Not the solipsism of a closed system but a continuous exposure to and being affected by an outside. — Joshs

Been through this before. Your particular construal of an original socialtiy is just solipsism redux. It is relies on, is constituted by, defining a closed off region of the "self", then, by fiat, declaring this self to already be public, which - and this is the real problem - is apparently then all the more reason to discount the actual public. The issue isn't with the notion of an original sociality as such; it's the idea that this original socialtiy itself is cut-off, self-enclosed, uncontaminated, with sociality writ large. It's metaphysics in the bad sense. A reengineered metaphysics of presence wearing Derridian garb, even though no one who would take Derrida seriously would subscribe to it. The issue isn't with an original sociality as such, the issue is that by constantly making a hard and fast distinction between original sociality, and socaility in the normal sense (and then constantly retreating back into the shell of the former, as a pristine, self-enclosed space), is to not take seriously enough the idea of an original sociality, which ought to contaminate - in the Derridian sense - this very distinction. There is an original sociality. But it can in no sense be "proper" to the self without the supplement of society writ large.

For Intended meaning to be present to itself it must come back to itself , and in doing so, it already means something other than what it intended. — Joshs

For me it's not even there to begin with, not when it comes to the grand terms. (I can more or less intend to say thank you and accidentally say you're welcome.) It's as if even our complicated metaphysical statements are still just complex animal sounds, merely determinate enough in their "meaning."

Ryle suggests that ‘John knows French’ is a warrant which gives us the right to infer that John understands what he reads in Le Monde or that he is communicating successfully when telephoning in French. Immediately on specifying what we are entitled to do with the inference ticket ‘John knows French’, Ryle admits that the examples of what would satisfy the sentence are too precise, for

[w]e should not withdraw our statement that he knows French on finding that he did not respond pertinently when asleep, absentminded, drunk, or in a panic; or on finding that he did not correctly translate highly technical treatises. We expect no more than that he will ordinarily cope pretty well with the majority of ordinary French-using and French-following tasks. ‘Knows French’ is a vague expression and, for most purposes, none the less useful for being vague. (1949a, 119)

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ryle/

I think this point can be applied pretty much everywhere. When we say that someone "knows French," we don't have some fixed and complete content in mind. It's more like turning a doorknob. The tongue shapes air pushed by the lungs so that it can grasped (reacted to) as a familiar token. (Same with "meaning is use" or "God is love.") Barfing up that string of tokens is like a wave or a handshake, except for being more informative in the sense of more efficient and flexible for coordinating action in the world.

To me this is drifting in the wrong direction, from the unhidden back to the hidden, from public doings back to the pseudo-explanatory entities of the metaphysicians — hanaH

Notice now Antony has been attempting to articulate the difference between my relation to my own thinking and sensing vs my participation in a language
game with others. You mentioned Wittgenstein. For him word use is person-relative and occasion sensitive. What happens to the notion of person-relative if the ‘unhidden” is defined in relation to an overarching group, norm, convention?

You also mentioned Derrida. He was asked this question about the shared , the unhidden and public in relation to
the temporal self. I read his response as grounding ‘unhidden’ in the temporalizing self.

“In the structure of the trace you have something that perhaps Wittgenstein would call 'public': , but what I would simply call 'beyond my absolute re-appropriation' : It is left outside, it is heterogeneous and it is outside. In short, then, perhaps there is here a possible link with Wittgenstein, but it will have to be reconstructed around the history of these notions of 'private ' and 'public', and I am too concerned with and interested in politics and history to use them so easily.

