Knowledge construction, non-standard semantics and the genesis of the mind's eyes

Arturo Carsetti

pp. 283-300

in: Causality, meaningful complexity and embodied cognition, Berlin, Springer, 2010

Abstract

The world perceived at the visual level is constituted not by objects or static forms, but by processes appearing imbued with meaning. As Kanizsa stated, at the visual level the line per se does not exist: only the line which enters, goes behind, divides, etc.: a line evolving according to a precise holistic context, in comparison with which function and meaning are indissolubly interlinked. The static line is in actual fact the result of a dynamic compensation of forces. Just as the meaning of words is connected with a universe of highly-dynamic functions and functional processes which operate syntheses, cancellations, integrations, etc. (a universe which can only be described in terms of symbolic dynamics), in the same way, at the level of vision, I must continuously unravel and construct schemata; must assimilate and make myself available for selection by the co-ordinated information penetrating from external reality. Lastly, I must interrelate all this with the internal selection mechanisms through a precise journey into the regions of intensionality. The resulting global determination will present itself as something perceived insofar as it will reveal itself as linked to precise postulates of meaning: it will thus emerge as a scene (a scene for an I-subject), and the single processes of determination as meaningful observers or as objects, actions, etc. which populate the scene and which result as encapsulated in observation systems. The I-subject will recognise itself through the co-ordinated action of these observation systems; it will mirror itself in the pupils of these very systems to the extent that it will be recognised as the primary factor of their recovery as autonomous units.