use whatever he finds to guide his practice (including any further seeking); the niche in meaning space that yearns for fulfillment will be filled regardless of which text the seeker 'finds.'— Marcus (2004, 104)
The niche was filled by the word spam, which Jesper Hoffmeyer (2008, 137-8) traces back to a song in a Monty Python sketch (because its 'endlessly repetitive lyrics suggest an endless repetition of worthless text, similar to what is contained within the e-mail variety of spam'). The word had been coined much earlier as a 'telescope word' for canned spiced ham (a disagreeable dish for many), but it must have been a memory of the Monty Python routine that triggered the association that plugged the word firmly into the niche it came to occupy. Certainly the original inventors of the word 'Spam' had no idea what it would later come to mean.
Many of our linguistic habits have similarly creative (spontaneous, accidental) origins, and this accounts for some of the polyversity we find in language. But Hoffmeyer's point is that the same sort of thing happens in the biological realm, when an opening suddenly appears for unused (or differently used) genetic material to be plugged into a new sequence which adds something significant to the genetic resources of the organism.
The decisive cause of the birth of a new functional gene would be a lucky conjunction of two events: 1) an already existing nonfunctional gene might acquire a new meaning through integration into a functional (transcribed) part of the genome, and 2) the gene product would hit an unfilled gap in the semiotic needs of the cell or the embryo. In this way, a new gene becomes a scaffolding mechanism, supporting a new kind of interaction imbuing some kind of semiotic advantage upon its bearer.The somatic interpretant of the new gene may turn out to be a structural or behavioral change that confers some kind of pragmatic advantage upon the organism, filling a niche in practical meaning space: genetic polyversity pays off.— Hoffmeyer (2008, 138)
Morowitz (2002, Chapter 22) discusses several variations on the niche concept in biology. In cultural meaning spaces, niches are typically occupied by what Eco (1976) calls 'cultural units.' These should not be confused with the memes or 'units of cultural transmission' postulated by Richard Dawkins (1989). Since memes are units of transmission, they are inherently public like Eco's 'units' (or Shannon's 'information'); but their connection with meaning is incidental. For Dawkins, they are the cultural analogue to his 'selfish genes' – inert, context-independent particles which use bodies and brains as vehicles for their own replication, but are neither integrated with nor affected by the host system. Like a word (or a lexeme), a meme can occupy a niche in meaning space, but that is not its definitive function.
How do I know that stones are part of the environment of thrushes? Because thrushes break snails on them. Those same stones are not part of the environment of juncos who will pass by them in their search for dry grass with which to make their nests. Organisms do not adapt to their environments; they construct them out of the bits and pieces of the external world. This construction process has a number of features:(1) Organisms determine what is relevant. While stones are part of a thrush's environment, tree bark is part of a woodpecker's, and the undersides of leaves part of a warbler's. It is the life activities of these birds that determine which parts of the world, physically accessible to all of them, are actually parts of their environments. Moreover, as organisms evolve, their environments, perforce, change.— (Oyama, Griffiths and Gray 2001, 64)
It is disease that makes health sweet and good, hunger satiety, weariness rest.
It is upon misfortune that good fortune leans,
It is within good fortune itself that misfortune crouches in ambush,
And where does it all end?— Daodejing 58 (Ames/Hall)
Thus it is not surprising that what kind of sense the universe makes to you depends on what kind of system you are. And if you belong to a symbolic species, it depends on the dynamics of the symbol system (the language) which is integrated with your guidance system. As Terrence Deacon points out, these dynamics are shaped by the 'semantic topology that determines the way symbols modify each other's referential functions in different combinations.'
