Prodigious improvement over other explanations I have seen! I have no inherent objection to identifying things as ineffable, but there are usually boundaries around the ineffability which can be identified. Some of them are very well understood.
For example, childbirth. There is no way to compress the experience of childbirth in such a way that someone who has not gone through it themselves can be said understand the experience: but we have doctors and midwives who specialize in managing it; books and classes about how to approach it and deal with it safely; tools and techniques for making it safer and more comfortable. Yet the experience itself remains ineffable.
Another example, combat. There is also no way to compress that experience. But we have large institutions that train people how to recognize and prepare for such an experience, by the million. We have specialized areas of medical knowledge that arose specifically to deal with the aftermath of these experiences. Yet the experience itself remains ineffable.
I wonder about ineffably-ineffable experiences; it seems like once we have a good institutional buildup for producing the prerequisite experiences then maybe we could build ineffable institutions to approach the next level. It seems like the population of enlightened-veteran-mothers will be very small though.
Prodigious improvement over other explanations I have seen! I have no inherent objection to identifying things as ineffable, but there are usually boundaries around the ineffability which can be identified. Some of them are very well understood.
For example, childbirth. There is no way to compress the experience of childbirth in such a way that someone who has not gone through it themselves can be said understand the experience: but we have doctors and midwives who specialize in managing it; books and classes about how to approach it and deal with it safely; tools and techniques for making it safer and more comfortable. Yet the experience itself remains ineffable.
Another example, combat. There is also no way to compress that experience. But we have large institutions that train people how to recognize and prepare for such an experience, by the million. We have specialized areas of medical knowledge that arose specifically to deal with the aftermath of these experiences. Yet the experience itself remains ineffable.
I wonder about ineffably-ineffable experiences; it seems like once we have a good institutional buildup for producing the prerequisite experiences then maybe we could build ineffable institutions to approach the next level. It seems like the population of enlightened-veteran-mothers will be very small though.