>> Catagories and titles are a mere convenience of language. The ability to
>> describe something limits ones experience. Another crisis of the human
>> intellect.
>
>
>no, I beg to differ, the ability to describe heightens one experience,
>preserves ones experience, allows one to share that experience with others.
> There are some concepts that I agree it would be nice if we could not
>describe them so easily: spears, guns, thermonuclear weapons, et al.
>Conversely without the ability to describe there is no literature, no art,
>or at least no art history, and no way to communicate love, hope, pride, et
>al.  Communication is vital to humans, crucial to civilization.  Sloppy
>communication and lazy thinking are the enemy, not communication.

Oh well, let me jump in here, Mark and Frank.  In some ways, I think Mark is
right.  The mere act of description of an experience does limit it; even the
act of *having* the experience limits it, as we are limited ourselves to the
tools of senses and intellect that we own or have acquired.  However, we
also make an experience accessible to others and recallable and useful to
ourselves by describing it - but - only if we realize that our own
experience/description is perforce limited, and that our own
experience/description is not the only valid one that exists.  Unless, of
course, you think that by experiencing it you are limiting the experience
itself, and that others'  description, ostensibly of the same
phenomenon/happening, is because of their experiencing it actually a
*different* phenomenon.  But that's another whole can of worms.  Bye for
now, realizing that *now* is a completely relative term and will be, because
of your experiencing of it, totally different than what it was for me.  How
was it for you?

Anne
Anne Lane
Curatorial Assistant
Museum of York County
4621 Mt. Gallant Road
Rock Hill, SC  29732-9905
803-329-2121 ext 122  *  [log in to unmask]