Dialogues 2: Language, Conditioning and Reality Continued
Krishnamurti Dialogues
Dialogue 11: 18/1100
Language as Content and Vehicle of Thought
Morf - I'm beginning to get my 'deep languaging' paper together.
David - I'm anxious to see the finished product
Morf - I'd like to bounce the opening paragraphs off you (I'm ultimately going to plant'em in here, and on the dialogue board, in order to get some feedback and debate going)
David - Sure! Want do you want to do?
Morf - It's gonna come out of me in dribs and drabs David. This stuff is so difficult to get a handle on - and when I do, I have to be mindful of misunderstanding and criticism from non-believers. Shall I do it here? Just give me a feel for what you think.
David - I know what you mean... it makes my head hurt!
Morf - Here's the first 1-1/2 paragraphs. See what you think (and I don't give a damn if the man in the street can't understand it - it's not for him)
David - Then I'll have trouble no doubt... I 'am' the man in the street!
Morf - It takes very little deductive effort or dialogue before the perceptive student of Krishnamurti's work comes to the realization that our behaviors in the most very fundamental sense (the way we act and react, the way we interact with each other, the way we actually perceive things, the things and ways we believe, the ways we speak and think) are to a large extent constrained by the structure of the particular 'languaging' systems that we use. Indeed, proponents of the 'strong' Sapir Whorf theory would hold that unless we can name specific objects and behavior then we cannot properly incorporate or manipulate them in consciousness. The writer does not go that far here: whilst acknowledging that the Sapir Whorf hypothesis holds to some extent, we need only admit its existence and probable effect in this note.Using the point of departure accepted by most K students that a false dichotomy exists between the thinker and the thought, we have the situation where language not only provides the VEHICLE for ideas - and in doing so constrains the nature of those ideas to that which can be carried within the language patterns - but that language, in the case of abstract or word based ideas (those not reliant on a directly supportive system of visual, aural or other sensory images) in itself provides the essence of the idea: content and vehicle in one.I hope you see where our other dialogues have proven useful here, David, (word & symbol imagery, etc.)
David - Yes it's the second sentence in the second paragraph that I'm rereading it is the point language as a vehicle of thought constrains thought... but then the second part..... but abstract idea... is pre language and holds the essence of the thought? did I read that right?
Morf - Language as the vehicle constrains - but it is not just the vehicle: in 'verbalized' thought or language it is the content as well as the vehicle.OK Next, I'll go on to describe how the patterns (and I'll perhaps conjoin visuals etc.) form/create/constrain/condition the nature of individual thinking - and how such reaches across the culture and gets inherited as cultural conditioning (mankind's or 'group' karma/conditioning)Somehow - dimly - this needs grounding out with the concept of the separate thinker: the thinker and the thought coexist as one unitary movement: the content of the thought does not exist as anything separate: content and vehicle are one.(Can you understand my problems trying to write all this down! Just wait until I get onto the language patterns! Talk about the damn hall of mirrors!)
David - It's really tough....
Morf - Anyway, one decision has become clear to me Rather than aim all this at a general 'man in the street' audience (which is the normal way to write things if you can), I've decided to aim it at the level of serious students of Krishnamurti. I don't see any point in trying to write this (almost impenetrable) stuff for the general reader.
David - It's tough because most of us 'are' the thought... we think we are our thoughts... it's when we realize we are aware even without thought as a vehicle that we begin to understand.
Morf - Yes, David. If whoever reads my stuff does not have a basic glimmering of an idea of what K means when he says 'the thinker is the thought', then they'll have little or no chance with my stuff.
David - Yes .... won't you have to point to the awareness without thought as a viable understanding of things without language first?
Morf - I think what I'll do in that case David is refer to some of our deeper dialogues: as an artifice, we could even custom design a dialogue. The stakes here are incredibly high, and I'll quite simply ignore or deflect accusations that I'm being elitist. If people take the time to study and learn then, in 99.99999% of cases, they can set themselves to understand anything. So it's up to them - and I don't intend casting my pearls before the swine.Got to be careful not to go to far here. Agenda for this present exercise remains language and its interaction with consciousness - change the former, you change the latter. Do you see the massive implications of that?
David - I'm not at the level to understand the stakes... why could you be accused of being elitist?
David - OK... I understand reluctance to go beyond the scope...
Morf - Oh, because K supposedly spoke in simple terms (well let me tell you that some of K is not simple!) Anyway, I'm not K: I just have something to add to what he had to say.
David - It's only simple when you've gained the understanding from already applying it to yourself... but not necessarily when you first approach it.
Morf - It takes very little deductive effort or dialogue before the perceptive student of Krishnamurti's work comes to the realization that our behaviors in the most very fundamental sense (the way we act and react, the way we interact with each other, the way we actually perceive things, the things and ways we believe, the ways we speak and think) are to a large extent constrained by the structure of the particular languaging systems that we use. Indeed, proponents of the 'strong' Sapir Whorf theory would hold that unless we can name specific objects and behavior then we cannot properly incorporate or manipulate them in consciousness. The writer does not go that far here: whilst acknowledging that the Sapir Whorf hypothesis holds to some extent, we need only admit its existence and probable effect in this note.
Ram - Gentlemen? This is very interesting, Morf. It is something I've been thinking about lately, the relation of naming and awareness. Does naming prohibit awareness, or is it an ordering process when used in awareness of emotionally packed content...?
Morf - That's a big compound question, Ram. All this has been fermenting - and bubbling out onto bits of paper, fragmentary articles, dialogues. First bit first (and one thing we must do here is go slow - as David and I found out when we got in deep)
Morf - Does naming PROHIBIT awareness? Can I offer what I think it does positively rather than negatively?
Ram - Yes, that is the starting question, I think. Yes, go ahead.
