Lost in Translation

Lately, I've been thinking a lot about language and how it conditions consciousness. I've also been thinking about evolution, what it is and how it works. I've come to the conclusion that the story of evolution is the story of language. I'm using the word language in a broad sense to mean: a medium or carrier of information. Evolution has nothing to do with survival. If it did, we would have to rate humans as one of the least evolved species on Earth. Cockroaches, amoeba, and bacteria are all better at surviving than we are. No, evolution is about the capacity to acquire, transmit and utilise information.

The language common to most living things is that of sensation. Our senses allow us to receive and transmit information. When you sit and converse with a friend across your kitchen table, it isn't just words being used. You are seeing your friend's posture, expressions and gestures. You are hearing the tone, emphasis, volume and rhythm of his voice. Through your sense of smell, you are picking up subtle chemical signals that tell you about his health and emotional state. If he touches you, you would know even more. So if the two of you just sat there holding hands, you would be communicating.

Speech is actually a hybrid of sensational and verbal language. The language of sensation is confined to percepts. Spoken language allows for information of a new and expanded type. It incorporates concepts. With speech, we can convey information about things not present within the field of sensation. Speech lets us partially transcend time and space. We can talk about what was, and is no more. We can make plans. We can pass on messages though intermediaries. We can make up and tell stories. We can name the objects of our experience. The names are still tied to sensation though. They have a real vibrational connection to the realities they represent. That's why the sound of equivalent words from unconnected languages are often very similar. The subconscious mind cannot distinguish between words that sound the same. For this reason, the word "want" should not be used in affirmations or magick (unless you want want).

Writing leaves sensation in the dust. Written language allows for another expansion of information. It further transcends the limitations of time and space. Language is intimately tied to our perception of time. I'll come back to that. Now we can read the exact words of someone long dead or thousands of miles away. The invention of writing marks the beginning of history, as compared to myth. Most of the institutions of civilisation and all of our advanced technologies were made possible by written language. Philosophies and ideologies also depended on this development for their existence. It is nearly impossible to overstate the effect of writing on consciousness.

The development of written language has been problematic in a number of ways. It has made it possible to lie to ourselves and each other. Just try lying to your dog. Our heavy reliance on it has impaired our ability to understand the language of sensation. So, while it permits access to new kinds of information, our sensational awareness has atrophied and been greatly reduced. This sensory disconnect has also resulted in our confusing of words with the things they refer to. We tend to think we know the objects of experience because we know their names. As a result, we really don't know them at all. In the graphic novel series, "The Invisibles, Entropy In The UK" by Grant Morrison (thanks again, Ben), one of the Invisibles is given a drug called Key 17. It forces his mind to perceive any written words to be literal reality. Written language actually does have this effect on our minds. The difference is one of degree. For example, almost everybody knows that the day/night cycle is due to the revolution of the Earth, not the movement of the Sun. However, that is not what we experience. Now consider how we describe it. We say, "the Sun rises" "the Sun sets". How different would our perception be if we said, "I approach the Sun" "I move away from the Sun". And what about those objects of experience that have no names? George Orwell, in "1984", describes a "development" of verbal language called "Newspeak". The purpose of Newspeak was to reduce the ability of people to think, by shrinking the vocabulary they could access.

Written language relies heavily on left-brain cognition. A parallel type of language that is utilised by the right-brain is symbolism. There is a large area of overlap between verbal and symbolic language. Poetry, fictional writing and films, cultural references, and unfortunately, advertising, occupy this area. Whereas speech is derived directly from the sense of hearing, and writing (while read with the eyes) is phonetic (therefore still based on sound), symbolism is mostly visual. Sound occupies a lower frequency range than light, so we would expect symbolic language to be capable of carrying far more concentrated information than verbal language, and so it is. A picture is worth a thousand words. I used to work as a professional diviner. I read Tarot cards, Runes and astrological charts. All these are symbolic languages. Understanding the meaning of the symbols was the easy part; translation was often a problem. In many cases, the gulf could only be partially bridged by relying on metaphors and stories, word pictures. I know for a fact that symbolic language allows one to entertain concepts for which there are no words. If sensational language is pre-verbal, symbolism is, to some extent, trans-verbal. It allows for much greater connectedness of ideas. Words are confined to carrying relatively specific and finite information; but the realities that symbols refer to are like vast webs that branch out and spread , combining and interacting with other symbolic realities. Mathematics is a symbolic language. It is not fully translatable into words.

