Dear Wesmorris:
You ask a good question. I will repost what my theory is as regarding language. Since it was widely booed and hissed off stage the last time, I am expecting no better reception for it this time. But it does seem to be in line with the parameters of your question as concerns language, shape and sound. I got spanked the first time, but every once in a while my monkey needs to be soundly spanked. It keeps one healthy and balanced. So get your tomatoes ready to throw and here goes:
Language in its present form is impossible to reduce since it is no longer based on universal shape forms. Some examples of these shape forms were found in Magdalenian cave sites (12,000-17,000 years before the present time). They include the runes, the cross, the swastika and many religious and magical sigils. Why the need for these symbols? They were based on the notion of entopic forms. Neurophysiology has clearly identified phosphenes, geometric shapes and images embedded in our subconscious. These are lodged within our visual cortex and neural system. When one’s consciousness has been altered, these forms are produced. They are universal in nature so it matters not from what country, educational background or supposed religious elitism one finds themselves believing in. These entopic forms used in meditation are for one thing only. They are the pathways that lead to trance. Thus the hidden use of ancient alphabets that used these shapes to generate their form. They were used to induce trance to help us find our way home. Take away entopic forms as being the progenitor of language and you have random patterns that are not reducible because they have no meaning for all parts of our brain. While the left brain can easily identify an artificial word and shape, try whispering that word to your subconscious. Its meaning is lost and so it needs to be converted into a symbol. The reverse is also true. For the subconscious to speak, it needs to give the conscious mind a set of symbols in which to ponder upon awakening. These dream symbols are language. The only language the other part of our selves speaks. And yet no one seems to include this in the mix. Why? Why is there not a determined effort to give a voice and a language to that part of us that speaks to us eight hours a night? It was once so, so why is there no respect shown to it now? Is unity within the body unimportant? If we cannot communicate inside ourselves then how do we expect to speak with others?
The Egyptians had a one sight, one sound system. These pictographs were easily understood by all sides of ourselves, not just the one we deem important. I ask you, “Why do you worship the sun and not the moon?” This is the real question. Present day language demonstrates this point over and over again. If we wish unity within the body and mind, we need to go to another system of symbols and colors and sound to integrate that which has been divided. We could be doing this through language, but it seems we would rather worship the sun.
Now in terms of forms we have this involving tattvas:
“Creation comes from the five tattvas and is dissolved into them. Greater than the five tattvas is that which is above them, without stain.” Jnanasankalini Tantra
If we think about the five tattvas being the five senses it begins to make sense how our entire world is built upon what we perceive.
Now is this true, do we have form-constants that would mimic this notion? It seems according to Kulver we do. Henreich Kluver conducted studies of hallucinations at the University of Chicago in the 1920s. He came to discover a pattern for these perceptions he called, “form constants.” There were four types: (1) gratings and honeycombs, (2) cobwebs, (3) tunnels and cones, and (4) spirals. He postulated that these were the “elementary features that the nervous system was hardwired to perceive.” His conclusion?
“The analysis…has yielded a number of forms and form elements which must be considered typical for mescal visions. No matter how strong the inter- and intra-individual differences may be, the records are remarkable as to the appearance of the above described forms and configurations. We may call them form-constants, implying that a certain number of them appear in almost all mescal visions and that many “atypical” visions are upon close examination nothing but variations of those form-constants.”
However, Lewis-Williams and Dowson state that, at the present stage in their research, it is premature to distinguish between phosphenes and form constants. Thus, they have been grouped together and assigned the generic term of 'entoptic phenomena' or entoptics, by way of classifying these largely geometric visual percept. The term 'entoptic' comes from the Greek to mean 'within vision', and the term 'entoptic phenomena' means visual sensations whose characteristics derive from the structure of the visual system (Tyler 1978:1633). Lewis-Williams and Dowson use the term 'hallucinations' to describe more complex iconic visions (Siegal 1977:134; Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978: 12-13). Tyler also makes the point that:
"the nature of entoptic phenomena makes it hard to design highly-controlled, stimulus-bound experiments to specify them. It is therefore appropriate to report them on an observational basis before more indirect outcomes are explored" (Tyler, 1978:1633).”
“An example of reduplication is illustrated by Reichel-Dolmatoff (1972:91-92) who noted that when Tukanoans were asked to draw their mental imagery, they tended "to fill the pieces of paper he gave them with rows of formalised and reduplicated geometric motifs comparable with their painting of the same motifs on the walls of their houses. The Tukano identified these reduplicated forms as images derived from what they themselves recognised as the first stage of their trance experiences; there can be little doubt of their entoptic origin" (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978:12-13).”
Now we come to Philip T. Nicholson. He writes the following:
“The meanings of many metaphors used to describe luminous visions in the RigVeda (RV) remain elusive or ambiguous despite years of expert hermeneutical exegesis. In this series of papers, we classify the metaphors used to describe luminous visions into sets based on certain abstract characteristics (shapes, colors, movements, order of appearance), then show how these metaphor-sets can be matched with remarkable precision, image by image, to a sequence of internally-generated light sensations ('phosphenes') induced by meditation. These meditation-induced phosphenes can also evolve in longer and more elaborate sequences if the subjects practice meditation while in a sleep-deprived condition. A sleep deficit increases the risk of subclinical seizures emerging at sleep onset - and the paroxysmal activity generates further evolution of the phosphene imagery. In the first paper of this three-part series, we document the parallels between the meditation-induced phosphenes and two types of luminous visions described in the RV - the Asvins' radiant, three-wheeled chariot and the flame arrows of Agni.
