Tag: language

Spooky

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I was musing on the German word ‘geist’, which seemed to mean both spirit and mind. How could that be? Do German speakers actually perceive the world differently? So, off to geist in Wikipedia, which reveals:

German Geist… translation of Latin spiritus… originally referred to frightening apparitions or ghosts… acquired a Christian meaning from an early time, notably in reference to the Holy Spirit/ Holy Ghost… could refer to spooks or ghostly apparitions, to the religious… Holy Spirit, as well as to the “spirit of wine”…

… its special meaning of “mind, intellect” never shared by English ghost is acquired only in the 18th century, under the influence of French esprit… Geist could now refer to the quality of intellectual brilliance, to wit, innovation, erudition, etc. It is also in this time that the adjectival distinction of geistlich “spiritual, pertaining to religion” vs. geistig “intellectual, pertaining to the mind”… also geisterhaft “ghostly, spectral”.

German Geist in this particular sense of “mind, wit, erudition; intangible essence, spirit” has no precise English-language equivalent, for which reason translators sometimes retain Geist as a German loanword.

That pretty well sums it up. English took both Latin/French and Saxon/Germanic origins and mashed them around a bit, never quite staying in step with either (cf Brexit). And that’s why we still talk about the ‘holy ghost’, rather than the ‘holy spirit’. Hence friend Alf‘s characterisation of the holy trinity as: Big Daddy, Our Kid and Spooky.

And that’s also why we don’t have a word for ‘zeitgeist’.

Featured image cropped from Depiction of the Christian Holy Spirit as a dove,
by Gian Lorenzo Bernini, in the apse of Saint Peter’s Basilica, c. 1660,
via Wikimedia Commons

Muck or nettles

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My dad often said ‘muck or nettles’, usually when he was embarked on some diy project, although the term diy did not exist in 1950s Lincoln – people just did things and couldn’t afford to get others to do it for them. I took it to mean that after this stage of the project he was committed, and could not go back. On the web you’ll find the definition ‘all or nothing’.

I can’t find a derivation, but you can imagine that for country people to get anywhere two of the most daunting obstacles might be having to wade through acres of mud or having to push your way through large banks of stinging nettles.

I had a ‘muck or nettles’ moment the other day. I’d had a large desk for many years, but was becoming frustrated by the amount of space it used up in my study, so I bought a new, smaller one. In truth I was seduced by technology (and techno son) yet again, as the new desk can be elevated and used standing.

So the desk arrives and has to be constructed in situ, but first the old desk must be removed and I don’t yet know if the new desk will construct or operate correctly – although most of the review are fine some are not. The muck or nettles moment arrives as I tip the old desk on its side and begin to unscrew the bolts holding it together. Who know if I’d be able to put it together again – the odd creak of separating pieces and apparent cracks suggests this may well prove difficult. Ah well, muck or nettles, ever onward!

It works. First, the old desktop is dragged, half carried downstairs, helped by gravity and long-suffering she who helps when he can’t do it all himself. The new desk is constructed over a couple of hours, according to complicated instructions, and works first time. All thanks to muck or nettles!

Featured image adapted from Nettles, Belfast by Albert Bridge, via Wikimedia Commons

Metaphor, Map and Model

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Metaphor

1. a figure of speech in which a term or phrase is applied to something to which it is not literally applicable in order to suggest a resemblance…
2. something used, or regarded as being used, to represent something else; emblem; symbol.

dictionary.com

Metaphor is the basis of language and related creativity. While this has always been apparent in the arts and literature, it is perhaps not so readily associated with other fields.

Just consider the two domains of thought that have dominated Western cultures for thousands of years: religion and science.

Religious texts are full of metaphor pointing towards the great religious and spiritual truths that can never be precisely expressed in language. Religions become problematic for human society when these texts are interpreted literally, rather than metaphorically. Then fundamentalism becomes a big problem, as it was for centuries in Europe and still is in many parts of the world. In the terms of Iain McGilchrist’s book The Master and His Emissary, the Left Brain Emissary has usurped the function of the Right Brain Master.

