Well, but if we're all rephrasing what we hear from someone else, who came up with the thought originally? If we are all repeating, we have to repeat what someone said, we cannot be repeating what no one said. There has to be an origin, and that origin is probably someone, unless you think otherwise.
Don't you think you learn more from your own experience than from the words someone else tells you? If I tell you how to play tennis, do you think you'll learn more that way than by actually holding the racquet?
I think most of the things we know we know from experience. Even when others have influenced us, our opinion of something is, I think, mainly influenced by our own experience. For now I think that wisdom comes mainly from experience, that's why we can't easily transmit it to another person.
If we can't remember our own original thoughts, that's completely fine, I think, because most of what we know we haven't put into words. And even the little that does, may not come to mind. But we know more about life having lived, than having listened, I think.
We can do a little experiment, if you feel like it and if you want to do it.
These are the rules: I'm going to ask a question and you can't ask anyone the answer, or look it up in the dictionary or internet or anywhere. The answer you are going to give, you should not try to formulate it in an intelligent way. No. You have to say it in the crudest way, just as you thought it, without the need to over-explain. It doesn't need to be a good answer, it just needs to be an answer that is your own thoughts on the matter. It is also not valid to say "I don't know" or anything like that.
The question is this: what is hair? You can write your own definition, just as you thought of it, regardless of whether it is a good definition or not, and then respond, if you wish.
Maybe the definition is not good, I don't know, it happens to me many times.
But after that I would ask you, where did you get that definition, was it influenced by others? And even if so, which may be likely, is your definition more influenced by what others say, or by your own experience during your life with the word in question?
If you decide not to do the experiment, that's completely fine too.
But, I don't know if I understood you correctly.
That may count as an original idea. You know what I mean?
In a sense it is, because you added something to it that it didn't have originally.
I have agreed with you that experience is a teacher.
But aren't exchanging words already an experience of a certain kind?
Words in the form of "I'll pass on my knowledge to you" are less effective if they are only informative, I agree.
They are more effective when they come in the form of questions.
So let me rephrase:
Are words more effective if they are directed to you as a question?
Can a question directed at you be therefore be perceived as an experience?
Is a question capable of letting you imagine an experience of any kind in your mind?
If recognition lights up, are you experiencing something inwardly that you can relate to, after having been asked something?
If you could not refer to an experience you already had, it would be hard or even impossible to understand a question, is what I think. But do you fully own it? Is it not the case that you could, if you wanted, put yourself in the shoes of another one, in order to understand his experience, even if you never had that exact experience yourself?
I have given birth to a child. You won't make that exact experience. But what if I ask you about your exact experience of manhood, am I unable to relate to it? I know I am a woman. I have a very unique experience in that regard. I started to bleed when I became a woman. Your body experience was different but it was the same experience as mine, since you entered manhood, while I entered womanhood.
I now do not need to become a man in order to have that same experience, since I already had it. You don't need to become a woman, right?
All experience happens because of me being in touch with not-me. Therefore, I cannot have an experience solely on my "own", since I need "other" to relate to "own".
If you'd live all by yourself on a lonely island, after a while, what would happen to your "own" experiences? What would happen to you?
To answer your question spontaneously: Hair is what grows out of my head.
Well, yeah, we can agree. We can put ourselves in other people's shoes, I think, at least to a degree. That's largely why reading stories, even fictional ones, works. But I think it works more the more similar we are to the person in question, and the easier we can identify with them.
If we see that someone does things that we could do and is either rewarded or punished justly for that action, we can learn from that lesson, for example. It is cathartic.
But again, I think it depends on how similar we are. We can understand each other's experiences because we are similar to some extent. Maybe I have felt pain in my hand, and you have felt pain in your foot. It would be different with someone who has not felt pain.
I think we can learn many things through words, but the greatest learning, I think, probably comes from experience. If you stay alone on an island for a long time, what happens? You will still learn a lot about life. I think.
I like your answer. The goal of the experiment is to give an answer that is your own to the question. It's about saying authentically what we think, and not trying to give a "right answer". If you are forced to say what you think in this way, you will end up giving an original answer that is not based on repeating what someone else said. Even if what you say matches something you have heard, I would ask, are you saying it because it matches what you have heard, or because you truly believe it to be so?
I think your answer stems from you, and it's not something rephrased, is it?
I think we have become accustomed to saying things, not as we think them, but trying to sound right. And I don't know which is better, but I think we learn much more, and grow much more, when we talk about things as we conceive them. The more authentic we are, the better. Sometimes people are afraid to say what they think, because they don't want to be wrong. Sometimes we don't realize how much we would grow if we did. But I digress.
Correct. It's ingrained into language. The origin of thought is expressed in language. All language is offering definition of words. If you go back to the origin of a term, you most likely will end up having it related to something tangible.