It is such that certain unconscious filters are functional and operative in each of us --- or else we would not be able to see--sense-perceive at all. These filters are formed, in large part, from out of the stuff we call language, as we shall see more clearly below.

If I were to ask you how you go about seeing, actually seeing, you could not tell me. You look, you see. That is all you know. It's that simple. It just happens. But it's not really that simple and straightforward beneath the surface. Who could dare tell all that is going on beneath the surface of the Ocean, for example, if not for looking beneath the surface and into the depths? We can say much the same in regards to our perceptual-conceptual formative depths. Beneath the surface of simple perception, of sense, there are formative and causative agents and processes, which constitute, in the ultimate sense, our perceptual capacity. We see because of that which occurs beneath the level of our conscious awareness. We perceive because of factors that we cannot, but second-handedly, become aware of. For instance, I can only be aware of the optic nerves that allow for sight because of the realization that as a human there are optic nerves that are functional --- else I would not be able to see as such. And it is this information that is and has been derived, not from my own being, but from another --- someone who has undergone an operation, or a corpse that reveals similar structural similarities that humans share in common. In this way, the non-conscious factors and functions are inferred. We are able to infer the existence of an optic nerve, based upon who and what we are classified as, human, along with what has been realized from medicine and science, technology and the prosthetic amplifiers of sense that are employed while searching our own human depths.

George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, writing in their book, Philosophy in the Flesh, state that "Conscious thought is just the tip of an enormous iceberg. It is the rule of thumb among cognitive scientists that unconscious thought is 95 percent of all thought --- and that may be a serious underestimate. Moreover, the 95 percent below the surface of conscious awareness shapes and structures all conscious thought. If the cognitive unconscious were not there doing this shaping, there could be no conscious thought." It is no different for perception. We are not aware, in a conscious manner, how so very, very much has to take place in order for us to realize and be aware of even the small 5 percent that we are (potentially speaking, that is).

Johnson and Lakoff continue: "Our unconscious conceptual system functions like a 'hidden hand' that shapes how we conceptualize all aspects of our experience. This hidden hand gives form to the metaphysics that is built into our ordinary conceptual systems. It creates the entities that inhabit the cognitive unconscious --- abstract entities like friendships, bargains, failures, and lies --- that we use in ordinary unconscious reasoning. It thus shapes how we automatically and unconsciously comprehend what we experience. It constitutes our unreflective common sense." And, I might add, our unconscious interpreter and translator of existence-experience-existential Being.

For most of us it is just good enough to know if we can or can not see --- that is enough. On the other hand, for some of us, understanding "how" we see and "how" we actually "do perceive" what we "think" we are seeing holds some important information as to why our social and cultural milieu is like it is. In other words, an understanding of "how" we are constituted to interpret the world as we do may gives us some new freedom, as well as the realization that there are simply just some things that are out of our control... that will remain unconscious. For instance, I wouldn't want to have to be responsible for regulating my heartbeat 24-7, would you? I am glad that I can rely on an involuntary process that I can either be conscious of or not, with no explicit detrimental effect one way or another.

We won't know what is inviolable in an unconscious sense until we develop the appropriate inquiry; which is what this text hopes to accomplish: to initiate an inquiry into the languaging processes, and how these influence and impact consciousness, culture, and commerce. And vice versa for that matter.

It is no secret that we currently have access to great and terrifying powers. Nuclear weapons that number in the tens of thousands, biological weapons and chemical agents of death and destruction are all holed up in reservoirs in almost every nation on the face of the earth. Now, how has this all come to be? Why, and how, do we see such threats all about us? How is our looking at the world and the Other informed by the languages that we have leaned on? What are we telling each other about ourselves and our arch-rivals? And how are our very own depths orchestrating our perceptions --- the way we see, and the way that we interpret what we 'think' we are seeing?

Good questions abound. There is no lack there. Each of us are involved in an inquiry that centers upon certain issues that are of concern to us; it is how we seek to give to the world what Spirit demands of us. It is how we interpret the depths. We petition Spirit. Spirit petitions us. We ask. We are called. We interpret the answers as best we can; the intuitions as we are able.