In the study of complex systems, many researchers have recognized the critical formative influence of what might be described as topological universals. Boundary conditions of various sorts – spatial constraints, temporal parameters, connectedness of graphs and networks, recursive or re-entrant, causal or representational geometries, and mere finiteness of systems – can determine the characteristic patterns and stable attractor configurations of dynamical systems. Semiotic constraints affect the evolution of language in much the same way that boundary conditions affect the dynamics of physical systems.— Deacon 2003, 103
This system of relationships between symbols determines a definite and distinctive topology that all operations involving those symbols must respect in order to retain referential power. The structure implicit in the symbol-symbol mapping is not present before symbolic reference, but comes into being and affects symbol combinations from the moment it is first constructed. The rules of combination that are implicit in this structure are discovered as novel combinations are progressively sampled. As a result, new rules may be discovered to be emergent requirements of encountering novel combinatorial problems, in much the same way as new mathematical laws are discovered to be implicit in novel manipulations of known operations.Symbols do not, then, get accumulated into unstructured collections that can be arbitrarily shuffled into different combinations. The system of representational relationships, which develops between symbols as symbol systems grow, comprises an ever more complex matrix. In abstract terms, this is a kind of tangled hierarchic network of nodes and connections that defines a vast and constantly changing semantic space. … Whatever the logic of this network of symbol-symbol relationships, it is inevitable that it will be reflected in the patterns of symbol-symbol combinations in communication.… the symbolic use of tokens is constrained both by each token's use and by the use of other tokens with respect to which it is defined. Strings of symbols used to communicate and to accomplish certain ends must inherit both the intrinsic constraints of symbol-symbol reference and the constraints imposed by external reference.… Because symbolic reference is inherently systemic, there can be no symbolization without systematic relationships.— Deacon (1997, 99-100)
The Net of Indra represents the nexus which appears upon recognition of the connections among the constituents of the phaneron.
Your mission within this network, this communion of subjects, must include Blake's vision of recognition 'Mutual each within others bosom in Visions of Regeneration' (Blake, Jerusalem 24:45).
But formation of sentences as meaningful utterances also requires a closed syntactic system using a relatively small set of words to indicate the relations between terms. The set of phonemes (elementary sound-structures) used to form words is also closed, although pronunciation varies from time to time and place to place. A spoken language does not normally add new phonemes to the relatively small set that the language allows; a phonetic writing system does not add new letters to its closed alphabet with a fixed number of letters.
Once language has formed it is amazingly conservative. An infinite variety of sounds that are not language is possible, yet these are no longer drawn in to add to language. At some critical point the basic stock of linguistically used sounds is closed, and what is thereafter added must always consist of already meaningful sounds.— Gendlin (1998, 7.b.g)
A Symbol is a law, or regularity of the indefinite future. Its Interpretant must be of the same description; and so must be also the complete immediate Object, or meaning. But a law necessarily governs, or "is embodied in" individuals, and prescribes some of their qualities. Consequently, a constituent of a Symbol may be an Index, and a constituent may be an Icon. A man walking with a child points his arm up into the air and says, "There is a balloon." The pointing arm is an essential part of the Symbol without which the latter would convey no information. But if the child asks, "What is a balloon," and the man replies, "It is something like a great big soap bubble," he makes the image a part of the Symbol. Thus, while the complete Object of a Symbol, that is to say, its meaning, is of the nature of a law, it must denote an individual, and must signify a character. A genuine Symbol is a Symbol that has a general meaning. There are two kinds of degenerate Symbols, the Singular Symbol whose Object is an existent individual, and which signifies only such characters as that individual may realize; and the Abstract Symbol, whose only Object is a character.— Peirce (EP2:274-5)
I have maintained since 1867 that there is but one primary and fundamental logical relation, that of illation, expressed by ergo. A proposition, for me, is but an argumentation divested of the assertoriness of its premiss and conclusion. This makes every proposition a conditional proposition at bottom. In like manner a "term," or class-name, is for me nothing but a proposition with its indices or subjects left blank, or indefinite. The common noun happens to have a very distinctive character in the Indo-European languages. In most other tongues it is not sharply discriminated from a verb or participle. "Man," if it can be said to mean anything by itself, means "what I am thinking of is a man."— Peirce, CP 3.440 (1896)
Vygotsky (1934) realized that the conceptual structures which inhabit meaning spaces must form an organic system from the beginning:
Concepts do not lie in the child's mind like peas in a bag, without any bonds between them. If that were the case, no intellectual operation requiring coordination of thoughts would be possible, nor any general conception of the world. Not even separate concepts as such could exist: their very nature presupposes a system.— Vygotsky (1934, 110-11)
Popper (1968) confirms this with respect to science, which builds consensus by means of repeated observations: 'for logical reasons, there must always be a point of view – such as a system of expectations, anticipations, assumptions, or interests – before there can be any repetition' (59). Without such a system of anticipations, no act or observation could be recognized as 'the same.' This 'repetition-for-us' is 'the result of our propensity to expect regularities and to search for them' (60).
This system of anticipations is inhabited by concepts, each of which can be regarded as an iconic map of the relationships among interconnected feelings, ideas and intentions.
