Words Loose From Their Docks - a poem about Abstractions

Words cut loose from their docks
sailing out in the open sea
just past your vision,
a mirage dancing the waves.

'Society' floats with a big blanket for a mast,
mooring out into past the horizon,
never touching its hull to the sand.

'Justice' has never docked,
perhaps it is a spectral ship
having no man stepping on the deck.

Have you ever seen 'Democracy'
and watched sailors join her rank?

Or sailed past 'time'
and seen rot and the effects of age?

Were the images defined?
Could you see it in the clear?

Floating loose, gone from control
trolling, rolling
separated from the center

What is 'justice?' Can you see our 'rights?'

Abstract, abstract -
pull language further from the docks.





synopsis: The words like 'society' in the metaphor of the poem are ships, but also are words high up on the abstraction ladder, having little observational referent in reality. Thus in the metaphor these ships/words have been released from the docks/reality. The ideas/ships exist abstractly, and thus are hinted to be spectral, or bordering between existing in reality and in the imagination. However, people rarely think about the word choice used to create our mindsets or form our ideas and truly consider what 'justice' or 'society' means. This makes us vunerable in the sense that a spinster politician or leader can weave a beautiful picture of ideals promoting a 'harmonious society,' or 'social justice' when in essence we have no true definition (much less a thing that these truly refer to) to the words. Thus through the use of words high up on the abstraction ladder we sail the ship of language and understanding further and further from the docks, taking our worldviews further from reality and more into idealism (which is not altogether bad, but something we should be aware of.) Word choice often sounds so good because it has little referent for us to have negative experiences with, or often so bad because of the connotations (or subjective feelings) placed on the words by repeated use in speeches and no true experience of the word because it lacks referent. Words are powerful things for deciding our world view and how we are geared to make snap judgments. It is important that we take responsibility and acknowledge the power of words and search for the true meaning and intention behind any abstract word (which in a sense is every single word, but go higher up on the ladder to make this manageable.)

A Linguist Attempt at Explaining My Aversion to Logic

Terminology may be difficult for this post, but I will be diligent in attempting to make sense.

Linguistically (through the study of words and their meanings) it is difficult for me to accept logic, particularly Aristotelian logic, because it is based upon a concept of identity naming.

Some Aristotelian laws of logic look like this:
A is A (law of identity)
Everything is either A or not-A (law of the excluded middle)
Nothing is both A and not-A (law of noncontradicition)

so in this sense... we run across a difficulty in that whatever A is, it has a binary (either a affirmative or negative) relationship anything it could be compared to.

example proof:
A cat is a cat.
A cat is not a dog.
Therefore Leroy the cat is not a dog.

However, because many of the names we give to things do not have referents (or direct meaning attached to something in reality, for example 'justice' has a very abstract referent far removed from daily observations) it is difficult to establish the law of the excluded middle. Meaning... not everything is good or not good... bad or not bad... the relationship is not binary, but a spectrum of meaning where "good" has no specific referent and is instead a range of meaning associated with certain qualities that go largely undefined in our thought process.

So logically... no matter how careful we are in defining any certain word, it is still at a level of abstraction because names are symbols, not the actual item. Even in "cat" we cannot know the word without examples, life experiences, extensional cats (cat1, cat2, cat3 and from these similarities I define "cat").

Therefore to put our abstract language into a binary relationship resembling math seems to leave out the equation. For instance 2+2=4, but two quarts of water and two quarts of bread will not fill a 4 quart container because there are properties contained within the object that are not contained in the number or word. Logic is also this way.

There is no logical proof that can be fully deductive because we always inductively categorize the objects or ideas we place within the symbolic meaning of a word, even in symbols such as A or 1 or X or cat. Logic is not a system like mathematics where the complete system is symbols because words do, for the intent in using them, have ties to reality.

Here is a quote from Einstein that applies to both math and logic:
"As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."

In a sense what this says is that in order to achieve the binary relationship of yes, no or affirmative, negative we must depart from the referent and move farther up the abstraction ladder, move farther away from the meaning in reality of the thing being referred to. We have to abstract reality from its original state in order to be certain about the properties in it. And then when applying those certainties to reality we have to generalize, and lose the certainty when trying to apply the concepts. In short we introduce variable, the malleability of life enters the equation and chaos theory enters and spirituality enters.

