Quote:
Erick Mead wrote:
In my opinion -- this is a source of the problems in finding consistent and common conceptual grounding on these issues. Eastern traditional concepts of physical nature -- do not map well onto the Western concepts of physical nature.
The Chinese and Japanese have adopted and deployed Western idioms in technical fields to great (and even quite creative) effect. Their traditional concepts, which of course, for them need no translation at all, seem, by and large, to present them with no notable urge to make their traditional understandings intelligible in Western physical terms.
Hence, in their settings, the two systems live in parallel, almost not even affecting one another in terms of how people communicate what they mean.
|
What with tinplates and parrots.
(Caveat: I'm neither too deep into Japanese, nor any language, and I'm far off any linguistic expert.)
Even a simple sound as "ai" can have many connotations all over the world. This can range from a soothing, soft-spoken "ai" to a more pronounced "ai!" (here with the attribute of a first "meme" in the form of the exclamation mark) which may be an expression of surprise, a reaction to something that hurts or even may express anger or denial.
In the context of a cultural thing as aikido we may also use it for ideas ranging from, say, to meet, fit in, up to harmony and even for taking the long road to love.
Adding in the use of Kanji, which are, if you like, also "memes" or metaphoric, we will see that, the sound not changing, the pictograms or kanji will change. Moreover, depending on context and while other kanji/memes are added, to create related or completely new ideas, even the original sound may now change.
Enough of this. It's getting fussy.
But perhaps we can see how a process like this may contribute to and undermine our discussions in the context of aikido and its related topics. May be, hence an all too frequent undercurrent of subliminal misunderstanding.
Quote:
Peter A Goldsbury wrote:
In fact, the Japanese translation of Metaphors We Live By is an interesting example of how translation does not quite succeed. Metaphors are brilliant devices, but it is rather hard to explain how they actually work.
|
Maybe, this thread is going to allocate tinplates and parrots their place.