Is everyone capable of real thoughts? I see people at the store and at work and well, fucking everywhere and I think to myself, "I wonder what the most impressive thought or idea (to me) they have had or will have was/will be. I was just thinking about the fact that I haven't been very many places and how I should get in my car today and drive somewhere. But then I was like, "what for?" I mean, so I can say I've been to some other state? If I bought a plane ticket, I can say that I've been to some other country. So what? Is travelling something that we do just so we can show people pictures and gloat that we've been somewhere they haven't? Regardless of where I go, we're all fucking human. I'm going to run into varying degrees of humanity, but we all need to eat, drink, shit, and piss to survive... So going somewhere else and seeing something I haven't seen... is that going to bring some great epiphany? I doubt it. It's all in your head. The way that you experience everything that happens is all in your head. I guess it all boils down to the way that we look at things. I have a tendency take everything at face value. I see no magic because I take the luster out of everything with my overt realism. We aren't great beings. We don't have special powers. I wish I was a child again for so many reasons, but mainly because we had the unique ability to pretend. Oh shit! I miss pretending the most. If I could pretend again, all would be right with the world because I could just "pretend" it was. This is why I decided that I'm going to take a bunch of opiates today and go places in my head. Who needs planes, trains, or automobiles. At least here, I won't get the runs from drinking the water... actually, I might not shit for days...
Yes, but the way experience is constructed in your head is through language. Try having a thought without having to internally explain it to yourself. No languages = no thoughts Different languages = different thoughts Different thoughts = different cultures It's worth travelling to experience how different cultures do things and how they percieve the world instead of staying at home amongst people who talk the same language as you, think the same thoughts as you and do the same things as you - because the language wont let them do any differently.
Well, there is the language of symbols which is primal and universal. It is the language of the subconscious as demonstrated by dreams.
Symbols are a language, but are not universal, and like any language is arbitrary and has to have its meaning negotiated within a culture. Icons, on the other hand, are universal through their likeness to their signified objects but are not a language, as icons can be read, but don't need to be written; for example, the childish game where you lie on your back and look for objects in the clouds. They don't mean anything, unless you're some religious nut who thinks god is communicating through shapes in the clouds. A symbol of a woman. Looks nothing like one, and we have to learn its meaning. The little "C" shapes in this image symbolise women in aboriginal cultures. It looks nothing like a woman, and its meaning has to be learned. An icon of a woman, looks like one, we can recognise it and don't need to learn it. But it isn't part of any language.
Well i'm no expert, but as i understand it, some symbols are universal due to the fact that as humans, we all have certain psychological reference points in common, eg. up/down, inner/outer, masculine/feminine, and objects such as sun, stars, moon, and snakes/serpents feature significantly in the human psyche too. This would explain why certain symbolism crops up again and again in diverse cultures which are unlikely to have made any contact. Hopi Round Labyrinth Cretan labrynth
But these diverse cultures that have never had any contact have all experienced gravity (up & down), have noted the difference between in & out and male & female. They have all seen the sun, stars and the moon. If you can think of a geographical location that has no snakes and research that area's native population, they'll have no paintings of snakes, no songs about them and no folk tales about them - because they haven't seen them and don't know they exist. Eric Fromm's theory of a universal, symbolic dream language can be explained the same way. Any object in your dreams that contains any meaning, has its meaning put there by you, through your own experiences (as a member of a culture). Their meaning can be one which is common to your culture, which would make it a symbol, or it could be a meaning which is distinct to you which wouldn't make it anything, as a language only you understand isn't really a language at all as it communicates nothing. Put basically, any shared meanings in dreams are constructed outside of dreams, within your culture, and then feature in your dreams. Like the shared symbolic meanings of snakes, like in the Adam & Eve story - It doesn't take much imagination to think of a poisonous, territorial hunter which can kill people as evil; it's fairly obvious and completely comprehendible that most primitive cultures that encounter them will depict them in similar ways. Again, it doesn't take much imagination to read an egg as meaning birth and potential - but anyone who has never seen an egg would not read it as meaning this; they have to learn its meaning which they would from either experience or through their culture. The "Magic Symbols" that are universal aren't symbols, they're icons that appear naturaly (circles squares eggs and sqiggly lines). True symbols aren't universal - like our alphabet. That's the only difference between icons and symbols - denotation and connotation. All connotations have to be learned, through either experiance or through culture.
I thought this thread was about how Nauseous has no joy in her heart? Kudos to The Nursey and The Canine tho, top drawer intellect there people, a good thread...
Yeah, but I was replying to her statement that we're all the same and that seeing and experiencing new things would be pointless. I"m saying that we're not all the same, we all differ through different cultures, different languages, different religious beliefs etc. etc... and that I believe nothing is universal (that one may upset nursey ).
