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the birth of the eternal

The development of language and the death of the mortal

Perhaps language developed a long time ago. Then, perhaps a particular pattern in language was later formed and then continued for a while, like for instance this sentence, which only exists in language, but then suddenly and permanently stopped.
Now, the beginning and ending of something in language is just how language works. Sentences begin and end. Words begin and end. Sounds and shapes of letters and other linguistic symbols like numbers or punctuation marks are all distinct, isolated bits that have boundaries and beginnings and endings.

So, the fact that one thing ends and then another thing begins is really just a contrivance in language. Language makes up categorical boundaries and then names the two categories as distinct, like day and night. But are day and night really isolated (or “opposites”)? Does one end and then the other begins? Is there ever a time when there is neither day nor night?
For instance, we can say that day ends and night begins. However, day and night are a single cycle that language divides in to a pair, refering to a categorical distinction between the shifting positional relationship between the sun and a particular location on a particular planet.

Thus, day does not actually end. Day just moves. More precisely, the earth is turning and that turning puts different locations of the surface of the earth in the place called day (facing the sun).
Again, day and night are technically not times. They are just relationships between the rotating of the planet and the light of the sun.

So, in a particular place, language can refer to the ending (in time) of the day (as a time). However, day just ends for that place at dusk. Day actually continues, as dusk at one horizon (longitude) is dawn at another horizon (longitude).
Day and night are eternal, but various places move in and out of day and night cyclically. However, language can refer to the ending or beginning of day. As a convenience in language, the phrase “the end of the day” is quite useful. However, that does not make it true in any absolute sense.
Day and night are not isolated. They are not opposites. They are just categorical distinctions in language. Day does not replace night and night does not replace day. The planet just rotates to face the day (the sun) with one section of the planet and to face another section of planet away from the sun (toward the night or “toward the stars” where they are visible without being outshined by the sun).

A visit to the polar regions of this planet (like North of the Arctic circle) reveals that, in fact, there are places on this planet that do not conform to the popular notions of day and night. In those places, there is no such thing (functionally) as day and night. Those “times” of facing toward the sun or away from it are called “summer” and “winter.”
Still, there are cyclic 24-hour variations during the two annual seasons of winter and summer in which the specific brightness of the sun varies. However, those variations are more like the variation between dusk and midnight. Further, in those regions, we could say that there are only two seasons and no such thing as day and night. Or, we could say that one annual cycle of seasons is equal to one cycle of the day and night “of the Gods.”

Along the equator of the earth, there are day and night, but no seasons. At the poles of the earth, there are two seasons, but no day and night.
So, day and night and the seasons are not times. They are relationships of place. Most fundamentally, they are words in language.

Look around you. Is it day or night where you are? What season are you at?
You are not in daytime or in winter. You are at daytime and at winter. They are places. Winter in the northern hemisphere of the earth is simultaneous with summer in the southern hemisphere of the earth. Day in America is night in Asia. There is no beginning and no end to day and night or seasons, except in language. Those relationships of place are eternal.
Now, I am not especially interested in any of that and you might not be either. However, there is a relevance to bringing all of that to attention.
The relevance is that you and I are conveniences in language. Just as day is not really a time, but a relationship, there is really no such thing as you or I, except as relationships in language.
Likewise, there is no hand without a larger organism to grow it. There is no earthling without an earth and sun to produce it. There is no sun at all… except in language.

Consider: what is the boundary of the sun? Is the sun far away in space? Have you ever said “I am going out in to the sun now?” Have you ever said “let’s close the curtains to keep the sun out of here?”
The sun is a formation in language. The sun does not exist outside of language. The sun does not have a discrete physical boundary or location.
We can say that all of the planets are “in the sun” or we can say that all of the planets revolve around the sun distant from it. Because “sun” is just a word, either use of the word is useful.
We can think of the sun as a place (distant from a particular observer) or as a process. We can refer to the sun as a measurable distinction in heat, or in light, or in various forms of invisible radiation such as infrared or ultraviolet, including radio waves, sound waves, microwaves, X-rays, and so on.

Ultimately, sun is a linguistic unit that we can say corresponds to various sensory capacities of various organs of various creatures. Plants have photovoltaic capacities to convert sunlight to energy. Of course, sunlight is already energy, so that is a rather weird thing to say, but again it is a useful construction in language.
The sun lives through it’s various parts, including various planets and the life of those planets (or on those planets). Of course, all of those words are also just categories in language.
I can consider myself a unit operating within an organ of the sun that is labeled “humanity” (as distinct from the organ or organic system called vegetation). Just as the brain has no functionality without the other nerves, there is no real functional boundary between my nerve cells, my organs, my organism, the earth on which my organism (and the linguistic subcategories of me) rely, and even the sun and the rest of the living universe.

