Sunday, May 1, 2011

blog # 5

Weinberger quoted the German philosopher Heidegger, who said "the meaning of a particular thing is enabled by the web of implicit meanings we call the world" i believe that what he meant by this is that the meaning of something is shaped by the meanings and subjects that surround it. In order to understand what something means, you need to have an understanding of the context and connections that it has to other things.

This is seen through images, literature, and music all of the time, as both rel on an inherent understanding of what the symbols and objects surrounding them mean. A sentence won't make any sense if there is a word in it that one doesn't understand, the symbolism of the colors on the American flag won't mean anything unless you know what red white and blue means to our country, and the lyrics of the song Dust in the Wind have no meaning unless you connect the metaphor with the frailty, futility, and briefness of life.

The 3rd order objects are categorized by comparing them to other objects. Looking for a book categorizes it by type (fiction, non fiction), genre (crime, drama, romance, fantasy, sci-fi, horror, biography, etc), authors, publications, characters, themes, length, etc, etc. We implicitly know where the book we want fits into these categories, based on our previous experiences with that specific book and books in general. The book itself is defined by each of these subjects, helping one to better understand what the are specifically looking for.

For my picture (which i wasn't able to post due to various reasons) I chose the song Through the Fire and the Flames by Dragon Force. It is a fast pasted song that always gets my blood pumping and makes me fell good and like i'm on some epic journey. It always make me feel better whenever I'm down. A computer would need to know that it is an epic fantasy sounding song, that it gets my blood pumping, and that it is just plain awesome.

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