Translating the word "Experiencer" into Italian
Posted by willbueche at 19:49, 24 Jul 2010Nuance of meaning retained with newly invented word
by Will Bueche
John E. Mack Institute
An website contacted the John E. Mack Institute for permission to translate some of Dr. Mack's articles into Italian.
We granted permission, and I asked what word they would use for "experiencer", since that is an invented word in English that Dr. Mack popularized. It has become an important word in the lexicon of alien encounter research, so needed some careful attention.
"Experiencer" is a deliberately vague term meaning "one who has experienced something", which in its vagueness allows for many possible interpretations of what exactly may be the nature of the experiences.
We asked a librarian what resources existed for getting the finer sense of word meanings, and she turned us to this site, http://www.woxikon.com/english-italian/e... , which suggested that "esperienza" can carry the meanings of knowledge / mental sensation / skill. Sounded about right, and the word is a good sound-alike.
So I proposed "esperienzer" (esperienza with an "er" substituted at the end), but I did not know if adding an "er" to the end of a word turns something into a noun like it does in English. (As in "one who travels" becoming "traveler".)
The translator replied that "esperienzanti" may be what we were seeking. (As anticipated, Italian does not place an "er" at the end.)
"'Esperienzanti' is like 'those who are experiencing something'", he wrote.
"I think this word does not exist," he noted, "but I like the idea. I can use it."
So, barring any further revisions, I believe that the words "experiencers" and "experiencer" in Italian will henceforth be:
"esperienzanti" (plural),
"esperienzante" (masculine singular), and
"esperienzanta" (feminine singular)
...At least in articles by the late Dr. John Mack.
When the translations are complete, links will be posted to them from the originals at www.JohnEMackInstitute.org and www.PassportToTheCosmos.com.
UPDATE: American-based Italian researcher Paola Harris confirmed that there has not yet been an Italian term for "experiencer" invented yet, and that "esperienzanti" is not a term that has been used (or indeed, even exists), so we are truly pioneering the use of this new term.
I hope it catches on as a more direct translation of "experiencer", because a unique, invented English word deserves a unique, invented Italian word.
Harris added that a word similar to the English word "contactee" is most often used in alien encounter literature -- "contattisti, or contattati ...mostly contattisti".
Which returns us to the very reason that "experiencer" was needed: "Contactee" carries the implication that a person has been contacted by an outside agency, and that is the sort of pre-loading of meaning that the term "experiencer" is meant to avoid. By being more broad, "experiencer" allows for many interpretations.
Though granted, the neutrality "experiencer" was designed to possess has developed a positive emphasis, even as it retains as an open question what the experiences are.
"Experiencer" has come to mean a person who has come to embrace, or be open to, their sometimes frightening experiences as a means to learn and grow -- elements which the knowledge / mental sensation / skill elements of esperienza agree with well enough to affirm our enthusiasm for the new Italian term.
RELATED NOTE: Foreign publishers interested in translating Dr. Mack's book Passport to the Cosmos, please contact the John E. Mack Institute. Italy -- we are ready for you now!
http://johnemackinstitute.org/center/cen...
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Comments
14 April 2009
27 min 14 sec
That must be fun, being involved in the creation of a new word.
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All that lives is holy, life delights in life.
--William Blake
12 April 2007
52 min 20 sec
I admit I'm not too fond of the word "experiencer". I understand the need for it, to somehow 'empower' these people so they feel less like victims, as the other word —abductee— unconsciously implies.
So I guess it's more of a politically correct term; something the American culture is too sensitive of nowadays.
But that doesn't mean these people were 'experiencing' these traumatic events of their own free will in the first place :-/
Or maybe the term 'experiencer' is embraced by folks who realize the canonical ETH explanation is not adequate enough to define what they have gone trough? That it's not as easy as saying "aliens take us at night to collect genetic material in order to produce a hybrid race" as is so often chanted by the followers of Budd Hopkins? To separate themselves from the people that are convinced they are dealing with extraterrestrials?
It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
Yes "experiencer" is an odd word in this context. Usually the -er postfix implies that the person was engaged in an activity, as in mover of even follower. These people did the moving or following. In this case, the "experiencers" were entirely on the receiving end, were they not?
Unless of course the implication is that the experiencer is responsible, in an active way, for something happening.
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We are the cat.
14 April 2009
27 min 14 sec
Yes "experiencer" is an odd word in this context. Usually the -er postfix implies that the person was engaged in an activity, as in mover of even follower. These people did the moving or following. In this case, the "experiencers" were entirely on the receiving end, were they not?
Unless of course the implication is that the experiencer is responsible, in an active way, for something happening.
Well, if you put it into a Buddhist context, then everything you experience IS co-created by you. Things like meaning, words, colour, texture, justice, compassion don't exist without us.
But in a Naive Realism context, then yes, these abductees ARE passive consumers of their experiences.
It all makes me think of Grant Morrison, who allegedly induced an abductee experience on himself.
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All that lives is holy, life delights in life.
--William Blake
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
Sure, you can take the Buddhist context to its ulitmate consequence and there you are, solipsist in the world of your own making.
The world does exist without us. What we describe as "meaning" or "color" is our interpretation of it. Naive Buddhism mistakes the interpretation for the real thing.
Words are even more indirect, they serve to communicate our interpretation to other people.
However, for the cases where the abductee experience is fabricated, then perhaps the experience is an active thing after all.
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We are the cat.
14 April 2009
27 min 14 sec
Sure, you can take the Buddhist context to its ulitmate consequence and there you are, solipsist in the world of your own making.
