| Chapter 1: | Distinctions: Observation, Meaning, and the Reduction of Complexity |
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In Whitehead's terms, individual observers perceive things in the world using their senses. Instead of seeing each distinct object as a new and unique phenomenon, humans creatively analyze perceived differences and actively synthesize meaningful symbolic unities. The mind perceives its sensations as “real.” However, in order to make meaning of its scattered impressions, the mind uses symbolic generalizations to construct its own sense of reality that is filled with imaginary redundancies. Thus, symbols and signs are linked to meanings only in the minds of observers.
Observing the meaning of symbols is a self-referential process. As Whitehead argued: “We must conceive of perception in the light of a primary phase in the self-production of an occasion of actual existence… the total activity involved in perception of the symbolic reference must be referred to the percipient” (1959:8). Perception is the product of an “internal relationship” between the perceiver and the thing perceived. According to Ernst Cassirer, symbols “mediate” between perception and understanding (1965). The world is not accessible in a direct and unequivocal manner. To make any difference for an observer, impressions of space, time, and matter must be symbolically processed. What is perceived can be given symbolic meaning by an observer who connects and enriches perceptions with self-reference. According to Niklas Luhmann, cognition “must be understood as a recursive processing of symbols in systems isolated by the conditions of the connectibility of their own operations” (2002:171).
The imaginary association between a symbol and a meaning is a mere contingency that could just as easily have taken on a different form. Whitehead emphasizes that “A symbol and its meaning do not require either that there shall be a symbolic reference between the two, or that the symbolic reference between the members of the couple should be one way on rather than the other way on” (1959:10). Whitehead poses the following question: “Why do we say that the word ‘tree’—spoken or written—is a symbol to us for trees? Both the word itself and trees themselves enter into our experience on equal terms; and it would be just as sensible, viewing the question abstractedly, for trees to symbolize the word ‘tree’ as for the word to symbolize the trees” (1959:12).