A concept is not a mere jumble of particulars,— that is only its crudest species. A concept is the living influence upon us of a diagram, or icon, with whose several parts are connected in thought an equal number of feelings or ideas. The law of mind is that feelings and ideas attach themselves in thought so as to form systems. But the icon is not always clearly apprehended. We may not know at all what it is; or we may have learned it by the observation of nature.We are often guided by these 'diagrams' without being conscious of them, and usually without visualizing them; they function implicitly. Semiotically, though, we can learn to contemplate them.— Peirce, CP 7.467 (1893)
Cognition begins with perception, and perception begins by foregrounding something against what thereby becomes its background. Then it is identified by its difference from something else. In a cultural meaning space, 'each unit acquires a semantic value only insofar as it is inserted into a semantic axis, and thus opposed to another unit' (Eco 1976, §2.12.1). In a logical meaning space, 'assertion always implies a denial of something else' (Peirce, CP 1.357). The 'opposition' can be symmetric in a binary way, as between a pair of opposites, or multilateral as in the radial symmetry of a starfish, or asymmetric like figure against ground or text against context.
A unit, once distinguished within a universe of discourse, can be designated – not only with nouns but also with verbs, adjectives and so forth; a cultural unit is not necessarily a 'thing.' Once the name exists, it can be applied either to the node in the network of meaning space – the type – or to an individual instance of the type – a token. But the relationship between word (lexeme) and concept (node) becomes increasingly complex when we take intersemiotic relations into account. As Eco (1976, 122) points out, in reference to 'Model Q',
… this model anticipates the definition of every sign, thanks to the interconnection of the universe of all other signs that function as interpretants, each of these ready to become the sign interpreted by all the others; the model, in all its complexity, is based on a process of unlimited semiosis. From a sign which is taken as a type, it is possible to penetrate, from the center to the furthest periphery, the whole universe of cultural units, each of which can in turn become the center and create infinite peripheries.This depiction of 'the whole universe of cultural units' approaches the image of a sphere the center of which is everywhere and the circumference nowhere – an image with a history traced by Borges (1952) from the pre-Socratic philosophers to Pascal. This sphere was identified with being, the universe, or God, while here it appears as the structure of the universe of discourse: another clue that the world is inside out (Chapter 5).
This model helps to explain why communication problems arise within a linguistic community: the repertoire (the lexicon) is in the public domain, while the meaning space internal to the individual is private. Eco, by designating the nodes as 'cultural units,' is clearly referring to a public meaning space (or semantic space, Eco's own term). As he says, 'we are looking for a semiotic model which justifies the conventional denotations and connotations attributed to a sign-vehicle.' And indeed, symbolic communication only works to the extent that language users strive to conform their usage to an ideal correspondence between word and intended referent. Biologically, though, it is clear that this ideal can never be fully realized, since it is always the individual first person speaking, and her utterance can only be shaped by her internal models (of the ideal public meaning space and of the world), constructed through her own personal history.
It seems certainly the truest statement for most languages to say that a symbol is a conventional sign which being attached to an object signifies that that object has certain characters. But a symbol, in itself, is a mere dream; it does not show what it is talking about. It needs to be connected with its object. For that purpose, an index is indispensable. No other kind of sign will answer the purpose. That a word cannot in strictness of speech be an index is evident from this, that a word is general – it occurs often, and every time it occurs, it is the same word, and if it has any meaning as a word, it has the same meaning every time it occurs; while an index is essentially an affair of here and now, its office being to bring the thought to a particular experience, or series of experiences connected by dynamical relations. A meaning is the associations of a word with images, its dream exciting power. An index has nothing to do with meanings; it has to bring the hearer to share the experience of the speaker by showing what he is talking about. The words this and that are indicative words. They apply to different things every time they occur. It is the connection of an indicative word to a symbolic word which makes an assertion.In any given context, the set of things we can make assertions about is called the universe of discourse. Peirce explained this in his BD definition of 'Universe (in logic)':— Peirce, CP 4.56 (1893)
Universe of discourse, of a proposition, &c.: In every proposition the circumstances of its enunciation show that it refers to some collection of individuals or of possibilities, which cannot be adequately described, but can only be indicated as something familiar to both speaker and auditor. At one time it may be the physical universe … at another it may be the imaginary 'world' of some play or novel, at another a range of possibilities.… It does not seem to be absolutely necessary in all cases that there should be an index proper outside the symbolic terms of the proposition to show what it is that is referred to; but in general there is such an index in the environment common to speaker and auditor.
