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...Whilst on board the Beagle I was quite orthodox, and I remember being heartily laughed at by several of the officers... for quoting the Bible as an unanswerable authority on some point of morality... But I had gradually come by this time, i.e., 1836 to 1839, to see that the Old Testament from its manifestly false history of the world, with the Tower of Babel, the rainbow at sign, &c., &c., and from its attributing to God the feelings of a revengeful tyrant, was no more to be trusted than the sacred books of the Hindoos, or the beliefs of any barbarian.
...By further reflecting that the clearest evidence would be requisite to make any sane man believe in the miracles by which Christianity is supported, (and that the more we know of the fixed laws of nature the more incredible do miracles become), that the men at that time were ignorant and credulous to a degree almost uncomprehensible by us, that the Gospels cannot be proved to have been written simultaneously with the events, that they differ in many important details, far too important, as it seemed to me, to be admitted as the usual inaccuracies of eyewitnesses; by such reflections as these, which I give not as having the least novelty or value, but as they influenced me, I gradually came to disbelieve in Christianity as a divine revelation. The fact that many false religions have spread over large portions of the earth like wild-fire had some weight with me. Beautiful as is the morality of the New Testament, it can be hardly denied that its perfection depends in part on the interpretation which we now put on metaphors and allegories.
But I was very unwilling to give up my belief... Thus disbelief crept over me at a very slow rate, but was at last complete. The rate was so slow that I felt no distress, and have never since doubted even for a single second that my conclusion was correct. I can indeed hardly see how anyone ought to wish Christianity to be true; for if so the plain language of the text seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all of my friends, will be everlastingly punished.
And this is a damnable doctrine.
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Charles Darwin (The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, 1809–82)
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I'm going to miss them,' said a Federal Building guard; he had started learning sign language and hoped one day to become a sign language interpreter. 'They were real nice people.
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Judith Heumann (Being Heumann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist)
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The dream-thoughts and the dream-content lie before us like two versions of the same content in two different languages, or rather, the dream-content looks to us like a translation of the dream-thoughts into another mode of expression, and we are supposed to get to know its signs and laws of grammatical construction by comparing the original and the translation.
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Sigmund Freud (The Interpretation of Dreams (World's Classics))
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As Umberto Eco might say: for communicating, language is perfect; there could be nothing better. And yet, language doesn’t say everything. The body speaks, objects speak, history speaks, individual or collective destinies speak, life and death speak to us constantly in a thousand different ways. Man is an interpreting machine and, with a little imagination, he sees signs everywhere
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Laurent Binet (The Seventh Function of Language)
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Don’t forget that one interpretation never exhausts the sign, that polysemy is a bottomless well where we can hear an infinite number of echoes: a word’s meaning never runs dry.
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Laurent Binet (The Seventh Function of Language)
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Lacan, as we have seen in our discussion of Freud, regards the unconscious as structured like a language. This is not only because it works by metaphor and metonymy: it is also because, like language itself for the post-structuralists, it is composed less of signs — stable meanings — than of signifiers. If you dream of a horse, it is not immediately obvious what this signifies: it may have many contradictory meanings, may be just one of a whole chain of signifiers with equally multiple meanings. The image of the horse, that is to say, is not a sign in Saussure’s sense - it does not have one determined signified tied neatly to its tail - but is a signifier which may be attached to many different signifieds, and which may itself bear the traces of the other signifiers which surround it. (I was not aware, when I wrote the above sentence, of the word-play involved in ‘horse’ and ‘tail’: one signifier interacted with another against my conscious intention.) The unconscious is just a continual movement and activity of signifiers, whose signifieds are often inaccessible to us because they are repressed. This is why Lacan speaks of the unconscious as a ‘sliding of the signified beneath the signifier’, as a constant fading and evaporation of meaning, a bizarre ‘modernist’ text which is almost unreadable and which will certainly never yield up its final secrets to interpretation.
