Real, Symbolic, Imaginary (Lacan & Communication Theory)

[Censeo]

A great example of this is light/dark. Turn on a light switch and ask yourself, why isn't the light bulb brighter than what it is right now? Is it not because there is some darkness preventing it from being even brighter?

[BoStevoD]

Also, I like how Zizek puts it (paraphrasing): The Real is characterized by impossibility, the symbolic by absence, and the imaginary by fraud.

[BoStevoD]

The Real is not the totality of the space of inside and out, but the paradoxical space between them.

[mojomanhand]

Thanks man, I love it when you explain things with diagrams. I think I got most of it but I will go over it one more time and look up "Lacanian-ish theory" just to see if there is more to this. Keep up the great work!

[dewinthemorning]

I couldn't understand everything, but I think it's very important for people to understand what you say at 4:00 - abstractions are made, for which we have assigned nouns. Mostly these are things in the material world, but we make other abstractions as well, which are not things - love, mind, intellect, morality, theory, polotics,,, and so on. It's a mistake to imagine those as separately existing entities.

[HebaruSan]

So this is a theory of mind, not metaphysics? Is there a clinical/empirical basis to it? I have to admit that I gave up on Lacan after encountering his "graphs of sexuation" and failing to find an explanation of them of which I could make sense (and after I read that Chomsky quote calling Lacan an "amusing and perfectly self-conscious charlatan").

[notonewhit]

There is no nested relationship between RSI. Lacan portrays each as linked, any of the two registers are connected by the third. The real is non-substantial, a traumatic force that breaks up coherent unities of the imaginary and causes the symbolic to stumble. The imaginary is the realm of perception/mirror/gestalt, the symbolic is the register of the subject of desire and of the law. Lacan is difficult. Be careful, many scholars get him wrong. He defies simple summary. I’ll send you PM.

[Professoranton]

@notonewhit many thanks

[niriop]

Excellent overview; tell me, do you have much of an opinion on Zizek's interpretation of Lacan?

[nargargole]

An important video, KISS I think of Gesthalt: the categories would be represented by the gap in the circle - you know the the gap that you do not see because you are expecteing a complete circle.

[natedaug1]

Damn, Prof, you are the only one still doing real philosophy on Youtube. Everyone else seems to be caught up in lame, pathetic, arguing and drama.

[TC2642]

That you are defining these catagories and giving one catagory a bigger space than the others does lead me to believe that you are giving it more importance than the rest, why, for example, are you making the imaginary "box" red and making it smaller than your other catagories?

[brokennarcissist]

Someone finally makes a video about an author I care about just to bury him, typical youtube...

[SonytoBratsoni]

Favored .

A fine addition to my lacanian collection.

[jogayot]

yeep, it's NAND (or NOR) the Sheffered Peirce ;)

perhaps it is the nature of the beast - like string theory physicists searching/wanting for the magnetic monopole - and there is no way of unconvincing "the sheeple"; still there is the precedence of gravity pulling back and time pushing forward. there is an omega point out there somewhere.

i was recently startled by the fact that on a "closed" background 2 colors stay 2 colors but 3 create fourth (voila!).

we are the third color imagining.

[jogayot]

@jogayot closed background meaning background IS one of the colors, of course. think venn diagrams...

[army2k08]

I don't think people know the importance of the words 'and' and/or 'or'.

[xy11xy]

Shit, this Chaka Khan guy stole my ideas!

..oh, Jacques

[AllOtherNamesTaken2]

I think this is a bunch of mumbo jumbo bullshit

[ezemdi]

@AllOtherNamesTaken2

What isn't?

[Ioganstone]

@ezemdi ur mom last night hint hint

[ezemdi]

@Ioganstone

Quite the thinker

[ezemdi]

@ezemdi

Oookkkkaaayy?

[HigherPlanes]

@AllOtherNamesTaken2 I know what you mean, but you need a high IQ to really grasp it, know what I'm sayin?

[HigherPlanes]

@AllOtherNamesTaken2 intellectual defeat.

[OrtegaSeason]

This is so much better than Wikipedia's explanation.

[TWITfromURANUS]

"we have yearning, for example; of good without evil, of life without death"

...of nonexistence without existence.

[logosfabula]

Sweet explanation.

[jaikook]

Well done :)