Thought for the day - Dec. 12th

Subject: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 01:02 AM

In English, we turn abstractions into nouns. We take ideas or concepts, and treat them as if they were solid, real, visible things, when, in fact, they are not. For example, take the word 'culture.' What does that mean? We use the word as if it has one specific meaning, as if it is a thing, but it's really only an abstraction, with different meanings to just about everybody.

Most Native American languages are more verb-driven than noun-driven. For example, instead of saying 'culture', a Native American language-speaker would say 'people living together' or 'people interacting with each other.' This has a much more specific meaning.

When we use abstractions as nouns, we mistake them for reality. Nouns in most Native American languages describe real things, such as tree or bear. Abstractions are expressed more precisely, with verbs. But English (and other European languages) is filled with abstractions-as-nouns, and we assume they describe real things, when in fact they don't. This makes for a disconnected and imprecise reality.
Dr. Forbes, UCLA-Davis as quoted in The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight; Chapter: How and Why We Construct Stories.

"The stories we tell ourselves as a culture, that enable us to rationalize cutting down virgin forests or dumping toxic chemicals into the air and water, are grounded in this disconnected sense of reality that Dr. Forbes points out. It's much easier to engage in the destruction of a forest, for example, if we first nominalize that act by turning it into an abstraction ("natural resource") and then using that abstraction-noun instead of describing it in a way that communicates its action, value, or solid-reality."

- Thom Hartmann: The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation 1998 Mythical Books, Northfield, VT

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Ringer
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 07:29 AM

Whilst not knocking your point, kat, I don't think I agree fully (that must be some surprise, I bet). Abstract is, surely, opposed to concrete, or tangible, not to real. To say hatred, jealousy, love, distance, are unreal because abstract is questionalbe imo

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Tony Burns
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 11:44 AM

With respect to the forest vs natural resources.

We now have rain forests and wetlands where we used to have jungles and swamps. It has been speculated that these are inventions of environmentalists. There is more appeal to "Save the rain forest" and "Save the wetlands".

Spin doctors some in all flavours.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Peter T.
Date: 12 Dec 99 - 01:22 PM

Oh, just to be picky, environmentalists use "wetlands" because it takes in a wider set of environments than the classic swamp. I actually prefer swamp -- great word.
The importance of the switch into "resources" is not that it the nominalization of a previous verb (a forest is a noun), but that it makes it equivalent to something else through the abstracting process. Everything has "resources" as its denominator (human resources, natural resources, spiritual resources). It is homogenization within utilitarian catagories that is so dangerous. IMHO. Another good example is "values". yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: thosp
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 12:27 AM

well Peter --how about a compromise -- let's call it SWAMPLANDS --ok?

also i came across this --and it needs a home -- ok if i let it rest here -- if you have a better home for it --please feel free to move it

A university professor went to visit a famous Zen master. While the master quietly served tea, the professor talked about Zen. The master poured the visitor's cup to the brim, and then kept pouring. The professor watched the overflowing cup until he could no longer restrain himself. "It's overfull! No more will go in!" the professor blurted. "You are like this cup," the master replied, "How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup."

peace (Y) thosp

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: katlaughing
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 12:34 AM

I like it, thosp! And, the nifty fonts you are scattering around with your signature, this evening! May I ask what the (Y) means?

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: thosp
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 12:44 AM

my attempt to make the peace sign (also known as the victory sign) depending on generational affiliations--etc.-- and thanks i'm having fun doodling around with HTML

peace(Y) thosp

p.s. also i just realized that the parenthesis in cyberspeak = a hug -- i like that implication -- and also i'm developing my cyberself --thosp

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From:
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 07:51 AM

Thosp, you are very close to the nub of Kats original post. in that story. I am a professional scientist with a number of other attributes which we won't go into here but suffice to say that much of the communications problems between science and the "general public" arise from this problem. In science words and terminology tend to have precise and fixed meanings while the rest of the "general public" do not need such precision. let me give an example many years ago I worked with someone on a perception project and the test they were using was the point at which people perceived blue turning to green. The problem arose and the project was binned (in the oh-so PC place) quietly when it was found that there seemed to be a "racial" value for this point in that there was a significant difference betweeen the point for Europeans and Japanese for instance. My point is if I describe something as green to someone who perceives it as blue but it acquires the "Green" tag in their mind it is transmission of faulty information. Mostly in daily life, ie in art or pictures it doesn't matter much but in science such an errror could be fatal. So philosophy or science regularly gets peeved when people who use words in a different way or with there own meanings can't understand them and it is this failure of words to accuratly describe reality that causes problems, and when it comes to feelings and less easily defined things we run into major problems of communication and also people begin to imagine the description is the experience not understanding that, like in Zen, somethings are ineffable, that is can not be described in words, a sunset, what music feels like, love ,the sound of one hand clapping. Let me set you a litlle test to do with words, at a dinner at my house we came up with 8 answers
What is a mole?

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Micca
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 07:55 AM

Sorry I am posting from work and the above should read from Micca

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 09:01 AM

I once attended a prestigious science conference, and one of the speakers consistently referred to "Avocado's number". Speaking of green..... yours, Peter .

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Micca
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 09:15 AM

he was obviously thinking in pears.It was often so referred in my college chem group, along with our lecturers favourite test for student sleep, " Water is a polar molecule, hence the ice caps"

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Little Neophyte
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 09:32 AM

Micca, Would you say this makes sense.......
Science require emperical evidence. Something percieved with a precise fixed meaning based on experiment or experience. If a scientist from the World of Science, were to look around, they would find the World of Feeling. The World of Feeling is a macrocosm. It is everywhere, and science could never make sense of it because it is based on feeling. All the confusion, and frustration with words is inevitable. In the World of Feeling, words are personal & limited in their ability to describe such a world. In the World of Science, words are extremely essential and specific in their descriptions of what Science has found.

Bonnie

Subject: RE: Thought for the day - Dec. 12th
From: Peter T.
Date: 13 Dec 99 - 10:33 AM

Gregory Bateson has a good essay on this topic, called "All Men are Grass" in Gaia: A Way of Knowing. He contrasts scientific logic with metaphoric logic. Scientific logic is syllogistic -- All men are mortal, Socrates is a man, therefore Socrates in mortal -- while metaphoric logic is associative -- Grass dies, men die, men are as grass. This is a logical fallacy, but feels right. (Apart from the sexist language (sorry), metaphoric language is full of these logical fallacies, but artistic truths, because in this logic things are linked by shape, colour, relations, intuitive insight, etc. The good part is seeing a world of intimate relationships; the bad part is exemplified by the following: White is the colour of purity, some people have pale complexions, therefore, they are pure. It is hard to control the power of metaphoric logic. Science has also been seen to be the enemy of metaphoric logic, because it denies relationships that metaphor sees as meaningful. This is the difference, for example, between astronomy and astrology.
yours, Peter T.