ten ton trucks

Of ten ton trucks

George Clark 080503

• Those who know do not speak.
• Why not?
• Because they realise that language distorts reality
• How does it do that?
• It makes nebulous things too solid
• What kind of nebulous things?
• Thoughts and feelings
• How can they be made too solid?
• They are in essence subtle and short lived but once they have been trapped in a web of words they take on a kind of 'reality' that they do not really possess
• I can see that being true for abstract things like truth and beauty but what about ten ton trucks?
• There is a difference between a ten ton truck as a thing in itself and a ten ton truck as a percept/concept in your mental landscape. 100 people exposed to the same ten ton truck will have 100 perceptions of it.
• Ah yes: and the perceptions will be vague and passing until they are spoken or written
• Yup: then the imaginary ten ton truck becomes more real than the physical one
• Ah yes: and people come to live in a simplified world of imagined things rather than in the world as it is in itself
• Yup: language constrains consciousness
• So: those who know do not speak
• Yup
• Hmm