The Ineffable

First, just let me say thanks for getting what I mean. I remember one easter at about 10 years of age I went down to this creek, which was turbulent but clear, as it had just stormed, and although I had no words for it, I was swamped by the beauty of it. It wasn't a "creek." It just was, and it was deeply fascinating. But the world has all these jobs and products for us, to distract us from ...?("being"? "existence"?...nah, ineffable! oh, but "ineffable" is a word. let's cross it out...)
At about 16 I wrote my first little piece of foolosophy, which was just about the "miracle" (best word I could think of then) of color and 3 dimensional space, and the raw existence of consciousness.) Of course I've come along way in "sophistication" but what is sophistication in the face of such? From time to time, especially when young, I would get stricken by the beauty of life when walking alone at night. But the experience was rare. How easily we forget!

I think all of this is great. The owl, the ant, and what about the beauty of a girl in a summer dress? Or the sun up there in the morning, blazing? Or the power of music? I'm sure you will agree. I saw two squirrels wrestling the other day just like dogs or cats wrestle. It was quite absorbing. Quite charming.

One thing I should mention is that in my mind "matter" is an abstraction. The root human experience seems, to me, to divide into the ineffable and concept. In my book, "matter" is a concept we use to organize our experience as as whole. This doesn't take away in the least from what we are agreeing on here. Atoms and matter are conceptual abstractions AFTER the fact of sensation. Looking at animals suggests that sensation is prior to concept generally, excepting perhaps the concept of unity, which allows us animals (is that the right word? "animal" is of course just a human concept, a way of classifying experience) to break our visual field into pieces. We cut the tree from the ground, the leaf from the branch, the nose from the face. We see reality in pieces, automatically. Do you agree? I suspect that the "higher" animals all do this. I think its the source of number, as far as humans are concerned. I also think that we think in pieces, but experience continuity. Or that our ineffable experience is continuous. We can imagine an infinity of points on any line segment for instance. But that's another thread.

Wow! I can picture the beauty of this.......lets just call it a creek for simplicity, the sounds, the turbulent motion of the water, how amazing is water! it is solidly incompressible by any amount of force yet it is transparent, it is a composite structure but acts as a single whole, it is a sine qua non to Earth and gives possibility for life! Whenever I am in sight of a river or ocean I cannot help but think about all of its constituents from single particle masses/energies to chemical and covalent bonds, each and every single part of the the system perfectly does its own job that makes the whole what it is and without the whole would not be possible, then I contemplate the way it all comes together and behave as a single unit to form huge lake or ocean. And while all of these things are breathtakingly amazing on they're own, they do not compare to the sheer awe of the experiences they provide us with, we can call it a creek all we want but this mere representation will never compare to what it really is. Tonight I cooked for my self roast vegetables for dinner and WOW! the beautiful taste of the sweet pumpkin and the experience it gave me simply cannot be recreated with any word or by that manner any form of language, it just is, and nothing can produce a representational copy of that experience but the experience itself. And it is this simple fact that we forget everyday.

Haha....... Foolosophy! I love it!

Those roast vegetables are another great example. Taste, smell, texture, color, and even the sound involved in cooking and eating it. Experience simply cannot be squeezed into mere concepts, mere words, even if you and I are using them as best we can to point beyond them. Which is a great use of them, I think.

Music, in itself it is simply fluctuant patterns of systematically arranged transverse wave of particles, but the experience it brings to us is simply priceless. it has the power to lift spirits and joy, and bring a sense of.....again no words, think of such situations where there is no music but as soon as music is played, it instantly changes the whole mood and atmosphere of the experience as a whole. it can even bring back vivid memories and not just memories but the unique feel and overall atmosphere that was had at the time or place of which these memories bring back. The same way in which certain smells can bring memories of feeling of atmosphere of past times or places, such as the cooking of your mother, but it does not only bring the sensation of the smell but the overall feel that was uniquely associated to the certain place or time. Wow, we have now squirrels in Australia but even seing them in video is an amazing sight, such beautiful animals, I can picture them wrestling and playing as they do, having they're own experience of they're own unique, personal subjective realities of the same objective actuality we are all a part of, I wonder what it would be like.

