“I’m going to die” and “I’m going to live” are ‘half-truths’. Glass half-full and/or half-empty is another.
Each of the above are true. Technically speaking. But also incomplete. Hence “half”-true. True, as in factual, but only half-true because each of the above are ‘incomplete’. Waiting!
‘I’m going to die’ makes absolutely no sense. Of course ‘I’m going to die’… Every individual ever born was meant to die from the first moment of their lives! ‘I’m going to live’ also makes very little sense. For as long as anybody is able to mutter a few words, that individual is going to live for a while. For a few seconds, at least…
Same thing with the glass. It being half-full or half-empty depends on the evaluation made by an interested party. Interested enough to make the evaluation…
All religions worth their salt attempt to fulfill three needs.
A bed-time story, a survival manual and a get-back-on-track strategy.
The bed-time stories depend on what had already happened before their respective inceptions. On the particular histories of the people entertaining those stories. On the respective cultures which have generated each of the religions. The get-back-on-track strategies, again, depend on the specific social-psychological aspects of each individual civilization using a particular religion. Unsurprisingly, given the consistent nature of the human being, the survival manual is the same.
Regardless of the specific wordings used by various religions, the core of each of those manuals is faithfully summarized by “what goes around comes around”. Mind you, I’m speaking here about ‘successful’ religions. About religions which actually help the civilizations which use them to survive for sizeable amounts of time. About effective religions which create a collective mindset capable to cope with ‘the unexpected’. For example, the religion used by the Aztecs had failed in their hour of need.
The point I’m trying to make here is simple. The Aztec Empire observed a certain religion. They had to, in order to function as a state. As a social organism. Which religion allowed (demanded?) the rulers to treat the general population in a certain manner. Which general population ‘made good’ of the first opportunity to rebel. Little knowing that their new masters were no better than the old ones but …
The Aztec religion wasn’t good enough. Was unable to unite those who observed it into a community. Was unable to convince the believers to behave. To treat the ‘others’ in a respectful manner. Was unable to convince its believers that ‘what goes around comes around’!
The idea wasn’t mentioned at all in the Aztec ‘bed-time story’? The faithful stopped believing it at some point? For whatever reason? The religious leaders had given up promoting the concept? In earnest? As in behaving like they were convinced themselves as opposed to merely paying lip-service to the ‘whole thing’?
Does any of the above even matter? For us, trying to make sense of what had happened?
Let’s face it! Decision making is a process steeped in ideology.
We see things through ideologically tinted glasses. We use ideological shortcuts when evaluating situations. And we do all this ‘under the radar’.
Most of us are not even aware of all this! Most of us don’t know that our decision making is so heavily influenced by the cultural programming we have been subjected to during our entire life. Most of us…
This being the explanation for what’s going on. The rest, the savvy, use their knowledge on the matter to influence our thinking. Our decision making. To manipulate the masses! Which manipulatory process is made easier by the fact that we’ve already been taught to ‘do our own research’. Basically, to adopt our own ideology.
‘Do your own research’, an ideology in its own right, is a double edged sword. A double-pointed dagger, to be more precise… Very efficient when you know what you’re doing and almost sure to mislead an unsuspecting novice…
A professional decider knows to disregard their feelings when making a call. Each of us is a professional decider when toiling our respective fields of expertise. This being the reason for which we’re good at what we’re doing… For which we feel good about ourselves.
For which we used to feel good about ourselves…
To cut a long story short, until not so long ago, we used to feel good. Things seemed to be going into the right direction. No longer. Many of us, a majority according to what’s going on, are no longer satisfied. With “where the world is headed”.
I used ‘headed’ on purpose. ‘Heading’ would mean that the world is still searching its destination while ‘headed’ accurately describes the predominant feeling. That ‘somebody’ leads us towards ‘disaster’. That ‘we’ are no longer in charge.
Hence the need to ‘do our own research’. To stop believing what ‘we are told’ and to demand ‘change’. What ‘change’?!? Anything but what we already have!
How wise is this? How wise is for us to allow our dissatisfaction to take over? How wise is for our handlers to drive us towards uncharted waters?
