In Search of Lost Meaning

Technologies of Writing and the Crisis of Representation

Abstract

INTRODUCTION
The following paper explores the evolution and significance of writing as a techné within the context of digital culture. It examines how semiotic concepts such as logos, arche, and patterns of representation shape meaning and impact the semiotics of writing in the age of digital dissemination.
Writing is a vital tool for preserving and transmitting ideas and knowledge. Since its inception, it has been a means to communicate individual thoughts and emotions, encapsulating cultural narratives, collective histories, and unique human experiences for future generations—the readers of today.
To study writing through the lens of information technologies offers insights into the evolving functions of information tools, shedding light on their impact on human communication, social interaction, and cultural memory. Driven by language models, the technological age is primarily formed by binary dyadic models. By blurring the distinctions between the writer and the message, as well as between the physical and digital realms, writing today contributes to reinterpreting the history of literacy. This transformation is accelerated by an increasingly digital dissemination, where digita codes model the structures of social communication and fuel the creation of mass content.
Writing serves as a means to preserve the evolution of meaning. In his seminal work “Grammatology” (1997[1967]),. Jacques Derrida critiques the restraints put on our understanding of meaning processes imposed by a dyadic definition of the sign structure. The inherent dynamics of Saussure’s dyadic structure affect all signified concepts, restraining meaning between the signifier and signified. (Saussure 1966) Derrida confronts the challenge of uncovering the origins of meaning by proposing a shift from semiology—the study of the linguistic sign—to grammatology, the study of writing.
“The advantage of this substitution will not only be to give to the theory of writing the scope needed to counter logocentric repression and the subordination to linguistics. It will liberate the semiological project itself from what, in spite of its greater theoretical extension, remained governed by linguistics, organized as if linguistics were at once its center and its telos […] The
linguistic sign remained exemplary for semiology, it dominated it as the master-sign and as the generative model: the pattern [patron].” (Derrida 1997 [1967], 51)
Recent studies have sparked discussions about the efficacy of language as a prototype for constructing reasoning systems. For instance, a study titled “Language Elize Bisanz is Primarily a Tool for Communication Rather than Thought” explores the relation between natural language and reasoning, thus shedding some light on the technology-human interaction in communication. Such experiments serve to delineate the brain circuits involved in language-related tasks such as word recall and grammar.
Participants were presented with nonsensical phrases followed by proper ones, and it was shown that different brain regions were stimulated only during the perception of meaning-bearing language.
The results confirm that strokes and other brain injuries can disrupt the language network, resulting in challenges with word processing and grammar, a condition known as aphasia. Notably, individuals with aphasia can still perform well in tasks like algebra and chess, raising an intriguing question: if language isn’t essential for reasoning processes, what role does it play? The researchers suggest that language may primarily function as a tool for communication.
The notion that thought or reasoning and language can operate independently might help explain why artificial intelligence systems like Large Language Models excel in certain areas while struggling in others. Computer scientists train such AI models on extensive text data to discern patterns in word relationships. Although these systems are beginning to mimic the human brain’s language network, they often lag behind in their reasoning capabilities.
This has led researchers to ponder: what is the missing link between language and reasoning?