We live not only in a physical environment but also in a symbolic environment.
Our physical environment, of three spacial dimensions, is a geographical location which may have rivers, valleys, flat plains, hills, mountains, trees, plants, buildings, roads, etc..
We, and all that stuff, exist in a fourth temporal dimension and environment also. Time seems to start when we are born and stop when we die. But we are not so egocentric as to ignore the fact that everything has existed before we got here and will continue to do so after we are gone. We know this and we experience the effects of time on our surroundings and on ourselves.
But, we humans also live, colloquially speaking, through our heads, through our mind. Everything starts off entering our bodies through our physical senses, but when it comes to understanding any of it, we are trapped in our mind, in our limited first person perspective.
We live in a fifth dimension. This fifth dimension is the most important of all, the dimension of humanly crafted symbols. We live through words. We can think thoughts which are images, we can feel emotions, but anytime we try to understand any of it, we come up against words. We all live in the our own world of words.
A world of our making which is contained in the world of our culture's language system. The language we think and speak with is itself an environment which can also be described by using the metaphors of space and time.
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Comments: 7
Beautifully simple. Much needed clarification!
Dick
absolutely! Much of what I write touches upon the 'environment' of words that we live in.
My essay 'the hammer of 2 valued logic' - discusses the problem lurking in our world of words, for instances.
My 'people are shaped by the accident of our birth' touches upon the early source of this world of words.
And stay tuned for more!
This article reminds of that 'parlor game' of counting to (20), out loud. Then, counting to (20) in your head. Were you able to count faster in your head? Why not? Were you 'reading' the words or numerals in your mind? Why not consider the fact that you could, mindfully, count infinitesimally faster. There's nothing, technically, limiting your mind akin to the limits of speech and words.
Behind all of that is the community mind as a whole (the mass mind) as another specific, yet combinable energy that also enters into the mix and affects us co-creatively.
But when we come to realize all of that, we can trust our intuition more realizing that it suggests the very best path at all times...to the degree we know it and sort it out from the others, we are more successful and fulfilled.
There, see how simple it is... again just my thoughts, thank God for diversity. j.