The Oracle Bones ( 甲骨文) which for many years, perhaps for many, many, many years, were “curious discoveries” farmers sold to be ground up into powder for use as “medicine.” Around 1899 it was understood that the strange marks on these “bones” were similar to Chinese characters and over years learned that these “bones” dated from the Shang Dynasty 1600 -1050 BCE. This effort opened up archeological efforts which uncovered many material remains of the Shang Dynasty including bronze objects with more characters on them from palaces and intact tombs.
Shang Dynasty ranges about 1600 -1046 BCE, the Zhou is from 1046-771 BCE, the Spring and Autumn period (the title of a chronicle of the state of Lu) 772-481 BC and the Qin from 221 to 206 BC. These dates are approximate for a sense of relationship and duration.
Below shows hǔ, 虎 , representing “tiger” from bronze inscriptions (in green), compared to other script forms in yellow.
Information and graphic from Wikipedia.
Before these Oracle Bones were understood the Shang Dynasty was just a legend, a glint in the eye of some historian except for the record of The Great Historian, Ssu-ma Ch’ien ( 司馬遷, 145 – 86 BC) who centuries earlier had compiled a list of 30 kings identifying 20 generations of the Shang which was supported from the records of the “Bones” —the Shang Dynasty was no longer a legend.
How much do you know about someone by seeing the place where they live?. Imagine starting a relationship, learning about someone and then later you visit their home and now you understand them better—do it in reverse, visit their home and then figure out who they were.
What is write and what people whant are too often
Vidas Minadas by Gervsio Sanchez—I bought this book off the clearance shelf, $3.00, its subject is the “collateral” human toll from the tools we use for war, in this case land mines which we hidingly place in other countries and then without cleaning up after ourselves, leave them as our “gifts” when we go. And one day, they go, off.
One philosopher, when he was a philosopher, was said to respond to another—If you know the truth of human suffering does that not compel you to act on it?
These are brave people to pose for these images. The world did this once to them, why would we not do it again when they told us this truth. Do companies which make landmines have any liability resulting from the misuse of their customers, such as maiming and killing people? Some would say their very use is a misuse, others say is sovereignly legal.
Vidas Minadas by Gervsio Sanchezvods
Alameda Creek
Are humans better off with or without a language? There is no Answer to that question—only those with a language would have an answer—we have nothing else to compare it except what we think it will be; imagine what it will be; fear what it will be; or hope what it will be.
What does it mean to have a written language and what does mean to have “graphic arts”, i.e. the ability to make many “reasonably exact” copies of that written language. Still, even when the copies are the same ink marks on paper, people who read them often express differences in their experiences and interpretations..
Electronic digital information rebalances people’s sensory intake flow, the “printing process’ of digital—right now you are looking at information printed on a screen using light, not ink and with a smart phone you can take this image almost anywhere you would normally go. Its not because sight has been less, but other senses have been extended. Its even stored in someone’s house. There can be as many prints made on demand, anytime requested by browsers around the world unless the server breaks down, i.e. the plug is pulled, the gig is up. Or with print I could put mine in a safer place than you did.
Marshall McLuhan argued that the medium is the message, the medium people used to communicate with each other determines the structure of human relationships, and the difference between the print media and digital media is qualitative, It wasn’t that a viewer learned (experienced) more about something, rather what they learned (experienced) was different.
Some have written that reporting using photography from war increased the anti-war movement by bringing home the realities of war while was happening at the from such as during the Civil War and the influence of Matthew Brady’s (and others) Civil War images.
The photographer and the image of a photograph—Should a person who is an image of a photograph be required to give a contractual ok to any use of that photograph? Or does the person who made/created? the image have proprietary ownership? Is it the same for images made such as a snapshot at a party, a surveillance camera, the Google traveling camera, at a public event, or as someone who walks along the creek and takes photographs of people on the other side.?.
If I make photographs of someone doing something weird and then use them for black mail should Nikon be responsible for enabling me to do that? Should Nikon be responsible for how I use my images?—Maybe they would be satisfied to distance themselves away from me.
Courts have judged producers to be responsible for poor quality in manufacturing such as air bags as well as for the product itself such as cigarettes and lead paint. Then there is always my dog ate the instructions.
Don’t get caught up in the words, they are only there to distract you from having to see how boring is Alameda Creek.
Writing made letters and their words into realities and printing made them into common realities. Probably at the start of printing the public reaction was similar to the public response to the news media, FaceBook, Twitter, etc.
What about the Google traveling camera which randomly makes images, you know by random some of the images will be compromising to someone. Do you think maybe Dr Gachet was not fond of the painting of himself by his friend Vincent? Were the businesses that made the paint and canvas responsible?
Electronic media is different than print. McLuhan argued that traditionally people used more a balance of their five senses to receive information to send to their brain but with the centuries of print the usage of vision became extremely dominant resulting in a reduction in the use of other senses for knowing.
Electronic media alters that balance . . .
Not by reducing the quality of the visual capabilities but increasing the extensions of other senses. Understanding, for McLuhan, means understanding both what it means “to know something” and how knowing through ink is different than knowing through electronic media.
Is there more to know about a thing than the experience of it? or your or my experiences of it ? If there are no people there to have the experience what is there to know about it?—more guessing, fearing, hoping? Janney would see this different than me , so much texture.against the smooth bridge, the calm under the bridge.
We are the experience of the Universe watching itself when the subject and the object do not know which is which. When humans are killing each other, is the Universe banging its head against the wall because it feels so good when it stops or is just culling the herd or maybe the heardless.
So much of world wealth comes from taking a piece of the earth, transporting it somewhere else, doing something to it and selling it to someone else who takes it home. Matter is neither created or destroyed, but it can break apart and join other matter.Or it ends up in the junkyard, or recycle yard. Good things in the universe collect in gravity bound groups, which keep most them in place—order— as we journey through the universe and still the small particles are never settled, entropy happens.
Japanese TV
Both of these Japanese TV shows feature a young girl, both are sentimental and full of stereo typed characters/scenes with stories which at their concept are worth watching. An Okinawn Island, most young people having left, the school has been scheduled to close down and with no births in sight one couple and the village “adopts” a skeptical expressive Tokyo “foster child.” The drama is churned by a young man seeking peace over the death of a friend who comes to love the island and what it means to be a family.
In God, Give me more time there is a star-struck young girl wants to see a singer/songwriter pop star perform, she loses her money and in order to get money to buy the ticket she has sex with a man who, as it turns out, is HIV positive. She goes to the performance, moved on by drama a relationship develops. Later she learns her HIV status is positive and again and again moved on by drama, the relationship winds through conflicts in his business, his artistic ego and their personal lives. It was an opportunity, using popular media without moralizing, to present information to a mass audience about HIV and AIDS.
We “know scientifically” there was a big bang, we have an estimate when, science cannot agree on a date which is precise enough to have a precise calendar from the beginning of time. If we started a calendar “from the beginning,” we would not know where to start it. Its easier with a mid point which enables one, conceptually, to be where ever you want to be, and while it is considered rude to ask why, people still do.
Shariputra,
Form does not differ from emptiness,
Emptiness does not differ from form.
That which is form is emptiness,
That which is emptiness form.
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