Colorless Green Ideas 01 - what takes us 'above reality'

"Colorless green ideas sleep furiously".

This is a famous sentence made by the distinguished linguist Noam Chomsky demonstrating the distinction between syntax and semantics. The sentence is grammatically correct but semantically nonsensical. One can read it but cannot derive any meaning or understanding from it.

I first saw this phrase in a text book of linguistics I was reading in graduate school. It is said one cannot derive any understanding from it, but it sort of blew me into the world of "Alice in Wonderland." I like the phrase very much, it is simple, poetic, and me with my wild imagination it is easy to imagine "ideas sleeping furiously". Some might say 'how can green be colorless?' or 'how can you sleep furiously?' and I would just answer, 'Why not?'

This sentence shows that syntax and semantics can operate independently in people's minds, and I think this is how metaphors, poetry and fantasy are born, people have the mind to appreciate them and why there are surrealists. The autonomy of the functions are the source of our creativity, what take the human mind 'above reality'