[lit-ideas] Re: Interpretation and Elision

PE: 
It's the leap from "It's just our experience of ..." to "it was just
your interpretation" that is a fantastic bit of fiction.


I can imagine RP responding to me thusly: all we have is our experience of the world to go on. Whether that experience is as illusionary and comical as cats chasing a laser beam is immaterial -- we experience the world in accordance with our given "nature" and from those experiences we build behaviors and systems of belief which themselves become frameworks within which we experience the world and through which we interpret those experiences, or as the early Heidegger would have it, we're always already immersed in a world that we use to interpret the world. I can imagine RP saying that to me, he might not be able to imagine it, but there you go, so I'm wrong again in my interpretation of something.

In other words, I don't see the fiction in saying that what we proclaim as "the world" is just our interpretation of our experience of it. A tree out there in the world is a fact (unless you want to get squishy), but we humans interpret that fact as potential lumber, potential paper, a potential problem landing on my roof, potential firewood, potential home for the squirrels and the birds and the bees, a potential for shade, a potential bearer of love declarations, potential eyesore, potential money, or as an aesthetic treasure. Dogs see trees only as ersatz fire hydrants. Aren't you glad you're a human?

Mike Geary
potentially back on the job













----- Original Message ----- From: "Phil Enns" <phil.enns@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, December 09, 2005 9:02 AM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Re: Interpretation and Elision


Mike Geary wrote:

"You probably didn't read down to the squishy part."

I did.  I quote from the squishy part:

"It's just our experience of it that leads us to believe it's there --
we see and feel only because we're so gross in our senses.  So it wasn't
a rock, and it wasn't your toe, it was nothing but energy wigglettes,
not even "real" things.  In other words, it was just your interpretation
..."

Not that there 
is anything wrong with fiction!

Geary concludes:

"There are more things, Horatio...."

Don't multiply entities beyond necessity.


Sincerely,

Phil Enns
Toronto, ON

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