Words and Symbols

Words Are Maps

What are Words? Words point to things.

We eat food--not the menu.

For example, the word "apple" should not be mistaken for a real apple. The word "apple" is just a mark or sound we associate with physical apples. In another language, another mark or sound is used. We find the word "manzana" in Spanish, "mela" in Italian, and "epl" in Yiddish.

In the same way, but more significantly, there exists different names for God as we move from language to language. God is "Dios" in Spanish, "Gott" in German, and "Allah" in Arabic. Does "Gott" and "Allah" have the same meaning? This question might be answered by another question does the word "God" means the same to everyone?

Feelings can point back to words. When we feel a strong emotion is there no problem finding words. Spiritually emotional words point back to words. For example the word "Jesus" resonates in Christen hearts.

So there are words that point to things, and words that are pointed to with pure feelings. Those words that are pointed to have a special place in our hearts.

The Real Physical World and Our Simulation of It

Obviously there is only one real physical world out there. It is strange we have so many different opinions on what is true. Indeed, it would be weird if each person lived in a completely different world.

Most of us think of ourselves as seeing the physical world directly. Obviously, the world does not turn black when we close our eyes, but we perceive it that way. In truth the outer world we see is only perceived and what we really see is a model of the outer world built in our minds. Thus our minds are outer world simulators. The world simulator adds colors and 3D effects. If we saw the world exactly as it is, we would see an up-side-down array of numbers.

The mind simulator varies a little from person to person. Indeed, some are colored blind and might see red as a shade of gray.

The mind simulator is also limited. We cannot see radio waves, ultraviolet and infrared rays.

But for a healthy mind, there is close coordination between the mind's model of the world and the real world.

The Four Realities

The inner world or the subjective reality is broken down into the inner conscious reality and the inner unconscious reality. The outer world or objective reality is divided into the outer visible reality and the outer invisible reality. Where we get into trouble is when we use words to describe the invisible inner and outer realities. Are there ghosts and angels?

Stories and Objects

Our mind probably uses stories to encode and produce the realities. Roger C. Schank in his book "Tell Me a Story" explains that we remember and learn through the use of stories. This is in contrast to the way computer equipment remembers. A computer records ones and zeroes. Groups of these bits, usually at the word level (groups of 8, 16 or 32 bits) are addressed by the software. At a higher level, the software can handle objects and their attributes. An object could be an icon on the screen or a record in a data base.

A story links a series of objects together. Little Red Riding Hood is one object, the woods another, and the wolf is another. Each part of the story is link to another part forming a picture of a series of events.

A story is too complicated to encode in today's computers. In our brains we have many links between cells, where as in a program or computer there are many magnitudes fewer links.

So perhaps the essence of things can only be explained in stories and not broken into smaller things. For example, the word "apple" would not mean very much unless we could picture red, roundness, the taste of an apple, apple trees and roundness.

And perhaps there is no essence of things for our small minds. If we break things down into simple words we loose the big story.

Cloudy Words

Words can reflect truth, or can be used to control. If words are not tied to the real world, they can generate a world of objects that have no true meaning. These artificial worlds might be termed word clouds as they float in people minds unlinked to anything else. False religious doctrine is one of these clouds. Magic and delusion are semantic islands.

Blurred Words

"The liberals are to blame.... "

The word "liberal" is a blurred word as it is not defined. In politics, blurred words are employed so to increase their appeal. Everyone seems to hear their truth.

Puffed Words

A preacher wrote: "Scripture is a certification of orthodoxy." The words "certification" and orthodoxy" are puffed pointers. They seem to be full of meaning and importance. Yet the word "certification" implies authority has been given to a selected group and he is affirming that this group is believable. The word "orthodoxy" means marked with conformity. So we could translate this statement "Scripture is true(certified) for those who conform (the orthodoxy)."

Symbolic Words

Beyond regular speech, the words found that resonate in the heart form the bricks of our belief system. When we ask "What is God" we are searching our heart, not asking if God is over there or over here. One must guard against puffed symbolic words that prevent freedom to search for the truth. A symbolic word clicks with the deepest feelings in one's heart and is much more personal than puffed words.

General Semantics

General Semantics (off site) teaches that words are maps. General Semantics was first formulated by Alfred Korzybski in his major cumulative work, Science and Sanity, published in 1933.

According to the general semantic people the word "is" is a troublemaker. The word "is" implies that nothing changes. In the real world everything is in flux. Moreover, the word "is" throws a blanket noun over what we are talking about. "This IS a chair", masks all the stuff beyond chair-ness. There are straight chairs, high chairs, and beanbag chairs. Is a sack of beans really a sack or a chair? (Maybe if we set in it, it's a chair; if we put the beans in a pot its a sack.)

Through language we can throw a "word blanket" over a person reducing the person to a few words or even a number. For example, the words on a tombstone, reduces 100,000 or more moments in ones life-time to a few words. An IQ reading reduces the intelligence formed by by trillions of brain cells to just one number. Are there not better ways to remember someone, and are there not many types of IQ?

Verb can also do their damage. For example the word "is" can take a person and reduce them to a simple description. "She is good" or "He is bad" measures everything about the person as it they were a rock instead of a complex, changing body and spirit.

The verb "is" or its infinitive "to be" has so many meanings. Here are some of the meanings of these words:

Equal in meaning
Constitute the same idea
Constitute the same class
To have a meaning that includes
or implies another meaning
To belong to a larger class
Signify
To show as an outstanding example
To constituted genuinely
Actualize well the type of
To seem to consist of
To be covered
To exist absolutely
To exist in relation to
To have an objective existence
To undergo continuous action
To live
To have
To maintain
To occupy a space
To show a certain characteristic
To remain unmolested
Happen
Occur
Take place
Journey
To make a stay
To come around in due course
To undergo an action
To have changed place
Become supposed

The International Society for General Semantics has gone so far as to invent a new dialect of English called GS7 which avoids the various forms of "to be."

Conflicting Individual Words with the the Meaning of the Sentence

Words may conflict with the sentence they are in. Take this example: "All words in this sentence are false." Here the sentence conflicts with the words in the sentence. When reading the Bible or other material, it is important to read the chapter, the paragraphs as well as the individual phrases and words. In this way the conflicts between the parts and be resolved to the whole.

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