From robin@bilkent.edu.tr Fri Oct 18 03:32:52 2002 Received: with ECARTIS (v1.0.0; list lojban-list); Fri, 18 Oct 2002 03:32:52 -0700 (PDT) Received: from manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr ([139.179.30.24]) by digitalkingdom.org with esmtp (Exim 4.05) id 182UQz-0002Jz-00 for lojban-list@lojban.org; Fri, 18 Oct 2002 03:32:49 -0700 Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 46BA312BB8 for ; Fri, 18 Oct 2002 13:27:46 +0300 (EEST) Received: from bilkent.edu.tr (neo.fen.bilkent.edu.tr [139.179.97.69]) by manyas.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr (Postfix) with ESMTP id 13A8E12BC4 for ; Fri, 18 Oct 2002 13:27:43 +0300 (EEST) Message-ID: <3DB00C4D.9080801@bilkent.edu.tr> Date: Fri, 18 Oct 2002 16:27:41 +0300 From: robin User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.1) Gecko/20020826 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: lojban-list@lojban.org Subject: [lojban] Re: enlighten References: <76.245ee897.2ae0bc01@aol.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-MIME-Autoconverted: from quoted-printable to 8bit by Ecartis X-Virus-Scanned: by AMaViS snapshot-20020300 X-archive-position: 2264 X-ecartis-version: Ecartis v1.0.0 Sender: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org Errors-to: lojban-list-bounce@lojban.org X-original-sender: robin@bilkent.edu.tr Precedence: bulk Reply-to: lojban-list@lojban.org X-list: lojban-list pycyn@aol.com wrote: > All the answers so far have been about bringing to know or understand. > What about the "enlighten" of "Enlightenment," some "higher state of > consciousness" somewhere along the route to unitive consciousness or > whatever? This is not a matter, so they say, of knowing or > understanding anything, but of being. Light metaphors again play an > important part in talk about this -- though not only light, but also > dark (and so dark as light). We run into the problem of ineffability here. Lojban usage tends pretty strongly towards lujvo being a reasonably accurate description of their referents (with some notable exceptions!), but people who have experienced such "higher" states of consciousness are fairly unanimous in saying that it can't be put into words. The metaphors used are by no means universal either; compare, for example, Sanskrit "nirvana" (extinguishing) and Turkish "ermek", which is probably related to "erimek", "to dissolve". Other metaphors involve expansion or returning, and of course when comparing "enlightenment" across cultures, we can't even be sure we are talking about the same state of consciousness anyway. One possibility would be to concentrate on the perceived loss of ego in such states of consciousness. "nalse'i menli" perhaps? robin.tr -- "The other major kind of computer is the "Apple", which I do not recommend, because it is a wuss-o-rama New-Age computer that you basically just plug in and use." -Dave Barry Robin Turner IDMYO Bilkent Üniversitesi Ankara Turkey http://www.bilkent.edu.tr/~robin