The world does exist without us. What we describe as "meaning" or "color" is our interpretation of it. Naive Buddhism mistakes the interpretation for the real thing.
Words are even more indirect, they serve to communicate our interpretation to other people.
However, for the cases where the abductee experience is fabricated, then perhaps the experience is an active thing after all.
Ah yes, but we never experience the 'real thing' -- we only have what our neurology tells us (and all of our sciences and arts and such are mediated by that neurology). We are not passive consumers of reality, but play an active role. This does not mean that 'reality' doesn't exist, but that there are aspects of what we call 'reality' that requires a neurology being there.
(and here I'm not even going into the consequences of Bell's Theorem)
It sounds like you have already made up your mind just what everyone's abductee experiences are and aren't?
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All that lives is holy, life delights in life.
--William Blake
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
About abductee experiences, I have no idea how many are fabricated and how many are not.
I'm pretty sure that some exist only in the minds of the "experiencers", and have no basis in actually being abducted.
I am also pretty sure that some of the experiences described do not even exist in the minds of the abductees, but are deliberate fiction.
How many abductees have actually been abducted, and how many by alien beings, I have no idea.
I was just saying that the word "experiencer" tweaks the language, by combining a root that implies a passive experience with an ending that implies a purposeful activity. That's probably why the word is not part of normal usage. I am sure the author is aware of this.
What the author wants the desired effect of the word to be, he can tell us himself.
On the interpretation versus reality part - of course you can't have interpretation without an interpreter. But I find the emphasis placed on the interpreter by western interpretation of Buddhism to be overdone. In fact, it smells of self-importance.
The blue light that a person sees is blue due to the wavelength's interpretation of the person's mind, and due to the person's association of the blue light with, for example, blue flowers.
But the light and the flowers are blue for the rest of the world just as for that person. The interpretation is not an invention.
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We are the cat.
14 April 2009
27 min 14 sec
The blue light that a person sees is blue due to the wavelength's interpretation of the person's mind, and due to the person's association of the blue light with, for example, blue flowers.
But the light and the flowers are blue for the rest of the world just as for that person. The interpretation is not an invention.
When you finally grokked that colour doesn't exist in the object itself, as our sight tells us, but instead as you are saying...was your mind blown at all?
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All that lives is holy, life delights in life.
--William Blake
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
The color is a property of the object, in that it reflects or radiates light of that wavelength.
The discovery that the mind plays a role in interpreting the world doesn't mean that the mind is all there is. That is on some philosophers.
The object does not stop reflecting or emitting blue light when you stop thinking about it.
It seems that for some people getting into the Buddhist mode of thinking gives way to a kind of near solipsism. They discover that their own mind is important in how the world appears to them. They then conclude that they are the only ones who have a mind.
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We are the cat.
14 April 2009
27 min 14 sec
The color is a property of the object, in that it reflects or radiates light of that wavelength.
The discovery that the mind plays a role in interpreting the world doesn't mean that the mind is all there is. That is on some philosophers.
The object does not stop reflecting or emitting blue light when you stop thinking about it.
It seems that for some people getting into the Buddhist mode of thinking gives way to a kind of near solipsism. They discover that their own mind is important in how the world appears to them. They then conclude that they are the only ones who have a mind.
Thank you for showing me your BS (belief system) and taboos. You are generous.
I think that you and I are agreeing.
The blue light that a person sees is blue due to the wavelength's interpretation of the person's mind, and due to the person's association of the blue light with, for example, blue flowers.
This is what I am thinking:
still taking our blue flower, the 'blue' 'is' a result of a wavelength of light interacting with our neurology. It doesn't inhere in the flower. It doesn't inhere in the light itself. It 'exists' in the interaction between that wavelength of light and our neurology.
And that since everything operates according to laws (observable, predictable, testable) this 'blue' can exist for other people as well in similar ways. That is, EM radiation works in similar ways, our neurologies work in similar ways, etc.
Nothing more. No 'special mind powahs' causing that blue flower to suddenly change into 'red'. No 'that flower doesn't exist by itself'.
This way, for me, avoids the Supernatural Explanation that is still part of our culture, that the world is made up of objects that act upon the world in isolation from the rest of the world.
(I think the bit that you are focusing on is of the intentional vs. the unintentional, or 'a lie' vs. 'real')
From such people as Alfred Whitehead and Systems Theory, I get an image of existence as being made up of relationships, and that the relationships are where properties 'inhere'.
I hope this is somewhat understandable.
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All that lives is holy, life delights in life.
--William Blake
22 November 2004
2 weeks 14 hours
I think we may be saying very simliar things quite differently.
We have no knowledge about what "blue" is like in another person's mind. We sort of agree with them by telling them what things appear "blue" to us, and when they assign the same quality to a similar group of objects, we agree that we have defined "blue".
It usually is not exactly the same set of objects, the two sets just overlap a lot.
This next thing is related, even though it doesn't seem to be to the casual observer:
Quite often I have found that co-workers in a creative field come up with similar solutions, after having studied a problem together. Often the assumption is that Alice copied the solution from Bob, or Bob from Alice, This is often not the case, instead parts of their minds have acquired a similar structure.
Whether the structure is contained in the mind, or has become a fundamental part of it, that is a further interesting question.
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We are the cat.
17 November 2010
1 year 10 weeks
The proposed translation are really bad and they really sound awful in Italian.
For the word "experiencer" I would propose not a single word, but a little sentence like
"Colui che sperimenta" o
"Colui che fa esperienza".
Do you want to live forever?
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