Frank Faulk - Walking at the Edge of Reason and Awe

[Aggie]

Reason has been a blessing for humanity, but often at the cost of dulling our ability to appreciate the ineffable – that dimension of human experience that evokes wonder and awe. Frank Faulk seeks a balance between reason and the ineffable.

http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/ideas_20091005_20922.mp3

Another good one from CBC, considering the inapplicability of reason / rationality to the ineffable (and touching on the history of reason).  Definitely worth a listen.


For Siblings that self-identify as atheist, how do you approach the ineffable? Do you rationalize and/or downplay ineffable experiences, do you revel in them as part of the human experience......   or something else entirely?  Does a rational outlook diminish the experience of the ineffable?

[beagle]

Haven't had time to listen to the article yet, but in general I take the assumption that ineffability may just be a resolution limitation of the symbol set of the language used rather than an indication of anything transcendental, (bearing in mind the Godel limitation that all formal systems potentially have truths that are unprovable within the system, and ignoring statements that attempt to express the ineffable but are untestable and so subsequently meaningless in the Logical Positivist world view).
After all, if some things were totally ineffable you wouldn't even know they existed, and so be unable to talk about them at all (cue  Wittgenstein, agnosticism,whatever...).

[Griffin NoName]

Agreed, an interesting topic.

I see beagle has had a go at posting the ineffable. I can't understand a word. Marks for good effort.

[beagle]

I see beagle has had a go at posting the ineffable. I can't understand a word. Marks for good effort.

I'm bluffing.

The gist is that we don't expect to be able to express music etc in English rather than staff form, so why are we surprised we can't express love etc in an inappropriate notation. There's a whole different (more fun) way of expressing things like that.

[Aggie]

Beagle's right about the ineffable, technically speaking, with music as a good example (colour is also a good one - explain 'red' to someone who can't see).

I suppose what I'm getting at is the transcendental ineffable,  specifically those experiences that provoke wonder, awe and a sense of 'other' (for me, anyhow).

[Griffin NoName]

(colour is also a good one - explain 'red' to someone who can't see).

Have you tried asking a paint manufacturer's marketing department ? 

[beagle]

I suppose what I'm getting at is the transcendental ineffable,  specifically those experiences that provoke wonder, awe and a sense of 'other' (for me, anyhow).

That would be the drugs or endorphins. 

[Aggie]

That would be the drugs or endorphins. 

Mostly the outdoors for me. I can describe the endorphins - they are FREAKIN' AWESOME for the first minute or so before shock kicks in, and they are long gone before the shock kicks out, the concussion kicks in and you actually start feeling like you went superman face-first into a pile of rocks.  

I obviously don't take the right drugs. 
_{although heavy caffeination and long drives sometimes facilitates the process - I cooked up HSM theory while looking at prairie cumulus clouds and feeling the interconnectedness of it all while jacked right up on the stuff}.

[beagle]

Finally got round to listening to the radio clip. Reminds me a bit of Melvyn Bragg's "In our Time" programs. Windows Media Player decided it deserved a psychedelic visual accompaniment.

At least I now know the important distinction between ineffable and uneffable.