Unspeakable Truths
 

Just looking for feedback of any sort.

I have often suspected that there are certain fundamental truths which define our existance that are impossible to communicate. Once spoken, or perhaps even once thought of, an obvious lack of understanding of that principle is immediately displayed. Maybe it could even be true that we understand these principles before speaking them, but making the leap to words causes us to lose this understanding.

The thought came to me that such things could not be truths, for truths shine in the light. So, if it were impossible to speak of a thing, that would mean that it only thrived in darkness. After I thought about this longer though, I decided that such things as love are beyond our capacity to fully explain with words, yet that does not mean that it doesn't exist or that it is evil or dark.

Please share your thoughts on this.

I'd answer, but my obvious lack of understanding of the answer would immediately be displayed! :thumbsup:

Can you elaborate on what you mean when you use the terms light and dark? Are we talking about good and evil or are we talking about ignorance and knowledge?

I'd like to think that anything I can comprehend something, I can articulate it. I can't recall a time recently that I wasn't able to convey my thoughts.

I guess ignorance and knowledge is a good way to put it. I hadn't really thought about it before to be completely hoenst. That metaphor has always worked so well, but I'll try to elaborate.

I mean, if a thing is in the light, it is seen by the world or maybe just by others. For many people, lust would be a good example of something that grows in darkness. If the world could see their fantasies (edit: maybe a better phrase here is "degree of obsession"), they would probably slow them down. Sex however, may be completely acceptable in the light. I know plenty of people who don't mind someone watching. This is probably because sex is a truth of life. Nobody was born without it. Lust, however, is a choice of the person and opens them up to judgement. I guess this isn't the best example in the world (maybe my mind's too dirty), but I think it gets my meaning across.

One of my favorite perspective quotes:

"One can question your right to kill a thousand people... but what right do those thousand people have to be alive?!"

So we're not necessarily talking about personal ignorance and knowledge, but more public and private knowledge. Public knowledge being, to use myself as an example, that I'm a liberal and private knowledge being that I continue to have an eating disorder that I really only talk about with a few people.

(reads thread, reads OP) Wait... what?

(waits for more examples)

Since when has that ever stopped you. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/1003/rhlandis/huh.gif

Sorry, Will. It was out there, and I had to take it. http://img.photobucket.com/albums/10...sp_rofl0ne.gif

Damn, Mr. Bill... I didn't notice your, uh, plump gourds before! Nice.

Oh, I thought you had posted some deep thought or something, but you're just jabbing Will. I think this thread could be good a la "Post Secret" or something, but it is pushing out invisible pseudopodia right now.

Structure me!

I'm sorry, what were you saying? I was staring at your avatar....

If the fluid is enough a brick wall won't stop it.

Yeah will, I guess that is in a way what I'm saying. What I would like to think I'm saying is that light pertains to that which is absolutely and unshakably true, and therefore stands in all circumstances, but I guess that's something too big for people to define. I guess all I can comment assuredly on is public perspective. This has actually come to be a pretty good example of what I was originally talking about.

Yukimura, truths exist.
When people want to argue about them, somebody has to be wrong.
Words are what we use, mostly, to communicate.
Language is slippery, especially this tongue.

You can speak a truth that will shine in the sun AND gleam in the darkness.

An eager audience awaits.

That was poetic.

Poetry
just might liberate
our meaning.

"A man may conquer a million men in battle, but one who conquers himself is, indeed, the greatest of conquerors." -Dhammapada, Verse 103



OP: Truths do not need to be spoken or articulated; truths can also be observed, understood, and acted out.

I conqueror myself at least once every day. Sometimes twice before bed.

...

No, seriously... good quote.

Thinking slips,
But regains itself;
Much later.

Will you not share more, OP?

I believe there are certain aspects of human nature that tend towards obscurity because we have no other intelligent species to compare ourselves to. And there will always be negative aspects which we hesitate to acknowledge.

You have revealed a truth, you sinner!!! I love you.

I don't think "people" could ever grasp a real "truth".

If someone were to stumble upon, or manage to reason out, the "truth", they'd probably be put away as a crazy person.

In fact, there may well be someone, somewhere, who has it exactly right... and is spending their life in an institution living tortured by the impotence of their voice.

Reminds me of the myth of the Cassandra Syndrome, except with knowledge of "the truth" instead of bad future events.

Cassandra would've been a better lover if I wasn't impotent and she wasn't prescient.

You ought to read Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractus Logico-Philosophicus. It is a really short quick read but it is hailed (as promoted on the back cover :P) as being one of the most important philosophical works. Wittgenstein reasons that there are atomic facts, which can never be fully communicated since we lack a precise enough language to communicate such facts. It was an interesting formulation that the only way to find an absolute understanding was through some sort of pseudo-mystical experience.

We all live,
pseudo-mystical;
can't help it.