What the broadening and deepening of languaging can serve to do is allow for a greater bandwidth, so to speak, so that Spirit can indeed flow into expression in as unimpeded fashion and manner as is possible. The greater our languaging capacity the greater our bandwidth, the greater our ability to effectively interpret spiritual intuitions. If we are severely limited, in a languaged sense, then our ability to interpret Spirit's descent is likewise limited. Of course, there are many, many languages. I am not singling out one specifically here. What I am alluding to is the capacity to give expression to a greater unfolding of spiritual intuition than has been our record in the past; and it will take place only through languaging those intuitions. Language, in this sense, is our only recourse. We are languaged beings; languaging the lifeworlds we inhabit; just as Crow and Dove, Turkey and Coyote do in their own Blessed way. Each Body, each Being, each Form gives speech to Spirit; languages, expresses Spirit.

The fact of the matter is that the world is not just a pre-given realm of unmediated objectivity. That is, yet again, another objectivist illusion that is drawing more and more considerable doubters (even as some fundamental objectivists hold tight to their cherished notions). On the contrary, what we are now coming to realize is that perception is created. Perception is, via interpretive-languaged filtering, a creative artistic endeavour. Just as much as the world is simply there, ready and waiting to be seen by I-witnesses, it is constructed-created by those very language steeped I-witnesses in each and every moment. Wilber, once again resides in a position of clarity:

Thus, as hermeneuticists have been pointing out for a few centuries now, language does not represent the sensory world, it creates worlds not simply found in the senses, it discloses worlds, presents worlds, and doesn't just represent them.

Though I would not go as far as Wilber goes here, I would concur that language does indeed serve to create, disclose, and present worlds that are not to be "simply found in the senses" per se. In fact, it is quite possible to create a languaged world that doesn't exist in the normal way that we take to mean by the word "exist". For instance, The Lord of the Rings, written by J.R.R. Tolkein is just one example of a created and disclosed world constructed via language. It is not a given sensory world, but it is a world in its own right; one that can even be said to have a direct impact in this, our given sensory world, through a sort of impression that this language disclosed world of Hobbits and other assorted characters have on us.

I am not here suggesting that we create the entire world, subjectively speaking, all on our own. No, there is in deed a pre-given substrate, and it is upon these pre-given "deep structures" that we carve and etch our names in blood and fury, light and longing. It is not an issue of either/or, but a matter of both/and. We are both given a world and we respond in a unique way to that given world. We are given nature and we nurture that given nature. We can haggle over percentages later. For now let's just accept that this is both a given world and a created one as well. And at present our ability and capacity to nurture nature is informed by language. We are languaging natural worlds. So, it stands to reason that delving into "how" this languaging of natural worlds takes place would be a not so bad idea, eh?

Being the language dependent beings that we are, it is hard to imagine life without all of the various languages that we use and employ so as to understand and order all of the "raw data" that is flooding us with information; such a continual fury, made sensible through languaged support. In The Tree of Knowledge, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela describe the "way we know" and how language appears to both support knowing and can potentially undermine knowledge as well:

Language was never invented by anyone only to take in an outside world. Therefore, it cannot be used as a tool to reveal that world. Rather, it is by languaging that the act of knowing... brings forth a world. We work out our lives in a mutual linguistic coupling, not because language permits us to reveal ourselves but because we are constituted in language in a continuous becoming that we bring forth with others. We find ourselves in this co-ontogenic coupling, not as a preexisting reference, nor in reference to an origin, but as an ongoing transformation in the becoming of the linguistic world that we build with other human beings.

"We are constituted in language." What a beautifully concrete concept! "It is by languaging that the act of knowing.... brings forth a world." Knowing, languaging, and bringing forth a world form a seamless braid of triune becoming; there is no becoming without language, knowing, and bringing forth with others. Languaging implies a knowing as bringing forth, which constitutes us in "an ongoing transformation... with other human beings" (this also is an apt description of the Kosmos as well).

As well, much of our languaging is derived form the audible emanations from out of the wild regions of the global past. Literally, we, as humans, have been impressed by the audible emanations of the innumerable Others within our midst from time immemorial. All the various forms of crowing and cawing, barking and woofing, splashing and splushing --- these emanations have infiltrated our linguistic domain. Our languaging has not, and never has been, separate from the living-teeming wildness we are all the human derivatives of. Yes, derivatives of. Humanity: indeed "constituted in language"; a "continuous becoming that we bring forth with others"; a "co-ontogenic coupling" that continually transforms as it translates.

Certainly, then, we will not and cannot do away with language, for "we are constituted in language". Yet, as we see and pay notice to certain limitations of language and linguistic domains, we will no doubt be less prone to mistakenly form certain language-based assumptions that are by all intents and purposes impediments to Being; impediments to the "graceful interpretations" that fully disclose and reveal the great Spiritual Intuitions of our Time.

