How to blow your mind with the reversal of Past and Future.. The Aymara language

Hi ATS,

Relatively quick one today - a conception of past & future turned on its head.. A 'volte face' of epic proportions, in which the way that you think of the past, and the future, is turned upside down (or rightside back). Do you get the sudden sense of an 'aha!' moment, when this bizarre concept sinks in to your metaphysical body-sense of time & reason...? Or are you unable to visualise this alternative way of viewing the flow of Time..?

And more importantly, what am I blathering on about this time?

Well, it's TIME itself, and our conception of it, as determined by our place in it, as determined by our orientation to it, as determined by the structure of our bodies themselves... Yes, exactly.

The ancient Aymara language is known to be a bizarre & curious thing. The language bears evidence of having been an entirely 'manufactured' language, in that it was deliberately constructed & disseminated at some time in the ancient past, with hallmarks of having been designed specifically to process abstract concepts & neologisms, or new expressions which are coined to describe a new concept - so that it can be said to be a naturally evolving language, which easily absorbs & assimilates new conceptual data, as new scientifically understood information is gained it is readily inserted into the emerging script.

In many of the most notable projects for mechanical translation, there exists a notion of a parameter language, which does share many of the characteristics of the a priori languages. There must, it is argued, exist a tertium comparationis which might allow us to shift from an expression in language A to an expression in language B by deciding that both are equivalent to an expression of a metalaguage C. If such a tertium really existed, it would be a perfect language.

The only alternative would be to discover a natural language which is so "perfect" (so flexible and powerful) to serve as tertium comparationis. In 1603, the Jesuit Ludovico Bertonio (Arte de la lengua Aymara) described the Aymara language (still partially spoken by Indians living between Bolivia and Peru) as endowed with an immense flexibility and capability of accommodating neologisms, particularly adapted to the expression of abstract concepts, so much so as to raise a suspicion that it was an artificial invention. Later this language was described as the language of Adam, founded upon necessary and immutable ideas", a philosophical language if ever there were, and obviously somebody discovered that it had Semitic roots.

Recent studies have established Aymara is not based on an Aristotelian two-valued logic (either True or False), but on a three-valued logic it is, therefore, capable of expressing modal subtleties which other languages can only capture through complex circumlocutions. Thus there have been proposals to use Aymara to resolve all problems of computer translation. Unfortunately, it has been demonstrated that the Aymara would greatly facilitate the translation of any other idiom into its own terms, but not the other way around. Thus, because of its perfection, Aymara can render every thought expressed in other mutually untranslatable languages, but the price to pay for it is that (once the perfect language has resolved these thoughts into its own terms), they cannot be translated back into our natural native idioms. Aymara is a Black Hole.

The Dream of a Perfect Language.. Part IV. A lecture presented by Umberto Eco

So this language is already something special - but the conception of TIME is what is so interesting to me as a single takeaway from this new awareness of Aymara. Basically, the Aymara conceive of time in a manner which is remarkably different from how we experience & express it. It is so fundamentally distinct, that it cannot be said to share this with any other language on Earth.

Time is conceived pf with the past being in front of oneself, and the future behind oneself. Let that sink in for a moment & see what that means for you, as you try to assimilate the concept into your own body sense, relative to the flow of time as we have always considered it in the English language, indeed in the Western mindset & even the mindset of nearly every other people on Earth. We see the future out ahead of us, and the past extending behind us. We do this because of the nature of our bodies, with our eyes & our general motion being oriented to the front, and where we have been is behind our feet as we walk forwards.

But the Aymara start with the concept & not with the physical properties of our bodies, which is interesting in many ways - they say that the future cannot be known, or 'seen', and so it is behind us, out of sight. Our past is known, and thus it is before our eyes, as something which can be seen.. As we walk forwards we do not know what we are walking into, and so the motion forwards is correlated with the 'unknown behind' in the same manner that the future cannot be known & so a strange reversal takes place, and suddenly we're in a metaphysical house of mirrors. Even though we walk forwards, we are in a sense walking backwards, because our eyes cannot see that into which we are walking, with the exception of the moment instantly before we arrive there, in the future, when it has become the past.

How strange is that?!

It gave me a strange wobble to suddenly identify with the truism that the past is seen & hence out in front, whereas the future is unknown & therefore must be in some sense behind us, out of sight...

The lecture linked above by Umberto Eco makes for some interesting reading - enjoy the mind bending properties of the universe, now you have this new & remarkably strange quirk of Time forever in mind!