Each evolutionary advance involves acquiring a new kind of language. The new linguistic form has it's roots in, overlaps and transcends those that preceded it. A more advanced type of language is incomprehensible to a less advanced one. I have often felt frustrated by the fact that "history" begins after our last major evolution, the invention of writing. If only we could remember what happened then, maybe we could make sense of where we are now. I don't think it is a coincidence that the "world" coming to a close in 2012, according to the long count calendar, began in 3114 BC. This is right in the middle of the time period when writing began to appear all over the world. Prior to this time, there was no history. The spoken accounts that were recorded shortly after that transition sound like myths. We are told that humans were taught writing by "gods". I don't think they were being deliberately mysterious or lying. I think they lacked the language to describe what had happened. It's interesting that remote viewers and precognitive claim to be unable to see past 2012. If that date corresponds to the acquisition of a new type of language, we wouldn't be able to understand it from where we are now.

From our current standpoint, we can only speculate about the actual experience of an earlier linguistic stage. Each child passes through these stages, but within the context of a literate society, so exact parallels cannot be drawn. It is a pretty safe guess that preliterate humans did not have our modern sense of individuality. The archaeological evidence shows that they lacked any awareness of social status and were very peaceful. Imperialism and war did not exist. So they probably didn't make a clear distinction between themselves and their social context. Prior to written language, people would have had no way of understanding their own psyches. I suspect that most psychic content was externalised. The "gods" of preliterate people may have been ETs, or not, but they were identified with what are now known as archetypes. The characteristics assigned to them were very consistent, even equivalent, in widely separated cultures. After the invention of writing, the "gods" were gradually internalised.
Our experience of time seems to be undergoing a similar process. The language of sensation knows nothing of time. Everything happens now. There is no past or future. Spoken language allows for a vague awareness of past and future, but precise chronology is still absent. Preliterate people don't seem to have cared when or in what order anything happened. Even after the introduction of writing, but before widespread literacy, this is still in evidence. Artwork of the medieval period depicts biblical scenes that represent the clothing and architecture of the period in which it was produced. There is no attempt at historical accuracy. Nowadays, we would consider it bizarre in the extreme to represent J.C. and the apostles in modern dress. After literacy, time becomes more and more specific. We experience it as an objective, linear progression and are able to locate ourselves precisely within it. We've taken the measurement of time to it's extreme limits. We now employ timelines that go back to the big bang itself, and scales of time measurement too small to even experience directly. Time and space are a matched set, and sure enough, spacial awareness has developed in parallel. Modern spacial measurement ranges from light years to the scale of the electron. Spacetime has now been fully externalised, just as the "gods" were at an earlier stage.

The acquisition and development of linguistic forms is symbolically reflected in brain development. Each of us passes through all these stages. Newborn babies are restricted to the language of sensation, which is processed by the R-complex and limbic system. The next brain structure to come online is the right brain. The mind of a toddler is wholly subjective. Preliterate children are highly imaginative and make little distinction between "fantasy" and "reality". Symbolic language has it's roots in right brain cognition, but it is little developed at this stage. It expresses itself through art. (No language is ever fully lost, but continues to evolve alongside newer forms.) With written language, the abilities of the left brain are accessed and begin to dominate awareness. Note the phonetic and visual similarity between the words "literate" and "literal". Left brain language is binary. It's the same as computer language, 0s and 1s, either-or, A-not A. Left brain cognition manifests the inner/outer split. It creates a dual world, divided into subjective and objective realities. This perception is reinforced by the conventions of verbal language, especially by our use of pronouns. It is now common to experience ourselves as totally separate from the world, in it but not of it. The inner/outer split results in a distortion of perception. This limitation can only be overcome by integrating the functions of the twin lobes. This occurs through the agency of the corpus callosum, possibly in concert with some other structure.

