Language embodies imagination

Language embodies imagination; its diastole and systole, its expansion and constriction. Our proclivity for constricting imagination by turning everything into literal noun-things lives in grammar. To see how this plays out, let’s track how the phrase ‘the unconscious’ can open to imagination or turn what began as an experience into a thing. Some emerging psychological …

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architecture’s geometric imagination: mathematics and embodiment

The world imagined as a three-dimensional Cartesian grid maps an alien and alienating landscape under one condition: that we take it and the accompanying removal of the knowing subject literally. Literalizing, we cover over our person-al investment in it. We forget that this landscape lives as an engaging image. We forget that accepting its invitation …

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when a metaphor runs wild

Be aware: some metaphors are a force of nature. A metaphor, charged with numinous force can spread like wildfire until all is subsumed under it. Intoxicated, we may very well fall under its spell and, like lotus eaters, forget our home. Succumbing, we erect edifices in its name; forgetting, we fall into idol worship. Recovering …

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nothing as something

(or “thoughts about nothing”) For Paul, Jennifer, David and Johnny            How can we say anything about nothing… unless nothing is actually something? (We can certainly use a lot of words and say nothing so maybe using a lot of words is the best way to understand nothing.) Let’s try this: What is the opposite of …

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mind and nature

In abstracting we imagine ourselves as outside of nature looking in and Forgetting the “as” we are left alienated and homeless. In using a tool, the tool becomes an extension of our body. In use, the tool fades in favor of the task at hand. Yet we can readily stop and notice the tool itself. …

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