About "wisdom" or "philosophy" in langua

[Kalailan]

1st of all, as a mere precaution,
I suggest that you do not read any further, Episcope, as to prevent any illness or other abnormal phenomenas due to the fact that this thread, amongst other things, is about hebrew too.
Moneo!

In hebrew i have found that there is a lot of wisdom "built in" the language itself.
Regardless of it being really "wise", it is more then a mechanism of communication.
as the topic implies, i did not start it to talk about hebrew. i started it because i wanted to know about other languages.
i will write about my second language.

In english, i have not found anything except a mechanism of communication.
English to me feels different to hebrew.
i do not want to use the word shallow, because it is would be misusing the word here.
What i feel is that it is more of a collection of words, derived from numerous sources, which together assemble the form of a language, without that "wisdom" i wrote about earlier on.

Now, make no mistake, i am not saying that this is the case, i'm saying thats what i feel is the case.
the purpose of this topic is for someone to enlighten me, not for me to say how disdainful i am of the english language.
My knowledge of english is not enough as to find anything beyond a communicating device in english, therefore i ask your help.

[Kalailan]

and, Episcope, since you probably did read on despite of my warnings,
i have a question.
in one of your anti-hebraic sayings you described the hebrew alphabet as something that resembels dead spiders or so.
i ask you,
does This look so bad to you?
or maybe this writing is what you hate?
i was trying to find a good example of the proper Torahic writing, but it doesn't look as good on the computer as it does in reall life.

[Emma_85]

I'm not 100% sure I understand what you mean with wise. Do you just refer to sayings or to metaphors in the language, which no one recognises as metaphors anymore?
Like in the German language to dispose of rubbish is 'entsorgen' that means 'to take away cares/worries'. I always love to hear this one, cause it’s so funny. You throw away something and then all the worries are gone, but of course when you look at todays rubbish tips you know that that is so not true, and no German ever thinks of it like that.
Is that the sort of 'wisdom' you’re talking about?

[Kalailan]

not exactly, but sort of.
i am talking about things that when discover i am astonished.
they may seem stupid, but they don't to me.
things like the fact that one can tell wheter the moon is starting its cycle or finishing it by the name that these two conditions have. the letter can tell you by the shape.
or that the word for "god" in Gimetry (the numeral value of letters and therefore words) equals 26, which is double of love, which is 13, which in turn is a special number.
or that the word for "Wisdom" equals 73, which are two very important numbers.
things like that. i am not sure i brought the best examples, but thats the best i can do in late hours.

[Emma_85]

Ah, ok, now I think I know what you mean.
I'm sure there are quite a few surprising things in the English language like that... but I just can't think of any right now . What I like about the language is that often the sound of a word is enough to tell you what it means and that certain sounds also have a feeling attached to them.

English certainly has a lot of words to explain the way the sea works, which the German language just lacks, for example the word 'tide'. It's a simple word, but they don't have one of their own and use the English 'tide' in all the Geography books. They don’t pronounce it English, but it still doesn’t sound like a German word and none of my friends had heard of the word before, but it is of Indo-European origin I think.

[klewlis]

not exactly, but sort of.
i am talking about things that when discover i am astonished.
they may seem stupid, but they don't to me.
things like the fact that one can tell wheter the moon is starting its cycle or finishing it by the name that these two conditions have. the letter can tell you by the shape.
or that the word for "god" in Gimetry (the numeral value of letters and therefore words) equals 26, which is double of love, which is 13, which in turn is a special number.
or that the word for "Wisdom" equals 73, which are two very important numbers.
things like that. i am not sure i brought the best examples, but thats the best i can do in late hours.

I only did a little hebrew in college so I am by no means an expert, but it seems to me that things like this are more coincidence than anything, and you could probably find them in any language if you look hard enough. The hebrew language has had the benefit of being considered a sacred language from its inception, which means that people have always been looking for hidden significance in it. I wonder if the same is true of, say, Arabic.

