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TEDx Talks
Title: Elements for the construction of meaning | Fr Neil Frank Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) | TEDxUKZN
Published: 2017-09-07
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVcZll8uvKg
good evening everyone and thank you to the team that organize this evening when I was at that institution in in India standing there about ten years ago I received a letter from a very young friend ten days ago was and may I say was because she died in X. a few years ago I didn't know that I used her story to convey a message about meaning
and then there was an altar server in the parish that I served I am a Catholic priest with post graduate qualifications in physics and philosophy faith science rationality make me why I'm and contribute to what I'm going to say in non contradictory ways ten days ago wrote this letter and in the letter she gave me all the news about the people the place news about the
place and then she ended a little with these words he said this is my message for you when you see a butterfly it is me checking to see if you're okay after that letter began to notice Bratislava there were no longer all because designs shapes Dawson from flower to flower I mean if I saw them they would they would leave a smile on my face as
I felt the warmth and affection come from miles away sometimes I would just stop in silent wonder staring up bush's other students at the college I was that sometimes quote me just standing and looking at the bushes and they would say father what are you looking at and I would say just the butterflies but I wasn't looking just at butterflies the butterflies had a new significance
with me and therefore did put troops and after that experience I began to think about the woods I listen to the worse I hope they construct the way I look at the world construct meaning what I want to talk to you about is about these words it's not about the butterflies many people who listen to the storing different contexts I left with some romantic image about
the butterflies and the happy to stay there but I want to tell you about language constructing an inference written the way you look at the world language this is our greatest technology that T. into but let's not dismiss the butterflies too quickly had this time they got said if you see a fly or a mosquito I probably wouldn't be using the story you see the symbols
are important to because the symbols participate in the reality they may present and very often that reality is %HESITATION itself was not visible and it's that reality that I'm talking about I'm often withdrawn Christians to do to you that I'm not going to answer what are your central symbol what are symbols but you latch on to that help you construct hopefully some ultimate meaning meaning needs
to be put into perspective and you've heard that I teach a module at our institutes in Joseph's at Siddhartha cool philosophy of nature I mean this module I introduce students to the physical theories about the universe the Big Bang theory except for and %HESITATION I take great joy and showing them a series of slides I received by email a few years ago I don't know the
author of the slides and three weeks ago I received a what's up version so maybe you have seen the two the slides show the year from a geometrically increasing distance by a factor of ten from one meter ten meters hundred meters a kilometer ten kilometers and so on when the distance gets to a trillion kilometers the sun is seen to be just one star among thousands
of other stars in a low key way I saw like tear away which is the next factor up the solar system is just a spit at ten years a ten light years away the solar system was not visible on that scale and without fail in my class is always some risk business at that point sometimes a sh a shifting in their seats sometimes even some uncomfortable
laughter as as the students crossed this unfathomable reality of our place in this vast cosmos human life is insignificant apparently and possibly probably not unique the earth is insignificant possibly not unique and the series of slides continues for a few more factors of ten and then it ends with a very provocative Christian are you center of the universe makes you think doesn't it what is your
place does your universe extend beyond your skull beyond your ego but let's assume rocked back to your place you sitting in this auditorium how do you construct your meeting in this falseness of because most that we're in or even just in the political system secular in in this part of Africa when I finished school I went to university and I issued studies in physics I couldn't
imagine how anybody else could be starting anything else right understanding the fost because mark's %HESITATION %HESITATION and and it stretches understanding of nature in its that my new test quantum levels was everything for me and I have this this almost mystical sense that everything was convicted and explicable through all these theories I did not see that any of the other faculties could be true intellectual pursuits
but then I began to realize but studying the physical theories of the universe did not help me negotiate my emotions did not help me create this went into post limits not inspire me full for action to one social cohesion do not motivate me for us to have the gangsta pate it was in the eighties I guess of course I want to develop certain kinds of military
hardware when I made these who realizes shins %HESITATION I began to to pursue other other other fields of study I realize that just understanding the physical world was flat there's no high two diff of meeting just it was six but colorful wings so back to the block of flats what happened in that story about the butterflies what happened in my mind that it's the words of
my friend they helped me to give you significance to check the box of flux what happened I think I took those words and created new associations and mama I I read about the words of the concepts of the police emotions prejudices and they formed a network or admit and I used this met to catch the world I could say that I constructed reality I could say
that I constructed my meaning I could say that I used the network as spectacles by which I looked the world and that's the question I'm throwing off to you is how are you constructing designing the D. in tape yolo you'll meaning what words are you taking in I think we do that all the time %HESITATION just think about how the piece of gossip changes the way
you look at because you've constructed this men's work by which you're looking at the world we've just heard stories about racism in immigration we do that for outside networks about race about the politics in our country about religion that terrorism they all just networks from which we are having certain perspective I want to ask how what what do I need to listen to what do you
want me to listen to to get to some ultimate meaning there are so many words out there we are bombarded from the time we get up to the time we go to bed but social media with the television without radios if there's a never ending stream of words and maybe sleep is even more words churning and trying to work out everything we've heard is what sect
means with apparently good sayings Facebook posts but personal commitments tweens with what short say much like my butterflies say depending who you follow me hollow do you listen what should we be listening to in this but as the cost must lady speaking to us and that brings me to my final point and it comes a gate with another anecdote which I am and if there's no
meaning in what I am saying that he's the anecdotes are entertaining the E. into it I did some of my studies for the priesthood in Rome and when we got there in the first group of us together in that first we had no common language and we have to try to learn Italian this because he could so he could speak to each other and also made
his noon felt the tension in this group and decide to take us out for %HESITATION a trip on on the trains in Rome and as we stood at the patch for the kingdom of the PA system sounded and we all went very silent people hoping to be the first to catch some Italian word in that announcement and after about forty five seconds we all just bust
out laughing that was the only language we had in common Nnamdi shouted well now part owner we could make a full sentence in Italian then but what we're saying is into higher announcement sounded like one would if you have that experience listening to a foreign language but I learn them is that when you learning a language convert to put the spaces for the words you've got
to be attentive to the space with because every word begins in silence and ends in silence and when you crossed the silence then you can browse the word and its meaning see listening added to to %HESITATION to meaning requires silence and that's my story three elements for the construction of meaning symbol that participates in the reality I make such reality present that's not visible word that's
his theory of harnessing and meaning investing that determines how you see the world and silence but you can here will profoundly and see more deeply and hopefully rightly I am a person of faith of Christian faith and the Catholic priest and these three symbol word and silence converge for me in one in my encounter with Christ but that's a story for another twenty
