Thursday, January 28, 2010
What Is Real/True?
In high school, I always preferred Math and Science to English and History. My reasoning was this: English and History are products of humanity, which is flawed. Math and Science were discovered; they were always here. How could I accept the rules of grammar, when they seemed so random? I always asked my English teachers, "Why can't you say someone "did good"? The only answer I ever got was "that's just the rule". This didn't seem very "real" to me. Similarly, I found it very hard to really believe my history textbooks- how could I really know that the authors were telling the whole truth? They had to have been biased when they wrote it. Despite my skeptical nature, I never questioned math and science. I really believed (and I still do, so far) that math had always existed; it was simply discovered by humans- not created. However, I am very open to possibly be proven wrong. In what way has math been constructed by humans? Also, I think we tend to value natural, inherent things over the "constructed". Why is that? Is something not true just because it was constructed?
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i think we can only be certain about what we constructed because the reality that does exist does so within the parameters that we set for them... this always bored me, as true or real as they (math/science and even history and english as they were taught to us) were, i was always indulged in what everyone knows but no words exist to articulate appropriately. this dimension of metaphysical nature lies directly adjacent to the material world, we experience it through our mind (specifically the limbic system and pineal gland). there are only so many words that we can communicate how we feel, and yet they seem never enough, and since we think in english, does this mean we should create an amendment to our language to describe where a certain energy lies on the spectrum rather than creating inappropriate increments that we force into words if we intend on the other person understanding us... this partially answers all of your concerns in your blog, but fully answers none, if you would like me to specify, i would be glad to answer any specific question you may have
ReplyDeleteI agree that language really cannot communicate everything we want it to. Sometimes we cannot articulate how we feel because there are literally no words to describe it. However, I don't think you can give everything a name...there will always be certain things that transcends language. At the same time, as you pointed out, we often then resort to forcing it into words that somewhat describe the feeling, but don't completely capture it. An example that comes to mind is the concept of "love". People say "I love you" all the time, but those words, in my opinion, do not do the concept of love justice. However, you can show a person you love them by the way you act towards them, as opposed to just saying "I love you". So maybe there are some things that we cannot describe with spoken language, but we can still communicate indescribable feelings in other ways.
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