Thanks, FITO.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Weird, like floating backwards. Also makes me think the future is somewhat mysterious, even scary, while the past is comfortable.

I read some weird stuff on Tibetan secrets for long life, I vaguely remember something about twirling backwards helps you live longer. Wonder if this is somehow connected.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Aymara people have a great capacity to learn anything. My father used to hire them and train them to work in his restaurant. They learn by eye whatever you teach them.

I used to buy stuff from an Aymara woman who didn't know how to read or write. She knew how to give you the change when you pay, by the color and shapes of the money.

Really cool OP, thank you for that. Never heard of the aymara and the way they thought of how we perceive the past and the future makes a lot of sense when it sinks in.
S & F

originally posted by: FlyInTheOintment
Hi ATS,

Relatively quick one today - a conception of past & future turned on its head.. A 'volte face' of epic proportions, in which the way that you think of the past, and the future, is turned upside down (or rightside back). Do you get the sudden sense of an 'aha!' moment, when this bizarre concept sinks in to your metaphysical body-sense of time & reason...? Or are you unable to visualise this alternative way of viewing the flow of Time..?

And more importantly, what am I blathering on about this time?

Well, it's TIME itself, and our conception of it, as determined by our place in it, as determined by our orientation to it, as determined by the structure of our bodies themselves... Yes, exactly.

The ancient Aymara language is known to be a bizarre & curious thing. The language bears evidence of having been an entirely 'manufactured' language, in that it was deliberately constructed & disseminated at some time in the ancient past, with hallmarks of having been designed specifically to process abstract concepts & neologisms, or new expressions which are coined to describe a new concept - so that it can be said to be a naturally evolving language, which easily absorbs & assimilates new conceptual data, as new scientifically understood information is gained it is readily inserted into the emerging script.

In many of the most notable projects for mechanical translation, there exists a notion of a parameter language, which does share many of the characteristics of the a priori languages. There must, it is argued, exist a tertium comparationis which might allow us to shift from an expression in language A to an expression in language B by deciding that both are equivalent to an expression of a metalaguage C. If such a tertium really existed, it would be a perfect language.

The only alternative would be to discover a natural language which is so "perfect" (so flexible and powerful) to serve as tertium comparationis. In 1603, the Jesuit Ludovico Bertonio (Arte de la lengua Aymara) described the Aymara language (still partially spoken by Indians living between Bolivia and Peru) as endowed with an immense flexibility and capability of accommodating neologisms, particularly adapted to the expression of abstract concepts, so much so as to raise a suspicion that it was an artificial invention. Later this language was described as the language of Adam, founded upon necessary and immutable ideas", a philosophical language if ever there were, and obviously somebody discovered that it had Semitic roots.

Recent studies have established Aymara is not based on an Aristotelian two-valued logic (either True or False), but on a three-valued logic it is, therefore, capable of expressing modal subtleties which other languages can only capture through complex circumlocutions. Thus there have been proposals to use Aymara to resolve all problems of computer translation. Unfortunately, it has been demonstrated that the Aymara would greatly facilitate the translation of any other idiom into its own terms, but not the other way around. Thus, because of its perfection, Aymara can render every thought expressed in other mutually untranslatable languages, but the price to pay for it is that (once the perfect language has resolved these thoughts into its own terms), they cannot be translated back into our natural native idioms. Aymara is a Black Hole.

The Dream of a Perfect Language.. Part IV. A lecture presented by Umberto Eco

So this language is already something special - but the conception of TIME is what is so interesting to me as a single takeaway from this new awareness of Aymara. Basically, the Aymara conceive of time in a manner which is remarkably different from how we experience & express it. It is so fundamentally distinct, that it cannot be said to share this with any other language on Earth.

Time is conceived pf with the past being in front of oneself, and the future behind oneself. Let that sink in for a moment & see what that means for you, as you try to assimilate the concept into your own body sense, relative to the flow of time as we have always considered it in the English language, indeed in the Western mindset & even the mindset of nearly every other people on Earth. We see the future out ahead of us, and the past extending behind us. We do this because of the nature of our bodies, with our eyes & our general motion being oriented to the front, and where we have been is behind our feet as we walk forwards.