'A common noun [such] as "man," standing alone, is certainly an index, but not of the object it denotes. It is an index of the mental object which it calls up. It is the index of an icon; for it denotes whatever there may be which is like that image' (EP2:17-18). The noun points to a feature of the Model (as explained in Chapter 9, while a genuine index points to an object in the World (external to the Model).
It is desirable that you should understand the difference between the Genuine and the Degenerate Index. The Genuine Index represents the duality between the representamen and its object. As a whole it stands for the object; but a part or element of it represents [it] as being the Representamen, by being an Icon or analogue of the object in some way; and by virtue of that duality, it conveys information about the object. The simplest example of a genuine index would be, say, a telescopic image of a double star. This is not an icon simply, because an icon is a representamen which represents its object by virtue of its similarity to it, as a drawing of a triangle represents a mathematical triangle. But the mere appearance of the telescopic image of a double star does not proclaim itself to be similar to the star itself. It is because we have set the circles of the equatorial so that the field must by physical compulsion contain the image of that star that it represents that star, and by that means we know that the image must be an icon of the star, and information is conveyed. Such is the genuine or informational index.Of course 'genuine, degenerate' and 'informational' are relative terms; all signs function triadically in some sense or they couldn't be signs at all, yet in actual semiosis or communication, all signs are degenerate (or 'incomplete') to some degree. In systemic terms, we could say than an index is genuine to the extent that it Informs the system about the world external to it. Whatever is genuinely Second to a system is external to it; 'degenerate seconds may be conveniently termed Internal, in contrast to External seconds, which are constituted by external fact, and are true actions of one thing upon another' (EP1:254). External seconds enter into 'real relations' as opposed to what the medieval logicians called 'relations of reason' (EP1:253). The Dynamical Object of a genuine sign, being 'an object of actual Experience' (SS 197), is always outside of the interpreting system in the sense of being beyond its control – and therefore able to make a real difference to its self-control, its habit-system, its 'inner law.'A Degenerate Index is a representamen which represents a single object because it is factually connected with it, but which conveys no information whatever. Such, for example, are the letters attached to a geometrical or other diagram. A proper name is substantially the same thing; for although in this case the connection of the sign with its object happens to be a purely mental association, yet that circumstance is of no importance in the functioning of the representamen.— Peirce, EP2:171-2
In an illuminating metaphor, social scientist Otto Neurath compares humans as knowers to "sailors who must rebuild their ship on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in dry-dock and to reconstruct it there out of the best materials."Can any guidance system be perfected? Can a life reach a state of fulfillment so that no niche in meaning space is left unoccupied?— Martin Benjamin, Philosophy & This Actual World, 59
There is no conceivable fulfillment of any rational life except progress towards further fulfillment.— Peirce, CN 3:124 (quoted in Cobley 2010, 90)
This principle applies not only psychologically but also biologically, down to the cellular level. For instance, a neuron cannot 'fire' continuously; indeed it has to spend much of its time 'resting' in order to be ready to fire again. At the neural population scale, inhibition is as necessary as excitation for the propagation of the signal along a nerve. A similar cyclic pattern applies to complex chemical reactions and to the self-organization process in cellular slime molds.