Another factor may be that Hebrew is much closer to a pictographic language (I have no idea if that's the word I'm looking for but hopefully people know what I mean), where the letters used to be pictures, so it makes sense that the letters and words themselves would retain some of that inherent meaning.

[annis]

I wonder if the same is true of, say, Arabic.

I'm not sure about Arabic, but the Greeks in the (Roman) Imperial period certainly had a passion for this sort of words->numbers comparisons. Some interesting pairs - mostly vulgar - got enshrined in verse.

I'd not be surprised if Arabic also has people doing this, since it shares with Greek and Hebrew the a=1, b=2, ..., j=10, k=20 way of representing numbers, in addition to the more familiar base 10 system.

[Kalailan]

I only did a little hebrew in college so I am by no means an expert, but it seems to me that things like this are more coincidence than anything,
.

I think that they are too many to be mere coincidences.
perhaps when more familiar with the jewish world one can understand this better.
it is indeed also to do with the level of Theism i suppose...

[Emma_85]

or that the word for "god" in Gimetry (the numeral value of letters and therefore words) equals 26, which is double of love, which is 13, which in turn is a special number.
or that the word for "Wisdom" equals 73, which are two very important numbers.

You don't think that this is coincidence? I really don't think that someone sat down and thought, we need a word for wisdom, oh, and also let's make its numerical value 73, that would be nice.
When building churches and cathedrals that was definitely the case, but people don't build languages normally, they evolve.
I suppose some people may have thought up words for new things and given them names which had some sort of significance when turned into numbers, or that scribes thought those words were better than others because of their significance and if two similar words were normally used they would only use the one with a number significance in their writings. But I just invented that and have no idea about Hebrew...

[mingshey]

I think that they are too many to be mere coincidences.
perhaps when more familiar with the jewish world one can understand this better.
it is indeed also to do with the level of Theism i suppose...

Since they'd be doing such numerological search for many a hundred years, no wonder they have many examples in hebrew.

My personal opinion is, gematria is a terrible waste of human intelligence upon hardly meaningful subject; it's like striving to find a pattern from the rear side of an embroidery.

[Keesa]

In hebrew i have found that there is a lot of wisdom "built in" the language itself.
Regardless of it being really "wise", it is more then a mechanism of communication.
as the topic implies, i did not start it to talk about hebrew. i started it because i wanted to know about other languages.
i will write about my second language.

In english, i have not found anything except a mechanism of communication.
English to me feels different to hebrew.
i do not want to use the word shallow, because it is would be misusing the word here.
What i feel is that it is more of a collection of words, derived from numerous sources, which together assemble the form of a language, without that "wisdom" i wrote about earlier on.

Now, make no mistake, i am not saying that this is the case, i'm saying thats what i feel is the case.
the purpose of this topic is for someone to enlighten me, not for me to say how disdainful i am of the english language.
My knowledge of english is not enough as to find anything beyond a communicating device in english, therefore i ask your help.

I think I have a tiny glimmer of an idea of what you mean. English is most definitely a collection of words from every which-a-way. It's not only my first language, but it's also my 1)career, 2)main course of study, 3)hobby, and 4) lifelong passion. It's a very pretty language, when you look carefully at it (especially or perhaps only when you already love it), and there are many words for things that are almost similar; I can call the moon hard and white, crisp and silver, or clear and pale, depending on what kind of mood I"m in and what kind of mood I'm trying to convey, but that kind of wisdom (I would probably call that harmony, rather than wisdom) is not present in the English language, to my knowledge. There are many words, but there's no particular relationship, no harmony, between the words and the sentence structure and the letters and the way the letters are written. To the best of my knowledge, of course.

So, a passionate lover of the English language agrees with you one hundred percent. However nice it might be, the English language is a muddled conglomeration, with neither harmony nor wisdom.

But I still love it.

[Kalailan]

Indeed!
You described what i meant very well. Harmony is a very good word for it.
And,I do not know what the source of this harmony is, but it is there.

