Structured Visions Jodie Clark

What new language would you most like to know? Is astrology on your list? Does astrology count as a language? Maybe the language of the stars could be classified as a pidgin, a language without native speakers. But if, as discussed in Episode 96, ‘The Earth’s language’, languages are ways of organising information, then it … Continue reading Episode 99 Linguistics and astrology

Counting… that’s maths, right? Actually, it’s language. And as we’ll discover through a series of absurd tasks (like, ‘count everything you can see’), you can’t count anything until you know what ‘counts as’ a thing. Language draws the lines around what counts, and it shifts and changes as it does so. In this episode we … Continue reading Episode 98 Linguistic singularities

What’s the weirdest thing about human language? We explore linguistic polarity and all its bizarre implications. Embedded in every human grammar is a way of turning a positive clause (I’m listening) into a negative clause (I’m not listening). Grammatical negation is one of the ways we can do denial. (‘I’m not scared of that dog,’ … Continue reading Episode 97 The intimacy of denial

We start the episode, as always, with a couple of questions: There’s an answer to Question 2 that will be true for anyone who says it. ‘I am here.’ But if you write it on a piece of paper, and then leave the room, it stops being true. Does that make spoken language more genuine? … Continue reading Episode 96 The Earth’s language

What happens when we die? Ideas about the afterlife (or the lack of an afterlife) requires theory building based on either faith or experience. What if you don’t have faith in stories about the afterlife and you’ve never experienced anything resembling a near-death experience (NDE)? In this episode I’ll guide you through a language-based exercise … Continue reading Episode 94 Language and the afterlife

Is there a distinction between you and the rest of the world? Where do you stop and the rest of the world begin? What’s the meaning of the word ‘now’? The gift of language is that it shapes and reshapes the experience of separateness. It’s a gift because it’s fluid. It’s more a membrane than … Continue reading Episode 93 Where do you stop and the rest of the world begin?