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Terry Eagleton (Literary Theory: An Introduction)
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At an NRA annual meeting in Cincinnati in 1977, Second Amendment “absolutists” took control of the NRA from previous leaders who thought the organization was really there to protect marksmen. Gun nuts call this event the Revolt at Cincinnati. Our modern epidemic of mass shootings can, more or less, be traced to these yahoos winning control of that organization. The ammosexuals reformed the NRA from the generally benign conglomeration of Bambi killers to the grotesque weapon of mass destruction we know it to be today. It was this new NRA that invented the radical rationalization of the Second Amendment as a right to armed self-defense. It was this new NRA that gained political supremacy in the Republican party. It was this new NRA that got Ronald Reagan, who once signed one of the most sweeping gun restrictions in the nation, to sign the Firearm Owners Protection Act of 1986, an act that rolled back many of the restrictions from the Gun Control Act. The NRA’s wholesale reimagining of the Second Amendment hasn’t just lured Republican politicians, it’s become part of the gospel of Republican judges. The Federalist Society and the Heritage Foundation, the two outside interest groups most responsible for telling Republican judges how to rule, have fully adopted an absolutist, blood-soaked interpretation of the Second Amendment. These groups of alleged “textualists” read “well regulated militia” clear out of the text of the Amendment. Instead, they substitute self-defense as the “original purpose” of the language. There was an original purpose to the Second Amendment, but it wasn’t to keep people safe. It was to preserve white supremacy and slavery.
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Elie Mystal (Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution)
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The period of general neglect of Eliot's poetry was one in which a revolution was occurring in the theory of interpretation. Existentialist, phenomenologist, structuralist, psychoanalytic, feminist, and poststructuralist theories appeared and stimulated dazzling conversations about how texts mean. Bloom, Miller, Poulet, Gadamer, Foucault, Lacan, Kristeva, and Derrida are just a few of the critics who have contributed to these conversations. These studies have enormous value for critics interested in Eliot. In the first place, they have popularized insights about language which are central in Eliot poetry from "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" to Four Quartets. Anyone who doubts this should read Derrida "Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences" and follow up with a reading of part 5 of each of Four Quartets. In the second place, the studies in theory have created an audience that will be able to appreciate Eliot's dissertation and early philosophical work, an audience unthinkable a generation ago.
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Jewel Spears Brooker (Reading the Waste Land: Modernism and the Limits of Interpretation)
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You have heard me call for philosophers to place themselves beyond good and evil, - to rise above the illusion of moral judgment.
This call is the result of an insight that I was the first to formulate: there are absolutely no moral facts.
What moral and religious judgments have in common is the belief in things that are not real.
Morality is just an interpretation of certain phenomena or (more accurately) a mis-interpretation.
Moral judgments, like religious ones, presuppose a level of ignorance in which even the concept of reality is missing and there is no distinction between the real and the imaginary; a level where 'truth' is the name for the very things that we now call 'illusions'.
That is why moral judgments should never be taken literally: on their own, they are just absurdities.
But semiotically, they are invaluable: if you know what to look for, moral judgments reveal the most valuable realities of the cultures and interiorities that did not know enough to 'understand' themselves.
Morality is just a sign language, just a symptomatology: you have to know what it means in order to take advantage of it.
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Friedrich Nietzsche (Twilight of the Idols)
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Everything in the universe is connected, a fact long known by astrologers but now being recognized by scientists using quantum mechanics, which suggests that every atom affects other atoms. In quantum physics, everything is made of waves and particles and works according to entanglement theory, which suggests that no particle is entirely independent. In a nutshell, everything in the universe works together and the movements of the cosmic bodies activate energy within us and the natural world. In other words, we are entangled with the entire universe. All the energies intertwine in an intricate dance of planetary magic and science, and the language of astrology interprets that dance.
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Louise Edington (The Complete Guide to Astrology: Understanding Yourself, Your Signs, and Your Birth Chart)
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I bought the air freshener for four euro because it was a kind of artefact translated into many languages, and also because it was clearly an interpretation of a woman ( breasts belly apron eyelashes) and I had becomes confused by the signs for servicios in public places. I could not figure out why one sign was male and the other female. The most common stick figure sign was not particularly male or female. Did I need this aerosol to make things clearer to me? What kind of clarity was I after?
I had conquered Juan who was Zeus the thunderer as far as I was concerned, but the signs were all mixed up because his job in the injury hut was to tend the wounded with his tube of ointment. He was maternal, brotherly, he was like a sister, perhaps paternal, he had become my lover. Are we all lurking in each other's sign? Do I and the woman on the air freshener belong to the same sign? Another aeroplane was flying above the market, it's metal body heavy in the sky. A male pilot I had met in the Coffee House had told me that an aircraft was always referred to as 'she'. His task was to keep her in balance, to make her a extension of his hands, to make her responsive to the lightest of touch. She was sensitive and needed to be handled delicately. A week later, after we had slept together, I discovered that he was also responsive to the lightest of touch.
It wasn't clarity I was after. I wanted things to be less clear.