Logic does not account for these in the complete sense. Words cannot, because they abstract meaning due to their symbolic nature. However, this isn't to say that logic, and certainly not math are lost causes, only that logic does not apply to life and ideas so much as to rely on it or to believe it achieves "certainty." It is a system that can only achieve certainty by creating it's own sandbox and ignoring the symbol and abstract nature of language itself, the key tool of philosophy even when logic becomes symbolic and attempts to leave words behind in favor of more mathematical looking symbols.

A two value binary system has its time and place, but I personally believe life is too complicated and rich, that our era has so much information and diversity that labeling yes/no or affirmative/negative is a mind trap. Binary relationships simplify, but simplification can lead to prejudices and snap judgements made without understanding all the implications. Logic to me seems like a crutch, trying to escape the mysteries of the world by stepping into a system that hides the mysteries by ignoring the abstract and symbolic nature of its own self and most essential tools.

In Effort to Explain my Aversion to Logic: A Philosophical Essay on My Nature of Contentment

In Effort to Explain my Aversion to Logic
A Philosophical Essay on My Nature of Contentment


Having a natural curiosity in life I have always loved to search in books and conversations for a higher understanding of truth. However, my greatest leaps and gains in understanding have traditionally come from the reflective moment afterwards, the inner consumption of ideas when the words flow past my mind, my intelligence, and into my emotions, conscious, soul, and spirit. I feel fairly confident, though not fully proficient, in my ability to rationalize ideas, but that has never been my hunger. I’m just not built for it.
Instead I process ideas, absorb them, mould them into a framework and texture of a world view that is a convalescence of my inner longings, world experiences, and a sort of blue print calling I believe is imbued in my nature, an affinity for certain types of creative explorations.

Growing up in a Christian household with a terminally ill brother taught me a few things about faith and hope, but it also taught me to fight the rational, to attack the ‘facts’ with the blind faith of throwing quarters in wishing wells and praying that one day my brother would walk and conquer a disease written in to his very genetic makeup. The rationality is that the attempts were futile, whimsical, a mere comfort to the soon to be broken hearted. And perhaps to guard myself from ever truly become the broken hearted that vein of thought would speak of, I still refuse to believe such notions.
I have always believed in faith healings in essence because all of my young life I hoped and prayed for one. My world view is anchored in that possibility – that something of the divine can save us from an all to rational world where disease means death and pain. And while the fact that my brother was not expected to life past his birth, or the first three years of his life, or the first eight, or ten, and he lived to be thirteen still ends in the consequence of death and pain; there are amazing moments of hope winning, love building my soul, and faith being my fortress. I’ll admit to losing a bit of my naive faith; I haven’t thrown a coin in a well since my brother’s passing… but it is something I will teach my children, and hopefully something I will have the full strength again to do one day soon.