[chad]

i've read about a few people who've tried to do this in different languages... raymond lull tried to do it in latin in the 1200s and 1300s... combining latin words to try and produce valid christian principles... i also read in leibniz's early private papers that he was trying to create an abstract algebra for basic concepts. all these attempts are trying to make the next step up from logic, which is about rules for making inferences on the basis of form, eg "if all As are Bs, then some Bs are As", &c. hebrew numerology, lull's system &c on the other hand try to create a logic of "concepts", content, so e.g. "man" + "woman" = "child", "love" + "love" = "god".

the problem of course is that these "logic of content" systems only talk about the "interesting" inferences, e.g. that god is the double of love, and not the other equally possible inferences, e.g. that desk = snowflake + cockroach, which means that u only find the "wisdom" u want to find, like horoscopes... cheers, chad.

[Kalailan]

the problem of course is that these "logic of content" systems only talk about the "interesting" inferences, e.g. that god is the double of love, and not the other equally possible inferences, e.g. that desk = snowflake + cockroach, which means that u only find the "wisdom" u want to find, like horoscopes... cheers, chad.

it could be that there is some hidden connection between snowflake and cockroach which we simply don't know.

now, regarding the coincidences.
my treatment of the term coincidence is different. although there are coincidences that are unimportant, there are ones that are not completely coincidental.
i am a theist. deffinetly. i think that sort of sums it up...

p.s.
just for fun i checked the word for snow (not snowflake. in hebrew they are two words. ) and it is 333 in gemetry. just a nice number. oh, and it is composed of three letters. one for 300, one for 30, one for 3.
is it a coincidence that you picked that word chad?
this time i think it is.

[klewlis]

I am a theist too and I just don't see it. Are you saying that you think God planted these things in the language?

If so, I believe that it is possible but unlikely, since God is not so much into secrets and elite interpretations (of course, your theology may differ). Besides, what purpose would they serve?

[Emma_85]

They look pretty .

But there is a difference between the two examples you gave, I mean the one with the moon cycles and the number one. I don't think there's any 'wisdom' in the number area, but it shows that they were certainly fascinated with the moon and in former times maybe had a moon calendar or similar, I think that's the more interesting aspect, not the numbers.

[Kalailan]

it would be difficult to explain my theology standing on one foot.

any way, gemetry is a used a lot in kabbalah.
and if i could understand what is written in those books
i could probably tell you more about it.
here is just an example i know:

there is a book called Sefer yetzira.
if you take the seventh word of the first seven sentences you get this:
"iodh hay (the tenth and fifth letteres of the alphabet) fifteen letters that have no flash in the begining of them".
now the translation is very bad, because it could be interporated differently.
but the look at it: it has the two letters for fifteen and then the word for it. and a sentence (or a phrase, can't remember the difference.) comes out of something that is virtually supposed to mean nothing.
which are the seven letters that were left with a flash in the begining of them i do not know, nor do i know what that flash is. but i believe it is not a coincidence.
of course, to any atheist it would look silly.
i think the same about other things such as the biblic prediction of this or that war. those things are just political acts in my opinion.


to emma:

there is a lunar calender in judaism. but they used to have a solar one, untill the exaltation of Babel, when they had to switch to the lunar Babelic calender.

the division you make is of course due to your interests.
think of this:
there are two socks. one is red and the other is green. i say i love socks, and you say you love red socks.

what did you reffer to when you said "they look pretty"?

Ronen.

[klewlis]

Perhaps those patterns can be found, but what significance does that sentence have? It hardly even makes sense (of course translation could be to blame for that).

Anyway, I agree with Mingshey--given enough time those types of things could be found in any work of literature, and ancient hebrew texts have had many years to be analyzed by devout readers looking for hidden meanings.

[Kalailan]

he he
guess what,
in the spirit of calculating words i checked out my Nickname, and, it is 222.
lol!!

[Keesa]

I don't know much about the Hebrew language (I chose the college I did in part because it will teach me about the things Kalailan is talking about), but I do believe that the "coincidences" are intended. I would say that there is a meaning behind the way the words and values look together.

And, Klewlis, it isn't "secret" if we're sitting here discussing it.

And what about Revelation 13:17-18? My version of the Bible (KJV) says, "And that no man might buy or sell, save that he had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six."

