Language and Understanding

I read a bit of Bertrand Russell (Language, an essay in “An outline of philosophy”) where he says that a word in itself becomes more important than what the word is supposed to mean or represent or something to that effect. Anyone has any takes on this? And, is language itself inappropriate to understand some things?

You named yourself after A MiG?

I think what he is getting at is the politicos shout freedom, when, infact, what they are about is slavery.

The populace hears ‘Freedom’, but loses sight of the lost freedoms.

A few things don’t translate well, from any language, spoken or otherwise.

Yup. MiG-29, called “Fulcrum” by NATO. Bit of an aviation nut. Russian machines, especially. Been so for several years now. And the pic (avatar) is from a painting of mine too…:slight_smile: :sunglasses:

Any ideas on the language bit? Been reading a lot of Russell lately. And anyone knows where to find Wittgenstien’s writings on the net? I find him immensely interesting…

Hi anarchistangel, a couple of points - freedom and slavery are regarded in what sense? In the political sense, yes, I think I understand what you say - the political minded will potentially shout slogans of freedom because there is perhaps the concept of freedom meaning individual success in the commoners’ mind. All for their own to avail, of course. However, few people have seen corporate culture - teamwork, work distribution and such, as a way of life. Maybe there is more to life than just freedom, of course, freedom is never to be underestimated - I am in favour of freedom to the “right” degree, but can’t explain what “right” in this context is - its just that it is circumstantial, it depends on the society we’re dealing with.

Agreed about the translation of ideas part - some ideas are difficult to understand when put down on paper, some ideas are better explained, and some ideas cannot be favourably communicated by our present languages.

Russell says something about older philosophy (when dealing with language in children) concurring on this: children develop sentence-form languages or phrase-form communication prior to words. He, however, disgrees with their opinions. He says that the languages are built from words in the mind and children start learning languages as aglomeration of words, which coincidentally, seem to please the parents…essentially bottom-up learning. Is language more of a comfortable compromise than a bunch of solid conceptual representations?

And is it hence not possible to express some things with it? Or is it that we don’t think of some things because of our language and how it limits our thinking?

Howdy,

Freedom in the sense of complete self determination, slavery in the totalitarian ‘do what you are told by those with authority over you’, kinda way.
Work/job being an exception, no chaos in the construction zone, thank you!

Put me down as being limited by the box of my expierience/educations.

Is language a compromise on the sound/s representing the instictual/inherent/genetic conceptual nature of life?

Where is the one eyebrow raised emoticon? What no trekies in the programing cubical? Some how I doubt that!

Lao Tzu says, in my interpretation:

Understanding that can be gained through description is not full understanding.
A description that can be given is not the only description possible.

Reality is there without descriptions.
Descriptions are what helpes us conceive the difference in things.

Without intent to define one experiences the essence.
With this intent one apprehends the ideas.

Yet idea and essence arise from the same source.

Their mutual identity at the source is the mystery of consciousness.

It is the gateway to all understanding.

:astonished:

:confused: .

That was deep.

I got lost at “without intent…”.

Is it missing punctuatuion or does it have a grammatical error, or am I just having density fluctuations?

Have you ever had an argument over something insignificant and eventually the argument itself became more important than the issue that started it?

This is the gist of Russell’s comment. In Philosophy, we frequently argue about terms and forget that the ultimate purpose of our study is to know the real world behind the terminology, not the terminology itself.

I can actually see this…
Someone on the board shouts “God”
BillWaltonSexUniveristy hears “scientific theories we must worship”

I think what he was trying to say is basically people always try to act as if they can understand or conceive something simply by reading something, such as a history book and visualizing a massive war. Granted the words described a general getting his head blown off but there is no way in the world one can empathize with someone getting their head blown off unless your head has been blown off too. So I think by that to him it just funny how people act as if they know something but in a sense can really just misconstrude a meaning into a whole other realm thus making ones point in vain…so sad so sad

Oh sorry, I am new here and I just stumbled upon this side when I was looking for 3D effects to make a cool theme for my desktop. My beliefs, personally, are that words can lead someone from the true meaning of whatever that is way off. Emotion is the truest thing to man and with that we achieve new plateau’s for I’ve seen the idiots of idiots gain power simply because how they can talk and I’ve seen genius solve theories that professors have been working on for years but still have no drive to show it to the world. Strange life we live in.

