Philosophy / Illiterature / Comedy

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Ineffable

I suggest that thought is composed of universals which are simultaneously unities. Proper nouns are an exception. But these are still unities, if not universals.

If we zoom out and try to unify all the universals of thought, in other words consider all unities as a unity, we run into certain complications. If this attempt to include all experience is an object of thought, we can quickly ask who is thinking about this master-unity. Soon we have to consider this master-unity as its own audience, which pushes us back toward dualism. And yet this unity is by definition the concept of all concepts. So we are forced to think of it as dynamic. The concepts are all connected. A system of differences. Organized like a network. Within this system are concepts of the world, the body, and the concept of this system itself. The master-concept is a snake with its tail in its mouth. A self-eating self-shitting system of concepts which is in direct contact (?) with the ineffable. The ineffable is sensation (inner and outer), and emotion. This is stuff that painters and musicians work with. Or chefs and perfumers. And the sense of touch is not to be despised. The system of concepts includes the universals that allow us to name objects, have long distance conversations on a forum.
These thoughts are discrete. Singular nouns that we can iterate for plurality. But we seem to think in ones. And yet physics suggests that molecules are just about everywhere on earth. Scientific reality is continuous. And I think that sensation is largely continuous, while admitting that the visual field is automatically broken up into pieces.
The ineffable seems continuous. Language, including all of our philosophy and religion, seems discrete. Our abstractions are small in the face of life. And yet I can't offer a large abstraction to prove this. It's a value judgment or something. I experience a feeling that all my art and philosophy is dwarfed by the ineffable human experience, which largely eludes our discourse.

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