Thoughts Triggered by Tolstoy's A Confession

Rill wrote: I think it's possible that we create our own meanings, and that the meanings we create can lead to misery or contentment.  This is both powerful and dangerous.  Powerful because we may create meanings that lead us to attempt to change circumstance.  Dangerous because our attempts to change circumstance may go awry -- or may work perfectly, with disastrous results. As an aside, I think that the distinctions made between "right brain function" and "left brain function" are generally too broadly drawn in your comments.  While there may be some broad truth to it, the distinction between metaphor and metonymy in my opinion is an attempt to force reality into a set of already conceived boxes. I say this as a person who has experienced a Wada test.  (Read the wikipedia article on dual brain theory in which the Wada is referenced here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dual_brain_theory.) My personal experience tends to support some aspects of dual-brain theory, but also makes me cautious about relying on simplistic explanations for brain function.  For example, one could also suggest that the verbal/non-verbal association is related not to left vs. right brain but to amygdala vs. hippocampal processing of memories -- that is, how memories are encoded.  I encourage you to look further into the work being done in that area, particularly with regard to traumatic memory.

I agree that we create our own explanations of life and thus it's meaning.  However, there is a limit to which we can go.  We may wish to say we are God, but when we try to walk on water we drown.  Thus, the narrative we would like to construct of ourselves is always limited by our actual self. 

As for the dual brain phenomena, I'm going to post something on that soon......and I'll include the history of the use of metonymic and metaphoric as appropriate and useful terms.

AJ

I think it's possible that we create our own meanings, and that the meanings we create can lead to misery or contentment.  This is both powerful and dangerous.  Powerful because we may create meanings that lead us to attempt to change circumstance.  Dangerous because our attempts to change circumstance may go awry -- or may work perfectly, with disastrous results.

Edited by Rill - 13 Aug 2015 at 00:28

Thexion, you are right, I believe, that what you do makes small changes, but knowing of those changes are eternal is different than knowing that they last for some time or other.  The usual formation of the question "Does what I do have meaning," when looked at from a perspective of the infinite ends with a question mark.  We really only know the significance or effect of what we have done when we can measure it...and our abilities to measure the impact of what we are doing fades very rapidly as we look to the future.  But we are wired to the infinite and to the finite.  Most people, I think, want to believe that what they are about here and now is important, but to know it's important they have to conjecture a future state of things where what they are doing right now has helped create.  In fact, even if they were to suppose that what they are doing now has a measurable impact a million years from now, they still have to contend with the question of if it will still have measurable impact on things two million years from now, and then three...and so on.

As for it being human hubris, as I understand the use of hubris, it means a bit of foolish pride.  Perhaps people do take too much stock in being but to some without "faith, hope and love" life is depressing.  And since depressed people sometimes end their own lives, from an evolutionary standpoint it would seem developing an answer to the question of "why" may be natures way of preserving the gene pool.  In other words, the question itself may be genetically driven.


Why the human mind wants to have meaning is, I think, a significant question.  Being is its own meaning, as somebody once said, but the quality of being counts too.  My personal belief is that it all boils down to the structures of the mind and our use of language.

Artefore, two things about where I get the time: 1) I type like a madman ..about 85 wpm or more when I really get going;  and 2) most of what I write about I've been writing about for forty years or so, give or take.  So I have a wealth of experience writing about things and a large storehouse of information/readings etc...from which to draw.   And I actually like this type of thing.

Twi, I'm not sure why such an interesting topic should be left in the fields.  I personally like this cow and the free intellectual milk isn't too bad either. 

Where do you get the time to do this?

Settles down in armchair with pipe fully charged with Old Holborn Shag and a full cup of Dutch strong coffee.
Waits for various comments to appear below.