Adjacent layer: Properties and Characteristics: a characteristic as a determination obtained through a way of distinguishing.
Short Answer
Description is connected with giving form to perception, but it is not entirely reducible to it: it is a later and more specific operation.
1) What Description Is Mechanically
Description is the fixation of distinctions in a form.
Sequence:
- There is a raw continuous flow.
- An act of distinction takes place (something is singled out).
- What has been distinguished is packaged into a form (language, categories, images).
The third step is precisely description.
2) Where Perception Is Located
Perception
- An operation of assembly.
- Collapses many distinctions into a holistic picture.
- Produces a ready-made “this” (for example, “tree” instead of numerous lines and shades).
Description
- Unfolds what has already been perceived.
- Is a secondary operation.
- Fixes exactly what was distinguished (for example, “a tall tree with dark bark and sparse leaves”).
3) Key Distinction
The phrase “description is giving form to perception” is almost correct, but needs clarification:
- perception is already a form-giving operation;
- description is a second-order form-giving operation, that is, “giving form to a form.”
4) Why This Matters
A typical substitution occurs in three stages:
- Perception has already simplified reality.
- Description adds a second simplification.
- The result is mistakenly taken to be reality itself.
This produces the illusions that:
- words equal reality;
- categories equal objects;
- description equals truth.
More precisely: description is the second derivative of the act of distinction.
5) Scheme Through the Field of Meaning
- Field of meaning (undistinguished).
- Act of distinction (a “something” appears).
- Perception (assembly into a whole).
- Description (fixation in language/symbols).
6) An Important Limit of Description
Description always:
- lags behind the flow;
- is discrete;
- depends on language and categories.
Therefore:
- description is not identical to perception;
- perception is not identical to the flow.
7) Condensed Formula
Description = formalization of perception that has already been collapsed.
The next open step: separate interpretation from description and specify exactly where the boundary between them lies.