Morf - Naming draws attention to that which is named (which for attention to be drawn to it must have 'existence', not necessary in a physical corporeal sense, but existence in the attendee's languaging system. A couple of hooks on this: if that named does not exist in the attendees languaging system (and no other mode of drawing attention gets used) then attention cannot be paid to it in fact (but to some notional image of it, it can).
Ram - Also, no hook for memory. One reason why we don't remember our infancy, or really exalted states of consciousness, except 'fleetingly' -- more as a flavor?
Morf - Also (and perhaps far more important in a general sense), by naming, one focuses attention from the universe in general onto that named. Naming thus converges attention and, by doing so, precludes attention on the universe at large - the silent nameless attention that is aware of what is. (Yes, no language to experience hooks - events not registered on the language system: for the same reason perhaps, we forget dreams)
David - I suppose that's why we dream... and imagine... very important for expanding the "Known" universe.
Morf - That last bit by the way - naming the specific by pointing to it with words out of the general is pure Sapir-Whorf. We proved the simple Sapir-Whorf theory wrong in a dialogue we had last week.
Morf - I'm not saying that's why David, just explaining why we probably forget. Would you care to expand?
David - Well... by the 'silent nameless attention that is aware of what is'.... is what we both experienced, wasn't it? And I immediately wrote a poem to name it!
Morf - I see: the making of the nameless (some elements of it) into knowledge, but not just simple 'nouns/verbs/adjectives/adverbs' and such, rather you did it as groups of complex interrelated concepts - albeit still in word forms.
David - Yes, you're right, and the complex interrelated concepts are how we expand our "known" universe or reality, where most of us live our lives in our imagined security.
Morf - As an aside, I came across an article about William James and Benjamin Blood on the web yesterday. They, independently, came to the conclusion that plural realities exist - a conclusion we worked out in one of last week's dialogue! (Yes to your last transmission - by naming or 'registering' as K once described it, we make our realities (a.k.a. our conditioning) Our conclusion is better than theirs though... They used nitrous oxide to get there - we did it in sober consciousness.
David - Ha, that's a hoot!
Morf - Hey, seriously: James used the stuff all the time! +James +blood +Atlantic search the web for these words: (It's an article in the Atlantic review)
David - Whatever jogs the normal and accepted and creates new combinations to expand the possibilities.
Morf - Oh yes. When we language in our usual way and interact with the world in our usual way (i.e. we behave as we are conditioned) then we act in accordance with and REINFORCE that particular reality. To significantly change, we either have to somehow get brainwashed into a new regime OR (the K way) find a way of going 'hands off'. I said earlier, is all floating around or fermenting. To crystallize, to get a grip of the 'hall of mirrors' aspects takes some doing. Could you mail me a copy? I'll post it as a dialogue.
David - This is really interesting, there's a book right here... "K's teachings and Their Implications On Reality" ....don't you think?
Morf - Oh yes. K laid down the foundations, it's for the rest of us to work it all out. K laid foundations for a lot of things, we're only touching one of them - albeit one of the most significant and fundamental: what's more fundamental than reality.
David - What I'm saying is 'you' have a book right here... these implications... most K followers don't have your perspective... you can expand 'our' reality!
Morf - With regard to your last transmission, it's why I'm creating the web site. If we get a book out of it, the profits will get split according to who participated and how much
Dialogue 12 20th Nov 2000
Language and Culturalization
David - I've been rereading our dialogues. The dialogues require several readings I have found... is there any aspect you want to take up?
Morf - You seem to have the realization that language patterns and habits determine consciousness at the shallower levels anyway the deeper we go, the more abstract the symbols systems become
David - Well...that's interesting... I follow our arguments up to this point... but I puzzle over K's "The content of consciousness is consciousness".
David - Is consciousness "thinging"? What about my consciousness when I opened to the sky splitting and gold pouring in? Was I 'thinging' when thought was not?
Morf - That's a very large chunk to swallow at one go (I can explain it crudely if you want, but I think we need to go slowly and let the full meaning of that flower as we go). About 'thinging' at superficial and deep levels, the former in language, the latter in silence - deep symbol and integration of events. Don't forget in all this that thinker/thought and observer/observed are at all times unified.
David - In actuality, but we just think we're separate.
Morf - that's why these discussions would be impossible in a 'normal' philosophy/ psychology group). That's right - but mind how you use/what you mean by the word 'think' Hall of mirrors again And let's change a bit of conditioning right here... I don't think I'm separate, and neither do you but.... The common conditioning in Western Christian Society would have it that way - and that's what predominates/gets taught. You see how we get 'stuck' with the patterns?
David - We are taught we are separate and distinct individuals with free will etc.
Morf - Yes: and even better we all behave that way, so the stuff becomes interactive and self-reinforcing/perpetuating. (As a man thinketh in his heart, then so he is)
David - What you believe yourself to be, so shall you become
Morf - Conditioning. Presupposition.
David - When you wish upon a star.... your dreams can come true
Morf - So, to go back a little way, what shall we do with all this? The knowledge begins to unfold before us: do we pursue knowledge for knowledge's sake? Do we begin to apply what we already know? What do we want to change and how? Can we do that safely? I could go on and on, but you seem to have caught on to the practical side of all this... Just to give you food for thought here, I certainly intend to continue to pursue my (arduous) task of laying bare the implicit (some duality creating) terms in English language patterns anyhow & publishing them on a web page.
David - Well. I'm not sure what you mean... to me it's understanding our psychological selves that sets us free...
Morf - OK let me make it a bit clearer. The language patterns we used are based on ancient Western Indo European forms - and implicitly embody the 'archetypal' or root thinking nature of those. On top of that, we have had added a significant dualistic (possibly because of the root patterns, possibly as a power ploy - but again due to the patterns) bunch of religions - notably Christianity. Those cultural forces (arising at the microcosmic thinking/ languaging level) have dominated. European and descendent European cultures for the past several thousand years. Since Western Indo European (WIE) culture now dominates the globe, those micro thinking/languaging cultural forms also dominate the world. As we discussed last week, languaging determines consciousness and reality. Accordingly, Western Indo European (WIE) reality now pervades the being of the humans who live on this planet.
