Semiotics and Body Language
Denotation and Connotation
My first discussion in Second Life was about the symbolism of avatars.
I was thinking about the avatars I was seeing.
Some presented themselves as gods or knights or snakes. Most just wanted to not have any kind of projection like that.
At least I didn't care - I just accepted the avatar that I got when I joined
After a while Lokifluff took me by the hand and said you look like a dork. Come over here and buy this avatar. Way strange territory for me. But I did and like the result.
Lokifluff was a good friend.
I met a young woman who thought she could improve me - she set me up as a muscular fantasy.
Then I met my love, Elaine. She knew about this stuff. She took me by the hand too. First I got a body. Then I got hair. And then I put on the clothes I'd made as a trademark.
Everything about that is semiotics - signs within signs within signs
In Second Life people can easily present themselves as very threatening - but they can't be threatening - you can't shoot me here or run me over with a car - the main threat that people can project is hateful speech and hateful speech does hurt.
I've noticed that often when people present threatening avatars they also indulge in hateful speech.
But I met people who looked like Anubis or snakes or strippers.
I was very aware of the symbolism of my own avatar. I was, and still am, interested in what the appearance of an avatar says about the paratar (paratar being the person running the avatar).
I'm doing a cultural studies class and this week's session was about semiotics or the study of signs.
A sign is something that is recognizable and has meaning. Denotation has to do with whatever makes the sign recognizable. Connotation is the meaning we take from a sign.
So, avatars are signs. Their appearance is a denotation and their meaning is the connotation.
Just what an avatar means is somewhat ambiguous. And people don't like to talk about the meaning of their avatar. But the meaning is there anyway.
Our bodies become signs in the same sort of way.
Some people who are performers have a lot of control over their body language. Mimes can express whole stories with their bodies without speaking a word.
Other people like me don't have much conscious control over body language.
But always the people around us are interpreting our appearance as a sign.
The denotation/connotation distinction reminds me of Kant's idea about perception.
Raw sensory data is meaningless (denotation) and must be interpreted (connotation).
The interpretation is constructed by the interpreter. Thus we never perceive the "thing in itself" and only perceive our interpretation of it.
When I'm out doing my errands each day I'm very aware of the people as signs.
I'm aware of their appearance and think about what it means. What sort of message is being broadcast?
And I wonder how much of that message is consciously presented.
What do you think? I open the floor
I present regular philosophy discussions in a virtual reality called Second Life.
I set a topic and people come as avatars and sit around a virtual table to discuss it.
Each week I write a short essay to set the topic.
I show a selection of them here.