Harry Erwin wrote:
> Consider a wind-tunnel model. Where are the symbols?
They are the elements of the model which are meant to represent the
larger situation being modeled. For example, a model of an aircraft is a
symbol for the real aircraft.
The point is this: There is a continuum in the relationship between
symbols and what they represent. Symbols for (say) an aircraft can be
ranked according to their fidelity to the object being referenced. A set
of blueprints for an F-15 has greater fidelity as a symbol than a set of
sketches or photographs of an F-15. Likewise, the photos have greater
fidelity than the word "F-15", which is completely arbitrary and has no
fidelity at all.
The distinction between symbolic and non-symbolic cannot be made in a
principled way. The two are entangled. For instance, there are Chinese
characters (crude pictures adapted to more properly symbolic purposes)
or sentences like "The man chased the woman" which inadvertently mimic
the actual situation in their syntactic structure.
Kevin K.