David - I'm with you
Morf - Now, if one changes the language patterns/form, one changes the reality (and this is going on - for reasons of selfishness and personal gain all over the world every day).
David - manipulating over the airways by Madison Avenue selling techniques and so on… in the name of the profit motive… in all media and schools
Morf - The description is not the described - so we have difficulty telling 'truth' anyway, the best we can do is a close, fair description. But it seems for every way mankind has for telling the 'truth'; he has invented at least a hundred ways of telling a lie Mankind's Karma, David.
David - Yes, reaping what we sow.
Morf - And when you see the vast net of it, everyone's caught into a vast 'cultural' web.
David - Yes... the world is smaller as we envelope it with our web of understanding and communications, interconnected cellular and internet links, multinational companies world bank floating of debt to finance the man's quest to envelope the globe government supported trade agreements and laws use of foreign languages diminishing as English becomes the coin of communication.
Morf - But the dominance of English, the way it has spread from this small island (England) through colonialism, then into military/science/business outlets across the world via USA. Dominant language/culture and the implicit acculturated behaviors that go with it.
Morf - OK, I'm getting a bit weary now, David.
David - Anything Americanâ got to have it... music, movies, bands, fashion
Dialogue 13 21st & 22nd November 2000
Magic, Miracles and Which Way to Go
Morf - 'C' has had a read up on what's going on: she seems eager to join in - but has not quite managed to catch us in here yet.
David - Did you see my post on the dialogue page this morning?
Morf - Did you mean the magic wand of attention? Or 'intent' perhaps.
David - Yes, it just asks the question again of to what extent reality will be changed by not wishing.
Morf - Yes. K has set up radically new ways of looking at the world - if anyone has the intent/interest to pay attention. Yes: to de-energize the stream that already flows its conditioned way to who knows where. We still have it facing us, the area which we (including Ram) discussed yesterday. We all seem to keep falling in 'pits' of attention. The question I asked him holds - about the magic wand - but so do the questions leading up to it, the ones I asked you.
David - Isn't it the same question?
Morf - Ram seemed fairly laid back about it all - on the basis that people are manipulating reality everyday anyhow. I drew the distinction between conscious and unconscious manipulation No, not the same question. I can understand how a gun works, but I do not ever intend shooting anyone.
David - Well, you raised this point... are we capable of consciously manipulating reality... and we do all the time.... So if you were to show us how to change reality by changing language... who do you think will seize on it for their own greedy purposes?
Morf - They won't be able to do it.
David - You know better than I do.... so I can't really answer your question because I don't know what you know about it.
Morf - Let me rephrase that, they'll only be able to do it to a very limited degree - and they do that already anyway as evidenced by all the NLP schools and trainers.
David - If you mean should Morf pick his place to make a stand against the world of scientific opinion, etc., only you can decide where to make your stand... only you know how important it is.
Morf - Ultimately, the non-division of consciousness rules (i.e. the so called 'subconscious' will envelop the conscious and in doing so create balance. I've just answered my own question.
David - It seems you have. So roll up you sleeves and let's get to it!
Morf - Do you realize we sit at the edge of contemplating 'magic' and 'miracle' here?
David - What is the effect of naming on reality? You said that naming something, selecting from our vast mental vocabulary a suitable name to represent a limited thing from the unified physical world, draws attention to the thing named. However, if a suitable name does not exist in the vocabulary we cast about for something close or we miss the thing, and pass by the thing in the physical world without even noticing it. And not only do we miss noticing the thing but we have no memory of missing it. Of course, while we are engaged in the naming of something we are not doing something else. We are not in the moment - "the silent nameless attention that is aware of 'what is'." I have a very limited sense of it Morf, but I trust you see it.
Morf - Right: I agree - but as human beings, we are necessarily conditioned (in physical form, in terms of sensory ability, in terms of possible arrangements of our mentation processes, in terms of deep instinct) We can not or do not live day by day in the 'undifferentiated' - such would be chaos and to live in it would make us non-human. That's on the one hand
David - Balance is key... we see what living too much in the 'differentiated' leads to.
Morf - On the other, we can see by observation of self and others that the way we live now is heavily conditioned, with somewhere back along the line the strong possibility of what K called a 'wrong turn' a streak of conditioning that leaves us selfishly aggressive. Given such, and the technical genius of humanity, we are close to the point where we will probably destroy ourselves and most forms of life on the planet. Evolution would get knocked back by billions of years.
David - That may be the potential that becomes 'what is'.... But also you might write a book that opens their eyes to something else.
Morf - The pain such behavior would create would be immense - not just on humanity (who might well deserve it) but in the mammals, reptiles, insects, trees, plants
Continuation 11/22/00
David -I was just jotting down a few thoughts... here let me copy the line of thought here... This is what we were speaking of.... words differentiate our awareness.... focus and trap our attention... but before words
Morf - I have a page or two full here - mostly incomprehensible or so obscure as to be so!
David - I was thinking about Bohm's holographic world as applied to thought.
DaveA - Thanks for the emails, I'm up to speed
Morf - Holographic as in every atom contains an image of the whole?
David - Right, perhaps like archetypal impulses and Ram's packed little bundles of thought.
DaveA - We do tend towards repetitive thought patterns, responding the same way to problems as if there's an underwritten track we run on. One thought is representative of them all. I've been reading up on Sapir-Whorf and Korzybsky a bit. Checked a few web sites.
Morf - I think the 'underwritten track' comprises part of what we've discussed with regard to language. We can't 'verbally' think (i.e. language) in ways other than those we have been conditioned in - rightly or wrongly. But once we see that, we might not be stuck in it... But we got a big 'Enrico Fermi' type hump to jump over as we have strongly latched on to current ways.
DaveA - Yes, I see the point of observing this process in order to reduce and or destroy its power over one. At least we don't give it the value we would otherwise
DaveA - Enrico Fermi?