Sounds to me just like what you've been talking about, Kai. Eventually, I'll get to college so that I can learn about these things!

[Keesa]

A quick note...

I'm trying to continue a discussion on Hebrew word values here. I am not trying to start a discussion on religion...please don't take it that way. I know Jeff doesn't like us discussing religion, and believe me, I can understand why.

So...just a note.

[Kalailan]

i don't think this discussion has gone too close to religion.
it might have been about theology, which is a different subject.
anyway, i have a 'feeling' that this time it isn't going to become one of the religion arg.

[Keesa]

Good. I've inadvertently started too many religious debates here.

[mingshey]

Good. I've inadvertently started too many religious debates here.

Hehe, and I was one of the flame warrior.

A few years ago an American reporter wrote a curious book titled "Bible Code", you who know it will know it. I had purchased a copy of Korean translation and examined the examples in the book. I've done some simple probability and expectation value calculation and found that the "wonderful predictions" the author alleges are mere coincidences. The expectation value was above 3~5 in every case.
It was another case that you find the "hidden message" when (and only when)you want to find it.

In Gematria, the range of numbers(associated with the words) treated seldom exceeds several hundreds, or a few thousand. And how many words or word combinations are there in hebrew? No wonder you find quite a few related numbers(alll numbers are somehow related, anyway) among them.

[Keesa]

A few years ago an American reporter wrote a curious book titled "Bible Code", you who know it will know it.

It seems that I've heard of that book, but never read it. You don't remember who the author was, by any chance?

[Kalailan]

Good. I've inadvertently started too many religious debates here.

Hehe, and I was one of the flame warrior.

A few years ago an American reporter wrote a curious book titled "Bible Code", you who know it will know it. I had purchased a copy of Korean translation and examined the examples in the book. I've done some simple probability and expectation value calculation and found that the "wonderful predictions" the author alleges are mere coincidences. The expectation value was above 3~5 in every case.
It was another case that you find the "hidden message" when (and only when)you want to find it.

In Gematria, the range of numbers(associated with the words) treated seldom exceeds several hundreds, or a few thousand. And how many words or word combinations are there in hebrew? No wonder you find quite a few related numbers(alll numbers are somehow related, anyway) among them.

you seem to be locked on the fact that they are coincidences. as i have said, i think that coincidences are more then just coincidences. so, to me, that claime doesn't matter.

Even if it would, the fact that there must be words with numbers that are the same, doesn't say which ones will be paired or grouped together.

and regarding the bible code, for some reason, as i have said, i do not believe in it.
the bible to me is an incredible creation, in many ways. literaturely, it is wonderfull. and philosoficaly as well.
but i do not like to use it as a divination source.

[mingshey]

It seems that I've heard of that book, but never read it. You don't remember who the author was, by any chance?

Michael Drosnin was the author. There are quite a few web sites related to the book and its topic.

To Kalailan,
Umberto Eco's "The Foucault's Pendulum" deals with the similar topic of how to interprete the coincidences in the world. You can find a marvelous coincidence that seems to predict the major world events from the structure of the pyramid of king Kufu, or from the dimensions of a kiosk by the street. You can figure that every little thing in the world contains the mystery of the Creator. Or you can regard them as 'mere' chance that has no meaning. Or you can take the Middle Way between them. Anyway, that's in the realm of interpretation.
But I'm in the position that, although such 'coincidences' are sometimes cute, they don't tell us what we didn't know before, let alone predict the future. Numerology was also used by the two opponents during the Protestant reform. Protestants showed some inscription in the pope's triple crown(that says, "Vicarivs Filii Dei") has the beast number 666, and a Roman Catholic numerologist showed that "German Martin Luther" had that number. And recently an atheist, mockingly, showed Jesus had the same numerological value as Lucifer(or some demonic character). (Well, good and evil, or God and Devil make two sides of a coin? Or Jesus is a disguise of Satan?)
If somebody finds out a numerological equivalence between the name of your God and some fell entity, are you ready to accept it as telling you a truth?

