Thread: human representation

I would appreciate very much, if you could explain this term human representation, as well as give me an example as to the term.





Many thanks

I don't know what you mean. Where have you heard this term?

In the field of semiotics

Best example I know is from the Arctic. People there stack stones as landmarks. It has to be a form that couldn't be natural. The common type is called an "inuksuk" - meaning a "human substitute". Like, in your world nima_persian a stop light is a substitute for the old practice of having a man in the intersection directing cars. The second type of stacked stones is called an "inunguaq" - meaning a "human representation". Looks like a human. These ones might fool caribou from a distance a person is there, so they turn aside (helps us catch them). Like, in your world the sign telling people not to walk across the street now, might look like a human hand flashing "stop" - that's a human representation.

...I wonder if that helped?

That is interesting.
I found this example of the phrase in this Wiki article on Biosemiotics

Biosemiotics - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Sign processes are thus taken as real: They are governed by regularities (habits, or natural rules) that can be discovered and explained. They are intrinsic in living nature, but we can access them, not directly, but indirectly through other sign processes (qualitative distinction methods, for instance) – even though the human representation and understanding of these processes (in the construction of explanations) builds up as a separate scientific sign system distinct from the organisms’ own sign processes."

I am sorry if I am muddying the waters (and I am not familiar with the subject of semiotics or biosemiotics but it does look to me as though the actual phrase is being used slightly differently to how you have suggested it might be.

Your idea was approximately " a representation of a part of a human as part of a sign" and in my example it seems to be being used as

"a representation by a human ..of a process"

Sorry I can't really be of more help since semiotics has always befuddled me ...

A .symbol is a sign that stands for its referent in an arbitrary, con* ventional way. Most semioticians agree that symbolicity is what sets human representation apart from that of all other species, allow* ing the human species to reflect upon the world separately from stimulus-response situations.


And, I can not get what the following means, well.

what sets human representation apart from that of all other species, allow* ing the human species to reflect upon the world separately from stimulus-response situations.

Well I think my definition of " human representation " was right as your context is similar to the one I used before..
So to paraphrase:

"symbolicity is what sets human representation apart from that of all other species, allow* ing the human species to reflect upon the world separately from stimulus-response situations". = The use of symbols distinguishes humans from other species. It allows it to see the world in a different way from "stimulus-response situations"

What are "stimulus-response situations" ? To my mind they are simple responses to the environment -practically reflex responses(what we believe may be the case with animals). But this is not my subject .I just hope I was able to help with the translation or the filling out of the language.