Subject: Terrance McKenna [the dream of speaking]
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1998 02:48:34 +0930


Greetings all,


I have been off-line for a while and I am tad confused - was this the list in
which there appeared a posting about Terrance McKenna [I thought Terrance
McKenna was a magician? or perhaps a soccer player?... never mind...] and his
theories on the progression of language? I think it was...

Anyway, I think he overly stressed the capabilities of "visual language" and
completely missed the obvious extension of such a theory. Color and shape are
but one mode of communication - visual. Surely language [or "language"] is
heading towards not a single sensory modality but the assimilation of a
multitude of sensory data. Why write about something when it may become possible
to directly _experience_ something? Language is based on a mutual acceptance of
certain symbols, we will move beyond language [which is simply a code] and
towards the recording of actual sensory experiences. Why write about what it is
like to be such and such when you can actually BE such and such.

To imagine such a scenario [the idea of "virtual reality"] is very strange - I
both detest it and embrace it. Will technology totally destroy language? It can
be argued that such technology can render language "unnecessary" in terms of
communication content - but is it possible to express ideas in language that
cannot be expressed in any other way?

[I hope this post was lucid enough - it is late and I have consumed a reasonable
amount of alcohol - HIC...]


Luke Pellen
e-mail: luke-AT-seol.net.au
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