Again..."Regardless of where I go, we're all fucking human. I'm going to run into varying degrees of humanity, but we all need to eat, drink, shit, and piss to survive..." Point being that underneath it all we are the same. We all bleed. Our brains are made out of the same substance, etc. I know culture/language/religion shape us. That's a given. My point is no matter where you go, you're going to run into people (humans). We don't look, act, think, or believe the same, but biologically we are very similar and we all have varying degrees of the emotions (love, hate, fear, excitement... you get the point). We're given so much biologically and the rest is up to us. All I was really doing with this thread was thinking out loud. I seem to have this urge to do something--experience something when in reality, if I try hard enough, I can go somewhere else without ever moving. The mind is a terrible thing to waste. We rely too much on visual stimuli. I didn't mean to make travelling sound so pointless. I was just talking myself out of taking a daytrip and justifying a day of drug-induced stupor. I'm glad I started a debate though... And I feel like Dubya is one of "those" people. It seems all he can do from thread to thread is throw in a random comment.
Why? I'm not sentimentally attached to the concept. I agree with what you're saying (about language and the value of broadening horizons), apart from 'nothing being universal'. I don't see how that is in disagreement with/negates this comment: "some symbols are universal due to the fact that as humans, we all have certain psychological reference points in common When i say 'universal' i am meaning to us as a species, not universal in terms of inclusion of any hypothetical extra-terrestrials. And as a species we are all subject to certain fundamental laws of existence. I did cloud the issue a bit by adding the 'magical symbols' quote. But the Fundamentals of Symbolism and Labrynths are linked to Mandelas links demonstrate the principle of symbols which are inherent/relevant to us all.
nauseous, if you take that sort of cynical approach and apply it to basically any other aspect of life you'll come to the same conclusion, not because that is necessarily the case but because your logic is rather faulty to say that traveling to another part of the world (not 200k to go eat at a different macdonalds) won't bring about any great change in you is a fair statement because in all likelihood you'll come back the same old nauseous with some new and fun memories, but to assume that everyone everywhere thinks alike and is only capable of thoughts as advanced as your own is a little more then just egocentric, and likewise to suggest that there is no place on earth which can show you a different way of thinking or perceiving reality in general is all but the definition of ethnocentric, now i'm not trying to belittle you in any way, you're in a slump and that shit happens but when you have such a short time on this earth to shoot the shit can you really afford to be too lazy and afraid to expose yourself to something new, maybe even go somewhere where you would be ridiculed for your lifestyle, where doing things you've accepted as normal and routine would be considered extreme or perhaps even eccentric
I was just trying to base my comment in the fact that common understandings between different cultures are based in the material world. That wasn't an argument in itself. But the people you are quoting are using the word universal to mean exclusive and total - they're refering to include every human on this planet. So when they say "universal symbolic language" they mean a symbolic language which is understood by everybody. I can't agree with that, no language is universal. Icons can be universal because they look like the things they represent. So a circle doesn't symbolise the sun, it is merely an icon of the sun and could be argued to be universal because almost anybody can note the similarities between a circle drawn on paper and a huge burning circle in the sky. Chimps and Parrots would be able to note the similarities. Where a circle would become symbolic instead of merely iconic is, for example, the inca civilization - where they built huge circular discs from gold and hung them in their temples. These golden discs symbolised their beliefs that their rulers were descendants from the sun god. But this symolism isn't universal, christians, muslims, jews etc. don't worship the sun but would still recognise the sun as a yellow circle in a child's painting. The people you are quoting, although mainly scholars, are misusing the word symol when they should be using icon or metaphor.
I mean that too (every human on the planet). But i think the difference is that what i am referring to is on a far more primal level of perception whereas you seem to be talking about our intellectual interpretation of symbols, and not the raw experience of them on a level that accesses and influences our consciousness directly by totally bypassing the intellect alltogether (which is what symbols do). Not all symbols are meaningless random squiggles that represent different things to different cultures. They are energy forms of sorts in themselves, each shape conveying different vibrations/frequencies to our psyche like a musical chord does, though via a different sensory channel. A wavey/curved shape creates a calm sense, a zig zag is much more dynamic, 'fast' visual energy form. So i repeat: "...as a species we are all subject to certain fundamental laws of existence. " Anyone getting my point?
...though music (sound waves) affects us on a more physical/instinctual (loer frequency) level than the intense high fequency of (light wave) visual stimulus, (touch being lower/denser/more physical than sound).
But what I'm saying is that you're taking for granted these "fundamental laws of existence", and seem to be assuming universal experiences outside of the physical world. Would a person who was repeatedly molested as a child in a room that was decorated with wavey/curvey lines feel calm if they were put into a room decorated with them as an adult? I doubt it. Personal experience dictates any meaning, the fact that we live in a 3D environmnment with gravity (and that each of us have experienced it) means we note, through our own experiences with gravity, that an upward pointing arrow reminds us of up. A person born and living in zero gravity would not recognise it. It is our perception of an upward pointing arrow that contains meaning, not the arrow itself. It certainly doesn't contain any energy.
