Replying to LO24310 --
Dear Organlearners,
Judy Tal <judyt@netvision.net.il> writes:
>Thank you so much At, for a very interesting study. With
>your permission, I'll try to use some of your bright ideas to
>back-up and support my firm stand point: "- rather DO - MANIFEST!"
>And please, allow me to call it a "strategy", rather then a
>"stand point".
Greetings Judy,
You need no permission when those ideas have emerged with you too. When
person B recognises something in the articulation by person A of an idea
of person A, that idea or one close to it has also emerged within person B
as tacit knowledge. The only difference is that it is one thing to
recognise an idea, but another thing to express it self so that others
having the necessary tacit knowledge will also recognise it.
I have to mention that I learned a lot from two persons in the Bible on
doing rather than saying as the clearest manifestation of knowledge. They
are Jeremiah and James. Jeremiah even goes so far as to say: "Do not trust
deceptive words which say 'It is the Lord's Word'." (My paraphrasing.) In
other words, question even how you understand any written piece, including
the Bible. James make a simple challence out of it: "Show me your words
and I will show you my deeds so that we can know which manifests faith
strongest." (My paraphrasing). It means that words speak, but deeds stir
creativity.
>In the east they say "When the student is ready - the
>teacher will appear" - - if so, the more you develop your own
>compassion, the more you'll be prepared for a ready student
>who might cross your way, thus - DO.
It's like the saying -- a nation gets the leaders which they deserve,
nothing less, nothing more.
>It seems that you just shared with us such an experience
> - studying etymology (especially certain words and expressions)
>caused an increase in your ability to feel compassionate. It
>works for some people sometimes - I myself experienced
>somthing similar when I struggled lately with my English, but
>I tend to connect these feelings with the actual meaning of
>the words (like the word "deernis" that you analyzed so
>carefully with so much care) and not with the studies
>themselves.
Judy, etymology or "the evolution of the meaning of a word" was something
which I was aware of since I was a kid. I do not remember how I became
aware of it -- perhaps it was one of my wise teachers in primary schools.
But strangely enough, I was not aware how vital this etymology would
become for me -- but only after graduating in 1967 with a MSc in physics.
My training as a scientist sort of created the impression in me that, even
though there is evoluton in the meaning of words, the scientist has the
right to alter the meaning drastically for the sake of science.
Soon afterwards I studied an old book which shocked me out of my secure
contemplations by showing me that drastic alterations to the etymology of
words (i.e bifurcations) are part of the evolution of the meaning of
words. I will not now mention the name and author of the book because its
contents in terms of bifurcations is dynamite for today's world straining
from atheism to fundamentalistic religions. But it brought me deeply under
the impression how etymology is the result of both individual and
collective learning, usually very gradually, but occasionally quite
dramatic. I have studied many thousands of books before and after that
specific book, but none did more to shake my self-assurance in meanings
than that book.
I have lended that book to a few other people, but only after I have made
as sure as possible that they will stand the shock with me helping them
when they feel like falling apart.
>Before sending this mail, I'd like to call your attention to
>the word "manifest". I took it from your words and used it
>as a synonym for "display", "exhibit", "show" - it has of
>course other synonyms too.
Yes, I have observed how excellent you have used it.
It reminds me of great spiritual anguish which I myself suffered as a
result of some extraodinary discovery during 1982-83. I had been assuming
that my learning from that extraodinary book some 15 years earlier had
cured me of liberally designating meanings to words, but rather
paintstakedly tracing the evolution of their meanings, i.e tracing their
etymology. But there was one lesson which I have not yet learned.
All along I assumed that the human has power over the word so as to alter
its meaning. In other words, the human has the ability to INTERPRET the
meaning of words and even trace its evolution. This is the tacit
assumption of hermeneutics up to this day. I never thought of the converse
possibility, namely that words have a power over the human so that the
meaning of a word is the MANIFESTATION of the power of all the words which
that human has encountered in his/her life. In other words, we are just as
much the slaves of the words which we use as we are the masters of these
words when using them.
I was bewildered by this idea which has emerged within me. I began a
search in the literature who else had this crazy idea that we are not free
in the interpretation which we give to words and other symbols so that we
can make a choice whether we will study their etymology and semiology or
not, but that we are actually bound to some extraordinary complex pattern
of which our seemingly "free interpretations" are just one "category of
the manifestations of meaning". The only other person who I could find who
have reached that same level of awareness was Wittgenstein.
Perhaps there are others also in the sense that I was not sufficiently
prepared to recognise this crazy idea in them too. Should I have another
year of quiet study, I will definitely search again for other people who
also had this crazy idea, but whom I was not able to recognise before. I
can tell you fellow learners the reason for this crazy idea, but one crazy
idea is perhaps more than enough to bear.
Now, should it be true that all the words and symbols which we have used
to express our tacit knowledge have a power over us as we have power over
using a single word, then its implications for qualities (like compassion
and curiosity) which makes us humane are profound. It means that our use
of any natural or artificial language influences our personality as much
as we reflect our personality in the use of any of these langauges. In
other words, the compassion which a person have for other humans is
determined by how that human communicates with other humans
-- and animals, or do you not talk with your dogs while playing
-- and plants, or do you not talk with them when watering them
-- and atoms, or do you not talk to them when studying them
-- and God Creator, the "Grand Thinker" behind all our thinking.
>Kindest regards
>and Shalom,
Yes -- we are desperately in need of peace which words cannot describe,
but which we at best can only sigh with SHALOM. However, peace will only
come to those who prepare themselves for it with the help of God Creator.
I sigh it with you -- thanks.
With care and best wishes
--At de Lange <amdelange@gold.up.ac.za> Snailmail: A M de Lange Gold Fields Computer Centre Faculty of Science - University of Pretoria Pretoria 0001 - Rep of South Africa
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