Hi Troy, interesting points. I guess I have to make a distinction between “essence” and “idea”. I fear this may be just another linguistic difference. In fact i think it is just that. Maybe what Lao Tse meant by essence is what it means from the observer’s point of view, and idea is perhaps whet it means in a non-subjective point of view where he is just observing the phenomenon at hand without describing it to someone and hence coming to a compromise in his understanding - a compromise which is bound and determined by his understanding of the concept and his interpretation of it in his language. It all seems hopelessly subjective and hence undecipherable at that point.

And about the “mutual identity at the source” part, well, I believe that it is indeed the same bit of information except with different interpretations.

Actually Logos, I kinda agree with what you have said. Sometimes people take up debates of importance with prejudices. Maybe thats why they tr to one-up each other and eventually leave the matter at hand in the lurch.

Iratate4k, I had this thought - empathy, at its very root is again based on perceptions of things and events from a perspective goverened by language. So I guess it is important as to what range of things our language can help us understand.

Well, yes mate, agreed there.

anarchistangel,

If language is a genetic/instinctual compromise for communicating back and forth, then it is at best still experimental, and so we can convey things only so well, perhaps. Interesting thought, the evolution of language.

Maybe not the full timbre, depth and gravity of our voices, maybe not the waxes and wanes which contribute to the subjective assessments and emotions, and maybe not a lot of other important things may not be conveyed fully in written/understood language because of mutual failings, in many cases.

Grammatical correctness:

Without intent to define one experiences the essence.
With this intent one apprehends the ideas.

Without intent to define, one experiences the essence.
(One is the subject in the second clause.)
Without this intent, one apprehends the ideas.
(Same as the previous.)

Does that make more sense?

What I think Lao Tzu is trying to say, is that when we simply experience the tree, without thinking or considering the term “tree”, we are actually having the full and pure experience. But in order to understand the idea of “this tree” or “that tree” in order to make distinctions, and find a different sort of understanding, an understanding that requires defining, such as, “But how do I tell this tree from any other tree? What are the differences? The similarities?” Well, then we must necessarily form distinctions.

But both are needed to fully comprehend the world around us. A child, before properly developing a language fully, and before growing too old to embrace things fully (think John Keats’ poetry) is capable of the experience-style understanding.

We too are capable, but we simply let it go. This is why meditation is so important (or one reason why) in Buddhism. It allows us to experience the “unthinking” experience, the unjudged and unbiased experience. It allows us “to be” and “to experience” purely, without a layer of distinction or judgement getting in the way.

Did that help?

And so, to conlude with Russell: Yes, I do think language is limiting. But it also broadens our understanding in some ways, at the same time. I think it’s important to have both.

I remember in my anthropology class, we discussed a tribe in America, that has a language lacking in distinctions of time When they were explained the theory of relativity, they were able to comprehend it immediately. We who have time distinctions, have more difficulty. This is an example of how language can influence thinking.

Was that satisfactory?

Hi,

Sorry if there’s mistakes in the grammar, English is not my native language. But, if you would allow me to continue my mystery mongering…

Yes you are right, but this is exactly what I mean (and in turn what I think Lao Tzu means); with “mutual identity at the source” I mean that we are in a sense unable to distinguish between what is real (essence) and what is concept (idea). Because, as soon as we have identified/distinguished the essence it has lost it’s being essence, and we only continue to ‘work’ with the idea of essence.