By our becoming intimately familiar with the defining-lens that language can place on consciousness, this, for one, will allow us a certain freedom from assumptions that have no sort of objective/absolute/eternal bias or basis whatsoever. As Maturana and Varela state above: language "cannot be used as a tool to reveal [the] world". More so, then, that language cannot be a tool to reveal the transcendent-eternal, or the Beyond the world (if we deign to posit such a Beyond). So, if language cannot even be expected to reveal "this" world, why should we assume that it can presume to reveal "That" in Absolute Certainty and Eternal Truthfulness!?!

We have seen that language does not have that capacity. The way that language is, as such, does not privilege us with the capacity to speak in overt terms about such things as God and the Trasncendent-Eternal with absolute certainty. Langauge doesn't give birth to the Unborn, as such. Language is merely the clothing, the approximate unfolding which That wears for a time. For how many, many languages have come and gone? How many languages do we know that we can say without a shadow of a doubt are Eternally Just and So? Is there even one?

 

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I would hazard to guess that it is our fixity in one or another particular language which serves to create the rigidness of certain metaphysical illusions and presumptions. Unaware of the unconscious filtering of "raw data", we can then grow up assuming that we are immune to the beneath the surface processes of our own self-deception. It is a discomforting feeling to "know" that "we are the stuff of which dreams are made of", moreso than we are those noble discoverers of the verifiable absolutes that undergird the world.

It has been our chief aim to do something to bring about stability and certainty to this land of impermanent occasions and arisings. Our quaking limbs grew tired of uncertainty, so we have collectively began to project this thirst and "need" for an order of absolutes (little wonder then that we thought we found a few of these absolutes). Yet, in time, and for following generations, these absolutes grew to be too confining. Life had become choked off within the theocratic confines of a fascist absolutism that we once cried for so deseperately, and now seem so set to rail against. The absolutes that were uncovered by us as a balm to soothe the transgressions of an impermanent existence have become a poison to Being, and no less to Our Greater Unfolding. The so-called absolutes become the confining grid in which we demand that Spirit descend into. Or, rather, is the only "interpretive grid" around for Spirit's immanent descent: that of "dissociation between self, culture, and nature."

All the more reason to prepare the soil of new, broader, deeper grids that empower and encourage a fuller, more generous interpretation of "genuine spiritual intuitions".

Because, cetainly, we cannot long hold to our current and former absolutes, and still embrace the Other; still embody Being; still embed Spirit here on Earth in any sort of Compassionate and Wise manner. Certainly.

An example of the carry-over effect of our perceptual and interpretive faculties is given to us when we look directly at a source of light for a period of time-a candle for instance --- and then look away fom the lit candle. What we notice is that we will still see, in our visual field, what looks like a superimposed image of that candle-flame. Even though we are no longer directly looking at the source of light, somehow the image travels with us and is projected onto the field of what we are looking at --- for a time, before the superimposition fades. This is a sort of visual illusion that functions with respect to us all. What we focus on gets carried with us, and becomes projected as a perceived object until the carried over image has a chance to burn off, and our perceptual field can normalize once again. Not only does this sort of illusion function in regards to our visual apparatus but also with respect to mind, and/or consciousness, if you prefer. When we focus and arrange our perception around certain interpretations of the world, those interpretations can become calcified over time and projected onto circumstances which such an interpretation has no relevance at all. In other words, we can carry forth former perspectives, as illusions, into what are fresh circumstances. It is not so much that our senses are deceiving us as much as it is that we carry-over prior perceptions/interpretations into heretofore new situations. Laura Sewall, in her book Sight and Sensibility: the ecopsychology of perception, states that "perceptual habits and ways of seeing are continuously conditioned by culture... It is no surprise that much of how we perceive is shaped by ongoing experience, by the scripts we follow, by the voices of those around us, by cultural coding. We all share and reinforce the daily assumptions that constitute consensual reality through the language we use, the media we watch, the stories we tell, the science we value, and the methods we use to describe the truth." What Ms. Sewall is saying here is that our perception is conditioned and limited by what we expose ourselves to in an ongoing basis, i.e., culture.