[Keesa]

If somebody finds out a numerological equivalence between the name of your God and some fell entity, are you ready to accept it as telling you a truth?

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "telling a truth." Either the numbers are equivalent, or they aren't, and I would call that more a "fact" than a "truth." Would I scream and jump up and change my entire belief system because of it? Of course not. Would I denounce the person who showed the equivalence as a heretic and a false liar? Of course not. But I would be intrigued. I would want to learn more, and to see if there actually was a connection.

[mingshey]

I'm not quite sure what you mean by "telling a truth." Either the numbers are equivalent, or they aren't, and I would call that more a "fact" than a "truth." Would I scream and jump up and change my entire belief system because of it? Of course not. Would I denounce the person who showed the equivalence as a heretic and a false liar? Of course not.

Of course I expected you won't, and Kalailan won't, either. You won't for such a silly reason. And that's my point. That the numerical equivalence tells nothing more than the "fact" that the numbers meet.

But I would be intrigued. I would want to learn more, and to see if there actually was a connection.

Yes, the numbers trigger your curiosity at first. When it seems to suggest something that reinforces your belief, or at least your 'taste', you tend to think(or expect) the numerology holds some truth underneath. But when it begins to show something 'distasteful', I'm sure you would rather turn your back and say "that's just a mere coincidence" than to change your taste.


You could investigate how far it goes, and observe how evil connection it can suggest. then what? I bet you won't take it more than a bad trick or accidential coincidence. And that is just what I think gematria itself is.

[Kalailan]

Is it certain that facts are dry and meaningless as you claim mingshey?
facts yield thought.
things that yield cannot be dry, for what is dry is dead.
so they are moist.

but are they realy moist and alive?
that does not make up with common sense. if moist they would be, they would change constantly, and facts we would not call them.
the ones to blame would be our eyes. those are moist and alive.

the dry facts remain dry.
but as i have said, our eyes, or selves, are alive.
like a plant, we use the facts as a sowing ground for thoughts.
we base our thoughts on facts, using whatever minerals and nutrition there to be found.
but those minerals do not turn into plants out of themselves.

within the ground they stay unseen, meaningless, until a seed comes about and uses them to become a plant.

it is true that the facts are dry, like the ground, but we can turn them into thoughts that are very much alive.

hope i am being clear enough...

[Kalailan]

[quote="mingshey
You could investigate how far it goes, and observe how evil connection it can suggest. then what? I bet you won't take it more than a bad trick or accidential coincidence. And that is just what I think gematria itself is.[/quote]

i do not think that there is such a thing as evil.

[mingshey]

Is it certain that facts are dry and meaningless as you claim mingshey?
facts yield thought.
things that yield cannot be dry, for what is dry is dead.
so they are moist.

...

Well, I doubt whether we can draw a thin line between fact and thought. The 'fact' we say is already a thought in our mind. Tho' I don't deny the world outside our mental space.

[mingshey]

[quote="mingshey
You could investigate how far it goes, and observe how evil connection it can suggest. then what? I bet you won't take it more than a bad trick or accidential coincidence. And that is just what I think gematria itself is.

i do not think that there is such a thing as evil.[/quote]

No, I don't think so, either. But there's an idea that we think 'evil'.
Good and evil are in the category wherein man is the measure of everything.

[Kalailan]

i think a thin line can be drawn between fact and thought.
though they are indeed thoughts in our mind, facts have an external source, quality, and existence.

through our senses we evolve.
our brain develops by receiving stimulation from the outside world.

and to that information we could call "facts".

now, when i see a fact that God and love have a connection, that is a fact full of nutrition, if to use the terms i used before.

as you have said, the Divine presence can be found everywhere.
that proves the opposite to me then what you wished to prove.
it is like the ground. it is very hard to find a bit of earth on which nothing can grow.

but in the nearest kiosk, it would be incredibly hard to find such a presence. that is what i would call a fact low on nutrition.

Regarding evil:

in case of finding an equivalence between any thing which is against my belief, as evil wouldn't be the right definition, i would first try to understand why it like that. i do not believe that there is anything that doesn't contain a bit of the other side of it inside it.

