Post 13

When one has fully internalized the view that language, mainly written and spoken language, provides an environment which if not causes then maintains conscious understanding and awareness, then one realizes that everything we consciously experience is shaped and molded, is structured, by language.

We cannot conceive of a world without language, if for no other reason than that the very ability to conceive, to employ conceptual thought, is maintained by language. One of the implications of this view is that if we change the language we use then we will change the way we perceive and apprehend reality. Thus reality as we know it will, in a sense, shift and change with our shifts and changes of language.

Post 12

I believe that a democratisation and fair distribution of knowledge and awareness is very important. This is one reason why I don't like the attitude, found in certain academics and  academic traditions, that if one is not institutionally educated in a particular field, if one has simply read the literature and taught themselves certain ideas and disciplines, then one's opinions and observations are somehow less valid than those of specialist academics.

We have reached a stage where we cannot inhibit the opinions and observations of certain individuals simply because they do not have the credentials. We have reached a stage where we cannot separate and close off certain fields of knowledge from others. Any boundaries that still exist between academic fields and disciplines, and an individual's access to such fields and disciplines, ought to be dissolved. We are learning more and more that we live in an interconnected world where most events affect most other events.