Thingamabob
Intelligence has a lot to do with naming. A Chinese proverb says that “the beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names.”
Whatchamacallit?
Consider this. Philosophy got its beginning in ancient times when a certain Greek began to speculate about the nitty-gritty. What is the basic stuff of the universe—or, basically now, very basically, what is everything made of? The Greek was Thales, who said that everything was made of water. Others had other theories. Philosophers, you should know, are like bees who attend to things in clusters, and at this early time they were all attracted by that one question, What is the basic stuff? Anaximenes said it was air. Heraclitus said it was fire. Empedocles said it was earth, air, fire, and water in various combinations.
Historians of philosophy report the whole story with a straight face even though it was all about theorizing of the silliest sort and reached the highest level of the comic in the theory of Anaximander.
Anaximander said that everything originated out of the indeterminate boundless.
Wow! The indeterminate boundless. What’s that?
Well, actually, our philosopher had no idea—that’s why he said it was indeterminate. Really, Anaximander should have just said he didn’t know what it was that was the origin of all things. Or he might have done what we all do when we don’t know. Call it the thingamabob: everything arose from the thingamabob. Or was it the thingamajig?
thomas@discoveringyourintelligence.com