Sentences are Viruses

Forums: Philosophy, Philosophy Of Language
Email this Topic • Print this Page

Once encoded, it's demoted. Written speech is mummified speech. "Submit new post."

Do we own this sequence of words? No private language it seems. When a metaphor is new in town, we call it a modern theory.

Some of our favorite theories are about other theories. I've got this theory that we will never stop coming up with theories about other theories.

Topic Stats
Top Replies
Link to this Topic

Type: Discussion • Score: 0 • Views: 2,070 • Replies: 30

No top replies

@Reconstructo,

In the world of moral forms all we have is theory and no proofs... If that does not suit you become a scientist, because they have the easy part...

I am quite contented in the use of written speech...People should write first, then think, first, about what they write, and then what others have said about the same subject... As Heminway said in A moveable feast: Write on true thing... The truth plain and ungarnished, stated clearly in a simple declarative sentence is a beutiful thing and a lovely target... Why wrap your words in a lot of fluff and equivocation???Use them to say something clearly, and the tearing of them to pieces can begin without delay...That is why we write, because thought is so difficult for some that the first one in usually takes the prize...Look at Nietzsche... What did he have to say??? I cannot say with certainty, and no one else can, but he said everything with force and certainty, so we presume he knew of what he spoke...But because of his style which often included contradictions, he does not offer a good target...It is all gristle and no meat...

I like the counter thought...Look at all my new posts...You may not find any... It is because once a certain take on the truth has been given words, then it is easy to say in what fashion it is true or untrue...Maybe I have nothing to say, but plenty of time to say it... Well, I don't wander around thought like that... State the obvious and perhaps I will agree; but don't expect I will go about spouting truth...It is consistent with my lazy soul, to learn everything and say nothing, but only so I can know if what you say stands well before what I have learned...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;114067 wrote:

. As Heminway said in A moveable feast: Write on true thing... The truth plain and ungarnished, stated clearly in a simple declarative sentence is a beutiful thing and a lovely target... Why wrap your words in a lot of fluff and equivocation???

I love H. Sun Also Rises and Movable Feast, both great. Bukowski writes like him. Verbs and nouns make for good style. As far as abstract thought, I often use 3 word metaphors. X is Y. Sure, it forces one to oversimplify, but an exaggeration gets the point across.

I feel that human personalities are based on a few driving metaphors/symbols. We pride ourselves on a few adjectives or ideals and that is enough for us. I can't help thinking about thinkers. I like to go to the source. This is why I started that thread "Foolosophy is Role Play." You meet humans all your life and they are different but there is a common core.
We are "ethical" beings in that there is a force beyond hunger and lust that makes us attach ourselves to certain sentences, words. To me, your truth is your reality. My truth is mine. When it comes to applied science, one human's views are more true than anothers. When it comes to ethics, who's to judge? Most will raise their hands for the job and most will disagree on some important issue.

Sentences are viruses because the ones we like change us. We get exposed to a human, living or dead, whose words become part of us, part of our ethic. Jokes spread. Philosophical metaphors spread. We like them, repeat them. They live in us. It can be a metaphor that points away from words, like "words can't take you all the way," but this is of course still words.

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

I don't love words any more than a soldier loves his weapon... Once I bet my life and supported the same on spud wrenches and sleever bars...I want no more now than that; with the tools at my disposal, to make the impossible real...I used to tell people: If you don't have the tool you need you have to use your head...Try turning that into a C-clamp, or a come-along...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;114137 wrote:

I don't love words any more than a soldier loves his weapon... Once I bet my life and supported the same on spud wrenches and sleever bars...I want no more now than that; with the tools at my disposal, to make the impossible real...I used to tell people: If you don't have the tool you need you have to use your head...Try turning that into a C-clamp, or a come-along...

But this is a poetic criticism of poetry....Can't anti-sentences be our sentences of choice?

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

Looking at the means we use to communicate truth is like looking too long at the mirror... We never get any better looking, and we are liable to be late to the dance...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;114140 wrote:

Looking at the means we use to communicate truth is like looking too long at the mirror... We never get any better looking, and we are liable to be late to the dance...

