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Offlinejonathanseagull
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Language: The Gift and Curse
    #7919200 - 01/23/08 09:16 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

I believe the majority of the human race has lost the ability to think in symbols. I believe this is due to the invention of the spoken and written language.

Animals and early humans, before language, probably thought in symbols. As a metaphor, if they were hungry, they didn't think "oh, I want some mashed potatoes... and gravy!" They probably had an image pop in their head of a juicy buffalo leg, or a stream of water. Once we obtained the ability to communicate through language, that language allowed us to better compartmentalize ideas in our heads, and all that good stuff. It led to survival advantages. But it also removed some benefits.

I propose that these benefits were the ability to think in symbolism, which is the language of the soul, subconscious, etc. Whatever you want to call it. But we need soul food, too. And now, our souls get hungry, and we can't picture what it is we want to eat. We try to put it into words, but words won't suffice. We need that symbology.

Myths are symbols. Religious texts speak in symbols. Mystic visions are in symbols. Dreams are symbols. And the majority today really have no clue how to interpret or think about these things. So we say "science science!" and pretend that the symbolic topics are meaningless drivel used by inferior peoples of a time past. Off to the obviously superior future!

I think we traded one thing for another. We obtain physical comforts in exchange for fundamental, existential discomfort. This bought us the Dark Ages. The people of the Renaissance understood, but were still uncomfortable. We have postmodernism, existentialism, nihilism, and all of these grand philosophies to try and combat this Age of Anxiety. These are good things. I'm just saying, it's unfortunate we had to enter the age of anxiety.

I feel our advancements are going to force us to face the philosophical problems. Most of the cultures of the world are designed to ignore these problems. We worship youth and beauty, and shove the elderly off to nursing homes. These issues are going to come right back into our face with the advent of artificial intelligence that can pass the Turing Test. Why should a person not be able to marry a robot, if you can't tell the difference between the robot and the man? No difference is no difference. So does it have a soul? What does this have to say about our existence? Etc, etc, etc.

We will attempt to use language to solve these problems, to no avail. We will be forced, this time as individuals and not as a collective whole, to go within and face our symbology, or we will lie on our death beds regretful and afraid (or never have to die, and face a different, yet related set of issues, or ignore them uncomfortably forever). Either way, to be happy, we will face the gods and goddesses and travel the hero's journey. Some do this now, and these people are the mystics, schizophrenics, manics, and more. We write them off as crazy. We stand proud, and fundamentally unsure, in the face of the abyss, with our facts about the physical world. But we look into the abyss, and then at our facts, and say "oh shit". So we turn around and try to ignore the abyss.

Science is great. Spirituality is great. They serve different purposes. Science is abused and we drop bombs. Spirituality is abused, religion is created, and we drop bombs.

To use both to our advantage is to be whole.


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Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.


Edited by jonathanseagull (01/23/08 10:48 AM)


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OfflineDroz
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Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: jonathanseagull]
    #7919298 - 01/23/08 10:19 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

I still think in images!

Does that amaze you?


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Evolution of Time.


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Offlinejonathanseagull
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Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: Droz]
    #7919314 - 01/23/08 10:29 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

Quote:

Droz said:
I still think in images!

Does that amaze you?




No. Many of us still think in images. That example was only a metaphor for thinking in symbols, which is a different thing. I envision mashed potatoes (with gravy) when I want mashed potatoes. It's easy to grasp and manipulate in the mind. However, it is difficult to communicate transcendental experiences without using symbols (which is why myth and religious texts are written in symbolism, and we dream in symbols, etc.) Most of us here can most likely grasp symbolism as well. But in my experience, most of my classmates in elementary school, high school, college, and post-graduate college were not capable.


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Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.


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InvisibleVeritas
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Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: jonathanseagull]
    #7919327 - 01/23/08 10:35 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

Just to clarify:

Quote:

Symbol
1. Something that represents something else by association, resemblance, or convention, especially a material object used to represent something invisible.

2. A printed or written sign used to represent an operation, element, quantity, quality, or relation, as in mathematics or music.

3. Psychology An object or image that an individual unconsciously uses to represent repressed thoughts, feelings, or impulses: a phallic symbol.




