Hi All, The following passage from Lila also strikes me as being applicable to language:
"The irony is that there are times when the culture actually fosters trance and hypnosis to further its purposes. The theater's a form of hypnosis. So are movies and TV. When you enter a movie theater you know that all you're going to see is shadows per second flashed on a screen to give an illusion of moving people and objects. Yet despite this knowledge you laugh when the shadows per second tell jokes and cry when the shadows show actors faking death. You know they are an illusion yet you enter the illusion and become a part of it and while the illusion is taking place you are not aware that it is an illusion. This is hypnosis. It is trance. It's also a form of temporary insanity" (Lila, 29) Is language like the theater? Consider that at root, language consists of squiggles in the sand and puffs of wind. Despite this we get angry when those squiggles say something we find outrageous and laugh when puffs of wind combine to make a joke. We know language is not as real as sticks and stones that break bones, but many believe it can be just as hurtful -- the belief behind political correctness. How many similar illusions of words being equivalent to things affect our political loyalties, not to mention our reactions to life experiences. Are we all insane? Well, sometimes. But the kicker is that our thoughts (manipulations of imaginary symbols) is what makes us human and without which we could not survive. So we come to think of our illusions as real because we depend on them for our continuing existence. From that standpoint, thoughts are as real as the air we breathe. We can get along without movies, but not for long without thinking. And so we confuse insults with stocks and stones -- words with things, So then, what about morals? Are they as illusory as thoughts? Are they imaginary only? Given that my wordless cat, UTOE, exhibits behavior that he knows at all times what's best for him, and that unthinking babies know that a full stomach is better than a hungry one, morals can be confidently placed in the physical world of sensory perception. Thought not required. Even atoms behave as if they make moral choices of some physical arrangements over others. Which leads to my last question? If morals are as obvious as what is right in front of our noses why did it take Pirsig two books and many articles and interviews to point out something which many still don't get? Maybe the answer is that by common agreements we've restricted the symbol "morals" to apply exclusively to our social relationships which, like symbols themselves, we depend on for survival. Given such dependence, we are extremely reluctant to ascribe the symbol "morals" to anything other than our primary concern -- maintaining our own being. To extend that symbol to seemingly dispensable entities like atoms, aardvarks and altars is as threatening as telling us to shut up. So we and Pirsig have a huge hurdle to overcome -- changing what a squiggle in the sand and a puff of wind points to. How hard is that? Like really hard because we think our symbols are as immutable as sand and wind. Regards, Platt . . . Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
