William Ian Beardmore Beveridge quote on the guidelines page

I feel inadequate

You may FEEL inadequate (which I doubt), but your opening question shows that you clearly are not.

Call me a raging newbie, but can you define precisely what you mean by "Language is inherently dualistic"?

Fortune, language consists of pictures of, and ideas about, the content of experience. It literally breaks up the undifferentiated stream of experience into discrete things, events, qualities, etc. Eventually all statements about the world involve distinctions such as true-false, good-bad, better-worse, subject-object, subjective-objective, up-down, inside-outside, upsidedown-downsideup ( ), ugly-beautiful, male-female, moral-immoral, hot-cold, hard-soft, light-dark, friend-foe, we could continue indefinitely. Non-dualism refers to the undifferentiated aesthetic continuum which comprises our pre-reflective immediate experience. It is not analytical; it says nothing ABOUT the content of experience. It is, therefore, silent. Words break up the world, concealing its essential oneness. When we simply look at the world (see, I have made the dualistic distinction WE-LOOK), without analysis or evaluation our experience is non-dualistic. But when we try to talk about this experience (to say more than the bare statement I have made here) we must do so dualistically. We therefore end up with inevitable contradictions.

"Ah, I am fortune's fool." Romeo. Welcome to the world of he said/she said, fortune.......agrote, please don't tell me that this has all been a ruse.

Ah, I see. But is experience really undifferentiated? All human experience is contained in memory, and memories tend to be remembered as isolated events (thus differentiated). I suppose it is true to say that the influx of sensory information is undifferentiated but recognition of anything other than oneself must create an instant dualism. The way I see it, words are then just the most basic communication of that inbuilt dualism. (Feel free to correct me if I've got anything wrong, I'm new at this)

(LOL Letty! )

Well, my goodness, fortune. Did I really make someone laugh today?

hot damn--dichotomy,
It seems that we all come in two's
The haves; have not's
The loser's; the pots
If we don't fit there's always lobotomy

agrote, great question and an enjoyable thread. Welcome to the asylum!

I've recently been reading an extremely interesting book by Oliver Sacks, Seeing Voices, a journey into the world of the deaf. It addresses, in part, the specific question you've asked about the importance of language to thought. I can't recommend this book highly enough. I've found it marvellously thought-provoking. It's been one of those 'need to put it down and think all of this over' books.

Granted, Fortune, that our "raw" experience, which is in its immediacy non-dualistic or undifferentiated, is very quickly and automatically translated, or "cooked", into patterns of differentiated meaningfulness. That's what culture does for us. It conditions us to transform the "meaningless" undifferentiated aethestic continnum into a "meaningful" differentiated aesthetic continuum. But one can, under certain circumstances see without thought. And one can even, after considerable practice, see the world stereoscopicallly, as it were, with the undifferentiated oneness and the differentiated variability perceived simultaneously. But I've made this assertion many times in past threads. It's a statement about the mystical perspective.

For the record, and the sake of argument, i remain unconvinced by JLN's explanations, and consider the contentions advanced about "dualism" to be a word game.

It's not a word game, it is a religion.

And you DO understand, Setanta, that my position is that your argument against the primacy of non-dualism is itself a "word game." And to the extent that it is held as a cognitive absolute, it has qualities of religious dogma. But it's no skin off my nose.

Please see the post immediately above yours.

I did. Hence my next to last sentence. But Craven and I have gone through all that.

Culture JLN? Perhaps I misunderstand what you mean by culture but I was talking about basic recognition of objects or even existance outside onself. The first understanding of something other than oneself. We then desire to communicate with other people we see in the world around us. So words are used to embody ideas, which may or may not be solely the product of experience (depending on your particular affiliations).

Anyway, I haven't meant to step on anyone toes. I am not a student of philosophy, merely curious. I surely didn't mean to start a shoot out!

By the way, word games are fun!

No need for concern, Fortune. Our shoot outs are our finest moments. About the nature of culture, at least what I mean by the term: culture has to do with our entire meaningful image of the world. The first language we inherit provides the ideas by which we make sense of the world. When I enter a room, the experience, as a meaningful one, as one that makes sense, is shaped by my cultural conditioning. Virtually none of that experience consists of a priori, or hardwired, meanings. I enter the room, I have a notion (implict or explicit) of a room (a bathroom, class room, art studio, whatever). I have notions of walls, ceiling, up,down, floor, doors, chairs, on and on. If we had never seen a room or anything manufactured. The room would be a meaningless exotic phenomenon. Culture does not consist only of customs; it is the symbolic medium by which we paint our world, by which we make it "our" world, by which we render it meaningful. This applies to everything, including the outdoors. This includes notions of outside (of us) and inside (of us). This is not a matter of philosophy only. It also includes anthropological theory.

Fortune, some of the discussions here get a little heated, but many of them are well argued on both (or more sides) and many on a2k with differing opinions still like and respect each other.

On the word games, I agree with you. Occasionally the word games also enter the realms of poetry, wit, and raconteurship.

ossobuco: Thanks much!

JLNobody: Your answers are both edifying and challanging! I confess I have had to look up your terms more than once (not being familiar with philosophical jargon). But don't take that as a criticism! As I said, I like word games and consider learning new words "adding to the arsenal" .

All right, let me see if I've got this straight. Perception of new events is shaped by prior cultural conditioning. Makes sense.

Raw sensory data is translated into meaningful imagery according to our cultural conditioning. But it is possible to set aside that conditioning.

Language is the expression of ideas. It breaks up unified imagery into blocks of information. Before which process, all experience is held as a united continuous flow. But wait, culture has already transformed this continuum into understandable imagery (chair, floor, wall etc.). Um, so is language then the expression of perception?

Language can conceal as well as reveal internal imagery. It's grammatical structure forces us to structure notions that do not really fit in within the framework of subjective-objective, agent-action, etc.

Hang on, language is a constructed thing. It's words. Wasn't it made for communication between individuals? So then it's structure is changable. If a set of words is found to be inadequate to express an idea, you change them, or make a new one. Various fields of science and inquiry (like philosophy) make up whole reems of jargon when they can't find a word for what they're thinking!

Er, what was this thread about? Oh yeah. Some people have a hard time putting what they're thinking into understandable language. Right.

Maybe they just need practise?

Okay well I'm still confused. I blame Letty - what the hell's a ruse?? Anyhoo, fortune is officially the new chief n00b for this thread, until I actually have something to say.