Epigenetics refers to how your behaviors and environment can cause changes that affect the way your genes work. Unlike genetic changes (mutations), epigenetic changes are reversible and do not change the sequence of DNA bases, but they can change how your body reads a DNA sequence. CDC.gov, 31 Jan 2025
So. XII-th century alchemy was OK. And, eventually, had given birth to science. All the while, starting with the XV-th century, practicing witchcraft was punished by burning the culprit at the stake. In the same cultural space! Christian Europe…
Both alchemists and inquisitors read the same Bible. Followed the same precepts. Both alchemists and witches were involved in the same business. Performed, or tried to, the same kind of feats. Alchemists tried to out-rightly transform the reality, according to their particular wishes, while the witches were accused of achieving ‘unnatural goals’. Saving someone’s life – or that of some animal – who should have ‘normally’ died. Who would have ‘otherwise’ died… The interesting aspect of this whole thing is this: Alchemy was considered to be OK. Alchemists believed – and the general public obliged – that everything which existed came to be by design. Was wished into being by God. As a consequence of this belief, the alchemists – and the general public – were convinced that by studying nature they would, eventually, learn something about the will of God. And achieve some results along the way… Simultaneously, since the feats accomplished by the witches were ‘against the nature’, they must had been performed with the help of the devil. Hence had to be punished.
What about the miracles performed by Jesus?!? And promised by Him to all those who followed his teachings? In earnest… “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Matthew, 17:20
What drove the XV-th century witch-hunters to the conclusion that miracles could be performed only with the help of the Devil? That God was no longer willing to assist?
‘Reality’ – as in ‘whatever happened on the face of the Earth’ – was considered to be the actualization of the Will of God, remember? Such a tragedy, “perhaps 50% of Europe’s 14th century population” disappearing in such horrible way, was bound to be interpreted as a punishment. Applied by God to a sinful population. And since God was perceived to be in a vengeful disposition, any ‘help’ could have come only from the ‘competition’. From the ‘sneaky’ one.
Farfetched? Believers don’t think like that? Don’t blame God for the bad things happening to Man?
Yet another interpretation? Of the same cultural tradition?
Indeed, this my very point. Just as individual living organisms somehow ‘tweak’ the information written in their DNA to increase their chances of survival in the specific conditions present in their environment, we – conscious human beings – have the opportunity, read ‘liberty’, to interpret the cultural traditions passed on to us by our ancestors. We do that ‘under influence’. Pressured by everything going on around us. Are we truly free when doing this? Does our conscience work as intended in such conditions? When in ‘dire straits’?
I posited in my previous posts that: a. Language is inherent to life. Since there can be no life unless there is a functional coordination between the inner reality of the living organism and the environment which constitutes the ‘outer’ reality. b. Language evolves. According to what needs to be coordinated. And, since the advent of man, according to their ‘wishes’.
Fast forward to the present. To the world of alternative facts…
Delanies Lawes, the author of a very interesting paper, “The Theater of the Absurd”, gives us a heads up. ‘Language is unreliable, “one can easily say one thing and do the opposite” ‘. She ends her study by pointing out “Essentially, the absurd dramatists redefined the art form and created a space in which succeeding movements could flourish.”
Reading forward, I came across an explanation by Kathrin Busch. Clarifying – for us, ordinary people – what Walter Benjamin meant when making the difference between ‘through language’ and ‘in language’. “he also draws a clear distinction between expression through language and expression within language. A specific content, i.e. what is meant by the word, is communicated through language – as befits its instrumental use. Items of information and semantic content are conveyed through the language as it is defined instrumentally. In contrast, something else again is communicated in language: a very particular type of meaning emerges in the expression or in the manner of speaking and this meaning in no way has to match the content of what is being said. Benjamin now imposes the mode of speaking, the form of language, on the concept of language in general, thereby implying that, for him, the form of articulation is more fundamental for language than the communicable nature of semantic contents or their referentiality. Benjamin’s argument thus goes considerably further than simply stating that the meaning of what is being said is inseparable from the way of saying it, that the content of a speech act is intrinsically bound up with its form. Rather, the more radical argument that the form of speech can produce a completely different, independent and above all latent meaning must be made…” “However, Benjamin doesn’t just mean that, within a language – in poetic usage for example – the “how” of the act of saying is relevant, but that every language is itself such a form of saying. Language is precisely the formative principle of expression in general. Here, Benjamin picks up on Humboldt’s concept of the inner form of language. According to this, a specific form of saying is expressed in a particular language and, at the same time, a particular cultural significance is generated through this linguistic form.”