Now the next question, again a very difficult one, has to do with the distinction between the other and time, between alterity, intersubjectivity and time. Again, you make recourse to Wittgenstein in a way which I cannot address here. I quote you: “If one thinks back to the Wittgensteinian debates again, it is clear that there are substantive issues concerning the alleged normativity of meaning and the role of a community in sustaining the practice of a language-game which involves other minds rather more than other times. “ I would immediately agree on the level of the normativity of meaning. No doubt, for a meaning to be understood and for discussion to start, for literature to be read, we need a community that has, even if there are conflicts, a certain desire for normativity, and so for the stabilization of meaning, of grammar, rhetoric, logic, semantics and so on. (But, by the way, if these imply a community, I wouldn't call it a community of 'minds' for a number of reasons - not least those touched on In response to your last question regarding the 'inner' .) This is obvious. And, again, I would say that it is true even for animals, for animal societies. They form a community of interpretation. They need that. And some normativity. There is here some 'symbolic culture‘.

But this is not really the context in which I connect the question about the other who is 'radically other' (that is, is another 'origin of the world' , another 'ego' if you want, or another 'zero point of perception') with that of 'another moment' in time (between this now and the other now, the past now and the now to come, there is an absolute alterity, each now is absolutely other ). So how do I connect the question of the constitution of time (and the alterity within the living present) and the question of the other (of the 'alter ego' as Husserl would say) ? Well my quick answer would be that the two alterities are indissociable. A living being - whether a human being or an animal being - could not have any relation to another being as such without this alterity in time, without, that is, memory, anticipation, this strange sense (I hesitate to call it knowledge) that every now, every instant is radically other and nevertheless in the same form of the now. Equally, there is no ‘I' without the sense as well that everyone other than me is radically other yet also able to say 'I', that there is nothing more heterogeneous than every 'I' and nevertheless there is nothing more universal than the 'I'.”(Arguing with Derrida)

A living being - whether a human being or an animal being - could not have any relation to another being as such without this alterity in time, without, that is, memory, anticipation, this strange sense (I hesitate to call it knowledge) that every now, every instant is radically other and nevertheless in the same form of the now. — Joshs

I like Derrida, but this is still just talk about the occult interior. In this context it doesn't seem relevant. What you make of my prioritizing bodies in the world, using signals to work together? "Sign" might already be misleading here inasmuch as we tend to think of the sign as the envelope of a letter.

For me it's not even there to begin with, not when it comes to the grand terms. (I can more or less intend to say thank you and accidentally say you're welcome.) It's as if even our complicated metaphysical statements are still just complex animal sounds, merely determinate enough in their "meaning," and far from crystalline. — hanaH

What’s missing here is the absolutely vital
relation between what has been and what is being intended. For both Derrida and Heidegger a profound pragmatic belonging co-exists radoxically alongside a relentless self-othering. The world continues to be the same differently, it has a thematic continuity , a belonging to a totality of relevance, as Heidegger would say. This is different from Ryle’s causal-based model
of motivation.


Ryle suggests that ‘John knows French’ is a warrant which gives us the right to infer that John understands what he reads in Le Monde or that he is communicating successfully when telephoning in French

If you read Wittgenstein through Ryle , that may explain our disagreement. In a previous thread , I distinguished between the Oxford school interpretation of Wittgenstein ( Peter Hacker, Ryle, Malcolm) and that of Cavell, Diamond and Conant.

If you read Wittgenstein through Ryle , that may explain our disagreement. — Joshs

I read all of them through all of them, when I can manage it (all of them that I've gotten around to, that is, and within the limits of memory & interest.)

this is still just talk about the occult interior. In this context it doesn't seem relevant. What you make of my prioritizing bodies in the world, using signals to work together? "Sign" might already be misleading here inasmuch as we tend to think of the sign as the envelope of a letter. — hanaH

On the contrary, it is the notion of ‘body’ and materiality’ as causal conditioning agents that presupposes an occult interior. More specifically , as Derrida, Heidegger and Husserl have shown, such a discourse begins from a notion of body or object or material or sign as a self-identical presence ( even if it only exists for an instant).
It is a mode of reciprocal coordinators and interactions among a multitude of temporary entities.
By contrast , Derrida et al dont begin with temporary bits that interact and condition each other. They dont generate change and difference from the behavior of bits. They derive bits from transition. This is the radically temporal approach.

