Triadic frames for ambivalent experience

Abstract

Human semiotic constructions operate at the boundary of time where they serve both a representational function of showing the world as it is, and a presentational function of what could be in the next moment. Ambivalence is used to highlight the constant tension between what is and what could be, which is what drives meaning-making and thereby to point out that what we usually think of as having only two dimensions, e.g., (1) the world as it is now → (2) the world as it is at the ‘new’ now, is actually containing at least three aspects, e.g., (1) the world as it is now ← → (2) the “what could be” of the future → (3) and the world as it is at the ‘new’ now. Within this triadic frame, humans are constantly facing the ambiguity of their own meaning worlds, and the question becomes how to accept this ambiguity in our own meaning or avoid it to the degree that we can. In the face of our own ambiguity humans invoke higher-order semiotic regulators that rearrange the relation of different meaning complexes in ways that either avoid ambiguity as much as possible by producing a near version of the same meaning, or others that can act to facilitate constructive elaboration of meaning.