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Deborah Levy (Hot Milk)
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The thing many people don’t realize about corporate lawyers is that they are nothing like what you see on TV shows. Sherry, Aldridge, and I will never step foot in a courtroom. We’ll never argue a case. We do deals; we’re not litigators. We prepare documents and review every piece of paperwork for a merger or an acquisition. Or to take a company public. On Suits, Harvey does both paperwork and crushes it in court. In reality, the lawyers at our firm who argue cases don’t have a clue what we do in these conference rooms. Most of them haven’t prepared a document in a decade. People think our form of corporate law is the less ambitious of the two, and while in many ways it’s less glamorous—no closing arguments, no media interviews—nothing compares to the power of the paper. At the end of the day, law comes down to what is written, and we do the writing. I love the order of deal making, the clarity of language—how there is little room for interpretation and none for error. I love the black-and-white terms. I love that in the final stages of closing a deal—particularly those of the magnitude Wachtell takes on—seemingly insurmountable obstacles arise. Apocalyptic scenarios, disagreements, and details that threaten to topple it all. It seems impossible we’ll ever get both parties on the same page, but somehow we do. Somehow, contracts get agreed upon and signed. Somehow, deals get done. And when it finally happens, it’s exhilarating. Better than any day in court. It’s written. Binding. Anyone can bend a judge’s or jury’s will with bravado, but to do it on paper—in black and white—that takes a particular kind of artistry. It’s truth in poetry. I
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Rebecca Serle (In Five Years)
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Move when it’s time We were touring the ruins at Hovenweep National Monument in the southwestern United States. A sign along the interpretive trail told about the Anasazi who had lived along the small, narrow canyon so long ago. The archaeologists have done their best to determine what these ancient Indians did and how they lived their lives. The signs told about the strategic positioning of the buildings perched precariously on the edge of a cliff, and questioned what had caused this ancient group to suddenly disappear long ago. “Maybe they just got tired of living there and moved,” my friend said. We laughed as we pictured a group of wise ancients sitting around the campfire one night. “You know,” says one of them, “I’m tired of this desert. Let’s move to the beach.” And in our story they did. No mystery. No aliens taking them away. They just moved on, much like we do today. It’s easy to romanticize what we don’t know. It’s easy to assume that someone else must have a greater vision, a nobler purpose than just going to work, having a family, and living a life. People are people, and have been throughout time. Our problems aren’t new or unique. The secret to happiness is the same as it has always been. If you are unhappy with where you are, don’t be there. Yes, you may be here now, you may be learning hard lessons today, but there is no reason to stay there. If it hurts to touch the stove, don’t touch it. If you want to be someplace else, move. If you want to chase a dream, then do it. Learn your lessons where you are, but don’t close off your ability to move and to learn new lessons someplace else. Are you happy with the path that you’re on? If not, maybe it’s time to choose a new one. There need not be a great mysterious reason. Sometimes it’s just hot and dry, and the beach is calling your name. Be where you want to be. God, give me the courage to find a path with heart. Help me move on when it’s time.
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Melody Beattie (More Language of Letting Go: 366 New Daily Meditations (Hazelden Meditation Series))
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The job was a sign of his failings. In his youth he’d been a devoted scholar of foreign languages, the owner of an impressive collection of dictionaries. He had dreamed of being an interpreter for diplomats and dignitaries, resolving conflicts between people and nations, settling disputes of which he alone could understand both sides. He was a self-educated man. In a series of notebooks, in the evenings before his parents settled his marriage, he had listed the common etymologies of words, and at one point in his life he was confident that he could converse, if given the opportunity, in English, French, Russian, Portuguese, and Italian, not to mention Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, and Gujarati. Now only a handful of European phrases remained in his memory, scattered words for things like saucers and chairs. English was the only non-Indian language he spoke fluently anymore. Mr. Kapasi knew it was not a remarkable talent. Sometimes he feared that his children knew better English than he did, just from watching television. Still, it came in handy for the tours.
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Jhumpa Lahiri (Interpreter of Maladies)
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Broca’s area is adjacent to the part of the motor-control strip dedicated to the jaws, lip, and tongue, and it was once thought that Broca’s area is involved in the production of language (though obviously not speech per se, because writing and signing are just as affected). But the area seems to be implicated in grammatical processing in general. A defect in grammar will be most obvious in the output, because any slip will lead to a sentence that is conspicuously defective. Comprehension, on the other hand, can often exploit the redundancy in speech to come up with sensible interpretations with little in the way of actual parsing. For example, one can understand The dog bit the man or The apple that the boy is eating is red just by knowing that dogs bite men, boys eat apples, and apples are red. Even The car pushes the truck can be guessed at because the cause is mentioned before the effect. For a century, Broca’s aphasics fooled neurologists by using shortcuts. Their trickery was finally unmasked when psycholinguists asked them to act out sentences that could be understood only by their syntax, like The car is pushed by the truck or The girl whom the boy is pushing is tall. The patients gave the correct interpretation half the time and its opposite half the time—a mental coin flip.