Conventional language has failed man… one can easily say one thing and do the opposite… Hence conventional language has failed man by not being rigid enough. By being a flexible enough ‘space’ where man might say one thing while doing the exact opposite… Well… not so fast! “Essentially, the absurd dramatists redefined the art form and created a space in which succeeding movements could flourish.” By using language in a specific manner, theirs, the absurd dramatists created, opened up, the space for was going to happen next…
Not that different from what Benjamin, and Humboldt, had to say about the matter. That by using language, people build culture. And civilization. Interact with their environment. Benjamin was also speaking about the “language of things“. Coordinate their actions. One way or the other. Act as a team or deceive their marks…
The point being that all these people say the same thing. Using different words and, maybe, even without realizing how close they fit together.
Language is far more than what we say. Far more than what we do…
Basically, language is the interface we use to interact with the rest. A tool. A tool which seems to have a mind of its own, but only because it is wielded simultaneously by all of us.
I have already convinced myself that language is inherent to life. That each living organism remains in an animate state for only as long as a flow of information continues to coordinate the processes which make life possible. And since information needs to have the same meaning at both ends of a ‘conversation’, each coordination effort depends on information being conveyed using a language.
Successful coordination depends on information being conveyed in such a manner as to make sense, the same sense, for all those involved in conversation!
A perfunctory look at a world-wide map is enough to determine that there are three ‘dead-ends’. Places not that hard to go to but almost impossible to return from. Specially for our distant ancestors. Hunter-gatherers who lived off the land. Some of whom moved over whenever the population became too numerous for the place they inhabited at any given moment. If the new place was good enough, they thrived. Then, at some point, some of them went even further. If not…if the new place wasn’t that good … the best they could do was to survive. Going back was no option. The old place was already full when they left. The Namibian dessert in South Africa, the Southern tip of South America and Australia. OK, now that I remembered, I must add the Easter Island to the roster. Make it three and a tiny bit.
‘Living at the end of the trail’ means little to almost no interaction with your neighbors. Until the pestering Europeans started to ‘discover’ the world… but that’s another subject. While people living in the ‘middle of the action’ – the Ancient Egyptians make a very good example – meant having plenty of ‘intercourse’ with the neighbors.
The Khoisan family of languages use a huge number of phonemes but in a rather rigid manner. The Australian Aboriginal Languages use 15 to 25 consonants and a system of 3 vowels ‘phonetically stretched’ to make 6 to 8 vowel sounds. The Chonan languages, spoken until recently in Patagonia, use 23 consonants and three to five vowels.
These are facts. Which can be checked online.
What can we make of them? Other than building an interpretation? An attempt to make some sense out of them? Knowing very well that any interpretation will remain just that? A simple, impossible to prove, interpretation…
The Khoisan didn’t have to travel much. To get there. If the cradle of modern mankind was somewhere in Ethiopia, it was a short walk in the park – well, in the savanna – from there to the Kalahari dessert. And, since we’re talking about the early days of humankind, probably the Khoisan were the first modern humans to take that walk. Meaning that they didn’t meet anybody during the journey.
Let me remind you that 70 000 years ago – read all about it over the internet – Homo sapiens almost disappeared. Population bottleneck due to a super-volcano event. 1000 to 10 000 of them survived, somewhere in Africa, and then moved about and reached almost every corner of the round Earth.
Going back to the Khoisan, what can we infer from the fact that they: – use so many phonemes, some of which are clicks – live in the same area since the start of human history?
Also to be taken into consideration: Some languages belonging to the Bantu family (Zulu, Xhosa, Ndebele and others) have borrowed some of the clicks used by the Khoisan. After the Bantu have arrived in the general area, came in contact with the Khoisan and drove them even further into the dessert. Some 1800 years ago.
So why would a ‘sophisticated’ civilization borrow sounds from hunter-gatherers living, literally, in the stone age? Taking into account that the Bantu used agriculture to provide for themselves and were savvy enough to transform iron ore into everyday tools…
Pidgin. English, Dutch and Portuguese colonists needed to get in contact with the locals. To ‘coordinate’ with them. To learn from them about the specifics of the place where they tried to make a living. Hence ‘pidgin’. Various pidgins, depending on the circumstances.