I read all of them through all of them, when I can manage it (all of them that I've gotten around to, that is, and within the limits of memory & interest.) — hanaH

I guess the question I have is, are you aware of this split among Wittgenstein interpreters, can you articulate what it consists of , and which camp do you prefer?

On the contrary, it is the notion of ‘body’ and materiality’ as causal conditioning agents that presupposes an occult interior. — Joshs

Is it not a triviality that many concepts come in pairs? Like physical/mental, outside/inside, public/private? I think you are wandering away from the original context.

Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle. --Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing. --But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language? --If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty. --No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is.

To me you keep wanting to talk about what's in the box.

I guess the question I have is. are you aware of this split amount Wittgenstein interpreters, can you articulate what it consists of , and which camp do you prefer? — Joshs

I'll say that I've read plenty of philosophers' interpretations of Wittgenstein, which surely contributed to my own view (itself never fixed and complete), and leave it there. The topic is The Essence of Wittgenstein. Let's stay focused?

It is relies on, is constituted by, defining a closed off region of the "self", then, by fiat, declaring this self to already be public, which - and this is the real problem - is apparently then all the more reason to discount the actual public — StreetlightX

If one understands this move properly, it isn’t a question of ‘discounting’ the ‘actual’ public but of deriving it, It will only appear as primary and actual if you have already presupppsed it to be so.

The issue isn't with an original sociality as such, the issue is that by constantly making a hard and fast distinction between original sociality, and socaility in the normal sense (and then constantly retreating back into the shell of the former, as a pristine, self-enclosed space), is to not take seriously enough the idea of an original sociality, which ought to contaminate - in the Derridian sense - this very distinction. There is an original sociality. But it can in no sense be "proper" to the self without the supplement of society writ large. — StreetlightX

I’m not making a hard and fast distinction between two kinds of sociality. Just as Derrida contaminates the assumed hard and fast distinction between speech and writing by showing them to be complicit in all experience, I am showing that causal conditioning models of sociality presume an opposition between an inside and an outside. Not an inside in the sense of a private subjective interior, but in the sense of temporary entities, bits, objects, materials that interact in a public space of coordinations. Like Derrida and Heidegger, and in some sense Husserl, I am deconstructing this opposition that is implied by all
causal conditioning approaches to sociality. The temporal models of these philosophers accomplish this co-contaminating of the inside and the outside.

Frankly, I’m still trying to wrap my mind around your enthusiasm for Michael Devitt. You really find his overall thesis about realism to be satisfying? I ask because I find him to be a long, long, long way away from any of the authors that I follow, starting with Wittgenstein.

presume an opposition between an inside and an outside. — Joshs

But this opposition is what you wield like a cudgel everytime any sense of sociality that isn't 'original sociality' is raised. Your position is oppositional through and through. It doesn't deconstruct it. It reinforces it with metaphysical steel. Do you notice that your writing is so often exclusionary? In your efforts to isolate an original sociality, you proceed by excluding, excising, distinguishing, always this core of pristine sociality from any outside. But you do this by abusing language and saying, ah but the outside is already inside - but you only do this so as to better and more rigorously exclude the 'wider' outside, the outside beyond original sociality, to which you oppose each time like a immigration agent at the border wall. It's like the solipsist who says: of course I don't deny the existance of the world - the world exists in my head!

And yeah, Devitt is great. Realism means being indifferent to the activites of monkeys on a space rock. As it should be.

The topic is The Essence of Wittgenstein. Let's stay focused? — hanaH

For me , the best way to focus on a discussion with someone is to obtain as detailed a sense of their background assumptions and philosophical
worldview as possible. Sometimes it can save a lot of time to find out that the other person is interpreting the subject of discussion through a particular lens. In this case, it could allow me to zoom in on what may be the essence of the matter, which may be the following:

“ There is no such thing as a word outside of some particular use; but that is a different claim from saying, with Baker & Hacker, that words belong to a type of use. For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world.”