But the Aymara start with the concept & not with the physical properties of our bodies, which is interesting in many ways - they say that the future cannot be known, or 'seen', and so it is behind us, out of sight. Our past is known, and thus it is before our eyes, as something which can be seen.. As we walk forwards we do not know what we are walking into, and so the motion forwards is correlated with the 'unknown behind' in the same manner that the future cannot be known & so a strange reversal takes place, and suddenly we're in a metaphysical house of mirrors. Even though we walk forwards, we are in a sense walking backwards, because our eyes cannot see that into which we are walking, with the exception of the moment instantly before we arrive there, in the future, when it has become the past.

How strange is that?!

It gave me a strange wobble to suddenly identify with the truism that the past is seen & hence out in front, whereas the future is unknown & therefore must be in some sense behind us, out of sight...

The lecture linked above by Umberto Eco makes for some interesting reading - enjoy the mind bending properties of the universe, now you have this new & remarkably strange quirk of Time forever in mind!

Thanks, FITO.

Understanding the Aymara ways will allow you to become a Polymath....always direct you towards the path of least resistance leading you to knowledge and truths.

originally posted by: Trueman
a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Aymara people have a great capacity to learn anything. My father used to hire them and train them to work in his restaurant. They learn by eye whatever you teach them.

I used to buy stuff from an Aymara woman who didn't know how to read or write. She knew how to give you the change when you pay, by the color and shapes of the money.

We don't do math because it is all a lie or a fraud.

I used to do IQ tests for fun and simply refused to answer math related questions and on most tests those were my only errors....I refused to even deal in lies and just leave the questions blank.Numbers are a manufactured weaponised Path of Most resistance…..regressive and damaging.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment

Interesting thoughts...

Your whole post reminds me of one of my favourite quotes…

“Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards" (Soren Kierkegaard)

It also got me thinking about chess too and possible variations at the board that don’t get played.

Let’s say during the middle game you’re considering making a move and you analyse two possible moves that your opponent could make in reply. Each of those 2 possible defences may have a further branch and so on…You begin to try to analyse them a far as you can, say 7 to 8 moves deep. You make your intended move but your opponent plays something fairly unexpected.

Now those 2 branches you were just analysing before have gone…they are now in the past (as far as the current game is concerned)…because the position has moved on from those other branching points.

But that exact same postion “could” (it might never happen again) be reached in another game in the future, and in that game one player may venture down the path they/you were analysing.

So in this example “past possibilities” could still potentially be ahead of us at a later date.

S+F

- JC

Awesome topic that I knew nothing about, so thanks, Fly.

It brought to mind some (Polynesian? SE Asian?) myths about beings with backwards feet that the native population considered absolutely "real," not a myth. Perhaps a physical metaphor relating to their worldview, heh?

Also engenders some flights of fancy regarding human operating systems, or languages, and whether words and the thoughts behind them really can effect "reality" magically. A language can effect perceptions and allow different modes of thought, so ... ?

Fun, heh.

I have been teaching a NewAge way of perceiving and playing NHL Hockey using the Aymara methods for over 10 years here on ATS....its extremely difficult to do but also extremely rewarding due to the results this methodology produces when pitted against Neuro-Typical thinking and planning on every level.

a reply to: FlyInTheOintment


Ummm...gee...isn’t this fun to contemplate...

And that’s the extent of this...

Fun...until one remembers that time is linear...and only progresses in an singular direction...as events and decisive conscious determinism...unfolds...

Memory...archeology/anthropology...and the written record...are the only way’s we even experience a...”past”...

Obviously...we can certainly imagine future outcomes...and plot those outcomes fairly accurately...with greater accuracy being attained as technology progresses...

All that aside...this linear progression has a crux...a point along this progression where consciousness causal impingement...observes...an always in flux and ever moving...”present”...that exemplifies merely an anchor for consciousness to observe...

The future...is always ahead...yet to be observed...yet to be experienced...

There will come a day however...when modeling simulations are accurate enough to be a reasonable facsimile for non-present...future observation...

The proof...is in probability becomes possibility...as the progression from past through present determinism is distilled from an infinite set of variables...into an singular...linear...perspective...

Which...IMO...also either gives birth to...or merely becomes an singular possibility...from an infinite set of universes...


As I stated above...your presentation is indeed fun to imagine...











YouSir

Look at his Scarf....look hard....what do you see?...yes...you see PIXELLATION.....now just what do you think is up with that huh,does it remind you of anything that begins with Miro and ends with soft?


www.bing.com... l=https%3a%2f%2fc1.staticflickr.com%2f3%2f2099%2f5731719451_a8fcc7981a_z.jpg&exph=640&expw=427&q=aymara&simid=608026158861913038&selectedIndex=205&aja xhist=0

The movie Arrival comes to my mind