Re: the hazards of essentialist glossolalia (was: Re: Meme-set conflicts )

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Mon Dec 17 2001 - 03:14:03 MST


There seems to be two different ways of using word-associations, be they
puns, stems or cabalistic similarity. In one approach you look at words
with some link and claim this implies a metaphysical or other
relationship between the concepts they represent. In the other you
select word associations to demonstrate or suggest a relationship. The
first approach is clearly wrong, since words are not reality. The second
approach is often easy for us due to our highly associative nature, so
easy that it seems to imply that there is an underlying metaphysical
truth because meaninful relations seem to pop up with alarming
regularity, while really just due to our association skills.

A typical example is how cabala claims words with the same numerical
value are linked. In some cases this produces very meaningful
associations, but at least in English god = dog which is a relationship
most cabalistically inclined people shy away from (usually by stating
that it only works in *true* languages, although I have no doubt you can
find plenty of similar relations in Hebrew or Enochian) rather than
accept as an insight in that a dog has the YHVH-nature.

Is it always pernicious use the second approach? I think it doesn't have
to be, but one has to be careful. If you clearly recognize that you have
selected a associations for their poetic or emotional resonance and
state this in the text, then it seems pretty benign. It may not be a
proof of anything, but it can be a way of making real - especially messy
or diffuse - relationships between concepts shine more clearly.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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