The authors (Hutchinson and Reid) are critiquing Hacker’s reading of Wittgenstein. Hacker, like Ryle
and others, understand ‘type of use’ as a category, rule, grammar or criterion of use that come into play when we use a word. But the authors argue that such types and categories are remade in actual
word use, so they are not protected from the contingency of situational use. I think this is
relevant to the issue of the understanding of sociality. You talked about language being essentially just complex
animal sounds, but that seems to me to veer closer to a behavioral approach than to Wittgenstein. Sense
isnt just arbitrary associations between tokens, it is always relevant in some way. I’m not trying to talk about beetles in boxes, I’m trying to show that a reading of Wittgenstein that consists of behavioral
linkages between arbitrary signs relies on a beetle in box picture.

In crossword puzzles, we must discover words based on the number of letters and non-canonical definitions invented by the crossword composer. These definitions can be ambiguous and there lies one of the tricks played by composers to solvers: the definition may not mean what it seems to mean, prima facie; IOW there's an obvious meaning to the definition, but it often hides another one, occult in a way, which offers the key to the solution.

An example that comes to mind, not a great one: "a third person" in 3 letters --> she. Third person is to be understood grammatically, not literally. — Olivier5

Grammar, as I understand it, are rules on how to use words in order to achieve semantic disambiguation and also, if I may hazard a guess, because certain permuations of grammatical elements are easier on tongue and mind (they feel natural as if they were meant to be read/spoken/written in a particular way).

So are you saying the word "she", in your example above, is a rule (in grammar). What is that rule? Can you kindly explicate it for me? Thanks.

The case of poetry is different, of course, and more noble and all that. I can't even try to deal with it here, except for stressing that a great deal of its beauty lies in euphonia, i.e. words used as music, as sounds. There we do have a use of words that is not (only) referential but also aesthetic. — Olivier5

Poetry is, to me, language + music. Notice here that language retains its identity as a mode of communication (meaning) separate from its musical aspect (rhythm, pitch, tone, etc.).

Magic is again about the power of the verb, a power that is thought of as physical: if I say "abracadabra" a flower will bloom or a rabbit will vanish or or a person will get sick. It is therefore a use of words beyond reference as well, and in fact those magic words like "abracadabra" often have no meaning at all other than as a spell. You can't buy an abracadabra on the market. — Olivier5

Remember "abracadabra" is classified as a nonsensicsal word. We have to be careful here: Is 0 dogs a dog?

:smile:

It just means there's no eternal dictionary somewhere. It's really not complicated or controversial.

Some words are so old their roots are prehistoric. For us, those words seem eternal: — frank

There doesn't have to be an "eternal dictionary" for words to draw their meaning in the sign-referent sense.

I’m not trying to talk about beetles in boxes, I’m trying to show that a reading of Wittgenstein that consists of behavioral linkages between arbitrary signs relies on a beetle in box picture. — Joshs

I don't see it. The signs aren't arbitrary but inherited (unless you just mean Saussure stuff). I am thrown into a world of handshakes, salutes, and stop signs which are on the same "plane" as ice cream, parachutes, and mustaches. I thrive by acting on correlations prudently (sifting out "causation" or the more reliable ones.)

I and my fellow humans need the bodies of other animals or plants to eat, a safe place to sleep, physical affection, etc. Our genius as a species seems to be teamwork. Some hunt while others weave and watch the babies. Or some calculate while other operate.

The premises from which we begin are not arbitrary ones, not dogmas, but real premises from which abstraction can only be made in the imagination. They are the real individuals, their activity and the material conditions under which they live, both those which they find already existing and those produced by their activity. These premises can thus be verified in a purely empirical way.