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Steven Pinker (The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language)
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A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow men.
That is the pattern of the myth, and that is the pattern of these fantasies of the psyche.
Now it was Dr Perry's thesis in his paper that in certain cases the best thing is to let the schizophrenic process run its course, not to abort the psychosis by administering shock treatments and the like, but, on the contrary, to help the process of disintegration and reintegration along. However, if a doctor is to be helpful in this way, he has to understand the image language of mythology. He has himself to understand what the fragmentary signs and signals signify that his patient, totally out of touch with rationally oriented manners of thought and communication, is trying to bring forth in order to establish some kind of contact. Interpreted from this point of view, a schizophrenic breakdown is an inward and backward journey to recover something missed or lost, and to restore, thereby, a vital balance. So let the voyager go. He has tipped over and is sinking, perhaps drowning; yet, as in the old legend of Gilgamesh and his long, deep dive to the bottom of the cosmic sea to pluck the watercress of immortality, there is the one green value of his life down there. Don't cut him off from it: help him through.
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Joseph Campbell (Myths to Live By)
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No Mirrors in My Nana’s House” Sweet Honey in the Rock LYRICS BY YSAYE MARIA BARNWELL Sweet Honey in the Rock is a Grammy Award–winning vocal group of black women vocalists founded in 1973 by Bernice Johnson Reagon. The group’s members have changed during its long tenure, but it retains a core of five vocalists and a sign-language interpreter. Their performances are deeply embodied celebrations of black women’s lived experiences. The group’s name is derived from Psalm 81:16: “But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” Sign-language interpreter Dr. Ysaye Barnwell joined Sweet Honey in the Rock in 1979 and appears in more than thirty recordings with the group. She is the author of one of the group’s most popular recordings, “No Mirrors in My Nana’s House.” It is a stirring piece that reveals how the loving protection of black women can shield black girls from a painful world that seeks to negate their beauty and worth. In 1998 the lyrics became a children’s book published by Harcourt Brace. There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house. There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house. And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun). I never knew that my skin was too black. I never knew that my nose was too flat. I never knew that my clothes didn’t fit. I never knew there were things that I’d missed, cause the beauty in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun); . . . was in her eyes. There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house. And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun). I was intrigued by the cracks in the walls. I tasted, with joy, the dust that would fall. The noise in the hallway was music to me. The trash and the rubbish just cushioned my feet. And the beauty in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun). . . . was in her eyes. There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house. And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun). The world outside was a magical place. I only knew love. I never knew hate, and the beauty in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun). . . . was in her eyes. There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house. There were no mirrors in my Nana’s house, no mirrors in my Nana’s house. And the beauty that I saw in everything was in her eyes (like the rising of the sun).
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Melissa V. Harris-Perry (Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America)
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At the same time as suggesting the language game we clearly do not have a change in the name of God as our only way to think in New Testament terms of an earth at peace. There is Jesus! It is very hard to attribute violence to the originator of the gospel, of the good news of God’s forgiveness and love, of divine healing and welcome. Despite the fact that people refer to his action in the temple in the last days of his life as an exceptional yet conclusive ‘proof’ of Jesus’ use of violence no serious bible scholar would look on these actions divorced from his whole ministry. And because of that we have to see them as a conscious and deliberate prophetic sign-action, taking control of the temple for a brief period to show how it stood in contrast to the direct relationship with God which he proclaimed, and to make the point with a definitive emphasis. The whip he plaits in John is used to drive the animals, probably with the sound of the crack alone. No one is attacked. No one gets hurt. And very soon the situation reverts to the status quo: the authorities take back control of the temple and decide on Jesus’ suffering and death in order to control him. Overall the event is to be seen as Jesus placing himself purposely and calculatedly in the cross-hairs for the sake of the truth, much rather than doing harm to anyone else. The consequences of his actions were indeed ‘the cross’, and supremely in the situation of crucifixion Jesus does not invoke retaliation on his enemies, or threaten those who reject redemption; rather he prays for their forgiveness. No, Jesus’ whole life-story makes him unmistakably a figure of transcendent nonviolence. The problem lies elsewhere, with the way the cross is interpreted within the framework of a violent God. It is unfathomably ironic that the icon of human non-retaliation, Jesus’ cross, gets turned in the tradition into a supreme piece of vengeance—God’s ‘just’ punishment of Jesus in our place. My book, Cross Purposes, is about the way this tradition got formed and it represents just one of a constant stream of writing, gathering force at the end of the last century and continuing into this, questioning how this could be the meaning of the central symbol of Christianity.2 I think the vigor of that question can only continue to grow, while the nonviolence of Jesus’ response must at the same time stand out in greater and greater relief, in its own right and for its own sake. And for that same reason the argument at hand, of ‘No-name’ for a nonviolent God, can only be strengthened when we highlight the nonviolence of Jesus against the traditional violent concept of ‘God’. Now