In the second paper, we analyze metaphors used to describe the visions of Soma and Indra and show that there is a close match between these luminous visions and paroxysmal phosphenes. Based on the extensive parallels revealed by our comparison, we conclude that the metaphors for luminous visions in the RV were meant to refer to the same visual content as appears in the meditation-induced visions described by the author, and that, despite years of poetic embellishment, the eulogists' choice of metaphors suggests a much more empirically-oriented attempt to describe visionary experience than has hitherto been suspected. This hypothesis about the meaning of luminous visions in the RV has important implications for several issues debated by Vedic scholars, including: (1) the identity of the original soma plant; (2) the influence of shamanic practices in the creation of the Vedic myths, and (3) the extent of the continuities between the visionary experiences described in the RV and those described in the Upanishads and in the many yoga meditation texts in the Hindu, Tantric, and Tibetan-Buddhist traditions…”
“These new research findings about rapid shifts to paroxysmal activity upon activation of sleep rhythm oscillators can be used to explain why a meditator who is attempting to induce phosphene visions might experience the outbreak of a seizure and to explain how this outbreak of paroxysmal activity shapes the further evolution of the original, sleep-onset phosphene images [Nicholson, 1999; 2002a,b]. In this paper we reproduce a series of drawings from the sources just cited to illustrate the shapes, colors, movements, and ordinal progressions of the meditation induced, sleep-onset phosphenes and their further elaboration after the outbreak of paroxysmal brain waves.
- Philip T. Nicholson, ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF VEDIC STUDIES (EJVS), Vol. 8 (2002) issue 3 (March 27) (©) ISSN 1084-7561
But then we have this as concens the difficulty of translating Sanskrit:
“Keith [1925] complains about the "chaos of the ideas [Ibid., p. 171]" and the "obscurity in detail [Ibid., p. 167];" MacDonell [1971] writes that the descriptions of Soma are "overlaid with the most varied and chaotic imagery and with mystical fantasies often incapable of certain interpretation [Ibid., p. 104]." In her introduction to a translation of selected hymns from the RV, O'Flaherty [1981] points out that problems of interpretation are complicated by language that is "intrinsically difficult (dense, complex, and esoteric even for the people of its own time), or difficult to people of another time (because of archaisms, hapax legomena, discontinued usages), or difficult because we have lost the thread of the underlying idiom [Ibid., p.14]." Even if experts agree on the literal meaning of the Sanskrit words, they still might not might be able to interpret what those words were intended to mean, not least because the RV "is written out of a mythology that we can only try to reconstruct from the Rig Vedic jumble of paradoxes heaped on paradoxes, tropes heaped on tropes [Ibid., p. 18]."
You see how McDonnell, O’Flaherty and Keith all complain about the same thing. The difficulty of translation of a language not like our own. The possible explanation according to O'Flaherty, it is "difficult because we have lost the thread of the underlying idiom." While O’Flaherty complains that Sanskrit is “dense,” I suggest it is the one he was translating it into that lacked depth and richness. It backs up my original point that our present languages are not based on entopic forms and underlying patterns that have RELEVANCE. If something has relevance it has several meanings. Think of Gematria and the underlying themes implicit in finding hidden meanings in language. It would imply that hidden meanings are there, would it not? Do you find many people sitting around and giving a numerical value to English in order to discover the end time? Or the meaning of a Biblical revelation? If you do find such a cluster, please tell them for me they are wasting their time.
But why is any of this important? Well we have one intriguing clue for there was a fascinating article that I read. It concerned the changing of DNA through using the spoken word alone. It was discussed in another forum I visited. Since DNA itself follows all the rules of language, should this be surprising? To me it is, but then there was this curious magical system that relied on sound and shape. You said the word while forming your hands into a key position that mimicked this word. Is this part of the unity that has been lost? The underbelly of the Kabbalah is built upon this. The alphabet was to be pronounced while holding your fingers in the position of the letter. Each letter was built upon the ability to shape the letter. There was also a specific tonality and color that went with this movement. And language itself, from whence did it spring? Well, it seems it is encoded into us by means of DNA for it seems it is the progenitor of language. From this website:
http://www.ims.nus.edu.sg/Programs/genome/ldna.htm
we have:
“Previous deciphering efforts have been basic and focused on the immediate meaning of a focal sequence. This is akin to the translation of a text on a word-by-word basis. As we advance in this understanding, we start to see higher order meaning through the nuances of gene expression and splice changes. Moreover, the structure and organization of the DNA sequences within and across species provides a clue as to the fundamental rules that governed the creation of life.
Linguistics is a branch of science that has long sought to define the architecture and laws of language structure. There is ample evidence to indicate that both the dimensions and units of linguistic structure appear genetically embedded in the human species. Therefore, the analysis of the structure of language has provided a window into the make-up of the Homo Sapien mind, and perhaps a set of useful strategies to unearth similar structures.
Experimentally, therefore, both the disciplines of genomics and linguistics seek to uncover order and information from a sea of noise. Genomics, by virtue of its origins in physical and biological sciences, has had the benefit of rigorous computational tools and laboratory validation in its investigations. Unlike genomics, however, the intuitive understanding of language in all of us permitted linguists to convincingly reconstruct rules governing the transmission of higher order meaning, while unlike cryptography, genomics can use experimental strategies to uncover the relation between form and meaning.
So perhaps this – “DNA sequences within and across species provides a clue as to the fundamental rules that governed the creation of life” - is why this question of language is of the utmost importance. For wouldn’t understanding the meaning of life give life meaning?
Thank you for your very intriguing post. I will now assume a spanking position.
NEMESIS
It's just the lack of sleep. I'll try more later.