Narkissos,
" Speaking" of language and Christian mystics. Here's one I thought you might enjoy:
"What you are looking for is what is looking." St. Francis
What is more important to understand...
by Siddhashunyata 46 Replies latest jw friends
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zen nudist
I'll try to sum it up this way: our logical-symbolical quest for real is asymptotic. We (as speaking beings) are sitting by the well of Real, but what we can draw from it and drink and offer to others will always be symbolic -- although the others too are sitting by the same well.
here in lies the first false assumption... we are not sitting by the well of real, only of perception which is a symbolic system in and of itself...its an virtual reality which may or may not symbolize the real... words are 2nd order symbols, triggers that we hope will cause the listener to experience what we have experienced by calling it up from his memory of experiences.
think of two people chatting on the phone...each of them has a bunch of oddly shaped blocks[personal experiences]... each set of blocks is labelled... person one is building a structure with his blocks and telling person to two to follow along with his same labelled blocks... the problem is that 1 cannot see the shape of 2's blocks. 1 can only hope 2's blocks with the same names have the same shapes... language is thus a program set to build a mental structure which cannot be easily inspected accept by further language testing... leading to many misunderstandings.
we can hallucinate that we understand each other and not really be talking about the same thing at all... happens many times.
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Siddhashunyata
zen nudist,
Excellent description of what's going on. We are really dealing with getting beyond the distortions of language, and the distortions of perception . In your illustration, neither party may have the "real" shapes.
The condition would be humorous if it was not so tragic. Divorce, violence etc.
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Narkissos
ZN:
When I wrote "sitting by", I meant besides, or alongside the real. Such is, IMO, our contiguous situation to the real as speaking beings.
Perception involves two things: (1) the actual connection to the real through sensations, and (2) our minds' imaginary function which orders perceptions into our mental "map" of distinct and related things we call "reality". So "reality" as an ordered system is definitely on the side of "imagination" in this sense, not "real".
My eyes are just seeing a small part of the desk I'm sitting at. But I know it is a desk because I have a word for it (symbolic), and because I have a mental image of what a desk is (imagination). I know it is distinct from the computer and books that are on it, although sight by itself couldn't tell me that. If I bang against the corner of my desk and hurt myself, I'll have a real experience of this desk which cannot be reduced to the word "desk" or to any "desk concept" (although I'll quickly relate this to that).
What I meant by "asymptotic" is that we are definitely connected with the real (in fact, we are real as biological individuals), but as soon as we try to describe or understand this connection we are already in a different dimension (symbolical and imaginary orders). Poetical, metaphorical, parabolical speech points to the connections of symbolic and imaginary with the real. On a clinical perspective, symptoms do the same thing.
Btw, what was my second false assumption?
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zen nudist
we are definitely connected with the real (in fact, we are real as biological individuals), but as soon as we try to describe or understand this connection we are already in a different dimension (symbolical and imaginary orders). Poetical, metaphorical, parabolical speech points to the connections of symbolic and imaginary with the real. On a clinical perspective, symptoms do the same thing.
this is your false assumption. what you consider "the real" is not.
reality by definition is what actually exist, not necessarily what we perceive to exist.
what you KNOW is not reality, but a symbolic perception of reality--if that... we may be in the MATRIX or some other virtual reality which has nothing to do with reality directly.
you assume we are a biological entity experiencing a real world... yet the only thing I can prove absolutely to myself is that the apparent physical world that I know only exists inside my mind and my body likewise is a symbol not a reality... my true nature may be completely alien to this and my experiences with out of body and past life regressions has convince me that such things are possible and that we may not be physical in any way that would make "sense"
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Satanus
If knowing the true nture of a thing is haphasard, or skewed, what do you guys think of the possibility/desirability of knowing another person, a friend or lover, say? If knowing the nature of a thing is dificult, would it not be so much more difficult in envolving another being?
SS
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Siddhashunyata
SaintSaten, yes. That's why personal relationships (Marriage etc) are so difficult to maintain over time. Instead of "seeing" the other person "new" we see a "conditioned image" and that's the one we address and respond to. Conversely so do they.