Translation
of an Idea into language
The title of this paper could be about anything, but
the idea of this paper in regard to my inquiry question focuses on the
influence of powerful psychonauts, writers, and speakers and how they were able
to express their ideas using language. Terrance Mckenna is the biggest
influence behind the idea of this inquiry question, because he was a man that
took unprecedented ideas, as well as ancient philosophy and transformed them
into a series of speeches and books for the more modernized world, and through
his work, established a following of people who were very astonished by his
language and the things he talked about. The subjects he spoke of that landed
him his following of those who were to interested in his world philosophy and
could really appreciate his understanding and connection of the ancient world
to today’s advanced technological world, were the subjects of shamanism,
metaphysics, and the mystery of existence, as well as other things that
probably wouldn’t be appropriate for this assignment. However, Terrence Mckenna
wasn’t the only one that took what were outlandish ideas at the time and
transformed the ideas through language as a means to really capture an audience
that would listen to their ideas and appreciate the message they were trying to
send to the world. The others that I speak of that possessed that great skills
to use language to pass on the ideas of metaphysics, shamanism, and what it
means to be human are Timothy Leary and Aldous Huxley to name a few.
Obviously
the translation of an idea using language isn’t synonymous to the works of the
aforementioned men, but I was interested in the subjects that these
intellectuals used language as a means for. As mentioned earlier, the ideas of
these writer and speakers who spoke of such topics were not popular at the time
of when they were being introduced to the world, infact President Richard Nixon
named Timothy Leary as the most dangerous man in America at one point, because
of his views and advocacy of psychedelics. However, through the writings and
speeches that these intellectuals produced, came theories of life that would
forever influence a culture that tried to spread the message of expanded consciousness,
psychedelic experiences, and questioning everything that you have been told or
hold to be true in today’s society.
I am
indeed very influenced by the works of these writers and speakers, but I will
admit that I’m not that understanding of the broadness and complexity of the
messages they were delivering to their audiences. That is why I chose to
compose my point of this proposal by speaking of the works of these particular
individuals. I still read the literature and listen to the famous public
speeches these men delivered in order to dive more into the overall ideas and
theories these men proposed through their art of using language to express
these ideas, because they are very interesting to me. The inquiry question I
propose is “ How are ideas best expressed and understood through the power of
literature and speech?”
Annotated
bibliography
Huxley, Aldous. The Doors of Perception. New York, New
York: Harper, 1954. Print.
This was an influential book that came out during
the counterculture that had developed in the U.S during the 1950’s. This book
consist of two long essays by author Aldous Huxley, who is often considered one
of the pioneers of the counterculture. This book was also a major influence on
Terence McKenna, who is a major influence on the idea behind the topic that is
being discussed, that topic being, “how language creates reality.” In this
book, Huxley writes about his recollections of psychedelic experience that took
place over the course of an afternoon. The recollections that Huxley wrote were
his visions about dream states, Art, and language. It Huxley’s recollection
that spoke of language that made this book a useful source to receive help and
insight on how language has the power to influence and determine the physical
reality happening around us. This source is much different from my other
sources. This source is different in the sense that it’s not directly about the
language of reality, it discusses many things beyond the power of language.
However, Huxley has a portion of his essay that talks directly about language and
its power to influence reality. The portion of his essay that does discuss
language is very useful because it brings about this topic in a new light than
those of my other sources.
Hurd,
R. Wesley. "Postmodernism." (n.d.): n. pag. Gutenbergcollege.edu.
Web.
This source was a journal article written by
professor R. Wesley Hurd from Gutenberg College in Eugene, Oregon. Gutenberg College
is a “great books” college, where students study the most influential text in
western civilization. In this article, Hurd talks about the human transition
from modernism to post modernism. Hurd discusses reality and what it means to
be human. The idea behind this article is that while we as humans in the
western world live in the age of science, we still hold too strong a grip on
modernist theories and ideas to seek the truth behind reality and what it means
to be human. This source is useful for my topic because Hurd has a couple
segments in this article about the influence of language on our western
culture. He talks about the influence of language on our culture by discussing
the verbal and visual signs that we use to help represent the world to
ourselves. He also speaks of how language is the primary tool for creating
culture. This source was interesting because Hurd did a good job at
interrelating science and philosophy, all while connecting those subjects with
how language influences the science and philosophy of the western culture. This
is a good source with much to discuss about the power of language.
Lefkoe,
Morty. "How Our Language Determines Our Reality." Morty Lefkoe RSS.
N.P., N.D. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.mortylefkoe.com/how-our-language-determines-our-reality/>.
This source was an article written by Author Morty
Lefkoe. In this article he discusses how language determines our reality, not
necessarily creates our reality. However, I feel that the idea behind language
creating reality is spoken in a way in which the word determine and influence
is synonymous with creates. Lefkoe goes in depth with this article by
discussing the relationships between concepts within the English language and
how similar concepts are used differently in other languages. His point of
touching on these relationships between concepts in language was to point out
how humans perceive the world according to the language in which we speak. This
source I found useful in the sense that it put a different spin to the concept
of language creating reality, this will help me be able to write on this
subject through a series of ideas and meanings behind the concept of my topic.
Lefkoe I felt made a thoroughly interesting article by way of presenting text
from other sources that further his explanation on how language determines our
reality. While this article served more as a motivational piece for others to
help better their lives, the article still did a very good job of going in
depth of its subject and provided useful insight on the power of language to
influence reality.
"Terence McKenna Claims That Reality Is Made of
Language |." Ultrafeel.tv. N.P., N.D. Web. 18 Nov. 2012.
<http://www.ultrafeel.tv/reality-language-terence-mckenna/>.
This website consisted of a series of videos of
Terence McKenna talking about the language of reality and how language creates
reality. The videos dive deep into what language is and how it influences and
determines the reality around us. This source also consisted of text that were
unrelated to the videos, but discussed the same idea that McKenna had been
speaking of in the videos. The text included a series of questions and
statements that bring about what it means for language to create reality from a
philosophical perspective. The source also contained a message board where a
lot of people put their views on the language of reality. This source was actually
very useful, even though at first comes off as a little indirect and scattered
about the point it was trying to serve. I loved the three videos, because
McKenna speaks of this topic in such a thoroughly intelligent way that it will
make the viewer want to listen to every word that McKenna has to say. McKenna
sums up the language of reality to its very essence, and gives a lot of
information about the topic that cannot be overlooked when writing a paper
about this subject.
Inquiry Blog Reflection
I will admit that I was a little lost with the idea that we would be creating a blog for a major course assignment. At the beginning of the project I was a little confused behind what the purpose of the blog was suppose to be or what it had to do with the course. As I settled in with starting the project I found it very annoying because I dont have much experience with blogging and the site were were using,blogger, I found to be a very tedious blogging site to work around as far as the tools it provided inorder for one to create a blog. I found it a little complicated to upload certain things into the blog at first, which I found very frustrating. I eventually got the hang of the basics, for both the project and creating the blog. Since I had the plans to not make my blog all flashy and fancy due to inexperience in blogging, I found blogger to be a little bit easier to use and decided to also use the site for my portfolio. This project definitley didn't inspire me to go on and start creating blogs for fun or even better my opinion on blogging, but that's just me. As far as the project goes, It was an interesting assignment to work on and helped me further my skills that will later be necessary for later college work, such as researching and MLA formatting. I just didnt care for the blogging part to much.
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