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Anthony Bartlett (Virtually Christian: How Christ Changes Human Meaning and Makes Creation New)
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Sema is a pure Semitic reference that most probably has been interpreted later on in other cultures to be a 'third eye' as I am witnessing to the works of my friends such as Richard Cassaro and Gary Osborn. However, after establishing the link between Egypt and Mecca, I cannot evade observing the fact that the Shen sign could only have originally referred to 'protection' for that my additional proof lies in Quran where the position of such symbolism is clearly distinguished to be within the Eyes (Quran 52:48). Sema is the concept with which ancient Egyptians unequivocally aspired to Mecca's heritage. They used it to tighten their claim on divine civilization knowing the significance of the mother of all cities (i.e., Mecca). The Symbolism of Sema Tawy is a pure Semitic construct, it is so Semitic that the purest Semitic tongue (i.e., Arabic) and the one nearest to the Proto-Semitic language (according to western scholars themselves) has articulated itself unambiguously in the most influential Semitic book (i.e., Quran) saying: 'Their Sema(s) are on their faces from the trace of prostration'. What this demonstrates to us is that ancient Egypt confused the divine function of protecting the believer with that of the human function of worshipping the creator in its symbolism.
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Ibrahim Ibrahim (Quotable: My Worldview)
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Coins, too—since they consist of metal—have a level of conductivity that seems to make them easy targets for the Other Side. Look for coins appearing in unlikely places or at unlikely times, specifically when you are thinking of someone you love who has crossed, wrestling with an important decision, or having a difficult day. I once found a dime standing on its edge in my dryer—at the exact moment that I was thinking about my father, who had crossed. The Other Side finds a way to grab our attention, so I interpreted that unusual coin behavior as a sign—a hello and a hug from my dad.
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Laura Lynne Jackson (Signs: The Secret Language of the Universe)
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had a reputation in Athens for being a meticulous interpreter. When I was at a job, I tried to stop thinking and become a conduit, a bridge that let conversation flow between deaf and hearing cultures. If I wasn’t focused, getting it exactly right could be tricky, especially since not all deaf people use ASL. Some rely on finger spelling or signed English or their own invented system of home signs or combinations of all these things. To complicate matters, ASL is not at all structured like English. In fact, a hearing person given a flat word-for-word interpretation would probably think the deaf speaker was uneducated. Literal translations are about as user-friendly as those instruction manuals that come with some Japanese electronics, because ASL isn’t a way to speak English. It’s a separate language with its own structure and idiom, a whole-body language that relies as much on physical nuance as it does on signs. Interpreting ASL comes very naturally to me, because it is my native language as surely as English is. It’s the language I learned first, signing with my mother months before I said an intelligible word to anyone else.
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Joshilyn Jackson (Between, Georgia)
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The word the Anglo-Saxon poets of Dark Age England used for fate highlights this ironic, circling, swerving logic; they called it wyrd—a word related to a lot of other w-r words still existing in our language that connote twisting and turning (worm, wrap, writhe, wreath, wring, and so on—even word, which, as writers know, is made of bendy-twisty marks on paper or stone). Wyrd, or weird, is the bending force in our lives that, among other things, causes dark prophecies to be fulfilled not only despite but actually because of our best efforts at preventing them. It also warps our mind and induces a kind of compulsion around more appealing-sounding prophecies, as it did to Shakespeare’s Macbeth after hearing the Weird Sisters’ prophecy that he would become king. When we realize that the Minkowski block universe, in its resolute self-consistency, imposes a wyrd-like law upon us (a “law in the cosmos,” you might call it), then all those antique myths about prophecy and the ironic insistency of fate start to appear less like the superstitions of benighted folk in the Back When and start to seem remarkably, well, prescient. And not only prescient, but based on real-life experience with prescience. Divination was an important part of Greek culture, for instance; it was even the basis of their medicine. Sick patients went to temples and caves to have healing dreams in the presence of priests who could interpret their dreams’ signs. They were not strangers to this stuff, as we now are. As intrinsically precognitive beings who think of ourselves as freely willed, the logic of wyrd is our ruler. We can’t go anywhere that would prevent ourselves from existing, prevent ourselves from getting to the experiences and realizations ahead of us that will turn out to have retroinfluenced our lives now, and this imposes a kind of blindness on us. That blindness may keep us from going insane, reducing the level of prophecy to a manageable level. It is why our dreamlife only shows us the future as through a glass, darkly. It is also why the world seems so tricksterish to those who are really paying attention. That we are interfered with by an intelligence that is somehow within us but also Other is the human intuition that Freud theorized in such a radical new way. His focus was on how this Other inside could make us ill; the flip side is that it really does serve as our guide, especially when we let ourselves be led by our unreason. Research shows that “psi” is an unconscious, un-willed function or group of functions.2 The laboratory experiments by Daryl Bem, Dean Radin, and many others strongly support something like presentiment (future-feeling) operating outside of conscious awareness, and it could be a pervasive feature or even a basic underlying principle of our psychology.
