Alphabets

Re: Wasiq, Reply 7

``The Way that be told of is not an un-varying way.``

The Tao is the only path to walk.

Re: Saima

You are very right. I remember once having a heated debate with a friend of mine on the definition of the ``meaning`` of a word. (My friend was rather conservative, and therefore was extremely defensive because of the obvious implications of such a debate on textual interpretations of religious documents). Contrary to what he was claiming. I do not think that there even exists a context free meaning of a single word. That in my view is quite interesting. Each word exists in an ambiguous state, which spans all the possible known interpretations of it (and any additional unknown or as yet undiscovered uses of it). These words, when concatenated together, can lead to the emergence of very concrete or very ambiguous interpretations, depending on how they combine. As I said, ``... one plus one is sometimes more than two and sometimes nothing at all``.

It is interesting to note the views of modern philosophers on this issue.

So if such a disagreement and discord can be present in what we can explicitly define and write down, how much difference would there be in terms of one`s inexpressable thoughts?

Re: MAK

Thanks for the compliment.

Direction, where to go, the different parts of direction. To me this question is so vast and so intractable, that I may be completely off the mark even writing these words.

How does one even begin to travel down a path? More often one realizes the path one is on after the fact, after travelling for a while. The choice is seldom completely individual and independent. So then do there even exist good criteria for choosing a path? And what of the infinity of possibility and finiteness of our beings?

A cynic would even say that there exists no complete independence, even to talk of an individual is wrong. (Remember in Wim Wender`s ``Wings of Desire``, the circus girl is cherishing her freedom, her freedom to at last be lonely, her freedom to imagine because she had nothing and no one in the world.)

An even greater cynic would completely give up. Reminds me of Khayyam, ``Az khaak baramdeem-o barbad shudeem``!

Quite quite beautiful, the problem with identity is that it is never one? :)

I liked the last lines, particularly much. The question is so dependent on who asks it that it changes meaning without changing its form.

Re: Wasiq Bokhari

Well done. But where to go now? I mean direction. Yes where is the second part of .... Direction.

Re: iconoclast

While your comment is generally true, in English it is acceptable to use one or the other. (c.f. Oxford English Dictionary)

1781 Cowper Convers. 11 As alphabets in ivory employ, Hour after hour, the yet unlettered boy.

1974 Encycl. Brit. Macropædia V. 326/1 The Gronsfeld cipher is identical with a Vigenère system with direct standard alphabets, except that only the first ten alphabets are used in conjunction with a numerical key;

Re: Khan and Godot

Thanks for your kind comments. Where does the categorization and fragmentation stop?

brilliant and compassionate. From your very first on Chowk (nightclub/deserts) to this, you have presented profound metaphysics with extreme humanity and pathos.

Re: Wasiq

....Alphabet includes all the letters. It should have been letters instead of Alphabet.

like in ``there are 26 letters in the English Alphabet`` and not ``there are 26 alphabets in english``..

just some trivial information...but thought it might help

iconoclast

Profound.