Picturing the actual thing you desire (i.e. buffalo leg in your example), is not using symbolism. Language is symbolic, as it uses certain shapes to represent material things or ideas. One might say that the use of symbolism distances us from the "real" experience of what exists, or alternatively one could appreciate the ability of symbols to facilitate our accurate communication with others.

Since we cannot read one another's minds, using a system of agreed-upon symbols is the only way to share our thoughts, teach concepts, give technical instructions, etc.


Edited by Veritas (01/23/08 10:37 AM)


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Offlinejonathanseagull
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Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: Veritas]
    #7919354 - 01/23/08 10:45 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

Quote:


Picturing the actual thing you desire (i.e. buffalo leg in your example), is not using symbolism.




Yes, as I explained to Droz in my second post. I must not have been clear in my original post, for two of you to call me on this possible mistake. I apologize.


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Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.


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OfflineBlueCoyote
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Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: jonathanseagull]
    #7919378 - 01/23/08 10:57 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

Icon (like 'Idol') may be a better word than 'symbol' in this context.
It's really interesting how one will call these concepts behind language, as the first (written) languages derived out of pictures, icons and 'symbols' (as symbols already are some more abstract icons with more accumulated 'meaning').
Then, as there were too many pictures, one begun forming 'sounds' out of single pictures, which became letters by this, widening the possible ways of expression by a multitude, forming speach into scripture, at least.

(How speach is formed ?)

edit: Allthe same: unless we can't conceptualize something, we aren't able to grasp it and even doubt its existence..


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Though lovers be lost love shall not  And death shall have no dominion
......................................................
"Our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power. We have guided missiles and misguided men."Martin Luther King, Jr.
'Acceptance is the absolute key - at that moment you gain freedom and you gain power and you gain courage'


Edited by BlueCoyote (01/23/08 11:05 AM)


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OfflineLion
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Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: jonathanseagull]
    #7919402 - 01/23/08 11:06 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

Quote:

Most of us here can most likely grasp symbolism as well.  But in my experience, most of my classmates in elementary school, high school, college, and post-graduate college were not capable.


We Shroomerites are evovled.  :dumbhunter: 

:nerd:

I made a thread about a year ago about language and PenguarkyTunguin told me to check out Sapir-Whorf theory.  Really interesting stuff.  Language can clearly create endless barriers around direct experience, stifling wider perception of the present moment by confining phenomena to the mental description of a subject-object relationship (which, as you say, makes transcendental experiences hard to convey, what with the muddling of those categories - or their total nonexistence!). 

The Wiki entry also has an interesting example of how the English language makes commodities out of illusory entities, so that we can 'invest time', 'waste time', or 'spend time', or tell a debater 'I'm not buying that premise'.

Language itself is a metaphor for experience, a mere vehicle, and it seems that a majority of the world's population has become invested in the metaphor as if it could replace experience itself.


--------------------
“Strengthened by contemplation and study,
I will not fear my passions like a coward.
My body I will give to pleasures,
to diversions that I’ve dreamed of,
to the most daring erotic desires,
to the lustful impulses of my blood, without
any fear at all, for whenever I will—
and I will have the will, strengthened
as I’ll be with contemplation and study—
at the crucial moments I’ll recover
my spirit as was before: ascetic.”


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Offlinejonathanseagull
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Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: Lion]
    #7919456 - 01/23/08 11:26 AM (16 years, 28 days ago)

Thank you guys for clarifying what I was trying to say.

Lion, I once studied Whorf's study on how people who speak differing languages could more easily identify a color on a color chart if they had a name for it. A person who does not have a name for blue-green may lock themselves into making a false dichotomy choice of choosing either blue, or green. This reflects their perception, which reflects their experience. What I was trying to say was that ALL language limits (and grants) to some extent.


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Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show, That the dear She might take some pleasure of my pain: Pleasure might cause her read, reading might make her know, Knowledge might pity win, and pity grace obtain.


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OfflineShroomFan
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Registered: 03/12/04
Posts: 866
Last seen: 11 years, 8 days
Re: Language: The Gift and Curse [Re: jonathanseagull]
    #7920791 - 01/23/08 05:24 PM (16 years, 27 days ago)

good post. reminds me of my first liquid trip. was outside w. my group of friends and started thinking about cavemen in darkness at night with a lack of language to communicate frustration, and with only random moans and groans to help each other understand.


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