The slime mold is not a real mold at all but a single-cell amoeba that feeds on bacteria. When there is a scarcity of food, the individuals aggregate, forming colonies of thousands of cells. These colonies can migrate as a unit over relatively large distances. Over time, the homogeneous assemblage of cells differentiates in such a way that part of it becomes a base rich in cellulose, while the other part becomes a "fruiting body" rich in polysaccharides. The fruiting body then bursts, scattering spores, which yield mobile cells when food is again available. The cycle thereupon starts over again with the individual amoeba.The gathering of individual amoebas into a multicellular organism is triggered by a chemical signal which spreads from cell to cell, each being stimulated by the chemical (cAMP) to release a burst of it.— Depew and Weber 1995, 419
But this is not enough to ensure an effective signal: it must also be destroyed, otherwise the whole dish of amoebas would become a sea of cAMP, and no signals would be visible. The amoebas secrete an enzyme, phosphodiesterase, which destroys cAMP. So the substance has a brief lifetime, and the diffusion profile of the signal from a stimulated amoeba has a steep gradient, generating an effective directional signal that allows other amoebas to use it for chemotaxis (directed movement in response to a chemical). However, there is a problem here: cAMP released from an amoeba diffuses symmetrically in all directions away from the source, so amoebas anywhere within the effective range of the signal could respond. This means that each stimulated amoeba could become the center of the propagating wave. The result would be total chaos. This does not happen … The reason is beautifully simple and natural: after an amoeba has released a burst of cAMP, it cannot immediately respond to another signal and release another burst. It goes into a refractory state during which it is unresponsive, recovering from the previous stimulus and returning to its 'excitable' condition. Therefore, the wave cannot travel backward, and the signal travels one way.This sort of thing 'shows that spatial order arises with temporal order' (Goodwin 1994, 76). Even at the microscopic level, meaning takes time and moves in cycles.— Brian Goodwin (1994, 50)
Biological time and space defined by Hans Jonas:
The internal direction towards the next impending phase of a being that has to continue itself constitutes biological time; the external direction toward the co-present not-itself constitutes biological space. As the here expands into the there, so the now expands into the future.(Thompson 2007, 155)
The hearing of a melody is hearing with the melody.… It is even a condition of hearing melody that the tone present at the moment should fill consciousness entirely, that nothing should be remembered, nothing except it or beside it be present in consciousness.… Hearing a melody is hearing, having heard, and being about to hear, all at once. Every melody declares to us that the past can be there without being remembered, the future without being foreknown.— Victor Zuckerkandl in Sound and Symbol, as quoted by Oliver Sacks (2008, 213)
Language is both music and instrument.— Todd Lawson
Because the brain operates for the most part as a closed system, it must be regarded as a reality emulator rather than a simple translator.… the intrinsic electrical activity of the brain's elements (its neurons and their complex connectivity) must form an entity, or a functional construct. Furthermore, this entity must efficiently handle the transformation of sensory input arising from the external world into its motor counterpart.In the model Llinás develops to explain how this works,— Llinás (2001, 13)
the electrical activity patterns that each neuron generates in the formation of a motor pattern, or any other internal pattern in the brain, must be represented in an abstract geometrical space. This is the vectorial coordinate space where sensory input and its transformation into a motor output take place.— Llinás (2001, 13)
that in thought, in being, and in development the indefinite is due to a degeneration from a primary state of perfect definiteness. The truth is rather on the side of the scholastic realists that the unsettled is the primal state, and that definiteness and determinateness, the two poles of settledness, are, in the large, approximations, developmentally, epistemologically, and metaphysically.CP 6.348, c. 1909)
This pattern also appears in studies of how a meaning space is embodied in a developing brain (Chapter 13). In Walter Freeman's 'circular causality' model, 'the patterns of neural activity are self-organized by chaotic dynamics' (Freeman 1995). But the circularity of the process implies that as meaning spaces and habits take on form, they tend to impose a more definite and determinate order on the chaotic dynamics of brain activity. Thomas Metzinger (2003) offers a model which places more emphasis on the 'top-down' aspects of the process.
As a matter of fact some of the best current work in neuroscience … suggests a view of the human brain as a system that constantly simulates possible realities, generates internal expectations and hypotheses in a top-down fashion, while being constrained in this activity by what I have called mental presentation, constituting a constant stimulus-correlated bottom-up stream of information, which then finally helps the system to select one of an almost infinitely large number of internal possibilities and turning it into phenomenal reality, now explicitly expressed as the content of a conscious representation.… Recent evidence points to the fact that background fluctuations in the gamma frequency range are not only chaotic fluctuations but contain information – philosophically speaking, information about what is possible. This information – for example, certain grouping rules, residing in fixed network properties like the functional architecture of corticocortical connections – is structurally laid-down information about what was possible and likely in the past of the system and its ancestors. Certain types of ongoing background activity could therefore just be the continuous process of hypothesis generation mentioned above. Not being chaotic at all, it might be an important step in translating structurally laid-down information about what was possible in the past history of the organism into those transient, dynamical elements of the processing that are right now actually contributing to the content of conscious experience.… Not only fixed network properties could in this indirect way shape what in the end we actually see and consciously experience, but if the autonomous background process of thousands of hypotheses continuously chattering away can be modulated by true top-down processing, then even specific expectations and focal attention could generate precise correlational patterns in peripheral processing structures, patterns serving to compare and match actually incoming sensory signals. That is, in the terminology here proposed, not only unconscious mental simulation but also deliberately intended high-level phenomenal simulations, conscious thoughts, personal-level memories, and so on can modulate unconscious, subpersonal matching processes.This model translates easily into the Kabbalistic idiom, where the primary process of divine emanation is depicted as top-down in the standard 'Tree of Life' diagram. In Zohar 1:183a-b (Matt 1983, 80-83), for instance, dreams, visions and prophecy represent various levels of what Metzinger calls simulations. They are governed by the divine language but corrupted to various degrees (hence the 'levels') by the influence of 'the body,' i.e. the personal history, anxieties and limitations which darken the imagination. It is the interaction of the influences from above and below – from superpersonal and subpersonal levels, you might say – that generates phenomenal reality. Freeing the divine component from the corrupt requires interpretation, which then allows the creative power of 'Speech' to assume the prophetic guidance function:— Metzinger (2003, 51-2)
every dream is from that lower level,It is the realization (or 'fulfillment') of the dream which 'follows' interpretation in the temporal order, and this happens because conscious experience is governed by (and thus 'follows') the meaning process. 'Human interpretation is effective because its words activate the divine realm of Speech [Shekhinah], who then translates the dream into reality' (Matt 1983, 230). Language (i.e. the symbolic order) thus acts as final cause of perception.
