You Don’t Know What A Single Thing Is.

The philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein said that we exist within nothing but Language Games. In our attempt to know any object, we can only create descriptions. Scientific descriptions. Spiritual descriptions. Political descriptions, etc.. These descriptions create their own rules and logic contained within themselves. Like games. The rules & logic of the scientific language game are very different from the rules & logic of the spiritual language game. When one language game makes claims to be superior to another language game to know really What Is - there can only be contradiction and conflict. Naturally … the rules & logic of the games are different. No language games can reveal to us what a single thing IS. The French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, pointed out a very similar idea. Derrida said that no word is ever identical to its referent. Meaning that no word reveals what anything IS. Instead, the meaning of the word is created in its difference from other words. The word “dog” does not have meaning because it tells us what a “dog” IS but rather the word “dog” has meaning only because it is different from the word “cat” - and, of course, millions of other words. Derrida said we can see this very clearly when we try to define any word. Just for a moment try to define where you are. You might start with your city. Where is that? You might say my city is in my country. The Planet. The Solar System. The Universe. Pretty soon you run out of referents! In Thailand the cultural ideal or superior character to demonstrate in public is a person with very deep “Jai Dee” - that is a person who shows in all situations, even in incredibly stressful ones, that they have a “cool heart,” or lack of reactivity. This is because in Thai society the Buddhist notion of Anatman or No Self is very important. And, has over many centuries, filtered down into the culture & society. Therefore, the person who demonstrates a lack of Self or Self-interest through a “cool heart” is showing themselves to be of superior character, or highly ethical. One can see why displays of anger in Thailand (and many other Eastern countries) are considered the actions of a very lowly-evolved person. There is, however, a third type of ethics. And, it finds its grounding in Not Knowing. In Taoism ethics are based on natural spontaneity. For the Taoist there is a very simple formula for ethical action: Without the referents; without the “language game” of referents, where are you? You don’t know! #taoism #spirituality #vedanta #zen