As I have mentioned in a previous book of mine, some Inuit languages in Canada have one word which says, 'I like you very much but I would not go seal hunting with you.'

You can look across a table and 'see' someone through that perception. This is totally different from saying after the meeting: 'Joe is a good fellow and I like him, but I would not want to go seal hunting with him.' Description after the event is not at all the same as perception at the time.

As a matter of fact I think this powerful Inuit word is not good enough. Two words are needed: 1. 'I like you very much but I would not want to go seal hunting with you because you do not pull your weight (make holes in the ice, lug the seals, etc., etc.) 2. 'I like you very much but I would not want to go seal hunting with you because we should be spending hours together on the ice and you are very boring company!'

Imagine the following shape: there are three lines; at each of its ends one line joins another line to form an angle; the three angles so formed enable the three lines to enclose an area completely.

Would it not be very much simpler if we had the word 'triangle'? Description is not perception.

Imagine a huge chest with lots of drawers. Each drawer contains one type of word. Whenever we want to describe anything we open the appropriate drawers and take out the required words. When we have finished we return the words to the drawers. What has been described has an existence only while we assemble the words to describe it.

Description follows perception. But what guides that perception?

Australia, Thailand, USA, Argentina, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuwait, Copenhagen, London was the itinerary of a recent trip of mine. The itinerary exists only when the travel agent has put it together.

Contrast that with the concept of 'Amsterdam'. That immediately conjures up canals, practical, easy-going people, window-shopping for sex, brown cafes, etc.

A concept has its ramifications and its suburbs-just like a town.

A concept or a word has its own 'locus' (or place) in the nerve networks of the mind; from this locus we move more easily to other places. A description is an itinerary which visits one place after another. In neurological terms the two are totally different.

The brain can see only what it is prepared to see. If the brain contains complex concepts then we can perceive the world through these concepts: this is perception.

The Xhosa language in Africa has twenty-six different words for the horns of an animal. This makes recognition and identification of animals much easier and more definite. All this is very different from description after the event.

So how are we going to create the new words that are going to allow us to see the world in a much richer and much more powerful way?