But surely science is different, you exclaim – it’s objective. Piffle! In essence, science makes mathematical models of the real world. And what are these models but metaphors that reach towards the underlying reality. Scientific fundamentalism becomes a problem when the scientist believes that the model accurately describes the real world, rather than being a metaphor, leading to losing touch with reality itself. The map is not the territory (another metaphor).

Of course, science’s handmaidens technology and modern capitalism have this problem in spades. It is not a huge leap to suggest that this Left Brain dominance has significantly contributed to today’s ecological and climate problems, and to the mealy mouthed response to these problems so far.

It’s all metaphor really!

Inspired by Iain McGilchrist’s magnum opus The Matter with Things.
Featured image includes a quote from Genesis I, King James version.

Our Minds Limit Science

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Here’s a wonderful rant by secretsoftheserpent about the essential nature of science, being and consciousness. I don’t necessarily agree with every word, but most of it makes exhilarating sense.

secretsoftheserpent

Our ego mind is what limits us. We are our own worst enemies. We can’t be wrong. We have to have others think like us. The ego will get itself into trouble constantly. Science is not immune to the ego. In fact science is being run by one of the biggest ego trips ever in history. Until we get science and the human race out of the ego, we will not advance.

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Our Story

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We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time

TS Eliot, Little Gidding

In the beginning, after the big bang and the formation of the earth and living beings, human beings emerged embedded in the dream of nature. There was no differentiation.

Gradually there emerged language and groupings of people.

There were some societies where the connection with nature remained strong, where language worked in consort with the one, where men and women each brought their own strengths to that cooperation with others and with the one. They developed wonderful creativity in their cave paintings, and a wonderful science that enabled them to comprehend and relate to the cosmos through great stone constructions. They told stories that passed through the generations, passing on archetypal knowledge, lessons of experience to each new generation.

With the coming of written language, some feared that the knowledge of connection would be lost. They wrote it down, hidden away for when ignorant barbarians came, which surely they did.Read More »

Taking Appearance Seriously

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The Dynamic Way of Seeing in Goethe and European Thought

by Henri Bortoft

taking appearance seriouslyThis challenging book explains where Western thinking went wrong, and points the way towards the revolution in thinking that is needed to get back on track.

I read it on Kindle some time ago, probably not wise for such an erudite work, but it did make it easy to recall a lot of key points by downloading my highlights.

Almost by definition, this is difficult reading, because it does not ‘come from’ the place where Western thinking habitually does these days.

Henri Bortoft has a good shot at making this understandable to such as myself, with an interest in philosophy but no great training or professional expertise. It is of course inspired by the thinking of Goethe, one of the giants of our intellectual history.

I’ve included my edited notes in the following, which may help to give an appreciation of the staggering scope of this book and of Goethe’s thinking. But there is no escape from the effort of reading the book itself if you want to understand its quite revolutionary message.Read More »

The Environment

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The language we use shows what we care about. When we talk about the natural world, notably in the media, there is that psychological distancing by using the term ‘the environment’, as if it were something out there to be exploited and controlled. People who care about the natural world and point to facets of the natural world that are being degraded, polluted, driven to extinction and so on are disparagingly referred to as ‘environmentalists’, as if they were somehow inexplicable activists for some impossible ideal state.

It is only the logical left brain that can act in this way. When right brain is engaged we cannot but help be in connection and empathy with the natural world, so that it really matters, just as much as our human artifacts, jobs, economies and so on.

The Paris climate accord was a left brain agreement which concluded that something must be done to stop the threat posed by global warming to this great left brain civilisation.

Thus, the species extinctions, increasing denatured environments, desertification and pollution are only treated seriously when perceived to be a threat to this left brain world. Otherwise, species and ecological communities can go hang, just like the dodo. Only the right brain grieves.

The need is clear. We are a part of nature, we are nature. We know that when we engage full faculties. There is no separate ‘environment’ – we are the natural world, we are it and slowly, in our technological trance, we are setting about trashing ourselves and our future.

It’s time to wake.

To quote Christopher Fry from a different context:

But will you wake for pity’s sake!

Featured image including dodo by Sir Thomas Herbert (d. 1682), courtesy of Wikimedia Commons