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Eric Wargo (Precognitive Dreamwork and the Long Self: Interpreting Messages from Your Future (A Sacred Planet Book))
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am arguing, therefore, for the replacement of interpretation as it is generally practiced with exegesis. Exegesis is a method of discovering relations among language and referents, and is an essential part of translation. “Exegesis … does not constitute the interpretation of the symbol, but one of its extensions,” Dan Sperber maintains, and so it delineates truth as a set of relations rather than an ultimate determinant of meaning.28 A “meaning” is only another sign in the system from which the symbol being interpreted comes. As long as we find the meaning within other parts of the system, we are merely rotating signs in a way similar to that done by those using the system. To
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Jason David BeDuhn (The Manichaean Body: In Discipline and Ritual)
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The Standards should also be read as allowing for the widest possible range of students to participate fully from the outset and as permitting appropriate accommodations to ensure maximum participation of students with special education needs. For example, for students with disabilities reading should allow for the use of Braille, screen-reader technology, or other assistive devices, while writing should include the use of a scribe, computer, or speech-to-text technology. In a similar vein, speaking and listening should be interpreted broadly to include sign language” (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). This
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Sally A. Spencer (Making the Common Core Writing Standards Accessible Through Universal Design for Learning)
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207, 2nd Floor, 3rd Main Rd, Chamrajpet,
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Kannada Publishing
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Mama pushes her chair back from the table so she can interpret spoken words for me and Papa, and sign language for Andrew. Nancy and Reverend Lee listen and watch.
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Ann Clare LeZotte (Show Me a Sign (Show Me a Sign #1))
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The task of general semiotics is that of tracing a single formal structure which underlies all these phenomena, this structure being that of the inference which generates interpretation.
The task of specific semiotics, on the other hand, will be that of establishing—according to the sign system in question—the rules of greater or lesser semiotic necessity for inferences (institutionalization rules).
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Umberto Eco (Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Advances in Semiotics))
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Meaning is chased through the text from sign to sign, always vanishing as we seem to reach it; and if we stop at a particular place, saying now we have it, now the meaning lies before us, then this is our decision, which may have a political justification, but which is in no way dictated by the text. Thus the ambiguous noun ‘différence’ must be taken here in both its senses – as difference and deferral: and this too is recorded in that mysterious misspelling.
The effect of such cryptic ideas is to introduce not a critical reading of a text, but a series of spells, by which meaning is first imprisoned, and then extinguished. The goal is to deconstruct what the author has constructed, to read the ‘text’ against itself, by showing that the endeavour to mean one thing generates the opposite reading. The ‘text’ subverts itself before our eyes, meaning anything and therefore nothing. Whether the result is a ‘free play of meanings’, whether we can say, with some of Derrida’s disciples, that every interpretation is a misinterpretation, are matters that are hotly and comically disputed in the camp of deconstruction. But for our purpose, these disputes can be set aside. What matters is the source of the ‘will to believe’ that leads people to adhere so frantically to these doctrines that cannot survive translation from the peculiar language which announces them.
