How words constrict us...

[afghooey]

More and more I find that the English language, while allowing freedom of expression to some degree, also creates a mire of symbols that can often be confused with their meanings. It also tends to give a misconstrued sense of significance which can restrict our thought processes.

The words we use and the definitions which we deem to be official for them take precedence over those things that we can not put into words, and so we regard them as more significant. But as we have evolved, we've discovered that just because we may not be able to grasp something does not mean that it's any less significant.

The word 'life' is an excellent example. What is life? The dictionary's definition deliniates boundaries that separate life from non-life; metabolism, growth, reproduction. But do these attributes really separate life from non-life? If we are the ones drawing the line, who's to say where we chose to draw it? What if I decide to define 'life' as the ability to react? After all, aren't we just a more complex level of reaction than the mingling of quarks and atoms and molecules?

What about the words like 'death', 'love', 'hate', 'god', 'satan', 'sin', 'good', 'evil', 'soul', 'mind', 'thought', 'justice', 'freedom'?

In science, breaking things up into categories is essential; actually, that's about all science really is, a method of dissassembling things into parts to better examine them. But when it comes to spiritual matters, breaking things up is not always helpful; in fact, i'd say if anything it can be a great hinderance to seeing 'the big picture'.

Just remember, it's YOUR authority that creates these definitions, it's YOUR choice to accept them that makes them 'official'.

Don't be afraid to redefine, or even UNdefine your world.

afghooey Reviewed by afghooey on 04-24-2007. How words constrict us... More and more I find that the English language, while allowing freedom of expression to some degree, also creates a mire of symbols that can often be confused with their meanings. It also tends to give a misconstrued sense of significance which can restrict our thought processes. The words we use and the definitions which we deem to be official for them take precedence over those things that we can not put into words, and so we regard them as more significant. But as we have evolved, Rating: 5

[Beano]

LSD is a helluva drug apparently.

[Bond]

Yes, and I find when I smoke marijuana it brings out My spiritual self. thats why I love it, i love life.

Hopefully our minds connected there.. I do not think they did...maybe.
also With this info you can talk to dogs.:hippy:

[afghooey]

LSD is a helluva drug apparently.

Never done it. :3 Though I can say that certain psychoactive substances have definitely contributed to my thoughts... :thumbsup:

[Coelho]

The deepness of this subject of the words is far greater than we think... afghooey, i think you saw just the tip of the iceberg when you wrote this post.

In reality, all our view of world, all our notion of 'reality' is based upon words. All the time, we are percieving the world, and extracting from this perceptions complete units which can be described by words. Like, im seeing a lot of colorful dots, then my brain converts this colorful dots to the perception of a keyboard, a computer screen, and so... Then, what we call 'outside world' is only the part of the world that is perceived by us which can be understood in terms of words.

Thats why is hard to describe how feels to be high for a people never have been high. There is no words to explain exactly the feelings, so the people must be high to understand how it feels. And, note that for the people that never has been high, there is a lot of feelings that simply not exist. He/She never felt it before, so it would live an entire life without knowing this king of feeling actually exist, so, for it, that feelings simply does not exist. Only after it smokes, it learns how is to be stoned, and have a new set of feelings.

The same happens with the world in general... there is a lot of feelings and perceptions of the world we dont even know exists, because we never experienced it, and have no words to describe it. Or rather, maybe there is words, but they only make sense for those who experienced it.

We all keep talking with ourselves into our minds. All the time. So, our mind is, all the time, being feeded with thoughts which came from words. So, all the time, we only know/see/percieve things which are described by words. Everything else is filtered, and does not enter in our perception.

So, learning to shut up this internal dialogue is the key for a different peception of the world. If we can percieve the world and just percieve it, without categorizing our perceptions in things described by words, we can percieve the world of a very different way. I accomplished it a few times, after using weed+butane. My mind felt like an complete silence, i would just hear the outside noises, without recognizing them, just listening. I would see the things, and they were the same, but i would not recognize them as i do everyday. It was very very weird... i cant describe, only can say it was somewhat frightening, cause everything was unfamiliar (even if the things were the same). But the shock of knowing our normal way of percieving the world in not the only one, but just one in lots of anothers, was worth the fright.

[Polymirize]

Great post. I don't say this very often, but you should check out a book called the Tractatus by Ludwig Wittgenstein.

Pretty much, I suppose I agree with you. Except for that part about science, because in my opinion science, just as spirituality, is dedicated to seeing and understanding the big picture, for all the deconstruction of it's method.