I totally agree with you in the way that we experience things as parts. We live in a universe in which all parts make up the whole but the whole is made up of all parts, In a similar way that zero and infinity are said to be one and the same, I think that our ability to quantify the whole into fractals is a mere illusion. Empty space or the (aether) if you like, gives means for us to quantify the whole into parts and then differentiate between them. I do believe in a sort of unity (which I am working on) until then I will keep on doing what I do, appreciate, being thankful of, love and admire what I have, EXPERIENCE! Now if I may, I have some stars to go and stare at.

Thank you, and have a great day.

Why would anyone not know there was a difference between a word and a thing (if any) it represents? And why do you keep suggesting that people don't know the difference? What is it with you? Could you say what you would take as a sign that someone did not know the difference between a word and what (if anything) it represents? Maybe then I can understand what Wittgenstein appropriately called, your "mental cramp". And, by the way, I don't think that the term, "mental cramp" is a mental cramp, so please don't suggest I do. Thank you.

we have now squirrels in Australia

I argue that sensation cannot be reduced, to keep the argument simple. It is what it is. But from there we add a layer of concept. And finally we think that concept explains sensation, but this explanation is made of concept.

What is explanation in such a case?

I never knew that. Whereabouts? (I think they would have a very hard time displacing the possums......)

Still waiting to find out about the Australian squirrel population....

In passing however I must say of one thing that has pressed upon me lately and encreased my Humility and capability of submission and that is this truth - Men of Genius are great as certain ethereal Chemicals operating on the Mass of neutral intellect - but they have not any individuality, any determined Character - I would call the top and head of those who have a proper self Men of Power....

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination - What the imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not - for I have the same idea of all our passions as of love: they are all, in their sublime, creative of essential beauty. In a word, you may know my favorite speculation by my first book, and the little song I send in my last, which is a representation from the fancy of the probable mode of operating in these matters. The imagination may be compared to Adam's dream, - he awoke and found it truth. I am more zealous in this affair because I have never yet been able to perceive how anything can be known for truth by consecutive reasoning - and yet it must be. Can it be that even the greatest philosopher ever arrived at his goal without putting aside numerous objections? However it may be, O for a life of sensation rather than of thoughts! It is a 'Vision in the form of Youth,' a shadow of reality to come. And this consideration has further convinced me, - for it has come as auxiliary to another favorite speculation of mine, - that we shall enjoy ourselves hereafter by having what we called happiness on earth repeated in a finer tone and so repeated. And yet such a fate can only befall those who delight in sensation, rather than hunger as you do after truth. Adam's dream will do here, and seems to be a conviction that imagination and its empyreal reflection is the same as human life and its spiritual repetition. But, as I was saying, the simple imaginative mind may have its rewards in the repetition of its own silent working coming continually on the spirit with a fine suddenness - to compare great things with small - have you never by being Surprised with an old Melody - in a delicious place - by a delicious voice, felt over again your very Speculations and Surmises at the time it first operated on your Soul - do you not remember forming to yourself the singer's face more beautiful than it was possible and yet with the elevation of the Moment you did not think so - even then you were mounted on the Wings of Imagination so high - that the Protrotype must be here after - that delicius face you will see. What a time! I am continually running away from the subject - sure this cannot be exactly the case with a complex Mind - one that is imaginative and at the same time careful of its fruits - who would exist partly on Sensation partly on thought - to whom it is necessary that years should bring the philosophic Mind - such an one I consider your's and therefore it is necessary to your eternal Happiness that you not only drink this old Wine of Heaven, which I shall call the redigestion of our most ethereal Musings on Earth; but also increase in knowledge and know all things.