Language, Thought, World.

[John D. Brey]

This is to point out the strange situation of the travelers on the road to Emmaus: the risen Jesus of Nazareth walks and talks with them and yet they know him not? How can they not suspect what's so obvious? -----Because, as Marion points out (as does Jean-Paul Sartre before him) we can only see what we're looking for, or more precisely, what we believe can be seen. The truthfulness of the narrative account of the travelers on the road to Emmaus is found part wise in the fact that the narrative justifies what Sartre points out: it's impossible to see (at least initially) something the epistemology of the viewer considers impossible. Case in point:

I share with the materialists or physicalists not only the emphasis on material objects as the paradigms of reality, but also the evolutionary hypothesis. But our ways seem to part when evolution produces minds, and human language. And they part even more widely when human minds produce stories, explanatory myths, tools and works of art and of science. All this, so it seems, has evolved without any violation of the laws of physics. But with life, even with low forms of life, problem-solving enters the universe; and with the higher form, purposes and aims, consciously pursued. We can only wonder that matter can thus transcend itself, by producing mind, purpose, and a world of the products of the human mind.​

​

Karl Popper, The Self and Its Brain, p. 11.​

Carefully parsed, Popper's statement above is inverse to the revelation received by the travelers on the road to Emmaus when suddenly they see the holes in Jesus' hands. In the statement above, Popper spies the holes in the foundation of his ideological-clique, the truth that the materialism and physicalism that undergirds his entire epistemology, his worldview, i.e., the "thought-collective" into which he was born and in which he died, is, in keeping true to the type (the travelers on the road to Emmaus), still-born from the get-go even though it is, his materialism and physicalism is, animated and enlivened for a time, that is, seemingly alive (though definitely dead-on-arrival) within his two-forked mind: a mind that sees the fork in the road leading out of the morass of his materialism and physicalism, but can't, as Yogi Berra advised, take it.

In Popper's statement above, and he makes many others like it, Popper clearly concedes, guardedly, that there's gaping holes in his worldview which could only be happily accepted with broken bread and wine toasts if in fact his worldview were able to rise from the death that is its illogical and unreasonable reality.

The parallel with the travelers on the road to Emmaus is near perfect since they're blind to the possibilty of a man rising from the dead, though that fact is the fork in the road to Emmaus, while Popper isn't looking at an ideological-clique that's risen from the fact that it's illogical and unreasonable. He's looking at what he thought was alive, but which at the moment of breaking bread in its full revelation, he sees is dead. His revelation is the opposite of the travelers on the road to Emmaus. They can't believe what was dead can rise, while Popper can't believe what he thought was alive, is in fact dead.

As the poet Christian Wiman points out, death is, so far as we know, more comprehensive than life, such that if a man rises from the comprehensivenes of death, then he's alive indeed, while if an ideology thought to be alive, is in fact dead, then it can't be retrieved from that comprehensive state unless and until that state is reversed by something like a resurrection from the dead.

What the travelers on the road to Emmaus have revealed to them when they see the holes in the hands of a dead man is far more comprehensive than it might seem at first glance since the holes in those hands are the only passageway through which Popper and his ideological-clique can enter into an understanding of the relationship between their materialism and physicalism (a worldview otherwise weighed down so heavily that it can't escape from its finding itself in darkness and sheol), that would allow it to rise again into the light of a new world epoch beyond the clutches of the death principle.

What we call “scientific thought” is a specialization of the western Indo-European type of language . . . Every language and every well-knit technical sublanguage incorporates certain points of view and certain patterned resistances to widely divergent points of view. . . These resistances not only isolate artificially the particular sciences from each other; they also restrain the scientific spirit as a whole from taking the next great step in development—a step which entails viewpoints unprecedented in science and a complete severance from traditions. For certain linguistic patterns rigidified in the dialectics of the sciences—often also embedded in the matrix of European culture from which those sciences have sprung, and long worshipped as pure Reason per se—have been worked to death. Even science senses that they are somehow out of focus for observing what may be very significant aspects of reality, upon the due observation of which all further progress in understanding the universe may hinge.​

​

Benjamin Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality, p. 352-353. Kindle Edition.​

. . . The comments above are from the recent thread Abrahamic Time-Asymmetry. The title of that thread never took form in the original thread such that it's being continued here under a more fitting title.




