Myth, metaphor, symbol and uncertainty.

A couple of weeks ago, I was preparing some stuff and got hooked by the ideas of Joseph Campbell. He was heavily into myth and strongly influenced by Freud and in turn Jung. Here's a bit from that great authority Wikipedia

"A fundamental belief of Campbell's was that all spirituality is a search for the same basic, unknown force from which everything came, within which everything currently exists, and into which everything will return. This elemental force is ultimately “unknowable” because it exists before words and knowledge. Although this basic driving force cannot be expressed in words, spiritual rituals and stories refer to the force through the use of "metaphors"—these metaphors being the various stories, deities, and objects of spirituality we see in the world. For example, the Genesis myth in the Bible ought not be taken as a literal description of actual events, but rather its poetic, metaphorical meaning should be examined for clues concerning the fundamental truths of the world and our existence."

 This is heavy stuff if you start your mind running on the possible outcomes. I was blown away by the concept that words have no meaning until you read and understand them. Reading is an interpretative act. Okay, it's within a framework, but not everyone shares the same hermeneutic.

When you ally that to Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle which says you can either know the position or the speed of something but not both at the same time - and it's difficult to be certain about even that, the whole thing becomes an invitation to provisionality and ushers in the great post-modern bogeyman of relativity.

No wonder fundamentalism is becoming popular!

I need to lie down and listen to Pink Floyd at high volume!!!