Public Organon 1

The OED offers the following obsolete definition for "organon" :
"A bodily organ, esp. as an instrument of the soul or mind."

The Organon ("instrument") is also a title used to group together Aristotle's treatises on logic.
~http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-logic/#AriLogWorOrg

The OED offers this definition of "public"
"Open to general observation, view, or knowledge; existing, performed, or carried out without concealment, so that all may see or hear."

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"One should guard against seeing anything more than a language of signs, semiotics, an opportunity for parables in all this" ~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols

Semiotics, "the science of communication studied through the interpretation of signs and symbols as they operate in various fields, esp language", this once more is thanks to the good people at the OED, thank you for such a concise set of signs to communicate what is being signified with a particular use of the sign "semiotics" (in this case, definition 2; definition 1 relates the meaning of the sign to indicate a medical search for symptoms).

Signs are a social, and often public, construct (although there of course can be "private" signs, or codes, however they still require a method of interpretation which require the knowledge of more than one person to actually be functional to another person. In other words, unless you are encrypting your own writings for yourself alone, this would not prove to be terribly useful to anyone else).

Dictionaries are an interesting institution for interpreting signs. One way to look at language would be as a code that people who are aware of that language can decode in order to know what is being communicated, in this case the dictionary acts as a tool to aid in decoding these signs. The "code" view of language, however, is not a very popular one--it gives an impression of language as static and not changing, it as though, all you need is to "break the code" and you would be good to know all facets of a particular set of signs that constitute a language. This is not a very good way of treating a dynamic language that is changing, as indicated by the "obsolete" definition of organon given earlier, this particular sign no longer signifies a bodily organ associated with the mind and soul. In fact, this sign probably does not really signify much of anything for many people--when I saw it, it reminded me of the state of Organ.

When a sign is introduced to the brain, the brain can quickly relate that sign to other signs. Sometimes these signs are related in different ways, either by association, likeness in what they signify, likeness in sound, some unique memory association, perhaps by opposites (as argues one model for how meaning is attained, for instance "dark" being defined by "light", "good" defined by what is not "good", "man" can be opposed to boy, woman, god, or beast -- this creates problems as usually one group of opposites is assigned different values than others in different cultures).

Daniel Kahneman, in his recent book "Thinking, Fast and Slow" explains how our brains hold a model for what we expect normal reality to be. Signs we encounter throughout the day either enforce or conflict with this model. When what we encounter conflicts with what we expected, this can create an emotional (and indeed physical) response of surprise (possibly excitement, possibly fear, possibly something more subtle that we are unconscious of).

The point is, that this model for the world is both private and public. The signs we use have an effect of shaping our reality, as individuals and as a culture--privately and publicly. The Internet today plays a crucial role in all of this, for instance, even this private blog in the public domain; anyone who actually reads it will be able to either accept or reject these signs and what they signify. Perhaps they raise more ideas in a person's mind, and perhaps not. Perhaps someone corrects something in here, perhaps they criticize something in here, perhaps they add to something in here. Yes this might be pretty obvious ("Yeah, wow, welcome to the Internet, buddy.") yet it does hold profound potential and actualization.

~Patrick Conners Jr