Juri Lotman quotes - Juri Lotman 100

The norm has no distinctive features. It is a singular space located between the fool and the madman. Explosion, too, has no distinctive features, or to be more exact, possesses a whole range of possible features. In the case of individual behaviour, it distances itself from the norm and in such a case represents itself as folly; translated into mass culture, it becomes a form of stupidity.

In a way, it is possible to present culture as a structure which, submerged in a world external to itself, draws this world into itself and expels it in a re-elaborated form (organised) according to the structure of its own language

For human thought all that exists is that which falls into any of its languages. Thus, for instance, purely physiological processes such as sexual contact or the impact of alcohol on the organism represent physical and physiological realities. But it is precisely these examples which manifest an essential law: the more distant by its very nature this or that domain is from the sphere of culture, the more effort is applied to introduce it into this sphere.

The possibility of doing wrong is the first step towards the ability to consciously choose not to do so.

Repetition of one and the same text by no means suggests, however, that one will obtain no information. Rereading the newspaper makes little sense because we expect to generate new information from the text which comes to us from outside of the text. However, in cases where we listen to one and the same recording repeatedly what changes is not that which is transferred but that which is received.

The concept of death (the end) cannot be solved by simple negation insofar as it represents the point where the cosmic and the human intersect.

The beginning–end and death are inextricably linked to the possibility of un- derstanding the reality of life as something which may be comprehended.

Without the semiosphere, language not only does not function, it does not exist. The different substructures of the semiosphere are linked in their interaction and cannot function without the support of each other. This is the sense of semiosphere in the contemporary world, steadily expanding into space over the centuries, it has now taken on a global character, and includes within itself the call signs of satellites, the verse of poets and the cry of animals. The interdependence of these elements of the semiosphere is not metaphorical, but a reality.

Repetition of one and the same text by no means suggests, however, that one will obtain no information. Rereading the newspaper makes little sense because we expect to generate new information from the text which comes to us from outside of the text. However, in cases where we listen to one and the same recording repeatedly what changes is not that which is transferred but that which is received.

Juri Lotman