"What's in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would smell as sweet." - Juliet in Shakespeare's famous play Romeo and Juliet
Why would I open with this exact quote? My goal in this blog is to discuss the basic irrelevance of names. Modern Society functions and sorts information by naming things. These "things" could be objects, categories or themes to which the objects belong: they could even belong to people. William Shakespeare's intention behind this line of speech is that names are an irrelevant convention. Juliet Capulet has fallen in love with Romeo Montague and this quote suggests that Juliet has fallen in love with the man named Romeo Montague, not the name Romeo Montague.
So this leads me to ask, how would our society function differently if names were different or completely unknown, would we have a base to our communication? What if a banana was known as a yellow edible stick? Would we believe that? Or would we perhaps simply just accept it as what our society accepts? What if red was used to describe a different colour of the spectrum?
Take a moment to think about what things would be called if different people hadn't have discovered or named them. Would gravity still be the force holding us to the ground?
How would we address each other if names didn't exist? What system would we use to acknowledge everybody? Would everybody be assigned a number or a code perhaps? The possibilities of this are endless and allows the English language to be examined and prospected with a detailed imagination.
That's all I have time for now, but get back to me on your ideas of names and what else was discussed :P
Eckart Tolle discusses this concept also in his book "A new Earth" and leads us to the idea that "labelling" things or items causes us emotional obstacles and grief and stops us from reaching our true potential. It is very interesting. Good one Moose!
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