![]() ![]() And an analog, therefore, of the world that has been put into our common sense is one of military command. Whether you obey God, or whether you obey the laws of nature-you obey. A Chinese child would not ask its mother “how was I made?” It would ask its mother “how did I grow?” Which would be quite different, you see? So to be made is to be commanded, and therefore every good being obeys. The Chinese have no difficulty in thinking about nature as self-shaping. In Chinese, the word for nature is zìrán (自然), which is “that which is so of itself”-the spontaneous. There’s somebody in charge who is different from what that somebody is in charge of, and puts everything into shape because our common sense does not allow that things shape themselves. So therefore we have a basic picture of the world in which everything is being pushed around. Like the intelligence of the potter shapes the clay. It comes again and again into our everyday speech that form, pattern, organization, organisms are made of something, as if there were some inert, primordial, and-of course-stupid stuff which had to be put into shape by an energy and an intelligence other than this stuff. And so it’s of intensely fascinating investigation to find out what are the hidden assumptions that underly language and figuring? In other words, language and mathematics.Īnd here is this basic assumption, you see, that is almost with us all. So we populate the world with ghosts which arise out of the structure of our language, and thus-therefore-of the structure of our thinking, because we think in language, or in figuring in numbers. I can make a noun out of a verb anytime by turning it into a gerund. What is this it that is raining? The raining. There is not one thing called lightning and another called flashing. Supposing I say “the lightning flashes.” Surely, the flashing is the same as the lightning. See, our language contains innumerable ghosts. Is a mountain made of rock? Obviously not, it is rock. But I ask you: is a tree made of wood? Obviously not. And for centuries scientists, philosophers wanted to know: what is that stuff? What are we made of? Now, look here: a carpenter makes tables out of wood, and a potter makes pots out of clay. And so underneath that lies the notion that everything material is made of some sort of basic stuff, like clay is the basis of pots. This was foisted on us by Aristotle and also by the Bible, because it is said that God created man out of the dust of the Earth and, as it were, made a figurine in his own image, and then breathed the breath of life into its nostrils, so that this form of clay became a living being. We’ll begin with one very common idea that’s built into our common sense, which is that the world-the physical world-consists of two aspects, respectively: form and matter. And these unexamined systems of belief are extremely powerful in their influence over our lives. Because everybody who speaks a language at all, has underneath the surface of the language-or the figuring that he uses-certain basic assumptions which are usually unexamined. Psychoanalysis has, of course, examined the emotional basis of human opinions and beliefs, but one should also examine the intellectual basis of psychological principles, or theories, or therapies. It’s not only emotions that are powerful in human life. But in order to lay the foundation for this, we’ve got to examine ideas that are basic to our common sense. ![]() I don’t know where the trip will end up it depends on you. Tonight, at any rate, we’ve got to go through some theoretical materials, so we’re on a head trip. ![]()
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