and Speech commands that level;
that is why every dream follows the interpretation.— Matt (1983, 81)
In the meaning cycle, of course, this 'reality' is followed by a new interpretation, which in turn modulates expectations and modifies practice, and so on. The top-down and bottom-up streams take turns modulating each other (though it's all happening simultaneously in the time that is real to the system as a whole). What Metzinger (above) calls 'fixed network properties like the functional architecture of corticocortical connections' could be the biological substrate of meaning space, the essential structure whose finer details are determined in 'real time' by the incoming stream of sensory information. The structure itself has of course evolved over a much longer time scale.
We are hunters and gatherers of meaning, to the extent that we can attend to significant objects. In any given moment of perception, the significance of an object appears before the finer details of its appearance, and guides the selection of details for special attention. Hurford (2007, §4.3) argues that the way attention works is a powerful constraint on semiotic (and linguistic) structures. Specifically, he asserts the primacy of global attention over attention for details in the human cognitive process.
The general idea of the distinction between global and local attention is given by Treisman (2004, p. 541): 'An initial rapid pass through the visual hierarchy provides the global framework and gist of the scene and primes competing identities through the features that are detected. Attention is then focused back to early areas to allow a serial check of the initial rough bindings and to form the representations of objects and events that are consciously experienced.' The theory was pioneered by Navon (1977), whose title, 'Forest before the trees,' expresses the phenomenon vividly. He summarizes: 'global structuring of a visual scene precedes analysis of local features' (p. 353) and 'global processing is a necessary stage of perception prior to more fine-grained analysis' (p. 371).— Hurford (2007, 104)
The discreteness and articulation of phonemes is crucial to the functioning of spoken language as a symbol system, and we humans must learn to hear discreteness (as 'articulated sound') even when the stream of sound is actually continuous. Recordings of normal spoken language, displayed on an oscilloscope or otherwise 'objectively' observed, do not contain gaps of silence between phonemes. This is why 'motherese,' the peculiar style of articulation that adults use in speaking to very young children, exaggerates the discreteness of phonemes (see Kuhl et al. in Damasio et al. 2001): in order to acquire language, children have to grasp this discreteness before they can begin to combine the elements of language into words and sentences and thus comprehend (or produce) them.
The discreteness of speech sounds does not contradict the continuity of sound. Likewise there is no contradiction between gradual development and "punctuated equilibrium," between creation and evolution, or between "sudden" and "gradual" enlightenment.