John

 

[John D. Brey]

This is to point out the strange situation of the travelers on the road to Emmaus: the risen Jesus of Nazareth walks and talks with them and yet they know him not? How can they not suspect what's so obvious? -----Because, as Marion points out (as does Jean-Paul Sartre before him) we can only see what we're looking for, or more precisely, what we believe can be seen. The truthfulness of the narrative account of the travelers on the road to Emmaus is found part wise in the fact that the narrative justifies what Sartre points out: it's impossible to see (at least initially) something the epistemology of the viewer considers impossible. Case in point:

I share with the materialists or physicalists not only the emphasis on material objects as the paradigms of reality, but also the evolutionary hypothesis. But our ways seem to part when evolution produces minds, and human language. And they part even more widely when human minds produce stories, explanatory myths, tools and works of art and of science. All this, so it seems, has evolved without any violation of the laws of physics. But with life, even with low forms of life, problem-solving enters the universe; and with the higher form, purposes and aims, consciously pursued. We can only wonder that matter can thus transcend itself, by producing mind, purpose, and a world of the products of the human mind.​

​

Karl Popper, The Self and Its Brain, p. 11.​

Carefully parsed, Popper's statement above is inverse to the revelation received by the travelers on the road to Emmaus when suddenly they see the holes in Jesus' hands. In the statement above, Popper spies the holes in the foundation of his ideological-clique, the truth that the materialism and physicalism that undergirds his entire epistemology, his worldview, i.e., the "thought-collective" into which he was born and in which he died, is, in keeping true to the type (the travelers on the road to Emmaus), still-born from the get-go even though it is, his materialism and physicalism is, animated and enlivened for a time, that is, seemingly alive (though definitely dead-on-arrival) within his two-forked mind: a mind that sees the fork in the road leading out of the morass of his materialism and physicalism, but can't, as Yogi Berra advised, take it.

In Popper's statement above, and he makes many others like it, Popper clearly concedes, guardedly, that there's gaping holes in his worldview which could only be happily accepted with broken bread and wine toasts if in fact his worldview were able to rise from the death that is its illogical and unreasonable reality.

The parallel with the travelers on the road to Emmaus is near perfect since they're blind to the possibilty of a man rising from the dead, though that fact is the fork in the road to Emmaus, while Popper isn't looking at an ideological-clique that's risen from the fact that it's illogical and unreasonable. He's looking at what he thought was alive, but which at the moment of breaking bread in its full revelation, he sees is dead. His revelation is the opposite of the travelers on the road to Emmaus. They can't believe what was dead can rise, while Popper can't believe what he thought was alive, is in fact dead.

As the poet Christian Wiman points out, death is, so far as we know, more comprehensive than life, such that if a man rises from the comprehensivenes of death, then he's alive indeed, while if an ideology thought to be alive, is in fact dead, then it can't be retrieved from that comprehensive state unless and until that state is reversed by something like a resurrection from the dead.

What the travelers on the road to Emmaus have revealed to them when they see the holes in the hands of a dead man is far more comprehensive than it might seem at first glance since the holes in those hands are the only passageway through which Popper and his ideological-clique can enter into an understanding of the relationship between their materialism and physicalism (a worldview otherwise weighed down so heavily that it can't escape from its finding itself in darkness and sheol), that would allow it to rise again into the light of a new world epoch beyond the clutches of the death principle.