David - We see what K meant by understanding creates space
Morf - Physicist. To move a particle from one state of equilibrium to another, he discovered that an input of energy needed to be provided - i.e. you had to give it a kick, it just didn't conveniently move. When you plot energy state on a graph, you get a pronounced hump near to the start, which quickly levels out at the new state - the Enrico Fermi hump. OK, now I've bored you all with that, shall we start?
David - Aha! Something has to overcome the drive to be a part of the whole in order for the drive to transcend to a larger whole, to energize Ken Wilber!
Morf - Point we got to last night referred to us having seen that our reality gets conditioned by our language. If we change the latter (locally), we change the former. If we do it globally, we change global reality. Point we got to is - 'why bother at all?'
DaveA - The psychological is subject to the laws of physics, in a sense.
Morf - Seems we could go a lot of ways (from abusing the knowledge like the NLP crowd, to doing nothing at all & just letting things pass - with us, like the rest, as victims of ourselves. There are routes between. The laws of physics are subject to the reality set up by language, Dave. That's hard to accept at first, but think about it for a while and look around I'd better rephrase that and say, 'language in its broader sense'.
DaveA - As Korzybsky said, language is looser than we often think, sure we 'understand' physics according to how we think, which is based on our languaging and 'thinging'.
Morf - Physics is not some 'absolute' out there set of behaviors.
DaveA - Well, the 'experts' have to eat humble pie often enough to indicate that.
Morf - I've got fascinating books by a chappie by the name of Pearce entitled 'The Crack in the Cosmic Egg' and 'Exploring the Crack in the Cosmic Egg.
David - I read them 25 years ago.... Chilton-Pierce I think his name was.
Morf - In the second one, he deals with the basis of scientific theory and research (amongst a lot of other things) and quite seriously examines the mechanisms used in research.
David - I have forgotten so long ago.
Morf - Correct! Yes Chilton Pierce! The way the scientists 'discover' things is to guess, or hypothesize, and then create experiments and equipment to test out their hypotheses (is that about right, David?)
David - Sounds right make the conclusion fit the hypothesis. K would say the answer is in the question.
Morf - So, they only find or measure the things they assumed existed in the first place! Moreover they only build instruments that they think will detect those things that they want to detect!
David - Yes, they create the reality they want to create.
DaveA - Yeah, you know, literary criticism has 'realized' that science, religion etc. are simply Meta-narratives, (big stories), which are immature ways to try to explain the unexplainable.
DaveA - Cool eh!
David - World views.
Morf - I know this sounds very much like Alice in Wonderland, but those people looking for 'quarks' down deep mines in the USA will only ever find them if they, a) look down the mines and b) have built the right instrument to detect what they think they might find!
David - Tommyknockers!
DaveA - Language based monkeys chasing their metaphoric tails.
Morf - It's a self-interlocking system. I had trouble swallowing all this at first (I'm an engineer remember) and at the pragmatic or man sized level/scale, I still do - but things like Sapir Whorf and Erickson make it more believable every day!
DaveA - It does sound weird Morf, we have all come to these realizations in one way or another.
David - Yes, Dave which is why I'm not shocked by this discussion.
DaveA - It's only weird till we let go. Then we're weird, to those who still think that way.
David - White is black ,down is up.
Morf - One can have some marvelous discussions about this with scientists (esp physicists) about this. They get incredibly hot under the collar and dismissive!
DaveA - The lit critics really pissed them off.
David - They have their facade to maintain.... Their reality to uphold.
Morf - No absolute truth? What? Shove off, physics IS the absolute truth! Ha!
DaveA - And they laugh at 'godbotherers'.
David - So if you have an intellect that can project beyond the rest of us then you become the lead goose flying south, the others will fall in behind you in formation.
David - Sooooo... the implication of what K taught?
DaveA - Or spot a trick no-one else has yet.
Morf - Some of them are 'godbotherers'. Ask about the electron - a particle, or a wave? Language (eprime) easily sorts that one out - but the physicists in the past have been ready to fight duels about it apparently...
DaveA - Forget what you know, it's what you don't that's worth while.
David - Using Star Trek lingo... thought creates the reality of a holowdeck...
Morf - Which brings us back on topic: realizing this - and the staggering consequences of it - What do we do?
David - There seems to be at least two directions...one is to continue along the lines of thought and imagination and create what we imagine... or
Morf - Saints and Saviors time...
David - Let go of thought as K suggests... and see where non-thought leads differentiator Vs non-differentiators. K called it 'love' to lead the way.
DaveA - You can only point out what you've, or we've, seen, to anyone who wants to see, it can't by its nature be organized.
Morf - with regard to going along with the present thought currents, I feel that unless we make a deliberate effort to do otherwise, we will have no choice but to do otherwise. It goes, to a large extent, for non-thinking. I don't know anybody who's made the silence/choiceless awareness thing work yet.
David - Not to the extent perhaps that K did but... we see it or we wouldn't be K advocates of K's teachings. I personally have found that when I predominantly operated from a thought-relating-to-thought basis I was fragmented and disconnected...
DaveA - Can't see what can be 'done' as it were.
David - When I found space in the mind that K talked about I became much less fragmented and thought began to relate to space... this caused changes in my worldview. I now live and act differently because of it.... so my reality has and is changing. We may be separated by an ocean but I sense yours has changed too.
DaveA - I agree David, I can't say I'm free of thought etc, but I'm changed, as you say, to whatever extent.
David - So.... as we become more aware of the space within us our worldview will continue to evolve.
Morf - I feel continually invaded by ill-formed language patterns emanating from others around me, radio, newspaper, TV. The whole languaging system feels to me to have significant implicit and sublime corruption.
David - Can you explain what you mean by corruption.
Morf - Because I am a functioning member of it (and I'm partially disinfected through eprime and my work on it) it pervades civilization. I don't see that we can escape.
