From: Eva-Lise Carlstrom (evalise@yahoo.com)
Date: Sat May 18 2002 - 11:43:26 MDT
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<blacksun@btinternet.com> wrote:
>> With regards to generation of language - from a
> private email:
>
> "Words are particularly limiting when used
> literally. They are less limiting
> when used metaphorically. I really believe that this
> is a major insight
> conveniently kept away from the masses. One of the
> greatest lies
> communicated to children is 'Metaphor is a figure of
> speech.' All language
> and symbolic representation is metaphorical! When
> any words are mistaken as
> something other than metaphor they become ways of
> fixing labels and
> categories and they lead us into the illusion of a
> world of isolated objects
> and differentiated thinking. Words as metaphors, on
> the other hand, open up
> the doors of probability and lead us into rich
> associative networks. I would
> agree with Leary that metaphor is the primary figure
> of speech, and thought,
> and that all thinking and all symbolic
> representation is essentially
> metaphorical or analogical. Ralph Waldo Emerson
> said, "Science is nothing
> but the finding of analogy." G. Stanley Hall, one of
> the founders of
> scientific psychology in America claimed that
> metaphors are among the mind's
> "first spontaneous creations" and provide the basis
> for language
> development, which is essentially "fossil poetry."
> The notion that
> metaphorical or analogical thinking forms the basis
> of all knowledge is
> widely held.
>
> It is the nature of consciousness to seek
> similarities. Israel Rosenfield
> (in Strange Familiar and Forgotten) reduced
> consciousness to the process of
> making distinctions and establishing relations. Our
> grand ideas and
> philosophies are just higher order escalations of
> this simple formula:
>
> making distinctions/establishing relations
>
> The first developmental task of awareness is to
> establish those relations
> that give rise to body image and distinguish self
> from other. From the body
> image as point of self-reference all other relations
> can be established. Our
> notions of space and objects, for example, are based
> on abstractions made
> from our experience of the body as a point of
> reference. Our notion of time
> is in turn an abstraction of our notion of space.
> Our manufactured
> technology is the way we have extended our bodies
> into space and time in
> order to control and explore the environment.
>
> The second developmental task is the creation of
> symbolic language.
> Thereafter, the body image and symbolic language
> become the two primary
> mechanisms for establishing relations and making
> distinctions. If you wish
> to fundamentally change a person's experience of the
> world, change their
> experience of their body, or their experience of
> symbolic language. A
> fundamental change in experience is usually
> accompanied by a significant
> change in metaphor.
>
> "Metaphor ignites a new arc of perceptive
> energy...It relates hitherto
> unrelated experience..."
> George Steiner
>
> Creative acts, as Koestler points out, involve
> "seeing an analogy where no
> one saw one before." What is the mechanism
> underlying this? Or, in
> Koestler's words, "Where does the hidden likeness
> hide, and how is it
> found?" Why are certain similarities perceived?
> Such a question may seem
> fairly pointless to someone who believes that their
> experience of continuity
> and coherence is an objective reality.
>
> WHAT STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS ARE IDEAL FOR
> GENERATING METAPHOR?
>
> Many of the physiological and psychological aspects
> of trance states
> [whether induced by psychedelic drugs or other
> means] point to their being
> ideal for metaphor generation (and in this sense I
> consider early shamans to
> be metaphor generators):
>
> a hyper-associative,
> low-focus,
> divergent state in which the individual is open to
> new possibilities,
> is not being distracted by anxiety or a narrow
> (high) focus,
> and is able to destructure the limitations of
> previous metaphor sets as well
> as generate new ones.
>
> States similar to trance are often related by people
> of exceptional creative
> ability in relation to fundamental breakthroughs.
> What must be stressed here
> is the relation of trance states to metaphor
> generation, not necessarily to
>
=== message truncated ===
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