Simply put, do you mean that I can have only what I know already explained to me and rather it is the new (to me) combinations or associations of known concepts that is the point of explanation? Explanation without commonality would be unintelligible, eh?
Eg: my (unknown word) is made of bananas.
If I were to assume that (unknown word) is ‘sundae’, because that is both within my experience and sensible to me, then I might miss the absurdity of the fact that this week’s (unknown word) is ‘dwelling’, even though affordable housing made of banana tree pulp is no joking matter.
If the (unknown word) is a concept that is genuinely unknown to me, then explanation would be by way of associative description. I prefer picture books to wordy explanations- to read about spot running is just not the same as the representative picture that still sends a shiver of explanatory recognition down my spine. He sure looks fast!
Yes I think that is more or less what I am saying.
Really all words start off as metaphors once one gets beyond the "pointing and uttering" stage.
To take something like sub-atomic physics - when I read an explanation in a popular science book nearly every single sentence contains a metaphor. Even the physicist whose understanding is based on number manipulation is really contrstucting a giant metaphor of understanding (i.e. we are familiar with number concepts, but a sub atomic particlae is not the same thing as a number.
However, I am not offering a completely associative explanation. Our understanding is rooted in our consciousness. To be purely speculative, we may not yet understand how consciousness itself may have direct access to patterns of understanding. At the very least there is some amount of "hard wiring" in the brain. But there may also be a spiritual dimension to understanding.
‘…direct access to patterns of understanding.’- from this I draw the implication that the term ‘hard wiring’ may be applicable to an purely external rational. We can use ‘statements of relativity’ to describe contemporary physics. These statements of relativity allow our relative beings to interact with surrounding energies. We have ‘hard wired’ senses that preclude comprehensions of a range of surrounding energies. These together form both the basis and irrefutable proof of our being. It appears to me that science currently fails to accept that it is born of self-reference and is therefore merely the tool of a monkey. Our ‘hard laws’ are statements of relativity, laws based in the experience of a human at sea-level.
If spirit is the acknowledgment of a rational so impressive that it seems to transcend conceptual being, then I’d say yes; I think there is a spiritual dimension to understanding (just to avoid looking foolish).
Are we hoeing through the metaphoric and semantic steppes?
