20120623 (J, ON)
Journal: June 23, 2012
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Language                              Souls

(ON) written todayEmail to Robert Bellah: Human Centered Universe

(J) ISTMRN: I have used the acronym ISTMRN several times. It’s short for “It Seems To Me Right Now” and so far have thought of it as the full phrase, placing the letters on the page serially after “thinking” the corresponding words. Recently, though I have begun to “think” only of the acronym, verbalized in thought as the series of capital letters that I use to put the new “word” to page.

“But it’s missing any internal vowel, so it can’t be a word” some might retort. “But I can pronounce it! No vowels!" “Ist”, no problem, and “murn” or “mern”, the vowel implied, even sounded perhaps by the merging of the tail end of the “em” which stand for “Me” with front end of the “are” which stands for "Right".

Do acronyms count as neologisms? Even if not in “proper” grammatical form? It seems so to me, at least in the case of “istmrn”, a new word for “all there is”, sometimes called Brahma, sometimes Atman, sometimes, especially for the “other-worldly” folk, Brahma-Atman.

I apologize for my spelling which treads almost unforgivably into sacred territory, the spelling as well as the words symbolic target. Because a word is merely a symbol of a “thought”, any symbol will work. Words are especially powerful because they evoke both visual and aural brain cascades. That’s where the “proper” vowel fits in – to make the symbol aural; though I think it is already; not needing to be spelled “istmern”. But perhaps to avoid confusion (that’s a pun), I should retain the full capitalization and let its aural content fade, perhaps proposing it as a “graphic”; perhaps I will even change the graphic and neologize in non-word form, a synonym, say, Ƒ, not to be confused with an “old-time” capital F. ∆ or , ▲ or │ ═ ┬╒│││││ work just as well.

(damn, I switched the “M” and “R”, but that’s OK and will work just as well and any other symbol, so for ease of thought I will stick with whatever acronym or similar expressions of words, depending on how the thought “emerges”, to use modern science’s word for “damned if we know how.”

Knowledge can recognize ignorance, though ignorance cannot recognize knowledge.” Aphorism 21 I have written before in this journal, I think, or something like it. And upon that throne, hierarchies of power are built, restricting knowledge by restricting controlling information (e.g. the government “leaks” issue) and parents’ sex education issue). By restricting information available to each subordinate level, through such things as “classified secrets” or even capacity for “understanding” or “interpreting” the information. The information “base” of knowledge is the same at all levels, some filtering* (actually lots of filtering) notwithstanding.

* On both “understanding ability” among many other criteria, including of course “alphaness” and even women can have balls (I was fired by one).