Re: virus: IAM what IAM and dats all what IAM

Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Fri, 26 Dec 97 10:09:25 -0500


>> >It is an interesting thought experiment to imagine what a world that
>> >employed such a "language" would be like. Every time your gaze fell on
>> >anothers face you would "hear" them. When your eyes happened to meet
>> >anothers you could not help but engage them in conversation,
>instinctually.
>>
>> Why is this a thought experiment? Is this not the way it is?
>
>(Always gotta be jumpin' from page one to page four, don'tcha, Wade?)
>
>No, it is not *yet* the way it is. But the wheels are in motion And soon,
>very soon, possibly even before the end of this sentence, that will be the
>way it always has been and it will be nearly impossible to conceive of it
>in any other way. We find it hard, now, not listen when a strangers eyes
>speak to us, knowing that they are extensions of our greater selves.

Am I jumping, or am I still wondering why no-one reads the preamble?

There is a most interesting theory about early language- specifically
early Greek, since we have such a large extant record- which posits that
the first languages were inclusive of words, song, and dance, that a
phrase or a description would not be complete without all three. The
theory goes a long way to define the origins of drama, and music, as well
as the Greek language, especially of Homer, itself. It is, unfortunately,
unprovable, but I would begin to contend that modern language is an
entropic form of this, and like the edifice in Babel, lying in pieces at
our feet. You take the de Chardin approach, and feel that this ideal
state is yet to come, whilst I take the romantic view that it is
forgotten. I am not unwilling to say unrecoverable, though. It is the
driving force behind my view of aesthetics, for instance- this ability of
communication to impart visceral knowledge.

'We find it hard, now, not [to] listen when a stranger's eyes speak to
us, knowing that they are extensions of our greater selves.'

Do you know I agree with this?

*****************
Wade T. Smith
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wade_smith@harvard.edu | shouldn't do to a god."
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