That's probably just a matter of definition though, which is, of course, exactly what this is all about.


So let's leave the words out of it completely, and talk about communication instead.

I mean, isn't that the point?

[afghooey]

I don't disagree with you, Polymirize. Science has advanced us greatly, and I would say that it is indeed dedicated to helping us see and understand the big picture -- but sadly, a lot of people seem to forget that science is a tool and a method, and instead regard it as a way of life (Have you ever heard someone proclaim that they believe in science rather than god?).

It's surprisingly easy to become convinced that these separations that science deliniates are real. It's the source of materialism, of the existence of separate 'objects'. It doesn't have to be that way, though; as you said, it's all a matter of definition (or lack thereof).

As for communication -- yep, you hit the nail on the head. For all the flaws of the English language, I'm not suggesting we abolish it, not by a long shot. But I think it's important to step outside of these symbols, to determine whether what they point to is really what we mean by them, and to recognize that there is great significance even in those things that we can't name and categorize.

We will probably never come to a complete agreement about what each and every word means (even though the dictionary tries to do just that), but I think continually questioning and redefining the way we think about certain things, though it sounds potentially confusing, is a step in the right direction for improving our communication.

I think one of the biggest problems with language in an official context is that, much like science, it's a bureaucracy -- in categorization and efficiency it excels, but when it comes to constant change, or less tangible matters (such as spiritual and emotional ones), it falls terribly short. Like I said before, the dictionary tries and often fails to bring us to agreement about what certain words mean, because human beings don't fit conveniently into one mold. Every person's experiences and perceptions about the world are different, so it's silly to expect every symbol we create to be compatible with every perception.

[krazy chino]

nice post well i agree wit all of you so ima get off the subject i was reading about how languages are becoming extint they say that probably in 100 yrs or less we'll only have like a dozen languages throughout the whole world the only way to stop this is to pass down all the languages we know to our children cuz usually people only teach their kids one certain language...just thought it was interesting

[Polymirize]

I think I disagree about the tangibility of language. I'd suggest that that particular flaw in our language is the result of materialism, and not the other way around. If you look at different languages, you might find that they have the ability to express concepts we can only vaguely grasp in our own. I think the interesting thing about language is how it models our conceptualization of reality.

The classic example for this is the line about how the eskimos have over 50 words to describe ice and snow. And actually, that's false, they don't have that many. However, even if we say the number is only ten, ten categories for different types of snow grants a whole new ability to interpreting the world.

Some people see snow. Skiers (this is such a better example come to think of it...) may see powder, or corn, or sierra cement.

The ability to make these distinctions aid an individual dramatically in the navigation of their reality. You can almost trace the specializations of certain ethnic groups back through their language, seeing where they become most categorized and prolific.

When you look into the meditative traditions, you'll find that they have a 5000+ year history of categorizing various states of mind/being. I just find that interesting I suppose...

So what do you think, does language model our reality? Or construct it?

[Coelho]

So what do you think, does language model our reality? Or construct it?

Both. We construct our model of reality (the "scheme", or "map" of the outside world that exists into our mind) using concepts teached by us by means of the language.

"Everyone who comes in contact with a child is a teacher who incessantly describes the world to him, until the moment when the child is capable or percieving the world as it is described." - D.J.M.- JtI

And after it, we learn how to filter all our perceptions to fit they in terms of the language.

When we see snow, we look at it just enough to recognize what we are seeing as snow. The level of details needed to recognize snow as snow is very low, but as for us it is enough, we only percieve the snow with this low level of detail.
Im sure we simply cant see all the details of snow that a Skimo can see, because their eyes/mind are trained to look at a lot more of details of snow, and recognize it as snow-good-to-walk, or hard-packed-ice, or whatever.

In other words, our mind seeks things known to it in the middle of the chaos that is the total perception, recognize that known things, and discards the perceptions that are unknown to it, so the world outside can be "mapped" into our mind in terms of known concepts.

For example, if an inhabitant of a tribe without contact with the civilization sees a plane, for example, he will try to understand it in terms known by his own perception, so he will understand it as a "metallic bird", or something like. His mind will force the perception to fit in terms of things known to him, even if it makes no sense (cause we know there is not mettalic birds).
And as the concept of "plane" is a thing utterly unknown to him, know the "truth" about his perception will make still less sense than believe he really saw a mettalic bird.

Or, as our mind thinks: "Better a known folly than a unknown truth". Sad but true...