Chapter One
The Delusional Homosapiens
Language, The Great Delusion
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Besides the imagining of gods, language is the most destructive creation of homosapiens.
The human species considers itself to be intelligent. It also considers itself to be the only intelligent living form on this planet―indeed our solar system and even the universe. The scientific community is slowly, but reluctantly, beginning to make insecure statements conceding that other species may have a modicum of intelligence. However, because we must always preserve our pinnacle relevance, at present, we still maintain that language and communication among other species is, at best, rudimentary.
Language is usually offered as a primary hallmark separating human from beast. That statement is itself already a delusion ― we imagine ourselves to be a unique creation in the cosmos. In fact, every entity around us is a distinct creation. Unique, unfortunately, designates an imaginary and emotional sense of "I" am, or "We" are special.
Claiming to be exceptional, a phenomenon, atypical or distinguished from other forms of life is nothing more than expressing and reinforcing the principle of continuity ― our brainbody paradigm. If we forego our concept of being paramount in the universe, we imagine renouncing or diminishing our success for survival. And with this our delusions of reality, made possible only through language, begin.
It is worth noting that, with "rudimentary" language, all forms of life or other species have been capable of surviving hundreds of millions and even billions of years. They do not need dictionaries with over 300,000 entries to live fruitfully. They do not need to create and launch spacecraft into the solar system. They do not need to create fictive worlds of literature, dream-worlds of ballet nor tribal Constitutions. Construction and imagination can only exist because of language. Without it, we cannot express our sense of wellbeing or fear. With it, be build our delusional worlds.
Language allows us to create word strings which define our perceived reality. It is also the tool to create false imaginations and realities. In a sense, it is a magnificent tool used to enhance our creature comforts, but this vehicle also allows the advancement of irrelevant fantasies which then build concepts and beliefs on a scale of grand nonsense. One only has to look at all the delusional and insignificant literature humankind has and continues to create and claim it as factual or meaningful creativity.
What is real or meaningful about a 007 story? It is meaningless fantasy of desired human control, power, and therefore false securities of personal safety and survival. What is real or meaningful about a Rembrandt or Van Gogh painting, or the Mona Lisa? We create word strings of their importance or value, depending upon our emotional state, at the moment. The technique of the brush or the boldness of a color has value only in our imagination.
We would be much wiser to teach individuals ― humankind ― how to fish for sustenance and thereby effect survival and personal security. It would be increasingly beneficial to spend our lives learning and instructing ourselves and groups how to minimize human pollution and environmental devastation, thereby improving the wellbeing of our individual existence. The value of our species is as significant as that of the dinosaurs.
Language has allowed us to create the sciences, both positive and destructive, with great achievements on both sides. But language continues to create conceptual falsehoods of governments with bogus promises of eternal bliss and security. Language creates delusional worlds of cosmetic offerings which actualize self-worth and esteem, delusional worlds of fashion and all its false emotional promises, delusional worlds of artificial foods, delusional worlds of medicinal and supplement concoctions, ad nauseum. Every human industry offers sham realities, shaping our beliefs, spawning new apparitions of self-confidence and false paradises. Delusional worlds are possible only because of and through language.
Apes are quite content without silk dresses.
Image Credit: Copyright Eugene Ivanov via Shutterstock.
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