Deconstruction is neither a method nor an argument. It should be understood on the model of magic incantation. Incantations are not arguments, and avoid completed thoughts and finished sentences. They depend on crucial terms, which derive their effect from repetition, and from their appearance in long lists of cryptic syllables. Their purpose is not to describe what is there, but to summon what is not there: to charm the god into the idol, so as to reveal himself in the here and now. Incantations can do their work only if key words and phrases acquire a mystical penumbra. The meaning of these symbols stretches deep in another dimension, and can never be coaxed into a plain statement. Incantations resist the definition of their terms. Their purpose is not to reveal the mystery but to preserve it – to enfold it (as Derrida might say) within the sacred symbol, within the ‘sign’. The sacred word is not defined, but inserted into a mystical ballet. The aim is not to acquire a meaning, but to ensure that the question of meaning is gradually forgotten and the word itself, in all its mesmerising nothingness, occupies the foreground of our attention.
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Roger Scruton (Modern Culture)
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General Tips for Better-than-Average Lie-Detecting Sit back and let the other person volunteer information, rather than pulling it out of them. Don’t let on what you know too early—or at all. Stay relaxed and causal. What you are observing is not the person themselves, but the person as they are in a quasi-interrogational situation with you. So don’t make it seem like an inquisition, otherwise you may simply be watching them feel distressed about the situation itself. Don’t worry about individual signs and clues like touching the nose, looking up to the right or stuttering. Rather, look at how the person responds in general to shifts in the conversation, especially at junctures where you believe they may be having to concoct a story on the fly. Listen for stories that seem unusually long or detailed—liars use more words, and they may even talk more quickly. Take your time. It may be a while before you uncover a deception. But the longer the other person talks, the more chance they have of slipping up or getting their story tangled. Watch primarily for inconsistencies—details of the story that don’t add up, emotional expressions that don’t fit the story, or abrupt shifts in the way the story is told. Being chatty and then all of a sudden getting quiet and serious when you ask a particular question is certainly telling. Always interpret your conversation in light of what you already know, the context, and other details you’ve observed in your interactions with this person. It’s all about looking at patterns, and then trying to determine if any disruptions in that pattern point to something interesting. Don’t be afraid to trust your gut instinct! Your unconscious mind may have picked up some data your conscious mind hasn’t become aware of. Don’t make decisions on intuition alone, but don’t dismiss it too quickly, either. Takeaways Casual observation of body language, voice and verbal cues can help with understanding honest people, but we need more sophisticated techniques to help us detect liars. Most people are not as good at spotting deception as they think they are. Bias, expectation and the belief that we can’t or shouldn’t be lied to can get in the way of realizing we’re being deceived. Good lie detection is a dynamic process that focuses on the conversation. Use open ended questions to get people to surrender information voluntarily, and observe. Look out for overly wordy stories that are presented all at once, inconsistencies in the story or emotional affect, delays or avoidance in answering questions, or inability to answer unexpected questions. Liars are easier to spot when lying is spontaneous—try not to allow the liar any time to prepare or rehearse a script, or else ask unexpected questions or plant a lie yourself to watch their response and gain a baseline against which to compare the possible lie. Increasing cognitive load can cause a liar to fumble their story or lose track of details, revealing themselves in a lie. Keep drilling for detail and be suspicious if details don’t add up, if emotion doesn’t match content, or if the person is deliberately stalling for time. Look out for specific signs that a person is cognitively overloaded. One example is that the liar will display less emotions while speaking than they or an average person normally would in their situation. These emotions will instead leak through in their body language. Most commonly, this manifests in more frequent blinking, pupil dilation, speech disturbances, and slips of tongue. Spotting liars is notoriously difficult, but we improve our chances when we focus on strategic and targeted conversations designed to make the liar trip up on his own story, rather than trying to guess hidden intentions from body language alone.
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Patrick King (Read People Like a Book: How to Analyze, Understand, and Predict People’s Emotions, Thoughts, Intentions, and Behaviors)
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And so they ride through the city, father and child, seeing, each, a different place. Jane, with the liberation of childhood, without rationality or expectations, sees an anarchic landscape in which anything is possible and many things are provocative. She wrestles with language, scans advertisements, shop-signs, logos on vans and trucks. She pays professional attention to other children, in the way that animals are most sensitive to their own species. She searches out the things that tether her to a known world — a bus with a familiar destination, a hoarding that proclaims her favourite brand of chocolate, Volkswagen cars that are like her father’s. Hers is a heliocentric universe, and she is the sun. She is fettered by a child’s careless egotism, but freed from adult preconceptions. She does not know what to expect, and can therefore assess what she sees in its own terms. She does not interpret, and therefore can construct her own system of references. The Arabic script on the windows of the Bank of Kuwait becomes little dancing figures. The caryatids outside the church in Euston Road are ladies wearing bath towels with books on their heads. For her, the city is alternately mysterious and familiar, baffling and instructive. She tests her own capacities against the view from the window of the bus; she rhymes and puns, she counts, she classifies. She plays games with words and sounds, she flexes her imagination, she takes the place as she sees it and twists it to her own ends.
