From: gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au (Gil Hardwick)
Newsgroups: sci.anthropology
Subject: Categorization Confusion
Distribution: world
Date: Sat, 21 Nov 92 01:36:06 GMT
Organization: STAFF STRATEGIES - Anthropologists & Training Agents


In article <168A36CD4.JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com> JHARTLEY@cmsa.gmr.com writes:

 > Categorization needs no intentionality.  Think of it this way.  The world
 > is "kaleidoscopically diverse" (Rosch's words) but our responses to it,
 > either in actions taken or words used to name things, are limited.  It is
 > a matter of mapping discreteness over continuity.  Lest we constantly
 > be encountering totally new experiences, we must treat some things (which
 > are different) as "the same".  Thus, when I encounter something dangerous,
 > I generalize to other things like it so that I can react quickly to similar
 > things in the future.  People need not set out to group things intentionally
 > (although this also goes on).  The structure in the environment, in combination
 > with the needs of the perceiver, lead the human to treat different things
 > as the same (i.e., to categorize).  What Rosch and Berlin have found, with the
 > cultures they each have studied, is that the categories that are found in
 > different cultures are remarkably similar.  These authors explain it by the
 > structure found in the world - a world shared by these cultures.

Look, our common pattern of response to the "kaleidoscopically diverse"
world is not at all cultural, but physiological. It is our *senses* which
impose structure and order to the world a priori; as the noise from our
external environment bombards our receptors, each being limited in their
sensitivity to a relatively small range of stimuli from the spectrum
available, automatically an image is generated of that environment to
which we must repond. Of course we do, otherwise we will very likely be
killed very quick smart.

It does not follow, however, that we then categorise the entities so
perceived. I have already asserted that in Aboriginal Australia those
entities are *not* categorised as discrete *objects*, but related as
*subjective* elements of one's personal identity mapped onto a single
continuous network of relationship called The Dreaming, or The Law in
some parts of Australia. That is the very opposite from your "mapping
discreteness over continuity", and there is very substantial evidence
indeed that such is the case as I have endeavoured to indicate to you.

I suggest very strongly that your authors themselves may be confusing
*race* with culture. All races being human of course the results of
perceptual filtering of noise from the environment will be similar
across all races on earth, without once being treated culturally at
all similarly. That is a far cry indeed from "the structure found in
the world - a world shared by those cultures."

(Your use of the definite article here again is both unwarranted and
unsubstantiated, BTW, leading me to perceive a religious fervour to
your campaign.)

Now, suppose that I accept Rhindos' argument that I am making a subtle
distinction, and we agree that there are some similarities from one
culture to another? The problem I have then is that unless I pursue
the same criteria of rational acceptability you do (that is, adopt
*your* culture), I am unable to make anything of the assertion. I
must sit back dumbfounded by its sheer emptiness, and ask *SO WHAT?*.

It is absolutely certain that I am unable to pursue it by Aboriginal
criteria of acceptability inherent in *their* culture. The notion of
categorisation of perceived entities, intentional or otherwise, just
creates an enormous problematic we would simply be unable to resolve
since it makes no sense, and anyway is itself functionally dangerous
in this environment as I have endeavoured to relate to you.

As you persist in maintaining that I am confused, solely on the basis
of your acceptance of what someone else has written as reasonable by
your own lights (and therefore that what they describe *MUST BE SO*),
I must then retaliate by charging you with a hostile and unwelcome
attempt at invading a culture obviously foreign to you.

If you do wish to pursue your enquiries on proper scientific grounds,
on the other hand, please do feel welcome to seek research funds and
come here to study with us, and learn something of substance about the
nature of Aboriginal Australia before asserting that someone else is
confused. There are no other grounds to such an assertion in this case
than that they have simply refused to accept your actually second-hand
hypothesis.

For that matter, you can go and sit with indigenous people just about
everywhere and hear them comment upon the blind arrogance of the poor
silly Europeans, unable to listen or to understand anything apart from
what they believe logically follows from their own poorly founded and
untested academic constructs.

Only one example is sufficient to reliably assert the null hypothesis
in this case, however, but as you wish plenty of others can be found.
You might like to read, as further case study for North America;

        Brody H.  1982
        Maps and Dreams
        London: Jill Norman & Hobhouse Ltd

--
Gil Hardwick                                      gil@Gilsys.DIALix.oz.au
Independent Consulting Ethnologist                            3:690/660.6
PERTH, Western Australia                                 (+61 9) 399 2401
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