David - Do you have conversations in eprime... do you think in eprime?
Morf - There exist significant corrupt forms - spurious, misleading, hypnotizing. No: I write a lot in eprime (and in doing so spread a whiff of disinfectant in the direction of whoever comes into contact with it) Eprime does not represent the full answer - nowhere near. It provides an example though of form change.
DaveA - I agree Morf, society seems trapped by its own willingness to accept falsehood...
Morf - I referred previously to one group of corrupt forms. A more sublime and pernicious group exists, a group which will forever undermine K's teaching. A group which to shift will demand a significant rethink in language structure - and in doing that we will see the shift in consciousness. Pity Ram did not join us: all this would appear highly suitable for him. Also a pity that a Krishnamurti University does not exist. One could give this to half a dozen sympathetic researchers or so and say to them: 'Change the English Languge: Incorporate into its structure the fundamental teachings of K - and thus change the world.'
David - Ram's at work... pretty intense for him.... he would rather be here I assure you. But the change is already underway... it's just painfully slow.... our idea of time and a goal makes it so.
Morf - I'll give you something to play with as a fundamental form - Ram too, since I know he has a strong interest in this and will read the transcript. We have two general 'objects', which can exist as anything you like for now (animal, vegetable, mineral, abstract). And we have some kind of interaction between those objects - again anything you like. Now, for the time being, let's avoid using the terms 'noun' and 'verb' - which tie us down a bit in the old fashioned forms of word: we'll keep it totally general. So your mission, should you choose to accept it, lies in writing simple sentences... Using Object1/Object2/Interraction (any order you like). Now that looks pretty easy so far (use any tense you like as well, by the way). But here comes the rub... In any sentence you write, you must ensure that K's statements regarding consciousness and content, the observer and the observed, and the thinker and the thought, get incorporated - either subliminally or overtly - and in no sentence do they ever get contradicted. Good exam question for a linguistics student that. Should keep 'em busy for at least an hour!
David - Give me some examples because I'm still lost.
Morf - Oh, I'm lost as well - that's the whole point, the enormity of the task! I can give you some 'not' examples. But this kind of stuff holds the key: K has provided us with the clues - the fundamental errors in perception he has pointed out. We need now to integrate them. For example, 'I saw the cloud' - represents a non allowable form. Can you reword it?
David - I am not a linguistics student so I have no clue what you're talking about... you just left me in the dust.
Morf - Several ways appear to me - but they must fit the overall matrix (I'm not a lingusitics student!) Can you help, DaveA?
DaveA - I don't accept that this is necessary, partly because I don't see it as my mission to change the world.
Morf - Precisely the point I raised earlier with regard to having this knowledge and doing something with it. 'David cloud see', would work. It subliminally creates the fictitious 'I' observer. Try one (I don't know, this area represents one written down on my pad) (with regard to the 'I', 'David' as a physical entity does not exist as a fiction - whereas the eponymous 'I' can slide into all kinds of spirit/observer places).
DaveA - K used 'I' whilst well aware of its connotations, being aware of the limits of the connotation is what's important.
Morf - I maintain that as long as we use it, we imply armies of 'observers'. The language poisons us - but maybe K had a quiet enough mind to cope with it. None of us do.
David - That I understand .... and it's the key.... as he advised, live simply.
Morf - Anyway, you guys don't have to get that deep into this if you don't want. I've got pages full of stuff to go at in this area - and go for it I will. But in a modern technological society, one can not live simply?
DaveA - Ok, guys I have to go, catch you later.
David - Bye Dave well Morf... Not claiming to be holier than anyone but it seems It should be possible for one to live more simply than one already does, even if we don't always do it.
Morf - My wife likes soap operas on TV, I hate them. What shall I do, throw the TV in the skip? Shall I get rid of my car? Stop reading newspapers? Wear a loincloth?
David - But 'you' don't have to watch them. People don't have to get rid of their new cars but do we have to compare and fret endlessly about what kind of car to get? Do people have to be intent on reading the news from cover to cover, who needs to read a thousand reporters all required to find villains and scare people. You don't have to wear a loincloth but you don't have to dress yourself from Harrods to the nines.
Morf - I'm a modern, Western, sophisticated man, David. I live in this world - and whatever is going to work HAS to work in that world or it's no use. (My car is 13 years old, 1300cc) I'm with you on the news - I pick and choose headlines. Harrods! Ha! They wouldn't wipe their damn feet on me!
David - I couldn't think of a retailers that would mean anything to you, Anyway, an important key is what is being taught to the young... We can all learn to live more simply and in a more caring way don't you think? I am not claiming to be a simple liver... but I do appreciate simple things more than I used to... thanks to K. OK, shall we leave it here or what?
Morf - K who lived in his simple mansions, drove about in chauffeur driven Rolls Royce's, wore Jaeger cardigans that would cost a working man two weeks wages, yes: live simply!
David - I don't believe he was taken by those things. I think he was in the world but not of the world, if you know what I mean.
Morf - Dunno: we haven't bottomed this out yet. I'm sorry I left you behind somewhere (and Dave left philosophically at the earlier bifurcation's on 'what do we do'. I'd like to get to grips with this again with Ram around as I know he has a profound interest in this (email me Ram)
David - You may find him tonight on the chat page.
Morf - It might be useful if you have a reread of the transcript & let me know exactly where you went adrift. Because if I can't somehow get you back on board with it, I'm at a dead end.
David - Will do.adrift at applying the language... when I don't understand the exercise, maybe I will after I reread it.
Morf - Or maybe not. That stuff I put up represented an example of the work that needs to be done. (and it'll probably have to get done by individuals hacking away and exchanging notes/emails)
Morf - Seems DaveA wants to go his own way with regard to 'being aware'. To be quite honest, I don't think that's going to work as the 'system' is far too extensive, pervasive and sublime. Every time somebody speaks to you, they unknowingly condition you.
