I've been thinking again lately about worlds we compose in our minds vs the "real world out there". Once we get into human symbol systems (technically “sign” systems according to the semioticians), all or many bets are off in terms of limitations based upon coherence with empirical reality. And since sometimes, perhaps often, the whole point of engaging in some symbolic worlds is to deviate from, replace, or largely defy reality, then no surprise, they do. It’s possible to enter a symbolic world, engage in its rituals and lingo, follow its codes and experience the affective – and sometimes intellectual – payoffs that they may facilitate.
I think of the reality defiance of Cervantes's Don Quijote, the composed worlds within composed worlds as in the Forest of Arden in As You Like It, or the riffs and intonations of Iris DeMent in both word and sound. Video games apply. Live music concerts or what's between your ear buds. We step across thresholds of structures and do what would be very funny things with our bodies that within that context make absolute sense. And, then again, "the real world", "mind", and other lingo like this, important as they are, are also abstractions. The "real world out there" is already "in here", and we're riffing and intoning them how we do as we do every moment.
-bbc
