Re: Hard to interpret this

On Mar 7, 6:10 pm, Spehro Pefhany <


I don't think it's muddled. What it's saying is that we shouldn't try
to express soomething into something that cannot be expressed, not
pretend that somthing we cannot grasp has a meaning.

The above is a horror of typographical and other careless mistakes. I
don't know how you managed to follow any of that. I don't, myself.
What I meant was:
'What it's saying is that we ought not to try to find words to express
what is inexpressible(but can only be experienced) since those words
will only mislead, or at best, still fail to re-create the holistic
experience. The idea is that some experiences are holistic and so
cannot be described(by describing te parts of the experience), only
experienced.


(Wittgenstein thought that language was grossly limited for logical
purposes. Take a concept such as 'a red ball' Wittgenstein thought
that the phrase 'a red ball' only pointed to my experience, but was an
ungrammatical compound [I think he thought that words denoted facts, a
'fact' being a holistic perception complex that occupies your whole
percptual feild. If 'red' and 'ball' are each facts, each occupies the
whole of your perceptual field, so 'red ball' which suggests that two
'facts' are superimposed is nonsense. A red ball has nothing to do
with 'redness' or 'ballness' but these words help to point to your
experience, to make it understood to anther.] But that is the limit of
language. Language can never be logical. All sentences are
grammatically nonsense, but point to facts.)

But I agree that the emotional fillip to this arcane theory was
Witttgenstein's connection to mysticism and holistic theories of art.
In literary writing classes, I bet it gets said a lot: 'Don't say the
unsayable. Just set the scene for your reader so he can experience it
himself.'

What is the connection between the two? They seem like orthogonal
concepts at best.

No. What it's saying is 'Don't try to describe experiences that are
indescribable(holistic experiences that aren't the sum of their parts
and so cannot be described;only experienced) Likewise don't invent
words for a concept until the concept has been experienced and is
unambiguous(God isn't) and so enable you to describe what the word
means. The idea is that we ought to know the limits of language.

It makes more sense if it is interpreted as a
warning against trying to analyze the significance of things which
cannot be understood. Perhaps there is an implicit assumption that one
would never assume an experience which aroused great emotions was
without deeper significance.

The original sentence is part of a passage on beauty.

Is it? Do you recognise the source?

Is the beauty of
a woman lessened by the thought that perhaps the appeal of her smooth
skin, her gentle curves, her soft, yet strong, voice and the curve of
her cheekbones may actually be some kind of chemical storm in your
brain related to DNA, fertility and suitability for childbearing?

Not sure I see the connection.

Take 'God' for example.

Please.

It's very difficult to define God coherently and
consistently.

Hairy thunderer, or cosmic muffin?

We cannot grasp the concept(because it's too muddle-
headed) So we shouldn't pretend that 'God' is a word and use it in a
sentence. The sentence is advice given to philosophers.

Our brains manage ambiguity better than our systems of language and
mathematics.

True. But to do logic, we must have done with muddle-headed but
comfortable ideas and concentrate on the residue.


Best regards,
Spehro Pefhany
--
- Show quoted text -


.

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