Essay on Evolution Embedded in Symbols - 2727 Words

Evolution Embedded in Symbols Two billion years ago two prokaryotes bumped into each other and formed the first multi-cellular organism. 65 million years ago an asteroid hit the earth and dinosaurs became extinct. Three days ago, in your notebook you drew a mess of squiggles which to you represented Jackson Pollocks painting, Number 1, 1948. You wrote the word entropy on the upper left hand corner of the page. On the bottom right hand side you wrote, Creativity is based on randomness and chance. This paper is, in part, an exploration of the pictures and words that we place in notebooks; it is an investigation of the human fixation with the creation of symbols via art and writing. But is also about how the symbols drawn in ones†¦show more content†¦In her book, On Beauty and Being Just, Elaine Scarry states that beauty incites replication (4). Like a history of evolution, a history of human symbolic representation is heavily dependent on the act of reproduction. This reproduction has manifested itself quite literally. For example, when a painter finds something in nature to be beautiful, she can reproduce it on the canvas and when a writer finds a moment to be inspiring, she can transcribe the moment into a set of instructions [i.e. words] about how [a reader] can imagine or construct [that moment] (Dreaming by the Book, Scarry, 6). Like sexual reproduction which allows organisms to share their genetic material in order to continue species and to create new organisms , pictures and words help with a lateral transfer of cultural information, its continuance and recombination. To create a symbol of something with a string of words or with an art material is to perpetuate that which is beautiful for future generations. According to Dennett, before there were words, there were no word meanings, even if there were other sorts of meanings. (402) Dennetts hypothesis reminds us, at the most basic level that symbols mean something. To say that there are only a couple of meanings behind all artwork and writing would be to deny the complexity of the human symbol-making andShow MoreRelatedEvaluate the Arguments, Presented in the Course, Supporting Chomsky’s Claim That Humans Are Innately Predisposed to Acquire Language, Discussing Specifically What It Might Mean for Humans to Be ‘Innately Predisposed to1356 Words   |  6 Pagesthrough interaction with presented experience’’ (Chomsky, 1985,p. 5) The extent of detail in the structure of human language does suggest that maybe an ability to learn language is genetically embedded, as opposed to language being learnt as one develops. However, Chomsky does not take into consideration evolution as a possible threat to his claim of human s being innately predisposed to acquire language. Noam Chomsky believes that all human beings have a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), an instinctiveRead MoreLanguage As A Monitor Social Reality766 Words   |  4 Pagescategories to explicitly expose the relations between languages and realities: â€Å"semiotic relativity, linguistic relativity and discursive relativity† (Kramsch, 2014, p. 32). According to Vygotsky (1980), a semiotic system is made up of both linguistic symbols and cognitive methods. Children, to develop their own speeches primarily, make an identical process as apes that they initialize and associate the words’ meanings by repeatable observations. To be distinct from animals, children create their own meaningsRead MoreEssay about The Power of Words1409 Words   |  6 Pageslie. It is precisely because of its role as an indispensable tool of communication and thoughts that words have the power to mold our values, emotions and perception. 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His body is covered in ashes to represent the opposite of desire and to symbolize the essence of fire (Gokhale 62). A crescent moon is visible on the side of Shiva’s head, which represents the time cycle of evolution (Pandit). He has four arms, in which one he carries a trident, which has three points that symbolize the triad in which Shiva assists in comprising (Gokhale 5). This triad consists of the creator, Brahma, the preserver, Vishnu, and the destroyerRead MoreTo Lead You Must First Have Self-Awareness1590 Words   |  6 Pages3 Change Path (Balogun and Hope Hailey (2004) extend beyond its initial big bang implementation to an incremental embedding of the change (i.e. Evolution). This extension will allow for the both the hard output targets initially required by the change and soft behavioural, belief and attitude targets required to ensure that the change is embedded for the long term. Figure 3-3 depicts this Change Path across the dimensions of Nature and End Result. 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