Categorical distinctions in language are just linguistic conveniences. Seasons do not really begin and end. They are linguistic labels for distinct aspects of a single cycle. We could divide the annual cycle in to 4 seasons or 2 or any other number. The complete cycle itself is fundamental to seasons, not the particular number of verbal categories in to which we divide the cycle. The number of linguistic divisions is merely arbitrary.
We could divide the annual cycle in to 4 parts or in to 12. If we divide them in to 12 and call those months, it is silly to say that 12 is the right number of divisions and 4 is the wrong number of divisions. The divisions are just linguistic distinctions. They have no inherent reality except as linguistic units that correspond to a single cyclic pattern of time and of place.

More specifically, while the cycle of day and night is obvious from the equator, and the cycle of the seasons is obvious from temperate latitudes of the earth, neither of those is especially useful at the polar regions. So, people who traveled the entire planet (perhaps including the poles), may have found it useful to divide the annual cycle in to 12 units, roughly correlating to lunar cycles.
So, instead of using day or winter to mark the varying relationship between the sun and a particular place on the planet, the language of months (or zodiac signs) add a third element. Through the course of the year (which is just a pattern in language), the sun’s position relative to the earth can be measured against a set of star groups or constellations.
Alternatively, the annual cycle can be marked by the stellar backdrop at which the moon is full (directly opposite of the sun from the viewpoint of the earth). The moon makes twelve cycles of lunation phase each year, with one phase beginning in each of the twelve zodiac constellations.

However, one may ask, is it better to divide the annual cycle in 12 or in to 4 or what? Again, that question is actually a rather odd formation in language. Dividing something in to 4 linguistic units or 12 (or 365) is for different purposes. Each purpose has it’s own number of categorical divisions.
So, there are four equal parts of each year as well as 12 nearly equal parts as well as about 365 equal parts. All of those divisions in symbolic language are valid and useful.

And here is where it gets really interesting. To divide life in to individual units of linguistic identity (“I”) is one valid, useful operation in language. However, fundamentally, “I” does not exist any more than summer or June, which are just arbitrary words or units in language. “I” is just a categorical distinction, a relationship, a convenience.
Recognize the operation of language as “I,” which recognizing is the death of the mortal (which, technically, never really existed anyway except as a label in language). You are not really an isolated ego of linguistic alienation. You do not really exist.

Language is simply operating. Language claims the categories of humanity and non-humanity, left and right, mortal and immortal, “I” and “not I.” Just as “left” cannot die because left is just a unit in language, the same is true of sun and day and “I.”
The eternal cannot be born. The eternal is always here.
To recognize that you are the eternal movement of language can be called “the birth of the eternal.” Though a useful phrase in language, it is also nonsense, but so is “the death of the mortal,” there is no mortal outside of language.

Language is simply operating. The sun is not even shining. Language makes up that there is a sun and a witness of the sun and that it’s shining light and so then language says “I am over here and I see the sun shining, which is way over there.”
No! I am the sun.
Language declares the life of the sun. Language declares the life of the mortal. Without language, there is no sun and no mortal.

The sun does not give life to the earth and the earth does not give life to the earthling. Language divides one thing in to 4 or 12 or 365. Language may CLAIM that the sun gives life to the earth, but from where? Are the sun and the earth really isolated? Outside of language, what is the boundary between the sun and the earth?
What is the boundary between the front of a piece of paper, the back of that same piece of paper, and the edges of the paper? Front, back, and edges are just distinctions in language. Paper is also just a distinction in language.
When language notices the operating of language, that can be called the birth of the eternal, the death of the mortal, the creation of life, and the developing of language. Further, once language notices the operating of language, language may or may not stop claiming to be something other than language.

Language may say “I am worried about surviving and I am even more afraid of dying.” Language may say almost anything, though of course language cannot actually say anything, because if I know one thing for sure, I know that there is no such thing as language. There is just me, and I cannot be language becasue I say that I am not language. I am over here and language is way over there and I can notice it happening, like happening to me. Language controls me and victimizes me and tricks me in to pretending that there is a devil and that I am not language and that language does not even really exist.
By the way, if there is one thing that I know for sure, it is that God is omnipotent and the creator of all things, which is why God is terrified that the devil might defeat the influence of language and ruin everything. I mean, what if the devil makes a time machine and goes back in time and stops God from making up the devil? Then what?!?!

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This entry was posted on December 22, 2011 at 9:30 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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