Achaean News
Chaos.
Written by: Inept Infernal Bauk, Knight of the Iron Citadel
Date: Wednesday, February 16th, 2000
Addressed to: Everyone
I concur with Fetzer that the WORD "Chaos" can be given a definition.
I can discuss the flavor of a mortal heart with you even if you don't know what a heart tastes like or for that matter what one is. I can say I know what hearts are even if I haven't studied them well and even if I don't know everything essential about them. This is part of what makes words more useful than pointing at objects: the word is not the thing. I opine that this doesn't mean that words, definitions, are limiting, but that description is necessarily and productively incomplete.
For example, if I say that Chaos is something which Eris knows, I am speaking truth (though not the whole truth
there are many other things to say about Chaos.) This does not deform or slander Chaos nor even my understanding of it. The Goddess knows All about Chaos (the thing.) Her followers know much about it, or at any rate are bound to have slogans, examples, etc. involving it, and there may be many who know next to nothing about it. Yet all of these people could, in principle, have a meaningful discussion of Chaos, as I presume Chaos is in at least some small part evident to everyone. (I would call Eris very big and evident but for my fear of unintentionally suggesting something untoward.)
To split a hair, it is not presumptuous or difficult to say what I mean when I use the word 'Chaos' at dinner but it would indeed be presumptuous for me to say that I understand Chaos, the thing itself, intimately. I think this is what people are getting at: presenting "the definition of Chaos" is seen as presenting the entire and unabridged list of all facts concerning Chaos, or all things that distinguish Chaos from that which is not chaos. I disagree that definitions are this kind of thing.
In a similar vein I disagree with Kona that truth is what you make it. As hard as you might try to "see it in another way", two and two will always be four.
I think saying that this kind of public meditation on Chaos is impossible or doomed is silly. On the other hand, as the Goddess pointed out, the one and only expert is with us again.
Bauk.
Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Aeguary, in the year 241 AF.
Chaos.
Written by: Inept Infernal Bauk, Knight of the Iron Citadel
Date: Wednesday, February 16th, 2000
Addressed to: Everyone
I concur with Fetzer that the WORD "Chaos" can be given a definition.
I can discuss the flavor of a mortal heart with you even if you don't know what a heart tastes like or for that matter what one is. I can say I know what hearts are even if I haven't studied them well and even if I don't know everything essential about them. This is part of what makes words more useful than pointing at objects: the word is not the thing. I opine that this doesn't mean that words, definitions, are limiting, but that description is necessarily and productively incomplete.
For example, if I say that Chaos is something which Eris knows, I am speaking truth (though not the whole truth
there are many other things to say about Chaos.) This does not deform or slander Chaos nor even my understanding of it. The Goddess knows All about Chaos (the thing.) Her followers know much about it, or at any rate are bound to have slogans, examples, etc. involving it, and there may be many who know next to nothing about it. Yet all of these people could, in principle, have a meaningful discussion of Chaos, as I presume Chaos is in at least some small part evident to everyone. (I would call Eris very big and evident but for my fear of unintentionally suggesting something untoward.)
To split a hair, it is not presumptuous or difficult to say what I mean when I use the word 'Chaos' at dinner but it would indeed be presumptuous for me to say that I understand Chaos, the thing itself, intimately. I think this is what people are getting at: presenting "the definition of Chaos" is seen as presenting the entire and unabridged list of all facts concerning Chaos, or all things that distinguish Chaos from that which is not chaos. I disagree that definitions are this kind of thing.
In a similar vein I disagree with Kona that truth is what you make it. As hard as you might try to "see it in another way", two and two will always be four.
I think saying that this kind of public meditation on Chaos is impossible or doomed is silly. On the other hand, as the Goddess pointed out, the one and only expert is with us again.
Bauk.
Penned by my hand on the 22nd of Aeguary, in the year 241 AF.