Continuation later
Ram - Yes, sorry to have missed you gentlemen this evening! Morf, I never answered you about how my tentative grammar works. Let me say a bit. We can take it up and pick on it another time if you like.
Verbs are conjugated according to types of action, not time: relational movement, develpmental movement, causation, dissolution, etc -- a set number -- with one form that also means 'ground' -- used to apply to words like insight, or to talking about being-as-an-aware agent, etc.
Time is indicated just by adverbs: then, farther-back then, not yet, etc. These words can be picked up themselves and used as verbs for memory or projection.
Pronouns are taken care of by two conventions: locatives, and further verb modifications to indicate firsthand knowledge singular, firsthand knowledge shared (universal), and secondhand knowledge (and the shared version of that). There are more permutations, but it is tied to type of knowledge, whether experiential or hearsay.
The locatives have 'interior' forms, so there is a here that refers to ambient space, a here that refers to the body, and a here that refers to what is detected by the sixth sense 'mind'. There are also forms of 'there'.
Verbs are often compounded, to deal with the problems of objects. It is a little complex, and needs work in my opinion. But "eat" can be a combination such as to chew (or 'take in') in order to nourish/support. The nourish/support part of the verb can be modified by a word stem that can indicate whether it is the unique support offered by meat, carrots, soup, etc! I can explain more of that later, because it takes a bit to get the mind around.
Well, "I see a cloud" is easy. Sentences with multiple standard nouns and adjectives are more challenging. As I said, verbs are 'modified' both by 'action type' and by the nature of experience, whether firsthand, witnessed or hearsay, etc. So without writing in the actual language, the english rendering of the literal meaning would be: cloudpresencing-firsthand. Morf, I can go into more specifics if you want, to show both the successes and failures of my model so far. However, I think there are some important questions to consider.
In my model process language, I tried to eliminate the noun class altogether. Is that really necessary? I believe it is possible, but it necessitates a radically new way of describing experience. A less radical approach may be to just lessen the role of the noun class, make it more subsidiary, and placing more emphasis on process-experience -- meaning action, and how that action is experienced or known.This is getting into the 'why' and 'where to' questions you were mentioning. How deep is the problem of fragmentation in our current language patterns? How radical a solution are we proposing to explore? For me in my experience, really grappling with these questions has actually affected how I experience things with my senses at times; a real felt change. Is that just a brain getting exhausted, or the hint of something new...?
Several things that come up in my current model pose real challenges: not only finding how to put basic parts of speech together, but even organizing verbs into subtle classes that are completely new. Not just replacing one word in English with a word in whatever this is, but at times having to break down a simple English word into something more, with more flexibility.I've imagined, in building vocabulary, having a (large) set of base words based on elementary parts of experience, and even the elements (fire, earth, water, etc) to form the roots for multiple combinations. Seeing the web page on the 'meaning of sounds' was very helpful; it would be a way to decide which letters to use for each of these elemental parts. This is an enormous task! It may be too much altogether; just messing with English a bit may be enough. But I think as you've hinted, the problems are so pervasive....that's why I opted for the more radical approach.This is a long monologue, but I haven't been able to participate as much as I'd like in your conversations, so I thought I'd catch you up a little bit with my thoughts on the same subjects (since I've been reading your transcripts). Maybe we can go from here further...
Morf - Yes ram, indeed how far do we go - and where do actually start. You seem to have chosen a far more fundamental level than me in selecting the actual structure of the vocabulary as a root point and using extant (archetypal?) phonesthemes as a start point. Ultimately, we could even change that for a complete and utter reboot (but perhaps life's not that long) As for me, and impelled by what I found out with my work on eprime, presupposition and Meta/Milton models, I'm fairly happy in starting a lot further up the scale. Initially, I would not bother too much about organizing/naming parts of speech, but would look at how a 'natural' language might turn out BUT deleting the fallacious assumptions built sublimely into current English form & replacing such with the valid observations of K. Accordingly, I would guess the changes would result in a more 'process' based structure, practically sound and one with caveats built into the form when it gets used to deal with abstracts.
You seem to be starting at the atomic level (in dealing with individual words) whereas I'm looking at getting hold of the molecular or structural patterns created by word groups.As for eliminating nouns, I'm not sure. The way we experience the world (or perhaps get conditioned to experience the world?) lies in 'objects' of whatever kind and 'interaction' of various kinds.Psychologically, our mind select (or get conditioned to select) 'objects' from the universal whole, and behaviors/interactions of those objects. (We can perhaps learn a lot form animals here - which seem to have particular interest in things that move or things that have some survival value). That's on the one hand: on the other hand (open door to Hall of Mirrors)...When we 'observe' a 'cat' 'jump' on 'a mouse', that's just a way of modeling - albeit a very useful and practical way of modeling (one metaphor from many) If we had extremely acute eyesight, we could say: cloud of atoms flows and merges (still using noun and verb forms). Or, taking right to the wire: Glackrucknamoff. Seems that if we wish to differentiate, we'll need nouns.
Dialogue 14 24th November 2000
Language Shifting: Why, How, Mantram and Conditioning
David - Hi! I was just jotting down some thoughts about the issue at hand.
David - Should I speak in a new language in order to change my reality, and in so changing my reality change the collective human reality? To do that I must first understand the 'reality-confining/creating' aspects of my current language, then create a language that presumably is free of these confining aspects. Then I must find someone else to teach it to so that we can communicate in this new non-confining way. Then we must teach it to others, and so on. (The real issue of concern also is in what language am I to use for thinking, and that is not an easy thing to change either) What K was advocating seems to be a shortcut to reality changing activities, that is, actually focusing awareness 'on' the limitations of language. Seeing how language 'confines' and creates a reality, in that very understanding there is freedom. Once we see we are not our thoughts, once we realize that thinking is only one aspect within our awareness, is there not a new reality?
Morf - Phew! That's a lot to swallow!
David - Ha... I've been thinking about it...