oh bless the continuous stutter
of the word being made into flesh.— Leonard Cohen, 'The Window' (1993, 299)
We are going to shock the physiological psychologists, for once, by attempting, not an account of a hypothesis about the brain, but a description of an image which shall correspond, point by point, to the different features of the phenomena of consciousness. Consciousness is like a bottomless lake in which ideas are suspended at different depths. Indeed, these ideas themselves constitute the very medium of consciousness itself.This fluid model of meaning space definitely involves meaning time as well as energy. It is remarkably similar to Peirce's account of the 'perfect sign' or 'quasi-mind', which might be called 'the very medium of thought,' just as 'ideas' are 'the very medium of consciousness.'[marginal note by Peirce:] An idea is nothing but a portion of consciousness having in itself no definite boundaries, except so far as it may be of a different quality from contiguous ideas.Percepts alone are uncovered by the medium. We must imagine that there is a continual fall of rain upon the lake; which images the constant inflow of percepts in experience. All ideas other than percepts are more or less deep, and we may conceive that there is a force of gravitation, so that the deeper ideas are, the more work will be required to bring them to the surface. This virtual work, which the mathematicians call the 'potentials' of the particles, is the negative of the 'potential energy'; and the potential energy is that feature of the image which corresponds to the degree of vividness of the idea. Or we may see that the potential, or depth, represents the degree of energy of attention that is requisite to discern the idea at that depth. But it must not be thought that an idea actually has to be brought to the surface of consciousness before it can be discerned. To bring it to the surface of consciousness would be to produce a hallucination. Not only do all ideas tend to gravitate toward oblivion, but we are to imagine that various ideas react upon one another by selective attractions. This images the associations between ideas which tend to agglomerate them into single ideas. Just as our idea of spatial distance consists in the sense of time that it would take with a given effort to pass from one object to another, so the distance between ideas is measured by the time it will take to unite them. One tries to think of the French for shark or for linchpin. The time that it will take to recover the forgotten word depends upon the force of association between the ideas of the English and French words and upon circumstances which we image by their distance. This, it must be confessed, is exceedingly vague; as vague as would be our notion of spatial distance if we lived in the body of an ocean, and were destitute of anything rigid to measure with, being ourselves mere portions of fluid.— Peirce, CP 7.553 (undated)
Before the mind's eye, whether in sleep or waking, came images that one was to discover presently in some book one had never read, and after looking in vain for explanation to the current theory of forgotten personal memory, I came to believe in a great memory passing on from generation to generation.… Our daily thought was certainly but the line of foam at the shallow edge of a vast luminous sea.Yeats called this 'great memory' anima mundi; but these images are phenomena of the human world, the world of the human imagination, passing on from generation to generation of humans. When they are meaningful, they are iconic signs occurring in various contexts and occupying human meaning spaces. Who knows what they would mean to other imaginations, to other animals? Yet we can't help believing that they arise from much deeper in the bottomless lake of consciousness than the ephemeral chatter of 'our daily thought' – perhaps even from the deeper-than-human.— W. B. Yeats, Mythologies, 346 (1917)
Humanity, immersed in its cultural space, always creates around itself an organized spatial sphere. This sphere includes both ideas and semiotic models and people's recreative activity, since the world which people artificially create (agricultural, architectural and technological) correlates with their semiotic models. There is a two-way connection: on the one hand, architectural buildings copy the spatial image of the universe and, on the other hand, this image of the universe is constructed on an analogy with the world of cultural constructs which mankind creates.— Lotman (1990, 203)
Jesper Hoffmeyer extended the term to show that human culture is only one level of semiosis, grounded in much broader biological phenomena. Hoffmeyer's own note clarifies the concept of 'semiosphere':
I have defined the semiosphere as 'a sphere like the atmosphere, hydrosphere, or biosphere that permeates these spheres from their innermost to outermost reaches and consists of communication: sound, scent, movement, colours, forms, electrical fields, various waves, chemical signals, touch, and so forth – in short, the signs of life' (Hoffmeyer 1996:46). The concept was originally introduced by the Russian-Estonian semiotician Yuri Lotman, who explicitly used it in comparison to Vernadsky's idea of the biosphere. For Lotman (2000 [1990]: 125), the semiosphere remained a cultural concept: 'The unit of semiosis, the smallest functioning mechanism, is not the separate language but the whole semiotic space in question. This is the space we term the semiosphere. The semiosphere is the result and the condition for the development of culture; we justify our term by analogy with the biosphere, as Vernadsky defined it.' For more details about the origin of these terms, see Sebeok (1999). John Deely accepts my use of the word semiosphere and suggests 'signosphere as a term more appropriate for the narrower designation of semiosphere in Lotman's sense, leaving the broader coinage and usage to Hoffmeyer's credit' (Deely 2001a: 629).(Cobley 2010, 398)
When in a rare moment I manage painfully to rise above a petty individualism by knowing my true nature, I perceive that I dwell in the wondrous net of Indra, and in this incredible network of interdependence, the career of the Bodhisattva must begin. It is not just that 'we are all in it' together. We all are it, rising or falling as one living body.Austin (1998, 499) identifies this experience with the absorption of samadhi. But something very much like the net of Indra appears to Christian visionaries as well.— Cook (1977, 122)
Every nature, every modeled form, every creature, exists in and with each other. They will dissolve again into their own proper root. For the nature of matter is dissolved into what belongs to its nature. Anyone with two ears able to hear should listen!— Gospel of Mary 2 (King 2003b, 13)
Blake's vision of eternal meaning space – 'Mutual each within others bosom in Visions of Regeneration' (Jerusalem 21:45) – is based on Ezekiel but also features the mutually reflecting nodes of the Net of Indra:
the Four Faces of Humanity fronting the Four Cardinal PointsOf Heaven going forward forward irresistible from Eternity to Eternity
And they conversed together in Visionary forms dramatic …
& they walkedTo & fro in Eternity as One Man reflecting each in each & clearly seenAnd seeing: according to fitness & order.Jerusalem 98
Even in Peirce's late definitions of 'Sign' emerges something very like the net of Indra, as a semiotic network in which the whole Sign is both context and object of each part, so that each part is a sign of itself as part of its own object.