At the same time that our perception is, and can be, further limited by attributing unassailable truth to ways of viewing, it can also be opened and expanded by our "perceiving" in new ways, ways that are "other" than that which the dominant paradigm would convince us of. We can "perceive anew" as A Course In Miracles puts it. We can interpret the "raw data" that the world gives us, that we receive, in heretofore new ways. For instance, if we understand the sorts of perceptual illusions and limitations that we are all prone to, subject to, liable to, then we are less inclined to being coerced by them into acting in a manner that is inappropriate for the given context. In other words, we see and note that it is a, perhaps, inappropriate carry-over from a previous context... and that the "perceptual carry-over" has no relevance in the new context. It is, at times, a difficult challenge. But we really have no choice in the matter, that is, unless we are quite content with carrying-over irrelevant perceptions and interpretations and superimoposing them on the conditinos of the Now. In that case we are just liable to repeating history, and all of those sorry lessons that get repeated ad nauseaum.

In many instances, perspectives may not be wrong per se, they just may not be relevant to the context that we are dealing with and are embedded in at present. By carrying forth former images and perceptions, we end up manufacturing a "more" illusory existence than what may already be sort of an "illusion" to begin with.

We will never really know what is real and what is illusion if we do not enculturate ourselves, first and foremost, with our own perceptual and cognitive processes; i.e., become intimately familiar with "how" we function perceptually and cognitively. And the Socratic dictum, "Know thyself", could be translated into postmodern-speak, as "Know how thy perceive".

Understanding our inherent blind spots is crucial to avoiding unnecessary consequences. It may even be tied into what the Hindus call "karma"? A sort of ignorance of consequences; where we "know not what we do", and ultimately have to live with the consequences of our "not knowing what we do". Perhaps, by becoming more and more aware of our blind-spots --- our tendencies to perceptually and interpritively trip and fall, to misinterpret, to interpet "ungracefully", to "know not what we do" --- then we will begin to see the cracks in the cosmic sidewalk and won't fall as often... won't skin our knee... won't unnecessarily suffer.

 

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A friend since childhood, a man who, as of late, has begin to fixate more and more on the language of paranoia, illustrates the above point in a somewhat tragic light. This particular friend of mine has virtually isolated himself from all of his former companions and compadres. As a result of his fixation --- perception centered around and on the language of paranoia --- he now only wishes to associate with those who buy into his paranoid perceptions/conceptions. Those who do not buy into the paranoia that he has rationalized and justified, reinforced and reasoned over, are now "perceived" by him as being in cahoots with this "unknown" enemy that is ever "out to get him". Long-time friends and confidants have become for him just more potential threats, and the more that his former friends reassure him that they are "no threat at all", the more reasons he now finds to be paranoid of them. This cycle of circular, uroboric paranoia is spitefully recursive and self-reinforcing. His particular use of language feeds his perceptions; his perceptions then appear to justify his feelings; his feelings then lead to more paranoid language; more paranoid language then leads to feeling more paranoid; feeling more paranoid leads to perceiving more reasons to be paranoid. It's all justified because the system feeds itself; the condition breeds more of its likeness and kind; it has and establishes its own momentum. The paranoiac fishbowl is a sort of isolated tank; reinforcing the conditions that persist.

The language that this friend uses, that "constitutes" his experience and perception of the world, is, to an outsider, exceedingly paranoid. Yet, all offers of friendship and communion are perceived by this man as cover-ups; mere ploys used to get close to him, so that a real attack can be mounted from close range. And, so far, it seems that all talk of allaying the paranoid delusions only exacerbates the condition. He is happy being paranoid (ironic, eh?). He desires it. He wants to feel that way. His languaging brings forth the desired experience, in what Varela and Maturana call, a "co-ontogenic coupling". Those who buy into his illusion are those who "get it"; while those who do not buy into his illusion are of the "unknown" enemy that even he cannot name or point to. Who's behind it all? He cannot say... He just knows. He knows he has reason to be paranoid of those others who are not as paranoid as he is. His perceptions tell him so. His languaging reveals it to be so. He is a believer in the inviolate nature of his own interpretation... not seeing it as transparent and partial. All of the other evidence that contradicts his interpretation is dismissed. He is a believer in his own interpretation; literalizing his own languaguing processes. Just like a fundamentalist.

 

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If vision --- and perception in general --- is a form of translation between inner and outer geographies, then the question of vision, of how we see, becomes one of how we translate between these realms.

-----Lauara Sewall

Language acts as filter and interpreter, translater between inner and outer. The friend I described above translates perception in such a way so that it coincides with his ideas about "how" things are at present. He "sees", he perceives only that which gives him reason to "know" that his ideas about himself and the world are correct. We can see how this method of translation gives rise to our experience of how inner and outer merge --- if at all (for we can translate conflict just as easily as harmony).