What we call “scientific thought” is a specialization of the western Indo-European type of language . . . Every language and every well-knit technical sublanguage incorporates certain points of view and certain patterned resistances to widely divergent points of view. . . These resistances not only isolate artificially the particular sciences from each other; they also restrain the scientific spirit as a whole from taking the next great step in development—a step which entails viewpoints unprecedented in science and a complete severance from traditions. For certain linguistic patterns rigidified in the dialectics of the sciences—often also embedded in the matrix of European culture from which those sciences have sprung, and long worshipped as pure Reason per se—have been worked to death. Even science senses that they are somehow out of focus for observing what may be very significant aspects of reality, upon the due observation of which all further progress in understanding the universe may hinge.​

​

Benjamin Whorf, Language, Thought and Reality, p. 352-353. Kindle Edition.​

Whorf realized even in his day (the 1930's), that because of the nature of the biases ingrained in language and culture, unfortunately even "scientific thought" can be contaminated by imprecision and illogical premises that are part and parcel of the evolution of the culture and language that circumscribes "scientific thought." Western language and culture, notwithstanding their enormous contributions to scientific thought, aren't the be-all end-all of realistic cognitive endeavor.

Through his anthropological studies of aboriginal tribes, Whorf realized that though most aboriginal languages and cultures don't possess the scientific precision of Western culture, nevertheless, they often possess the baby Western culture threw out with the bath water. As Whorf notes, a future science, far more advanced than we can even imagine, will likely incorporate some of the more mystical, or religious, even aboriginal, concepts left in the dustbin of history so far as the evolution of Western culture and science are concerned. For this new, more advanced science to arrive, Western civilization will have to overcome the biases so well described by Ludwik Fleck.

(1) A contradiction to the system appears unthinkable. (2) What does not fit into the system remains unseen; (3) alternatively, if it is noticed, either it is kept secret, or (4) laborious efforts are made to explain an exception in terms that do not contradict the system. (5) Despite the legitimate claims of contradictory views, one tends to see, describe, or even illustrate those circumstances which corroborate current views and thereby give them substance.​

​

Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (p. 27). Kindle Edition.​

John

 

[John D. Brey]

Whorf realized even in his day (the 1930's), that because of the nature of the biases ingrained in language and culture, unfortunately even "scientific thought" can be contaminated by imprecision and illogical premises that are part and parcel of the evolution of the culture and language that circumscribes "scientific thought." Western language and culture, notwithstanding their enormous contributions to scientific thought, aren't the be-all end-all of realistic cognitive endeavor.

Through his anthropological studies of aboriginal tribes, Whorf realized that though most aboriginal languages and cultures don't possess the scientific precision of Western culture, nevertheless, they often possess the baby Western culture threw out with the bath water. As Whorf notes, a future science, far more advanced than we can even imagine, will likely incorporate some of the more mystical, or religious, even aboriginal, concepts left in the dustbin of history so far as the evolution of Western culture and science are concerned. For this new, more advanced science to arrive, Western civilization will have to overcome the biases so well described by Ludwik Fleck.

(1) A contradiction to the system appears unthinkable. (2) What does not fit into the system remains unseen; (3) alternatively, if it is noticed, either it is kept secret, or (4) laborious efforts are made to explain an exception in terms that do not contradict the system. (5) Despite the legitimate claims of contradictory views, one tends to see, describe, or even illustrate those circumstances which corroborate current views and thereby give them substance.​

​

Ludwik Fleck, Genesis and Development of a Scientific Fact (p. 27). Kindle Edition.​

The final statement in Roger Penrose's recent book, The Road to Reality, reads like a homage to Benjamin Whorf:

It is quite likely that the 21st century will reveal even more wonderful insights than those that we have been blessed with in the 20th. But for this to happen, we shall need powerful new ideas, which will take us in directions significantly different from those currently being pursued. Perhaps what we mainly need is some subtle change in perspective—something that we all have missed….​

​

Roger Penrose, The Road to Reality, p. 1045. Kindle Edition.​

John