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Penelope Lively (City of the Mind)
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Wambach's concerns raised questions about the impact that deaf signers could have on Project Nim, and perhaps inadvertently about how Terrace's study might compare with the work done by the Gardners in Nevada, who had expressly designed their experiments to include deaf signers. Simply having Falitz sign at the weekly meetings and interpret for Wambach in the discussions brought a new dimension to their work. Wambach was not particularly critical of Terrace, who was older and far more established than she, but she wanted the staff to have a better understanding of the world of deaf speakers—those who used ASL because they needed a language.
Thanks to Wambach, the chimp project began attracting deaf volunteers (including one who is remembered for having love and hate tattooed on his knuckles), who formed a small subculture within Terrace's staff. In an attempt to bridge these two worlds, one night the deaf volunteers arranged to plug up the ears of the hearing staff and take them out to a restaurant for dinner. They were instructed to communicate exclusively in ASL from the moment the plugs were placed in their ears on the way to the restaurant, during the meal, and all the way back to Delafield. The hearing group found the experience to be a terrible struggle. But what made an indelible impression on Johnson was the way that everybody in the restaurant spoke really slowly and loudly to them, treating them as if they were all mentally incapacitated.
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Elizabeth Hess (Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human)
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Astrology Course 101: The Ultimate Guide for Beginners to Professional Level
Astrology Course - You should approach astrology with an open mind and a critical viewpoint if you're interested in knowing more about it.
Here are some tips to get you started learning about astrology:
Know Its Nature: A belief system that has not been proven by science is astrology. The scientific community discredits it as a pseudoscience because none of its tenets are supported by empirical data. Consider astrology as a sort of entertainment or personal belief rather than as a science.
Basic Knowledge: Learn the basic principles of astrology, such as the meanings of the zodiac signs, natal charts, planets, aspects, and houses, before moving on. There are numerous publications, websites, and educational programmes that can offer a solid foundation.
Analyze Your Natal Chart: Your birth date, time, and location can be used to make your own natal chart. You may create your chart for free with the aid of several online tools and programmes. A map of the celestial bodies' positions at the moment of your birth is called your natal chart.
Analyze Your Natal Chart: Spend some time studying your natal chart once you have one. Find out what each house's planets mean and how they interact with one another. Your personality, weaknesses, and prospective life path will all be revealed by this.
Observe Your Sun, Moon, and Rising Signs by Reading This: Your Sunrise (or Ascendant) sign affects your outward behavior, while your Moon sign and Sun sign both reflect your emotional nature. A more complete understanding of these signs might give you a better understanding of your astrological profile.
Consult with Expert Astrologers: Consider speaking with a qualified astrologer if you want a more thorough examination of your chart or if you have specific queries. Based on your chart, they can provide unique insights and interpretations.
Use astrology to reflect on yourself: Astrology is a useful tool for introspection and personal development. Examine how your own experiences and emotions align with the astrological insights. Use it to gain a deeper understanding of who you are and the course of your life.
Keep in Mind That Symbolism: Numerous people have called astrology a symbolic language. Astrologers interpret the locations and aspects of celestial bodies as symbols in their own unique ways. It does not accurately describe how the cosmos affects your life.
Learn to Think Critically: Keep a critical mindset while you research astrology. Recognise that connections drawn by astrology lack scientific support and that correlation does not imply causation. Consider several points of view and be willing to be skeptical.
Respect for Various Beliefs: Regarding astrology, people hold a variety of beliefs and practices. Even if they differ from your own, respect other people's decisions and ideas. For some people, astrology holds significant personal value.
Science and balance: Astrology is not a replacement for critical thinking or decision-making based on evidence. Use more trustworthy information and logic while making crucial life decisions.
In Conclusion - Astrology has the potential to be a fascinating and contemplative activity that provides insights into personality and self-awareness. But it's crucial to approach it from a well-informed and impartial standpoint, mindful of its limitations and cognizant that it is largely a belief system rather than a science.
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Occultscience2
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What we have put on paper are little dark marks, a copy of which you are now looking at. As for our thoughts, they remain where they always were, inside our brains.
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Terry Janzen (Topics in Signed Language Interpreting (Benjamins Translation Library))
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The understanding of signs is not a mere matter of recognition (of a stable equivalence); it is a
matter of interpretation.
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Umberto Eco (Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language (Advances in Semiotics))