The first premise of all human history is, of course, the existence of living human individuals. Thus the first fact to be established is the physical organisation of these individuals and their consequent relation to the rest of nature.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01a.htm#a2

Do you think the bodies of organisms like us (or organisms in general) can coordinate their activities without some kind of physical interaction? (We can get into the niceties of "physical"if you like, but this is yet another case of "John knows French."). Note that I do not say "transmit thoughts," as tempting and habitual as that might be. I may absent-mindedly lapse into mentalistic language, but I'm gesturing toward an especially materialistic/behaviorist approach.

The beetle in the box: The word is same - "beetle" - but what it refers to maybe different. Wittgenstein's aim is not to come up with a solution, it seems impossible, but to do an exposé of the problem.
— TheMadFool

The picture of a word and its object (referent) as the only way anything is meaningful is the exact thing which makes a "solution" impossible. Imagine an example: "I have a pain in my throat" "Hey, me too!" "But mine is congested at the top and scratchy as it goes down." "Mine too! That's funny; we have the same pain." Now does the possibility that our pain might have turned out to be different seem less scary? Say: "Oh well, mine is more just dry and constricted, but sorry you're not feeling well!" which is, nonetheless, my knowledge of the other's pain, in knowledge's sense(use) of my acknowledgment of your pain, as: "I know you are in pain." — Antony Nickles

:up: Good point.

It's all got to do with how we define the word "definition".

My guesstimate is that if our aim is to understand reality, the definition of "definition" will have to be tailored to that end. That's the reason why we've defined "definition" as about essential features (essences).

However, just like Bolyai & Lobachevsky (mathematicians) ushered in the era of non-Euclidean geometry simply by tinkering with the parallel postulate, we could to alter the definition of "definition", make it about something other than essences or play around with its logical structure (e.g. replace AND with OR) and see what happens, let the chips fall where they may in a manner of speaking.

Maybe, just maybe, something amazing might happen as it did with non-Euclidean geometry (theory of relativity). — TheMadFool

Update @Antony Nickles & @Olivier5

The Beetle In The Box

Essentially, talking about exclusively private experiences is impossible IF (Antony Nickles) meaning is taken in the sign-referent sense.

My question is this: how could we modify the definition of "meaning" in order that we can have a meaningful conversation/discourse on purely private experiences?

On the word "abracadabra"

This word has no referent and yet here's a syntactically correct expression using that word: "Abracadabra, may Fortuna always smile upon you!"

Now, consider a conversation on pain (ignoring physical correlates, it qualifies as a private, unshareable experience). John says "I have a pain in my neck." The sentence is grammatically correct. Semantically, it's dubious - I don't know if the beetle (pain) in John's box is the same as mine or whether John even has a beetle in his box at all.

What this means is whenver two/more people are discussing private experiences, all that's happening is an exchange of syntactically correct statements, the semantics (the beetle, the pain) "drops out of consideration". Does this not remind you computers and AI? Computers allegedly can't comprehend i.e. they're semantically-challenged but that's in the sign-referent sense. If meaning is use, computers and AI do understand words; they are, after all, using words.

.

Computers allegedly can't comprehend i.e. they're semantically-challenged but that's in the sign-referent sense. If meaning is use, computers and AI do understand words; they are, after all, using words. — TheMadFool

If computers become able to socialize as well as humans, I suspect that the grammar of 'understand' will shift to include them. Given our 'meat chauvinism,' a human-like body as in Ex Machina would accelerate this process. Current AI that's designed to chat is trained on mountains of our own human chatter, scraped from the internet. Unfortunately such programs are only exposed to the relationship of words to other words as opposed to words and the world (for now, last I checked.) Or you can say the world of such a being is nothing but words (which further reduces to integers and floats.)