For instance, someone who is schizophrenic may have the experience where all translative processes have become incapacitated, overwhelmed, broken down, functionally incapable of translating the inner and the outer so that they merge in a somewhat cohesive and meaningful fashion. Jameson writes about the schizophrenic, and how "Lacan describes the shizophrenic as a breakdown in the signifying chain, that is, the interlocking... series of signifiers which constitutes an utterance or a meaning." In this way, translation is utterly impossible. Inner and outer do not and cannot converge in a seamless sense except as a seamless rubble of chaos, a mess of broken chains of meaning. I knew a diagnosed schizophrenic who used to say about himself 'My life was shattered. And I have spent the rest of it trying to put it back together.' Those broken chains of meaning; the gaps in translation between inner abnd outer; the disjointed-ness --- all of these pieces that are trying to be put back together. A life.

We know that interpretation and translation is not just about having all of the pieces, but having them in the right order; their appropriate contextual position. For instance, the word "lease" contains all of the same elements as the word "easel". The very same components, to a point, are contained in both words. But the order, the sequence, the chain of signification is what determines the difference in meaning. The linked sequence, just like in our genes, signifies exactly whether we are talking about a "lease on the house" or the "easel we are painting at."

And when the sequence breaks down... either inside or outside... we then have the picking up of the pieces. We try and establish some sense of meaning from all of the fragments. We try and put Humpty Dumpty back together again. The right order. Any order. Any meaning. The constructivist approach to life. Just like my schizophrtenic friend, who is now deceased, but was a brilliant artist of mosaics that he has left behind for others to be inspired by. Who took pieces of tile, fragments of stone, and built significance from these. Who took broken chains of meaning and reworked them, thereby lifting up others with those mosaic chains of graceful interpreting. The creation of beauty and meaning from fragmentation; which I see as a sort of postmodern imperative for us all: to take the fragments blown hither and thither by the nuclear winds of the modern era, and construct lives of meaning, significance, and beauty; signifying "how" we saw the times in which we lived.

There are many aspects to "how" we see, to "how" we perceive, to "how" we manufacture meaning. Not least of these is the fact that we are embodied. And no two of us are embodied in quite the same manner. For instance, if I am taller than you than I will perceive the world from a greater height, and I may not feel the earth as closely. It is possible. Or, if my ears are larger, then I may hear more keenly the sounds that radiate and emanate from multitudinous sources. It is very apparent then, that our styles of perception have a bodily component that cannot be readily dismissed if we are to understand the extreme relativity of our current age.

How deeply set are our eyes? How much do our ears flare out so as to catch the passing waves of sound? How high above the surface of the earth do we walk and stand? How much weight do we have to carry around? Is our body a burden, or is it lightness personified? And how does that feeling of relative weight or weighlessness lead to our awareness of the "gravity" of each situation?

How about our sense of balance; how might an inner ear disorder lead to an alteration in perception, and, therefore, an alteration in our interpretation of the world? Will we feel unbalanced inside, emotionally and psychologically if we have vertigo spells? Are we out of control? Our body alien to us; therefore our emotions and psyche "feel" alien to us as well? How deeply is the embodied nature of our existence a conditioning factor? A little? A lot? Completely, even?

Lakoff and Johnson state that we are thoroughly embodied, that "Our sense of what is real begins with and depends crucially upon our bodies, especially our sensorimotor apparatus, which enables us to perceive, move, and manipulate, and the detailed structures of our brains, which have been shaped by both evolution and experience." We are unique in our embodiment, therefore unique as persons, as individuals. We are, by rote of fact, going to perceive the world uniquely, interpret it according to and in relation to our embodied reality. This is almost an undeniable fact. The very nature of our bodies, in their uniqueness, spells out a formula for unique persepctives and interpretations.

Another indicator is the fact that as close as we can get, no two bodies are able to occupy the same position at the same time. This is an embodied version of a quantum physics principle. But we don't need to quantum physicis to tell us this! All we have to do is be aware that we can not both occupy the exact same location in space at the exact same time. Being that we are distinct bodies, we cannot occupy the exact same perspective; which spells difference in perceiving and interpreting the "raw data" that we receive from the world.

