Originally posted by Soothfast
Okay, here's the thing.
We must be precise in the things we say to others, because others cannot get into our heads and contextualize our words with the groovy imagery we're seeing when we are speaking them. You can take a barrel of fortune cookies and see significance in all the different arrangements of the fortunes that are possible, so being explic . π
Infinities I think I can handle. It is finiteness that I am afraid of.
Interesting discussion. I wrote the following late last night, but didn’t get to post (for the reason alluded to toward the end). In a nutshell, I think it is about the use of different modes of discourse—such as propositional or descriptive modes, on the one hand, and the “elicitive” mode on the other. Poetry, of course, does not just serve elicitive discourse, but is often used for that.
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One should not confuse, however, precision with abstraction—since abstractions (say, in logical form) can generally be made to
appear more precise, it seems, than the just-so-suchness (
tathata) that appears here right before us, but
of which we, and our observations, also are (which generates paradox even in the midst of attempted observational preciseness). For example, a deductive inference can be valid without being true. Its precision, even if valid, is no measure of truthfulness. (An invalid inference cannot be true: even in logic, asymmetry?) [Thus far, just stating the obvious; your example of mathematics, too.]
From the Zen point of view, one should, further, not confuse existential (or ontological: in Zen I am not sure the distinction is “precisely” parsed) precision with more or less precise statements of
concept, whether in logical form or not.
There are at least two major theories (or paradigms for expressing) the (nomological?) truth: the correspondence expression, predominant in the west; and what I will call the “ontic expression”, which predominates in the east. I suspect there may be some (generally unrecognized) linguistic basis for this divide. For example, in English, the word “truth” is cognate with trust and troth—and even tryst. So the idea of correspondence may be built in. In Sanskrit,
satya (“truth” ) is cognate with
sat: being, existence, actuality. For the Zen Buddhist to say that “truth”
is “the pine tree in the garden” is an ontological expression, likely meant to direct one away from mental abstraction/conceptualization—and toward unmediated reality (or at least conceptually-unmediated perception: the Buddhist notion of “mutually arising” comes in here) as opposed to the mediation of corresponding concepts. [Of course, we are also dealing here with translation, and the two “theories of truth” can perhaps be rendered complimentary if that is allowed for.]
It is
not, ontologically (or existentially), less precise than some more conceptual philosophical response. But if you’re asking for abstraction, and you want precision-in-abstraction (or -conception), then—
The moth batters herself
obsessively
against the window-screen
—will seem both imprecise, and likely trivial (a “fortune cookie” ), in response. Whereas that poetic response
points to exactly an existential truth that is prior to all our conceptualization—and, by its analogic image, might also point to the essential
pathology of the concept-bound mind. Of course, that image only becomes analogic, or metaphorical, in the context of a particular question or argument—e.g., one that wants or presumes conceptual precision as a means to existential “truth”.
And, as this is the “spirituality” (much as I so dislike that word!) forum—though it has also been the
de facto philosophical forum—any attempt to point beyond concept to the (ultimately ineffable)
real/tathata, seems wholly appropriate. Such attempts often seem to take the form of poetry (metaphor), direct statements of reality, or Zen koans and such—various forms of what bbarr has called “elicitive” language, as opposed to descriptive or narrative or propositional language. They are aimed only at pointing from the conceptual matrix that we conceive (and get caught up in; including such concepts as “god” ) to the underlying pre-conceptual reality, the just-so-suchness from which, in which and of which we are. Sometimes, it aims to, first, shake up that matrix. And a whole lot of confusion can ensue when elicitive (or even just plain aesthetic) language is taken as, say, propositional language.
Thunder over the ridgetops,
lightning just outside:
time to unplug! π
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Addendum after the storm:
I didn’t get to post any of that before I had to unplug the computer (it has gotten zapped before in electrical storms—especially through the modem). But—does this addendum really add any precision to “lightning just outside / time to unplug!”? π
What if you had asked: “But is there a god?” The response—
lightning outside / time to unplug!—could only be deemed inappropriate if you assume
a priori that I am not, legitimately, answering your question—and, even more, the very
nature of your question! That is, only if you assume that the paradigm from which you ask the question is (or ought to be taken as) in some way
hegemonic—and that I am being either obfuscatory or frivolous if I do not submit to that paradigm.
Now, clearly this lengthy response indicates that I have, provisionally, accepted the hegemony of the paradigm from which you voice your objection to blackbeetle’s discourse,
but—
Do not think by that
that the truth I wave my hands at
is anything less than
the cat sleeping by my elbow,
or the jiggling ice
in my glass of tequila—
π
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EDIT: (1) The second person "you" should be taken as a general, not particular, usage in the above; (2) I make no argument against conceptualization as a means to knowledge (how foolish that would be); Zen really attempts to offer just a corrective to, from its view, the confusion between concept and the underlying actuality that we often seem to become caught in. It just points to the "territory" when we get our heads stuck in the "map"--and, it seems, even sometimes insist that the territory conform to our maps, rather than changing our maps to conform to the territory. Zen is neither special nor profound; and is certainly not the only discipline that insists on the priority of the existential territory.