AtD, naming

[David Morris]

OK, but I don't think this is very different than my statement:  "It's
not that something can't be SAID, it's just that nothing can be [said]
adequately definitive."  So, yes, as I said (and you too): "We are
left with approximations, metaphors, symbolisms, all of which have
aspects of the thing which is unspeakable, but which are important and
need to be said."

This kind of logic easily leads to the "Everything is Everything"
metaphor (and conversely Nothing is Anything), which is really zen, I
guess, dissolution of all distinctions.  Distinctions as illusions,
and illusions as destructive:

http://www.last.fm/music/Lauryn+Hill/_/Everything+Is+Everything

But I think a more useful pursuit than this dissolution is more and
more creative metaphor-making.  That's what makes Art, insights into
connections not seen before.

Another place to take this discussion is Lacan's analysis of the
structure of language as a manifestation of the unconscious, but I've
only barely scraped the surface of that study.  Others here might know
much more than I do of that.

David Morris

On Mon, May 5, 2008 at 12:13 PM, Ian Livingston <igrlivingston at gmail.com> wrote:
> But everything is ineffable.  There is no way to express the full experience of sitting at a computer terminal exchanging ideas about an author.  The moment of taste, touch, feel of a beloved cannot be directly named.  We speak of everything by metaphor because it is the best we have.  Every noun is really just a "finger pointing at the moon" as the Zennies say. and every verbal construct a way of thinking about a thing.