A relevant example of the thoroughly embodied nature of pereception comes to mind as I look over to my left, and notice a picture taken several years ago when my maternal grandmother was still with us (as she is now dearly departed). It is a picture that was taken on the day of my brother's graduation form high school. My brother and I, both of us 6'3" tall, flank "grandma" on either side. "Grandma" stands in the middle smiling --- all 4'11" of her!

Now, the notion arises; how different must her perception of the world be, compared to mine, just because of the single variation in height? Obviously I can see over obstacles that she can't. I can also notice the dust on the top of the refrigerator. At the same time, when she easily passes under a hanging object, I must duck --- I must make an effort to avoid that object if I don't want to be clobbered in the head. (It is my contention that the taller you are the more you will hit your head in this life.)

This is just one variation, just one example of how differences in embodiment can lead to differences in perception. It is just that simple. And we do know that "how" we see plays a part in "what" we see. Laura Sewall once again:

On a personal level, we strive to affirm our view of reality, whether it be a momentary perception or a long-term assumption about the way of the world. In psychology this tendency toward affirmation is referred to as a confirmation bias. It is a strong effect, showing up as the numerous ways in which we do not fully apprehend the multidimensional nature of reality or, for that mater, the relativity of perception. Instead, we look for and attend to the information that will support our beliefs, as if gathering up our very own view of the world.

If I am quite taller than you I will notice, "look for", "attend to", objects that you would not. Why? Because, being taller I have to be on the look out for objects that would clash with my noggin', objects that you can dismiss because you pass right under them if you are 5' 6" tall, for istance. In the same way, while in a crowd, I may be able to see and gather information that you cannot, because a shorter person has their visual perception blocked by taller persons... like me!

These are just a few examples of how what we perceive is informed by our actual embodiment; that there may not be any overt objective knowledge at all. In a manner of speaking, we all see a bit uniquely no matter how close we are, can get, do become; precisely because we are embodied in so much utter distinctness. No one else can walk in our shoes. Our mocassins are ours alone, therefore, our perceptions and interpretations --- as well as our conceptions. Lakoff and Johnson write, in relation to the Cartesian idea that there is a single Objective Universal Reason, that "The same neural and cognitive mechanisms that allow us to perceive and move around also create our conceptual systems and modes of reason. Thus, to understand reason, we must understand the details of our visual system, our motor system, and the general mechanisms of neural binding... reason is not, in any way, a transcendent feature of the universe or of disembodied mind. Instead it is shaped crucially by the peculiarities of our human bodies..."

"Shaped crucially by the peculiarities of our human bodies", indeed! Even blessed and sacrosanct Reason! Reason, once thought to have been the dualistic opposition that civilized the Body, now understood as a peculiar emergence from and of the Body itself. And all of this from cognitive science and neuroscience, which are sort of descendants of the Cartesian spirit of Mind apart from Body.

But we get to digging around, and realize that the transcendent notions of a Mind devoid of a Body may not be all that likely --- and, in fact, can potentially result in more harm than good, i.e., can be quite pathological. The long-term positing of such a transcendent mind is in serious need of revision; due to the experimentally verified results offered us by cognitive science and nuerology. Lakoff and Johnson note some of these revisions, which I will quote extensively below, as they are worthy of our consideration.

Embodied Reason: Our conceptual system is grounded in... the body. Therefore, every understanding that we can have of the world, ourselves, and others can only be framed in terms of concepts shaped by our bodies... Because concepts and reason both derive from, and make use of, the sensorimotor sytem, the mind is not separate from or independent of the body.

Embodied Morality: Our concepts of what is moral, like all our other concepts, originate from the specific nature of human embodied experience. Our conceptions of morality cannot be objective... Moral concepts are mostly metaphorical, based ultimately on our experience of well-being and family.

When we take the above statements offered by Lakoff and Johnson, and cross them with the langauged considerations we have already considered --- namely, those of Maturana and Varela --- we then find that, contrary to historical sentiment, the mind is not some "beyond the body" entity; that the self is not as much a transcendent descent of mind into body, but an immanent unfolding and flowering of mind from the body as ground. Much of history is replete with various ideologies of philosophy and religion, metaphysics and psychology, which seek to construct and empower a primary duality between mind and body. However, now, through the latest efforts of cognitive science and nuerology, we are discovering that something to the contrary is actually what is and has been occurring; namely, that the mind is an emergent property, function, capacity of the body itself. The Body is inalienable Ground of Mind. Reason is not Disembodied and Universal; but Embodied and Particular.