[mingshey]

i think a thin line can be drawn between fact and thought.
though they are indeed thoughts in our mind, facts have an external source, quality, and existence.

through our senses we evolve.
our brain develops by receiving stimulation from the outside world.

and to that information we could call "facts".

Yup, and that information is already filtered by our sense organs. They are pre-interpreted by the category our sense organs "presume".

now, when i see a fact that God and love have a connection, that is a fact full of nutrition, if to use the terms i used before.

as you have said, the Divine presence can be found everywhere.
that proves the opposite to me then what you wished to prove.
it is like the ground. it is very hard to find a bit of earth on which nothing can grow.

but in the nearest kiosk, it would be incredibly hard to find such a presence. that is what i would call a fact low on nutrition.

And all that depends on what frame of thought you have.

Regarding evil:

in case of finding an equivalence between any thing which is against my belief, as evil wouldn't be the right definition, i would first try to understand why it like that. i do not believe that there is anything that doesn't contain a bit of the other side of it inside it.

Your belief wouldn't allow(if it's a right expression) you to accept anything against the belief itself. That's what belief is. Or isn't it?

[Emma_85]

Regarding evil:

in case of finding an equivalence between any thing which is against my belief, as evil wouldn't be the right definition, i would first try to understand why it like that. i do not believe that there is anything that doesn't contain a bit of the other side of it inside it.

What you mean to say is that you don't believe in 'pure evil' then? I was a bit worried when you said you didn't believe evil existed...
That means you don't believe in the Devil either, or you don't believe he is entirely evil?
Hmm... this debate is no on topic, sorry. Maybe we should move to the religion thread?

[Kalailan]

it was quite on topic.
it involved a bit of theology before, and now theology comes again.
forn now it is a nice debate, no angry people. if we would call it a Religion debate, then it would start getting ugly.

and if you mean that the Fact debate is irrelevant, then i must disagree.

when i said i do not believe evil exists, i that there is no such a thing as Absolute evil.
i do not believe in the devil or in vampires and demons.
i believe there is only evil in the three persons:
bad for me, for you, for him/her, bad for us, for ye, for them.

[Kalailan]

to mingshey:

my belief isn't set. i have an open mind (at least i hope so).

and regarding this entire fact topic:

i recommend Buber. i am very influenced by him, even though only indirectly.
i am not sure how much he writes about facts, if at all, but the point i have hidden inside the argument is the of his mind.

[Emma_85]

when i said i do not believe evil exists, i that there is no such a thing as Absolute evil.
i do not believe in the devil or in vampires and demons.
i believe there is only evil in the three persons:
bad for me, for you, for him/her, bad for us, for ye, for them.

I think we can agree on that, then.

Back to facts: Have you read Kant? I would recommend that you do if you're interested in such things.

facts have an external source, quality, and existence.
through our senses we evolve.
our brain develops by receiving stimulation from the outside world.

and to that information we could call "facts".

So a fact by your definition is not an eternal truth, but only an objective truth (objective being made up of all human subjective knowledge, what can be proven without doubt to be true for all humans)?
Because you say our brain just interprets the stimulations it receives from outside, that means that everything we know is 'just' an interpretation and so it cannot be an absolute truth. But if I my senses deceive me and I perceive something that doesn't actually exist, then I would argue that in this case my brain misinterpreted the information and it is no fact. A fact can only be something that every human being can also be able to perceive to give this supposed 'fact' any credibility and make it a fact.
You've already said you agree that a fact is not an eternal truth, but then to make it a human objective truth it must be something that is subjectively true for any human.
In which case this sentence doesn't make much sense at all:

when i see a fact that God and love have a connection

as you cannot prove a connection between Love and God to every human, only to those who
a) believe a God exists
b) believe love is some kind of force or anything likewise
It's not a fact at all, then.

[Kalailan]

what i actualy meant was:
...when i see the fact that the word for love and the word for god have a connection in hebrew...

i just tried to cut it short.