[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Re: Healthy agnosticism
--- Don Smith <dasmith at rotse2_physics.lsa.umich.edu>
wrote:
I mean that an
> event, a fact, merely *is*. That's the default.
> Once you start *describing*
> it, you give it a context; you put it in a story;
> you give it a *meaning*.
> That's an active process that you participate in,
> and you're going to do it
> differently than any other human being (with varying
> degrees of overlap).
> Something happens. The event of itself has no
> meaning.
.
> It's when we start
> talking about redemption, lambs, heaven, etc. that
> we supply the meaning.
> Now the event becomes part of a narrative. It
> connects to us and how we
> perceive the patterns in the world. It has meaning.
My point is (and maybe yours too. I can't quite tell.)
Is that a thing is what it is. Regardless of whether
or not we can understand it, conceive of it, or
communicate it adequately. It still is what it is.
You can take this truth and add to it speculations,
interpretations, narrative, perceptions, hermeneutics,
whatevers, until kingdom come but it doesn't change
the essence of the thing.
Did I just confuse myself?
Kelvin
=====
"Being Irish, he had an abiding sense of tragedy that sustained him during temporary periods of joy."
-- W.B. Yeats
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Get email at your own domain with Yahoo! Mail.
http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/
---------------
Unsubscribe by going to http://www.actwin.com/MediaNation/OtR/
References: