BEWARE OF THE MANIFOLDNESS

Over the centuries, we have developed nearly a cultural fear of the visual.  A couple of links to past posts here and here for a bit more background.  And if you don’t believe any of that, then consider what various thinkers and writers have said over the years.

Gottfried von Herder was a German theorist writing in the mid 1700s. He was one of the first thinkers to establish a philosophy around the concept that language determines thought.    He wrote that the visual world “is so bright and over-resplendent, it supplies such a quantity of attributes, that the soul succumbs to the manifoldness.”  Yep, that’s our problem right there.  If we let our sons and daughters be tempted to pursue the visual, then they run the grave risk of succumbing to the manifoldness.

And he had further things to say regarding the manifoldness.  He wrote that the experience of sight is “too subtle” because it is “dispersed in infinite complexity” which ultimately is “confusing and empties our heads.”

Benjamin Whorf, writing in the very late 1800s, tells us that “the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by our minds – and this means largely by the linguistic system in our minds.”  This statement is part of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, which states in it’s strong form that language  determines thought.  Period.  This hypothesis extends to say, basically, that we therefore can’t think of anything if we don’t have words for it.

The basic point here is that guys like this have perverted it all to the degree that they place language first.  And as we have seen, this is really not how the world works.