If computers become able to socialize as well as humans, I suspect that the grammar of 'understand' will shift to include them. Given our 'meat chauvinism,' a human-like body as in Ex Machina would accelerate this process. Current AI that's designed to chat is trained on mountains of our own human chatter, scraped from the internet. Unfortunately such programs are only exposed to the relationship of words to other words as opposed to words and the world (for now, last I checked.) Or you can say the world of such a being is nothing but words (which further reduces to integers and floats.) — hanaH

The Linguistic Turn. Just as computers, not even AI, we, with respect to private experiences, are simply manipulating symbols. But that's if meaning is defined in a sign-referent way. Either that or if meaning is use, since computers and AI do use words, it follows that they (computers and AI) understand.

As for words further reducing to "integers and floats", even with humans they reduce to something similar - action potentials in neurons and their synapses.

Just as computers, not even AI, we, with respect to private experiences, are simply manipulating symbols. — TheMadFool

Don't forget that we have bodies! We also chew food, turn steering wheels, scrub cast iron pans. Even our symbols are physical, something our bodies do. We vibrate the air with our lungs and mouth. We smear liquids on solids. We salute, wave, bow.

As for words further reducing to "integers and floats", even with humans they reduce to something similar - action potentials in neurons and their synapses. — TheMadFool

Yes, and it's strange. Is there magic in the meat? Or would something else work? Does something else already work? And we just can't recognize it? Maybe it hasn't been to this planet yet. I don't think we know what "consciousness" means anymore than our ability to use it for practical purposes (or something like that, perhaps an overstatement.)

Don't forget that we have bodies! We also chew food, turn steering wheels, scrub cast iron pans. Even our symbols are physical, something our bodies do. We vibrate the air with our lungs and mouth. We smear liquids on solids. We salute, wave, bow. — hanaH

Irrelevant red herring. Computers too have "bodies".

Yes, and it's strange. Is there magic in the meat? Or would something else work? Does something else already work? And we just can't recognize it? Maybe it hasn't been to this planet yet. I don't think we know what "consciousness" means anymore than our ability to use it for practical purposes (or something like that, perhaps an overstatement.) — hanaH

I probably should say exactly. What is consciousness? We're merely manipulating the symbol "consciousness" according to English grammar and the rules of inference (logic) - very much like a computer. In a certain sense then we've regressed...from semantics (our crown jewel) to syntax (mindless computing).

Essentially, talking about exclusively private experiences is impossible IF (Antony Nickles) meaning is taken in the sign-referent sense. — TheMadFool

Bluntly, the desire to have something certain (the referent) blinds us to the actual workings of our personal, individual, secret, expressed/repressed, rejected/accepted experiences and sensations. If I am alone on the edge of the grand canyon watching the sun set, I am not being truthful if I say "it is impossible to talk about my exclusive private experience". I have things I can say, and can continue to, and to answer questions, and clarify distinctions, etc. for as long as we want to have a meaningful discussion about my purely private experience. Now if I claim there is something more to my experience that I can't tell you, I am keeping that secret (as if for myself), refusing to be known, and that desire to be unknowable is the flip-side of the desire that my experience is a certain object to which I specifically refer to when I say something (that I am thus fully expressed; that I do not have to play a part in saying something meaningful).

Bluntly, the desire to have something certain (the referent) blinds us to the actual workings of our personal, individual, secret, expressed/repressed, rejected/accepted experiences and sensations. If I am alone on the edge of the grand canyon watching the sun set, I am not being truthful if I say "it is impossible to talk about my exclusive private experience". I have things I can say, and can continue to, and to answer questions, and clarify distinctions, etc. for as long as we want to have a meaningful discussion about my purely private experience. Now if I claim there is something more to my experience that I can't tell you, I am keeping that secret (as if for myself), refusing to be known, and that desire to be unknowable is the flip-side of the desire that my experience is a certain object to which I specifically refer to when I say something (that I am thus fully expressed; that I do not have to play a part in saying something meaningful). — Antony Nickles

:up: At least you're trying. Kudos to you.