I think this is what is meant when the last bit is often translated as:

Darkness within darkness.
The gateway to all understanding.

One thinks of a word as related to a real thing (essence) but when one attempts to look at this essence (that which the word refers to and is in fact the meaning of the word) it is/becomes just another word. This is ‘Darkness within darkness’.
Our understanding/words leave us in as sense blind.

The same goes for the text of the Tao Te Ching, which is exactly what one is being ‘warned’ about at the start of the text.

Perhaps I’m milking it. I admit, I like a bit of mysticism now and then.
I’m sure Russell, Wittgenstein and friends have a lot to say about it.
But I think Lao Tzu, in a sense, is one ahead of them. He is putting his money right from the word go on the notion that any intellectualization does not lead to the understanding one craves. At the end of the analysis all definitions turn out ‘cyclic’ and one remains trapped in ones framework.

:blush:

Oh by the way thanks for the corrections (the commas).

Shybard,

Thanks for the grammatical corrections. Yes I understood the disinctions made between the adult (conditioned) human’s perception of material objects or phenomena - an understanding devoid of language, and hence an “experience” rather than a concept formed of words and therefore of a certain type or sort. Rather incisive of Lao Tse to have observed and documented this (in the way Troy McClure had sent it in). Where could I find more on language and how it influences thinking (one the www)?

Yes meditation is one of those things which I reckoned always to provide focus or concentration to certain activities. In reality, we all can be focussed on several different things at once and therefore may not be able to analyse, interpret and understand phenomena which require our undivided attention. I had a pet theory some time bak that one had to perform one task at a time to get everything right about it. Or atleast, the mind must be focussed on the matter at ahnd rather than things which are not important to outcome. Thanks for pointing this out. Our understanding of things when we are solely involved with them is necessarily much greater, whether we develop concepts in terms of words for them, or otherwise, since we are focussed on it.

I agree that language presents possibilities for understanding several things as well as doesnt provide just the footing yet to understand some other things.

Hey yes thats a very interesting point. In fact there was a trivial detail about a language I rather have a love for - Sanskrit, which I wanted to share. In Sanskrit, words written in sentences need to be in no particular order for the sentence to mean what it does.

Take the example of “A defeated B in the snooker game.” Well, if you’d write the sentence in Sanskrit and jumble the words up, it’d still mean the same, and not, maybe - “B defeated A in the snooker game”. So the sentence becomes unequivocal even when jumbled, so you may not have any mode of storing sequential information when constructing a sentence, and so the first thing which comes to the mind ehen observing something may be noted, rather than some complex grammar which eventually leads to the matter or subject.

Its just that in different positions in the sentence, the importance of different parts of the sentence can be stressed and so we can have different sentences which mean exactly the same, but with words in different positions, but where the emphasised clauses or objects are different.

And I guess the questions we ask ourselves to understand the outside world would depend a lot on someone else we commune with to answer these questions. And in having the correct language in which to ask a conceptual question, we would have an advantage that few cultures have enjoyed, I think.

And interestingly, “Sankrit” or rather “Samskritam” itself means (in sanskrit) “Well created” or “Well cultured” - thats another thing I wanted to share.

Robert Anton Wilson makes some good points (imho) on language in his book Quantum Psychology. This is my understanding of it: Language is a learned construction of preconceived notions that allows us to integrate experiences and learn. A kind of filter. It makes sense to us because the map of experiences and learned things allows us to manipulate objects/think/etc in the realm of our existence. This map we have in our heads is not ‘real’ of course, we can’t drink the idea of ‘water’. This seems obvious but when working on subtler levels this isn’t always so easy to spot as I will point out later in this post. So language is valuable to describe a shared experience so that both parties understand it. It’s a tool of communication and exchange of ideas.

Wilson argues the point of Alfred Korzybski, creator of general semantics and points at an annoying flaw in scientific and even normal language.
The start of this quote from Wilson might seem a bit strange since it is out of context, sorry:

Underlining added.

