Friday, July 25, 2008

Brevity

I am lost in the beauty of how some people put almost unintelligible ideas (for befuddled minds like mine) in crisp observations that hit you. Spent some time ROTFL over such a laconic one.

A: There is only silence. There is nothing to say about it.
B: Yes. All talk about silence is mere noise.

What clarity of thought can produce ready wit such as this! He should truly be the master of his mind. Dickens would have matched the brevity of observation with "Volumes could not have said more."

All the more funny because a world renowned neuro-scientist in his book waded through a chapter of neuroscience lingo (explaining terms like 'qualia') trying to push the same idea.

From here
"VSR writes "the problem of qualia is not necessarily a scientific problem...your scientific description is complete. It's just that your account is incomplete epistemologically because the actual experience of electric fields [for a fish] or redness [for a colourblind person] is something you will never know...there is no such barrier, no great vertical divide in nature between mind and matter, substance and spirit...this barrier is only apparent and...it arises as a result of language. This sort of obstacle emerges when there is any translation from one language to another" (p. 231)"

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