Derrida talks about this stuff. Writing tends to be cast as a dead thing, as opposed to speech which is living. But, as you mention, speech is not so pure in relation to writing. — hanaH

My point is rather that writing is an attempt to draw language. Literally, our letters are little drawings. But in a modern alphabetic writing system these drawings do NOT code directly for concepts; instead they code for the sound of the spoken word. Imperfectly of course but that's the general idea of using an alphabet.

They do so because historically, attempts to picture concepts directly through ideograms failed for certain words, those words that refer to invisible things. Such as a law. You can apply a law, or break it, but you cannot SEE it. And therefore you cannot depict it.

It also failed because of reasons linked to economy of means: there are too many concepts to allocate one specific sign to each of them. Phonetic writing systems are more powerful, and more economical memory-wise. Learning hieroglyphics is very hard as compared to learning an alphabet: there are thousands of signs to memorize because classic (eg middle empire) hieroglyphics still rely heavily on ideograms, mixed up with phonograms as explained earlier.

This ties in to your mention of Saussure's critique of simplistic views of language as pictures. That it is materially impossible to write down a language only with ideograms proves Saussure right.

the semantics (the beetle, the pain) "drops out of consideration". — TheMadFool

I don't see how it does. If you go and see a doctor about your pain in the neck, he will inspect your neck and maybe find something objectively wrong with it.

I don't see how it does. If you go and see a doctor about your pain in the neck, he will inspect your neck and maybe find something objectively wrong with it. — Olivier5

Plus the signs of guilt or shame are often not in the things you do, but what you don't do.

Behaviorism is just nonsense.

There doesn't have to be an "eternal dictionary" for words to draw their meaning in the sign-referent sense. — TheMadFool

True. We could play language games

Behaviorism is just nonsense.
1h — frank

Yes, clearly. Even for animals.

Interesting post. — Banno

Didn't see that one. Thanks.

Just to close the loop, on the last pic with the scroll sign, the vertically-placed scroll follows after the shepherd hook scepter sign (here in blue and orange) = an ideogram meaning literally sceptre (HKA), as well as a K (the little blue hill) as some partial phonetics of HKA.



So our little scroll sign functions as a determinative for HKA, and here it points to the figurative sense, ie not a literal scepter, but a "bookish" or figurative one: the rule, the power.

You cannot see or depict power. So all they could do is draw a symbol of power - the scepter - and another sign saying "figuratively" - the scroll.

In context: "the rule of Osiris". Or if you prefer: "the figurative scepter of Oriris". Osiris being most probably what the big eye on the right stands for. The below glyph is damaged but it must be the throne sign, which together with the eye composes "Osiris". So the highest god is written down as an eye floating over a throne.

It also failed because of reasons linked to economy of means: there are too many concepts to allocate one specific sign to each of them. — Olivier5

I agree with you about why phonetic languages are relatively advantageous. I suppose I'm just stressing a certain skepticism about a framework in which tokens are pictured to have a one-to-one relationship with concepts. While it's easy to think of a drawing of a cow as a symbol for the concept cow, as soon as we get to more abstract concepts (like law or justice), the framework breaks down. One could think that the concept of law is actually definite and that we just can't picture it, or one could doubt that there is some fixed and complete concept or form of justice in some kind of mental realm in the first place. We learn to use the word "concept" in various practical situations, but I think it's like "law" and "justice." It doesn't have a referent, or at least I find such a claim problematic.

I don't see how it does. If you go and see a doctor about your pain in the neck, he will inspect your neck and maybe find something objectively wrong with it. — Olivier5

But that's just it. "Pain" gets its "meaning" from objective things like a doctor examining its "location." One can imagine sensation words as black holes that are only visible by the effect they have on the visible.

So the highest god is written down as an eye floating over a throne. — Olivier5

Very cool & suggestive. Transcendent knowledge? Distance from everything, like the view from a mountain that looks without fear and sees the big picture?