The word Sign will be used to denote an Object perceptible, or only imaginable, or even unimaginable in one sense—for the word "fast," which is a Sign, is not imaginable, since it is not this word itself that can be set down on paper or pronounced, but only an instance of it, and since it is the very same word when it is written as it is when it is pronounced, but is one word when it means "rapidly" and quite another when it means "immovable," and a third when it refers to abstinence. But in order that anything should be a Sign, it must "represent," as we say, something else, called its Object, although the condition that a Sign must be other than its Object is perhaps arbitrary, since, if we insist upon it we must at least make an exception in the case of a Sign that is a part of a Sign. Thus nothing prevents the actor who acts a character in an historical drama from carrying as a theatrical "property" the very relic that that article is supposed merely to represent, such as the crucifix that Bulwer's Richelieu holds up with such effect in his defiance. On a map of an island laid down upon the soil of that island there must, under all ordinary circumstances, be some position, some point, marked or not, that represents qua place on the map, the very same point qua place on the island.A sign may have more than one Object. Thus, the sentence "Cain killed Abel," which is a Sign, refers at least as much to Abel as to Cain, even if it be not regarded as it should, as having "a killing" as a third Object. But the set of objects may be regarded as making up one complex Object. In what follows and often elsewhere Signs will be treated as having but one object each for the sake of dividing difficulties of the study. If a Sign is other than its Object, there must exist, either in thought or in expression, some explanation or argument or other context, showing how—upon what system or for what reason the Sign represents the Object or set of Objects that it does. Now the Sign and the Explanation together make up another Sign, and since the explanation will be a Sign, it will probably require an additional explanation, which taken together with the already enlarged Sign will make up a still larger Sign; and proceeding in the same way, we shall, or should, ultimately reach a Sign of itself, containing its own explanation and those of all its significant parts; and according to this explanation each such part has some other part as its Object. According to this every Sign has, actually or virtually, what we may call a Precept of explanation according to which it is to be understood as a sort of emanation, so to speak, of its Object. (If the Sign be an Icon, a scholastic might say that the "species" of the Object emanating from it found its matter in the Icon. If the Sign be an Index, we may think of it as a fragment torn away from the Object, the two in their Existence being one whole or a part of such whole. If the Sign is a Symbol, we may think of it as embodying the "ratio," or reason, of the Object that has emanated from it. These, of course, are mere figures of speech; but that does not render them useless.)CP 2.230 (1910)
A newly acquired meaning is forced upon everything that does not obviously resist its application, as a child uses a new word whenever he gets a chance or as he plays with a new toy. Meanings are self-moving to new cases. In the end, conditions force a chastening of this spontaneous tendency. The scope and limits of application are ascertained experimentally in the process of application. The history of science, to say nothing of popular beliefs, is sufficient indication of the difficulty found in submitting this irrational generalizing tendency to the discipline of experience. To call it a priori is to express a fact; but to impute the a priori character of the generalizing force of meanings to reason is to invert the facts. Rationality is acquired when the tendency becomes circumspect, based upon observation and tested by deliberate experiment.Rationality then is a symptom of semiotic self-control, the key to learning from experience.— John Dewey, 1925 (ED2:59)
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