Morf - You make four points in your first statement. Could we go slowly and take them one at a time? (I've found that's the danger with long monologues - such as ram and I have been using - we end up compounding strings of thought and talking 'at' each other rather than dialoguing. The latter makes us take our time & proceed step by step.
Morf - More than 4 points actually...
David - Sure... as I said I was thinking so I jotted them down... we can break it down but it helps to post a starting position, don't you think?
Morf - It can also precondition us...
David - Well... please proceed any way you like…
Morf - "Should I speak in a new language in order to change my reality", (and that of others) made your first point. As discussed on Thursday, some consider this unnecessary... DaveA rejected it outright (but came back a bit on his position later in an email once he'd read a bit on eprime), and Ram seems to feel that 'awareness' can somehow tackle this.
David - Yes..
Morf - Just jumping the first four points (as to how language changing might work etc.) can you repost your second major statement which I think went along the 'awareness' path.
David - What K was advocating seems to be a shortcut to reality changing activities, that is, actually focusing awareness 'on' the limitations of language. Seeing how language 'confines' and creates a reality, in that very understanding there is freedom. Once we see we are not our thoughts, once we realize that thinking is only one aspect within our awareness, is there not a new reality?
Morf - I accept most of that without debate,
David. Problem is that it's good theory but, by observation and listening to the comments of others (including K) it doesn't work. I face that fact square on.
David - I think you have to explain to me why it doesn't work because to a small degree, in me it seems to.
Morf - The language - in terms of our thoughts and the words that get impinged upon us - has us by the balls.
David - Yes thought thinks in a world of its own creation... thought.
Morf - No small degrees here - absolute radical irreversible change is the stuff K talked about.
David - Well now that seems to mean something to you and perhaps the same to me but I'm not sure. The realization I described above is nothing short of radical.
Morf - I've had some remarkable experiences: experiences of unity, experiences of the absolute cessation of thought, of not knowing who and where I am, experiences of 'heaven' on earth - but at the end of them all, I come back 'down to earth', caught in the thrall of internal dialogue and the language system (all experiences in stone cold sobriety & Unassisted by the way) It's the natural state of me and, as far as I can observe, 99.999999% of humanity. Even K got frustrated that what he had taught did not work: 'where are they?" And don't forget that I, like you and most of the others who go to Kinfonet, have tried, seriously, to apply K's teachings over various periods of time - often over many years.
David - Ok... here's my problem... I have had radical change in my life as a result of 1) K's teachings, 2) life experiences of basic underlying awareness of the whole organism in which thought was only a single aspect, 3) a deepening of this new understanding has occurred as the days go by over the past year.
Morf - If you and I can't do this - no matter how we try, what chance has the redneck down in Alabama, the ship worker in Bremen, the soldier in China, the housewife in Australia?
David - Now... I am not K.... nor have I K's conditioning which may have underscored his ability to divine his encompassing philosophy, but from my limited perspective... change in a new way is happening... my reality has evolved... fact! I don't expect the world to be suddenly peopled by little K's, but maybe not in my life time but several, he has had an effect. We apply our sense of time when evaluating the success or failure of his teachings.
Morf - Oh yes, I've changed and during the periods of those change, certain transcendental experiences occurred (and continue to occur) - but my normal day to day working consciousness in the practical world of mankind remains fundamentally unaltered.
David - Well mine has altered.... so I'm not sure I can take what you say at face value... you say no change, no lasting change in you at all?
Morf - You seem to hold the view that humanity can continue indefinitely the way they are without causing any serious harm. I fundamentally disagree: the house is on fire, as K often said, and unless some radical action is taken to put out the flames, it will go up. Mankind will change radically - one way or the other.
David - But he also said any change within the world of the past, time and thought is no real change, it's still a perpetuation of the world of thought, time and ideas. Will you and I coming up with a new language change you?
Morf - That does not negate scientific cause and effect. Yes change your view of the world and the world changes.
David - Slightly changes yes... since I'm a small infinitesimal point of awareness in the stream of consciousness... but if the teachings are spread and others begin the questioning in all areas of the globe, small change becomes magnified.
Morf - I don't intend coming up with a 'new language', merely to adapt the existing language such as to incorporate the 'truths' of K's teachings and negate the fallacies of several thousand years of Christianity and Aristotelian logic.
David - Here's where you lose me... cause I don't understand how this is done... I accept it may be my failing, so can you explain it?
Morf - Hang on, that takes us off the present topic - I'll do it in a minute or two. I'm just saying that people can go around pretending to be choicelessly aware as much as they like - and it does not mean a thing as soon as you get caught up in reading something, in a conversation, listening to radio or TV or 'mentating' in an attempt to sort out a simple (personal) or complex (e.g. a logical) problem. You might have a CHANCE of doing that if you live like a monk (like K effectively did). But living in the real world like the rest of us do, the word generating system in the brain (physically as well as 'mentally' - i.e. the matter, with its inertia - joins in) begins to vibrate and cycle. In that we get lost & suddenly realize (six hours later perhaps when we quiet down) that we did it. And in that real world, we work habituated language patterns.
David - I agree his life style lent itself to his kind of awakening... but on the other hand, I don't want to be K. I want my own being to flower and unfold according to my potential. Morf, if you feel that radical change will come from thinking and communicating with a new or modified language, that's OK I will even go along for awhile to see if it really works... what else can I do?
Morf - Ram said something yesterday about 'awareness' being able to act in all this, but to be honest, I'm not so sure. (With regard to last transmission, David, yes. But we work in a press shop - so we are deaf) I don't think it will cause 'radical change' such as what K referred to in the 'spiritual dimension'.
David - But I think Ram speaks from experience... not just spouting nice ideas...
Morf - What I think it could do is supplant some illusory language forms (which create illusion in behavior) with some accurate ones. That will remove some darkness.
David - Well what then will it cause, a ripple, ineffectual, or significant?
Morf - Oh yes, I have some experience too. Like awareness cannot exist outside of the sensory apparatus - and as such exists as a function of the senses.
