A language for the rest of your life

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Photographer Nigel Danson described in this video why he has stayed with Nikon cameras for over twenty years. It wasn’t because Nikon is far better than any other camera system out there but rather once you start with one system it is easier to stay with one than to learn a new one.

Your mother tongue is kind of like picking up a camera system – you use it for the rest of your life. Why switch to another system of the one you’re using now when it does the job? Danson rightly points out that a camera is a tool to get the job of taking photos done. Language is also the same. Language is a tool, a means to an end. The end here is communication.

Unless you’re like me moving to a new country with a completely different language for communication then it isn’t necessary to learn a new language. Language learning is resource intensive. Unless you are learning another language for the specific purpose of training your mind for flexibility rather than for practical reasons then it might not be worth all that effort.

Love is not a thing

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Love isn’t a thing.
It’s not a
you-either-have-it-
or-you-don’t thing.
It is what you do.
And it is what
someone does to you.

Go do love. Go love.
Go get loved. Be loved.
Then you will understand
what love is. Love is
not a thing.
Just love.

no more love (poems)

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to you
it’s the world,
your world,
a kind of
definition

but one day
you will know
it cannot
define you
or even love

(Originally published 22nd November 2013)

lucien freud

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they sat for you
waited for you
craved for
your attention
as much as
those numberless
lovers did

that was
your other art —
seduction

and now
they tell their stories
about your genius
and their pains
among other things

(Originally published 14th October 2013)

sand dune

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the rain has stopped for you
as you lie there gleaming white
beneath the once more ancient sun
across my wide-field of vision
and people walk all over you
like men in gulliver but still
you lay there lazy
under the strange
grey summer sky of
two thousand thirteen
our day’s trek a daze trek
daughter and son
climb the steepest
part of you while we take
the easy route up
your naked young leg
perfect for black & white art
sexy as the grains
of your worn down
washed up pristine earth

walking with the dog

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i walk the path
that many have walked
for a millennium

watched over
by the green life
the network
beneath my soles
the quiet over sphere

the pulsing
under the surface
connecting but
separating us
all at once

led by my dog yet
constrained by my lead
i am now convinced
she knows infinitely more
about the world than me

via negativa, via positiva

Warren TangLeave a comment

The obvious problem overlooked with describing God is that describing what He is not is to assume there is a god (or gods) in the first place.

The problem is really the same as describing unicorn with positives. That is, a horse with a straight horn on its head. The speakers assume there exists something horse-like with something horn-like on its head-like part.

The difference is that God has no attributes to describe (which is its description) and a unicorn had attributes to describe. Either way we have described an assumed something.

Pramāna

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There are six pramāna (knowledge or valid cognition) in Indian philosophy.

Pratyakṣa (perception) is the sense data, essentially your intuition (Hume’s term) or experience. In Buddhism there are six senses – visual, aural, scent, pallet, tactile, and mind. Each have their corresponding “objects” – sight, sound, fragrance, taste, touch, and mind-object. Perception may correspond to sensation in psychology and not processed content.

Anumāna (inference) is similar to logic. One thing causes another by being inferred.

Upamāna (comparison and analogy) is to link two different unrelated situations or objects through similarity. This may include simile and metaphor.

Arthāpatti (postulation, derivation from circumstances) is implication by knowing the consequences of one action to another. Unlike anumāna it is long term and not immediate.

Anupalabdi (non-perception; negative cognitive proof) is the affirmation of the absence of the positive situation.

Śabda (reliance on past reliable testimony) is the reliance on past evidence given by others.

Buddhism, under Tibetan Buddhism system, recognizes that only perception (pratyakṣa) and inference (anumāna) as valid. All else are denied. This is interesting considering that the Buddhist sutras are taken to be sacred texts. On this count we must wonder how the rejection of śabda works here.