Now, what if the English, Dutch and Portuguese colonists could not go back? Reconnect to their original bases? For how long do you think they would have been able to preserve their original language? Keep in mind that the Bantu colonists did not use writing to preserve knowledge. Or their original language…
So, where are we now? A preliminary conclusion, not talking about a geographical position…
The Khoisan, after the shortest migration ever, continue to use a huge number of phonemes but in a rather rigid manner. The Australian Aboriginals and the Patagonian natives, after migrating to the other side of the world, literally, make do with less than half the phonemes used by the Khoisan. Leading a more or less similar way of life. Subsisting, for so long, in a such meager environment as to transform survival in a form of art. The more ‘sophisticated’ travelers who arrived later – in comparatively small numbers, at first – have integrated at least some of the native language into theirs. Needing to get in touch with the reality present in that place, to coordinate their efforts with that reality, the newcomers had to get in touch, to coordinate, with the locals. In order for that coordination to happen, a new language was developed. Out of what? Out of what the two people had at their disposal. The two already present languages..
In this context, we need to remember the fact that the natives were very curious about the travelers. At the beginning, at least…
We are terrified of the unknown. We don’t know what that is, so it may be dangerous. We are also afraid of the incomprehensible. Of things which challenge our already held convictions. Which challenge the things we currently believe to be ‘true’.
We turn our backs to the unknown and ignore, if we can, the incomprehensible. If what we don’t understand seems ‘far enough’, without much direct impact on us, it’s simple. We just ignore it and that’s it. Especially if it doesn’t carry any emotional charge. But if it affects us, directly or emotionally, we perceive the unknown as being abnormal. And declare it as such. An abomination…
By being familiar, the things which surround us make us feel safe. We’re familiar with them, we entertain the notion that we understand them, so we know what to expect of them. We end up feeling ‘good’ in their presence. Things that come into flagrant conflict with the familiar, which challenge the order we consider to be natural, are also considered to be aberrations! So we don’t pay attention to them. They are not part of our familiar, they are considered rare. Rare, aberrant and, consequently, not worth taking into account.
But after we find out… Or after we’re no longer able to ignore what’s going on…
A mafia-like gang sexually exploiting underage girls. One of them – at least one – commits suicide. The public assumes that if there had been others, the press would have brought it forward. For some people, sexual abuse is part of the things that happen. Which is not OK, not ‘good’, but still part of everyday life. Like earthquakes. For these people, the suicide of the victim is an aberration. Something that should not have happened! If the rest of the girls survived… it means that there was something ‘more’ involved. It was she who was not strong enough. Her support system was not adequate. Or something else might have pushed her in the wrong direction… After all, it doesn’t matter! An ‘aberration’… One of those things which are not worth much of our attention…
For other people, sexual abuse is something caused by aberrant individuals! An aberration from one end to the other! Earthquakes are normal, sexual abuse is not! For this kind of people, sexual abuse cannot be normalized! Under any circumstances.
This is where the interesting part starts. Even those who think that sexual abuse is part of life don’t feel good when they learn about specific cases. When the victims ‘get names’. They know that it ‘happens’ but they don’t think about this phenomenon all the time. They have nothing to do with it, it doesn’t affect them… Until they can’t pretend anymore. Until it affects them. Not necessarily in a direct manner… Until the reality of the fact can no longer be ignored! To escape the psychological discomfort they experience very suddenly, these people need to do something. Quick!
‘Aberration’ to the rescue! Epstein becomes an aberration. Andrew becomes an aberration. Even the victim who committed suicide becomes an aberration! In reality, ‘the aberration’ is that these things happened at all! That they happened before our own eyes!
This aberration could unfold, for so long, only because too many of us are ‘resigned to the fact’ that sexual abuse is ‘a part of life’. A ‘normal thing’. ‘Normal’ at least as long as it doesn’t affect us….