The symbol associated with the Ajna chakra, or Third Eye, looks like this:
This image could been seen as the left and right brain hemispheres, united by a third structure. Full activation of this energy center results in clairvoyance and telepathic ability. This could constitute the transcendence (internalisation) of spacetime.

The language we use both reflects and conditions our experience of "reality". More and more, I find myself fumbling around with a language that is unwieldy and insufficient to describe my experience. The trouble lies mainly with the inner/outer split that it assumes. I looked up the word "objective" in my dictionary and found this definition: existing independently of mind, or individual perception. There was a time when that statement would not have made me laugh. It perfectly sums up the limitations of binary language. It reflects a belief that no longer holds sway for me.

Once upon a time, everyone considered religious texts to be literally true. Now, a significant number of people are able to understand them metaphorically. Once this transition has occurred, the former conception appears ridiculous, laughable. The texts themselves are carriers of information. The information (interesting word that, in-formation) is real. Interpreting it metaphorically doesn't make it unreal. If anything, it it makes it more real because it is more correctly understood. Many people, myself included, are undergoing a similar transition with regards to "objective reality". We are beginning to realise that a metaphorical interpretation of it is more appropriate than a literal one. The "outer" world is increasingly seen as a reflection, a magic mirror. The separation of inner and outer is an illusion. In fact, they are one reality, seen from two perspectives. As the functions of the brain hemispheres become unified, verbal language, with it's binary bias, can no longer represent our experienced reality. I have to constantly resist the urge to place all references to "objective" reality in quotation marks, to indicate their metaphorical status.
How can I be sure that what I'm experiencing isn't just my personal descent into insanity? I'm fully aware that, to someone still trapped in binary language, I must sound totally nuts. That can't be helped. However, I'm also pretty certain that plenty of other people know exactly what I'm trying to say, and are having just as much trouble expressing it. I know this because I'm learning to read the "signs". Probably the most obvious of these signs is the explosion of synchronistic experience. Synchronicity is the experienced unification of inner meaning and outer reflection. Even if the meaning is not understood, it is always felt to be present. I see synchronicity as an early sign of left/right brain integration. When "objective" reality is perceived to be reflected and symbolic in the same way that dream reality is, other signs of this shift become visible. I see our technologies as external reflections of inner developments. The invention and rise of the Internet is one of these. There are indications of the development of an inner Internet (Hypernet?). On the plane of physical reality, our brains may be responding to the ubiquitous presence of information-carrying waves by learning to access them directly. I've noticed (and I'm not the only one who has) that I am increasingly able to access a field of information that spontaneously "downloads" knowledge. I don't know how or why, but the information appears to be time specific. Everyone who can link with this Hypernet is getting very similar information more or less simultaneously. I think the Hypernet is connected to the phenomenon of viral synchronicity. Some synchronistic experiences are related to themes that spread like wildfire. An example of this is the 11:11 time prompt. It's hard to remember just when it started (late '90s I think), but huge numbers of people started to notice it without any direct contact with each other. I still recall my amazement when I first googled 11:11 and realised how widespread it was. Anyone who has been paying attention to synchromystic themes knows that this sort of viral spread is far from uncommon. I think it very likely that 11:11, as well as other viral synchs and the crop-circle glyphs may be untranslatable "words" in a future, trans verbal language. This emerging linguistic form will allow for a massive increase in information processing. It is absolutely no exaggeration to say that, once this new form of language has been learned, our reality, our "world", will be utterly transformed. In a surprisingly short time, no one will remember what our present world was like.