David - Well I am standing in the dark when it comes to what you intend with the new or modified language and I think it might be time for the good of these dialogues for you to express what you intend.
Morf - Oh, its still all up in the air - but I can give you the basic objective (how one gets to point B from A remains the bit that needs working out)
David - Ok
Morf - K gave us 3 basic related truths 1) The observer is the observed 2) The thinker is the thought 3) The content of consciousness is consciousness (More might exist, but I think they will show up as variants of these) OK so far?
David - Yes...
Morf - Now, basic Aristotelian logic - which pervades our language - does not recognize those truths. It works on the basis that things have internal spirits, essences, spooks. So the task that I see here lies in building those truths into standard English and supplanting the old defunct forms - without particularly redesigning the language (i.e. the changes I would use would occur at language pattern - word group - level) By working at pattern level, change could be worked in piecemeal (i.e. in an evolutionary, almost invisible fashion - by evolution, the way languages normally change) Simple, eh?
David - Boy! How do you work on this in an invisible fashion?
Morf - Oh simple, indeed that's the easy bit. If you go look at my site you'll find lots of things related to language patterns… Poetry, NLP, Cliches.David - Can you give me an example of how you would use a line in keeping with what K taught to modify my behavior?
Morf - Using certain techniques of rhyme, alliteration and meter, one can quite easily knock together some fancy patterns (one might even call them 'mantrams' - now there's a novel idea. Ah! Well the first bit one needs to sort relates to the content of the pattern.
David - The content of consciousness is consciousness, dude!
Morf - Let's go for 'The thinker is the thought'. (I see you're getting the message - and this is not just 'rote' stuff, this stuff makes us what we are.
David - The talker is the talk.
Morf - That would do as a good, simple example: start using that at work, for example, and see how quickly it catches on.
David - Walk the talk.
Morf - Our societies function according to the rules laid down in the thought form of our societal mantrams. No, walk the talk does not incorporate a K rule: don't encourage its use (and consequences) by repeating it.
David - Oh... I see, that is hard…. Don't name the unnamable!
Morf - So to use 'the thinker is the thought' as root, one needs to devise a number of (basic) phrases to supplant forms like 'I think...'
David - I am just an idea… I am idea… I is idea.
Morf - That form representing a basic separation of thinker from thought. ('I am' presupposes 'I' exists).
David - Oh well... self is idea
Morf - Seems you see how this would perhaps work now...
David - I wouldn't make that leap just yet... can we go a little further?
Morf - Fine.
David - You start. :-)
Morf - I'm not sure where you want to go: I do want to say something about conditioning though.
David - I think I need a few more examples , but go ahead and say what you want about conditioning.
Morf - It's come to me over the past two weeks or so during these dialogues. No matter what we do, the fact remains (unless we somehow undergo a complete, physical metamorphosis) that we exist as human beings. To exist as a human being means that we possess conditioning - physical and psychological.
David - According to thought and our ideas of what humans are in the oneness of all.
Morf - We cannot, unless we become no thing, be free of conditioning. We have deep psychological conditioning at an 'animal' level which is part of our natural state.
David - I give you that for most of the people inhabiting the earth, this is probably so... but we hear of those who have gained oneness with everything and we ourselves have flashes.
Morf - Thinking and stuff comes on top (and is not necessarily evil). We do not (should not) seek to be free of conditioning at the thinking level as we would be but empty shells - we need a certain amount of conditioning at this level (and we probably need all our deeper 'animal' conditioning. What we can do is 'intelligently' choose our conditioning in my view. To seek to be free of conditioning seems to me to represent a futile and meaningless search. Even people 'one with everything' eat, sleep and crap. Maybe they should get a day job like the rest of us as well!
David - Free from conditioning is an idea we seek... actual freedom from it comes in recognizing it in the moment, wouldn't you agree?
Morf - Human beings will never be free of conditioning. To be human means to be conditioned. Two arms, two legs, a torso and head = conditioning. Matter conditioned into form.
David - Well, that's a statement, I'm not sure I agree with it as stated, it doesn't allow for the immeasurable… what about that aspect of us that is unknown?
Morf - The arms and legs and stuff exist as a matter of sensory fact: the other exists as an idea. If its unknown, we don't know about it.
David - Although it does exist as an idea because it is part of out past, put is it also something 'other'? Then you are saying the thinker that is the thought is the entire being.
Morf - Oh, things can exist as images…
David - But I mean there is another way of knowing besides just thought?
Morf - Thought is not really a way of knowing. Thinking exists as a secondary process of exciting the sensory neurons. The way we 'know' first hand comes via direct excitation of the sensory neurons.
David - Well ,I'm more in tune with you here… there is a whole being knowing of the organism that I have had flashes of.
Morf - Yes, we've spoken about this before.
David - Then there is more to the being than just the thinker is the thought.
Morf - Do you see where I come from now with my language restructure with regard to this?
David - Please restate for the benefit of all.
Morf - Things like the repeating 'I', the separation in consciousness, the separation that of the observer from the observed sublimely infuse the English language. Eliminating them (think of the latter one) cleans perception for the 'whole being knowing' you speak of.
David - Are we back to using a modified language to get us away from this habit of thinking we are separate?
Morf - Why not? We already use a 'modified language' to keep us thinking that we are separate.
David - I'm not criticizing, that's OK with me, I can't help thinking the most important thing is to 'understand' the conditioning and in that understanding we find the changes in reality that we discussed. Once you discover you are not your idea of yourself, not who you take yourself for, that changes you forever, no longer do you crawl across the floor through life, you stand and walk.
Morf - Da thinger am da thought
David - Plunk you magic thinger!
Morf - I keep crawling - invisibility works as the best camouflage.
David - Ha! We can never go back, we can't hole up and hide, we have no choice but to move on.
Dialogues Page One
Dialogues Concluded (page 3)
Email: zenhead@globalnet.co.uk