This aberration – industrial-scale sexual abuse, practiced by apparently ‘respectable’ people revealing their true nature under Epstein’s ‘direction’ – has been made possible precisely by too many of us having chosen to ignore the information ‘sloshing’ around our feet! ‘Silently’ shouted by the victims we have chosen to ignore. Until it was too late…
Trust, but verify! Russian proverb, “adopted as a signature phrase” by Ronald Reagan
“Suzanne Massie, an American scholar, met with Ronald Reagan many times between 1984 and 1987 while he was President of the United States.[1][2] She taught him the Russian proverbdoveryai, no proveryai (доверяй, но проверяй) meaning ‘trust, but verify’. She advised him that “The Russians like to talk in proverbs. It would be nice of you to know a few.”
I posited yesterday that “languaging is how things work in the living world”. That a constant flow of information is piece and parcel of any living organism. I will add today that the information flow mediating the life of those organisms has to be reliable. To be true. To its stated purpose.
That an organism needs a dependable flow of information in order to remain alive. In order to be able to perform the feats which differentiate a living organism from a clump of inanimate matter. Maintaining its structural integrity and a controlled exchange of specific substances between the inside of the organism and its environment.
Well, the same principle ‘animates’ the meta-organisms we call ‘human communities’. With a single, but very important, difference!
We lie! On purpose…
There are many living species which use deceit in their quest to make a living. Carnivorous plants which trap their prey. Animals which use camouflage to pretend various things. Even birds which emit false signals in order to fool other animals.
Yet we, humans, are mastering this on the rim of disaster! We have not only invented the concept of lying but also mastered it to perfection.
How much sense does it make and how wise is it to harness the power of AI to a chariot full of deceit?
And when are we going to cut the crap? To adapt our languaging to the new reality?
‘Faith in the photographic image’… really?!? OK, human language cannot be as precise as the kind of information flowing to keep our organisms alive. Human language has to be more flexible than that. For evolutionary reasons to be mentioned at a later date. But let’s be reasonable. And keep it from ‘jumping the shark’.
By transforming artifacts into objects of faith we actually let the ‘makers’ walk scot-free. Allow deceivers to shed all shrouds of responsibility… What happened to ‘do not make idols’? OK, I don’t believe in ‘God’ either but it would be wrong for us to discard time sanctioned wisdom in the process of setting ourselves free from organized religion.
‘Faith’ should be reserved for people, not for objects. Faith, the word, stretches only as far as we pull it. It’s up to us to do that sparingly! Human language is far laxer than the ‘natural’ one. Which makes it less reliable. It’s up to us to keep it dependable.
As I mentioned earlier, individual organisms remain alive for only as long as: They manage to keep their innards in and most of everything else out. Or, in more formal parlance, to maintain their structural integrity. They manage to take in what they need in order to continue their metabolism and to excrete the consequences of the before mentioned metabolism.
To perform those tasks, organisms need two things. Matter and rules. Substance distributed in such manner as to constitute the organism we’re talking about and instructions regarding what to do in each circumstance. For example, while not all organisms need to breathe, all of them need to take in some ‘matter’. Use some of it for ‘maintenance purposes’ and the rest as fuel. In order to recognize the precise substances needed, each organism needs very specific ‘filters’. And information from ‘inside’ regarding the amount needed in each moment of time. Then, once the required quantities of those respective substances have been ‘ingested’, the organism needs to perform certain precise tasks in order to obtain the necessary results. Not to mention the fact that ‘substance distributed in such a manner as to constitute the organism we’re talking about’ has to be ‘distributed’ in a certain manner… yet even more information!
So life is about matter and information. Big deal! Nothing new under the sun… Even Pulcinella knows that living organisms rely on genes to pass information from one generation to the next one.
True enough. My point being that transfer of information is inherent to being alive!
A ‘new born’ cannot ‘become’ unless the pertinent information is ‘put forward’ by its ‘parents’. And it cannot remain alive unless information continues to flow between the individual organism and the environment where it lives. As well as inside the above mentioned organism…
But there’s a problem here. I keep saying ‘information’. But what is it? How do we recognize a signal as being information? The answer is contained in the question. To have information we need signals and a key to interpret the inputs. For instance, ‘get some more oxygen, or ‘food’ ‘, and a receiving agent, capable of performing the task, which can decipher the signal. ‘Lungs’, or ‘guts’, able to simultaneously understand the signal and to fulfill the need expressed by the ‘managing center’.
To cut a long story short, languaging is how things work in the living world.
True or false? Does it make any sense to sent false signals? To interpret them ‘differently’?
nicichiarasa 