From: Michael S. Lorrey (retroman@turbont.net)
Date: Mon Sep 25 2000 - 11:20:10 MDT
Natasha Vita-More wrote:
>
> I'm working on a piece and I'd like to run it by you all and see if anyone
> has any suggestions or contributions that might be relevant.
>
> What I'm looking for is an analogy for how we interpret information in ways
> that are diverse and/or contradictory. The analogy would reflect how
> concepts can be understood from, say, two diverse perspectives.
>
> A visual example might be looking at a hologram and it would provide
> different images depending the eye level or viewpoint when looking at it.
> If one only saw the hologram from one viewpoint, he or she would miss the
> full meaning or interpretation of the picture.
When looking at a mirror, we each see something different.
One problem with english is that it is not self correcting, so self
contradictory statements are parseable and understandable, like: This sentence
is a lie. or: Slavery is Freedom. Ancient Indo-European was far more stringent
and self correcting, which is one reason why ancient societies were far more
structured, and why there was such differentiation between castes and genders. A
thing either was what it was or it was not. There was no fuzziness, such that if
part of a message was lost, what was lost could be easily interpolated by the
context of the remainder, because writing technology did not exist, so written
records could not be referred to, it was all a matter of the memory of the tale
teller. Gendered verbs, gendered nouns, etc. all helped ensure the accuracy of
memorized records.
Understanding their point of view can be made thusly: imagine that there is no
word for snow, for ice, for sleet, for rain, for floods, ponds, lakes, rivers,
slush, hail, etc. That any noun made of water is just 'water'. If we only had
the word 'water' to describe any object made of water, no matter what its state
or condition, then we would have to qualify the word water with descriptors:
frozen still surface water, wavy salt water, flaky frozen falling water, etc...
If the memory of a tale teller or message courier loses the 'flaky' from 'flaky
frozen falling water', then that could mean hail, sleet, snow, avalanche,
blizzard, snowballs, etc... Information is lost, and therefore understanding is
lessened.
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