PSY 115a sec 13

Writing is the ultimate expression of Man’s imagination. It is the ultimate metaphor, the ultimate symbol of the most intangible thing of all: thought. Just my writing this paper has taken a huge leap from the wholly abstract understanding I have of the concepts in the book to this tangible expression of my comprehension.

In order for me to write this paper, I have first read the book The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination by J. Bronowski, a formidable feat that could not have been completed or even attempted by an animal of another species. Animals use a different sort if language than Man. Animal speech is intuitive and utilizes singular signals to communicate entire ideas. Man uses a kind of counterintuitive language that is often confusing in its attempt to convey the singular type of thoughts that inspired him to speak in the first place.

After I read the book, I had to take all of the ideas Bronowski spent so much time and effort solidifying onto paper, and try to spin them all back together into an understanding, decoding the extended metaphor of language, specifically written language. This is not a simple task when you get down to it, and it is even more difficult to describe. Bronowski said of Heisenberg’s Theory of Uncertainty, "He gave it depth by making it precise." Precision, it would seem, can only be achieved through seemingly endless explanation. Fortunately, this is untrue. It can also be reached through mathematics. Mathematics is a method of describing many things (not all things, mind you) through symbols and basic axioms. It is a metaphor. Just as mathematics can explain things not expressly stated in print, literary metaphors are often utilized to delineate ideas too difficult to express using definite statements. In order to understand what Bronowski was trying to tell his audience, I must infer the significance of his metaphors and attempt to put them into my own terms. This means internalizing and realizing what I believe the book is about. The best way I and every other human is equipped to understand abstract ideas such as these is to, by using my imagination, come up with terms that I am comfortable with. Everyone, whether through nature or nurture, has a unique way of understanding the world around him, and concepts presented to him. It is another unique trait of the human mind to be able to take things viewed or experienced in on context, extract them from that situation, and apply them to separate, disparate situations past, present, or future. This ability is necessary for Man to prepare things like this paper.

While I was reading back over the book, and even while watching the film clip in class, I was looking for tid-bits that might be helpful in writing my paper, storing them in my mind and on paper for the future. Once I have read, formed some kind of understanding, formed an opinion, and prepared my thoughts, I am ready to write. All of the preparation in the world cannot truly ready one to write down his thoughts these ephemeral notions cannot be made static, at least not as far as their verbal expression is concerned. Of all the combinations of words that can be made to express essentially the same concept, the writer must distinguish among them, and decide upon the one that he feels best express his idea. This decision requires a deep understanding of the language if it is to be made in expectation of conveying the idea effectively.

Effectively expressing one’s thought, ideas, or beliefs is one to the principle reasons for writing and speaking, another is to share knowledge. Knowledge seems to be a much more concrete thing than a belief, easier to pin down; however can be ambiguous. It can be ambiguous because knowledge is based on perception, and perception on Man’s imperfect sensory organs. So even "knowledge" can be misleading if it is either interpreted in the wrong way on the receiving end or in its collection and documentation.

Once the writer begins to physically pen down the paper, he acts basically from instinct. Writing is something that he knows how to do so well that he does not have to think about every letter, or even every work that he writes. It just seems to flow straight for the brain to the paper or through his finger to the keyboard. When finished, hopefully, he has expressed everything he set out to clearly, completely and as accurately as possible.

That is what I feel I have done. I have tried to express an understanding of some of the concepts in Bronowski’s writing, some may be conspicuously absent. That is an inherent problem with trying to congeal an entire work, full of divergent concepts, into one consistent statement. Just as Bronowski, Gödel, Hilbert and a number of others said, no consistent system can prove every true statement, this one consistent metaphor of writer with a paper cannot encompass the many incontiguous ideas in The Origins of Knowledge and Imagination.

This is the challenge the thinker sets himself to when faced with a complex concept: how to boil it down or at least incorporate as much as possible without overwhelming the reader (or even himself). Bronowski, a scientist, used metaphors from his field to explain himself and his ideas. Others would surely have seen other relationships and their understandings and opinions would differ accordingly. I, a student, related the concepts in the book to the process I routinely go through when writing a paper. That is exactly why topics like this are discussed even after there are generally accepted concepts regarding them. The more people brought into the discussion, the more viewpoints from which the subject is seen. With differing or even opposing viewpoints, more connections are brought to light. Only through realizing a deeper interconnectedness of the universe and especially of every man and living thing will we come any closer to an understanding of the nature of the Universe and of the nature of Man.