Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Kinds of Thought


Spurred by much focus on Buddhist sutra as well as reachings in contemporary philosophy I find myself considering that there are at least 2 different kinds of knowing which reveal different reactions to phenomena. One might be described as epistemological knowing in which we intellectually create representations of the world, in which, as Levi mentions, we tend to overstate things or reduce the thing we attempt to describe. It seems this kind of thought is often driven by a reaction to insecurity or a reach for equilibrium it can't provide. It seems there might also be some kind of practically non-lingual ontological knowing, grounded in the body, and often in conflict with epistemological imputations, rich in things like intuition and the subliminal knowing of bodily memory. Of course none of these terms ultimately get even close to what actually happens in the complex workings of our beings, but I am reaching for words that can help to describe what kinds of balances have been struck when we reach maximal organismic efficacy, and what happens when there's a kind of insecurity that foments insecurity within an individual or in the individual's macrocosm, society. Trauma, stored in the body, distorts thought, so healing must require an ability to encounter the body's non-lingual and intellectually repressed complaint.

5 comments:

Robin Morrison said...

I go through periods where I semi-wake up with a blissful burble of neat words (epistemological awareness) that ride atop deep, semi-apparent sensations from my dreams (ontological awareness).

Inbetween these layers is a sandwich spread of *meaning* that rapidly evaporates as I get up and boot the 'pute to write it down.

resticas: artifacts strewn by sentient blog bots to trap unwitting humans into admitting they understand what the 'bot is saying. AKA Geppettos.

amarilla said...

I'm not sure a blissful burble of neat words is epistemological awareness, because beyond the meaning more importantly there's the resonance of your words, which have a different function. Resonance provides the texture of experience, it's not epistemological. And often, the way you phrase things actually undermines their literalness and drives the reader into the resonance or beyond the grasp of the intellect.

amarilla said...

I recognize this contradicts what I wrote originally. I've thought about it a bit more since then. Words are not merely tools of epistemology.

Robin Morrison said...

True -- once you;ve awoken and try to transcribe. But in those hypnapompic dream states, I have a sense of fully understanding and controlling the *meaning*. If the words resonate, they do so in the palm of my sorcerer's hand.

Until I awaken, and the words and meaning separate. One could almost say that in the dreams things imbricate but upon awakening they concatenate.

I knew you'd like that blissful burble phrase ;) It's about, gawrsh, 29 years old, from when the phenomena I described first happened.

sardlec: asceticism based on renouncing all fast food.

P.S. Words are not "merely" anything, which is their glory and disgrace. They're ever-breeding sluts of meaning.

amarilla said...

Thank you for *hypnopompic."