In a Hotel Garden
by
by
Living In Ambiguity
Deciding about what’s real is a tiring business for the one deciding, and rather more tiresome for any friends or relations within earshot. Not everyone feels the need to pursue this delicate art. But those who do are typically obsessive. They live in a perpetual state of doubt and uncertainty.
The search for reality is a step up from truth-seeking. Truth is subject to logic - state a premise and a qualification and you’re off to the races. It’s a purely linguistic thing. But reality is not about truth. It’s about meaning, which is in a constant battle against the language in which it is expressed. Meaning can be based on entirely false facts (as the world now knows from the antics of America’s ex-president). And the way meaning is arrived at is mysterious. There are no rules for deriving meaning.
More significantly, meaning can never be linguistically fixed. As soon as it is explored or explained, meaning evaporates It often becomes trivial or incomprehensible. But mostly it transforms itself into other meanings. Meaning cannot rest. It can never be authenticated or disproven, although many will attempt to do both according to the rules of truth-seeking.
Nevertheless it is meaning and not truth which drives our lives. It simply doesn’t matter what the facts of the case are. In fact the facts of the case are dependent upon meaning and not vice versa. Those who take meaning seriously know this is the case and consider meaning for what it is - a decision, perhaps the fundamental decision of one’s life.
There are others who take meaning to be obvious. These people are dangerous. Their danger is proportionate to their smugness. Their smugness is apparent in their lack of concern about the nature of meaning and their responsibility toward it. They are easily led and just as easily mis-led. But they really don’t care about that because it means nothing to them.
Deciding about what’s real is a tiring business for the one deciding, and rather more tiresome for any friends or relations within earshot. Not everyone feels the need to pursue this delicate art. But those who do are typically obsessive. They live in a perpetual state of doubt and uncertainty.
The search for reality is a step up from truth-seeking. Truth is subject to logic - state a premise and a qualification and you’re off to the races. It’s a purely linguistic thing. But reality is not about truth. It’s about meaning, which is in a constant battle against the language in which it is expressed. Meaning can be based on entirely false facts (as the world now knows from the antics of America’s ex-president). And the way meaning is arrived at is mysterious. There are no rules for deriving meaning.
More significantly, meaning can never be linguistically fixed. As soon as it is explored or explained, meaning evaporates It often becomes trivial or incomprehensible. But mostly it transforms itself into other meanings. Meaning cannot rest. It can never be authenticated or disproven, although many will attempt to do both according to the rules of truth-seeking.
Nevertheless it is meaning and not truth which drives our lives. It simply doesn’t matter what the facts of the case are. In fact the facts of the case are dependent upon meaning and not vice versa. Those who take meaning seriously know this is the case and consider meaning for what it is - a decision, perhaps the fundamental decision of one’s life.
There are others who take meaning to be obvious. These people are dangerous. Their danger is proportionate to their smugness. Their smugness is apparent in their lack of concern about the nature of meaning and their responsibility toward it. They are easily led and just as easily mis-led. But they really don’t care about that because it means nothing to them.
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ June 28, 2021
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