In my journey for understanding throughout college I have again chased the truth in books, majoring in English Education (to teach high school) and Philosophy (completely for my own growth). I love philosophy with a passion because in a sense I know it is what saves me from the dark side of myself, it is my protection from calling life hard, heartless, or stark. I search for meaning because after my brother passed away there has been moments I have needed again to find it. So in a sense, I will admit that my search for philosophical truth has been the slumber party teddy bear type where I seek to reaffirm my importance and ability to make a difference in the human condition of the present age.
I read Nietzsche with gritted teeth, Hume with half my mind closed, and on the English end, I refuse to read Sylvia Plath at all. I protect myself; and from what I’m not sure, but I am the type of person that guards my emotions in both what comes in and what goes out. My favorite authors are Emerson, Kierkegaard (and yes I can finally admit that), John Stuart Mill, and Immanuel Kant. What do you notice in all those names? These writers tell me without a doubt that what I do matters; and I need that. Something in me still needs, and will always need, affirmation that my efforts, my will, my hearts longings, have a chance in the world to see fulfillment. Anybody or anything that would deny me the consequence of my ability to hope and dream I resist with a fervent opposition. In truth I think I would fight like a cornered cat if it came down to it. I wouldn’t play nice with my ideals, they are to precious… to precariously perched on an unstable world filled with individuals who choose not to affirm what I seek to fill as my meaning.
To be honest, from an outside view I don’t think many people would recognize how much of a need my teddy bear philosophy fills for me. Like I said, I do guard my emotions rather well, and having been through many stressful years as a child, I do believe many situations don’t unsettle my inner calm very easily. But it has never been a purely intellectual pursuit for me, not a simple matter of curiosity, or even a facilitator to a more acute mind. It has always been a need, a release, the zone of impact where I can fight the inner demons of doubt – which is where the paradox lies, because in order to be able to win against the demons of doubt, I have to allow for doubt to exist.
The most dangerous arena of philosophy is near the realm of positivism, where we seek conclusive proof, empirical evidence, the world that would have crushed my childhood hopes. In the myth of Pandora’s box, the item which is kept from releasing into the world is the knowledge of future events, certainty over what will come. Not having that certainty is what lets humanity hope, what preserves us and drives our free will. It is as if there is a realm of philosophy, of science, that still wants to open Pandora’s box and release the knowledge of future events, release all the empirical proofs that let us know how the world works, to confirm the hard times and suffering that life is without uncertainty and the ability to hope.
Know while I am not certain whether humanity is capable of knowing all there is to know and actually free that knowledge of future events from the mythical box, I do feel truth in the idea that somehow certain pursuits of knowledge, trying to unlock certain doors in the mysteries of the universe, might not be the best progression for the human condition. Sometimes it is best for us to ‘speak like and child and act like a child’ not because ignorance is bliss, but because certainty is binding. We are not the type of creatures meant to worship probability and empirical fact, we are meant to worship the unknown, the Unknowable.
There is a eastern proverb: you cannot see your reflection in running water, only still water. And this I apply to our society: sometimes we seek so much to gain ‘knowledge,’ running alongside the river so quickly, that we never reflect, never slow down to see the pooled water, to look inside ourselves, to seek to understand where the river would take us. Not all paths are meant to be traveled. Subconsciously I have been using this idea to guide my college studies for quite a few years. Interest and natural affinity of talent do always promise a good path. We must be careful where we go, what we learn, how we embrace ideas.
Faith is a pool collected at the edge of the river, set alongside a peaceful grove of trees away from the ring tones, IM nudges, and humming engines of progress. Faith is the escape, the retreat from the forward march of humanity saying “I know what is best – follow me.” Faith is by nature intuitive, and by definition hardly rational. And while reason does not contradict faith, it also does not reach the essence of faith.
Last semester I was enrolled in logic. I had already tutored introduction to philosophy and taken quite a few upper level philosophy courses and eventually had to take the 200 level logic class I had someone avoid until that point. The challenge of word puzzles and proofs was indeed inviting because it is a skill set I have naturally excelled at through all of schooling, but the essence of logic was unsettling. I remember after about the first two weeks of class attempting to argue with my professor if any proof could indeed be deductive, if any statement could be deductive because we only inductively trust our reason (which leads to a Descartes like scenario.) I was trying to untie the underlying foundation of logic from the beginning, fussing at the nature of knowledge and the ability to know anything at for certain, even if only by reason alone.
Again, I grew up in love with willful disbelief, suspension of the logical if you will; in faith and hope as my blanket and shield. Logic, while enjoyable, seemed to be a pursuit that aimed its bow at my armor, levels its sword against my shield. Logic and I battled many a day. I skipped the class a few times, a first since my gen eds. My intuition seemed to cry out in class, as if too much practice in logic would put my muse to sleep. I survived the class mentally, pragmatically got the A, and go on with my personal quest that I call a philosophy major.
And another thing while we are being honest – intuition is how I guide my life. I may seem like a very rational, calculating, introspective person, but that is because you have not seen my dreams, not read in the journals, not known how many times it is my heart that gives me the courage to dance where I would not rationally go. Do I consider my inclinations? Of course, I am not claiming to be a fool, but the tingle at the base of the brain, the pressure on the solar plexus, the metaphorical urging of a dream, the inkling to pray, the self chatter afterwards, these are my decision makers, and for a long time in my life I have trusted the ethereal, esoteric, and the metaphysical. And if I remain true to the blueprint given to me by the Nature, I will remain that way, and too be honest, I wish a little more of the rational world could pause from running along the stream and open up to their intuition too.