This is too well written for a person who doesn't like sentences....:sarcastic:

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;114142 wrote:

This is too well written for a person who doesn't like sentences....:sarcastic:

I always took care of my tools, and they took care of me...

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

One of the things we have in common is the metaphor "tool" applied to language. I say words are tools used for living. Perhaps you are more on the Marx side of the Marx/Hegel divide, but we agree they are tools.

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

I'm an inventor of sentences. Some other guy made the screwdriver out metal. I want to make tomorrow's tools out of air.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Every one builds on the past; but you...

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

No, brother, I too must build on the past. This language I use has a history. I live in house made by other hands. I wear clothes made in China. I'm as tangled in history as the next guy.

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115035 wrote:

No, brother, I too must build on the past. This language I use has a history. I live in house made by other hands. I wear clothes made in China. I'm as tangled in history as the next guy.

Then you should know there is nothing new, but we reproduce the past, and reform it to suit our needs...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;115088 wrote:

Then you should know there is nothing new, but we reproduce the past, and reform it to suit our needs...

Sometimes we reform it into a new form. There's not much new under the sun, but there's a little now and then.

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

You will just have to show me...

1 Reply

@Fido,

Fido;115194 wrote:

You will just have to show me...

Man invents new technology, which he then has to name. This technology changes his environment, also requiring new names. As names are often metaphorical, mere practical activity requires its sprinkling of poetry.

But modern man is often enough a leisure animal who prides himself on poetic novelty, on being ahead of the curve. Sure, plenty of today's intellectual fads are probably 90% post-consumer recycled, but here and there a new metaphor coughs up amniotic fluid and breathes. The little bugger is going to make it. He's a cute little virus. He's going to be quoted.

Quotation is how sentence-viruses reproduce. They cannot "live" without a host. Word-virus is the fossil of living speech. The "letter kills" because the letter is undead. Did Socrates know this, and therefore abstain from writing books?

Words are only real for living breathing passionate human beings, who have emotional responses to these words. The mere pronunciation of words requires gesture and generates noise-music. One cannot pronounce an "S" without hissing like a snake, tongue against teeth. An S is made of white-noise.

Ideograms seem to stress the visual and phonetic alphabets the sonic. I would guess this is not the reason phonetic alphabets caught on. I suspect phonetic alphabets are more convenient.

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;115029 wrote:

I'm an inventor of sentences. Some other guy made the screwdriver out metal. I want to make tomorrow's tools out of air.

In Oxford English to sentence means to declare what the punishment is
going to be. By a judge or others.

I d:flowers:on't mind the matter, but sentences are verdicts to me.

1 Reply

@Pepijn Sweep,

Pepijn Sweep;125619 wrote:

In Oxford English to sentence means to declare what the punishment is
going to be. By a judge or others.

I d:flowers:on't mind the matter, but sentences are verdicts to me. Also the use of sentence was a piece of metonymy. Why did I do it? Because it sounds good. Tum-ta-ta are tum-ta-ta.

I meant this kind of sentence. Perhaps you were joking, but just in case:
In the field of linguistics, a sentence -an expression in natural language- is often defined to indicate a grammatical and lexical unit consisting of one or more words that represent distinct concepts. A sentence can include words grouped meaningfully to express a statement, question, exclamation, request or command.[1]

Also I was using sentence as metonymy, because it sounds good. Tum-ta-ta are tum-ta-ta. Viruses should be "catchy", right?

1 Reply

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;125670 wrote:

I meant this kind of sentence. Perhaps you were joking, but just in case:
In the field of linguistics, a sentence -an expression in natural language- is often defined to indicate a grammatical and lexical unit consisting of one or more words that represent distinct concepts. A sentence can include words grouped meaningfully to express a statement, question, exclamation, request or command.[1]

Also I was using sentence as metonymy, because it sounds good. Tum-ta-ta are tum-ta-ta. Viruses should be "catchy", right?

Oh, I understand. Wall Street, White House, Statue of Liberty stand for American virtues.

0 Replies

@Reconstructo,

America, at its best, has been the Enlightenment Incarnate.

America-bashing is penis envy.

2 Replies

Sentences are Viruses

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know