He then goes on to explain how physicists were reeling with the split-up thinking of words ‘space’ and ‘time’ and it how it took Einstein to unify them as space-time and discover the theory of relativity. People still somehow assume that the semantic grid in their brains dictates what they can think and that the grid somehow is the same as the ‘reality’.

Another example from Wilson, two sentences ‘A photon is a wave’ and ‘A photon is a particle’ both are true, whereas Aristotelic either-or thinking would get us at it’s either a wave or a particle. When translated to:

and

This makes a lot more sense since we are describing events which take place in the space-time existential world.
When we are using ‘is’ or ‘are’ we are assuming the Aristotelic notion of the ‘isness’ of something, so we assume a static view.

In the field of psychology this kind of approach is called transactional psychology. It tries to make people understand that we can’t perceive essences so the notion that something holds this ‘isness’ resides in the realm of possibility and that the language they use to describe their experiences holds a static point of view. I can’t logically hold that I am exactly the same person at a certain instant and the same person 5 seconds later and others don’t appear to stay static either.

[i]I do not understand why because I don’t feel the need to whelp out a couple of bastards to fulfill my life, society views me as an aberration.

It puzzles me that my decision to remain child-free is looked on in society as abnormal.[/i]

The first sentence indicates the speaker is a bitter, antagonistic, and possibly misogynistic female.

The second sentence indicates the speaker is rational, has made a decision based on available data, and could be either male or female.

Both of these observations are based on the connotation of the words used, not the denotation. But more interestingly, while the idea expressed is what is supposedly under contemplation, it’s the psychological reaction and intrepretation that drives us. Our response to the speaker in both of those sentences would be driven by our impressions of the speaker through their choice of words.

Language is a human construct, and therefore inherently flawed. I happen to be an American, and find English to be fairly descriptive. However, I have found that certain feelings and emotions I have lend themselves better to being expressed in Finnish. I submit that the words themselves, are only important in how the listener/reader intreprets the psychology of the mind behind those words. A single idea I have could never be expressed in words so another person could understand exactly what I was thinking. The empathy between the listener and speaker, combined with the word choices of the speaker are therefore critical in getting an idea across. Because the emotions involved in the idea are just as important in understanding as the content of the idea itself.

–Kissa

Hey all,

I found something about Robert Anton Wilson’s E-Prime concepts on a website. Thanks for pointing his work out, for it was definitely interesting.Now if I may share some things I noted:

  • The ‘likening’ to something and the ensuing confusion is the chief cause of Wilson’s purpose in developing this new system.

  • The sentence “The photon is a particle” beoing expressed as “The photon behaves as a particle when constrained by certain instruments” is certainly an example of an improvement over the initial proposition. Thanks for pointing that out. There are more examples like that which he gives.

  • There is another example - “Beethoven is better than Mozart”, which he says would be better phrased - “In my present state of musical education and ignorance, Beethoven seems better than Mozart to me.” I find this example rather more difficult to grapple with. It is, after all, fairly easy to conclude that “better” in this case is a subjective word, and all the author is trying seems to be losing the big picture of conveying the relevant information when moving on to a detail which may seem unecessary to the bulk of us.

  • In this connection, I would like to bring a matter to discussion from Kissa’s post (thanks for bringing the word up-) “empathy”. This is a characteristic which Wilson has seemingly underestimated. I don’t blame him, of course, his determinism can definitely solve several of our doubts rooted in language. However, empathy can be honed in similar cultured societies to add to the depth of understanding that language can provide.

  • I fear overemphasis and lack of depth in argument or communication. This is chiefly for the pragmatic stand I take that I, like many others, require irrational communication, so even if I am trained from childhood to handle all communication with the care and redundancy which Wilson emphasises, I would be none the wiser when it came to brainstorming on my next project, to name one thing.

Floater, the last point you make is a good one. I believe that there are no static points of view, either, for the same reasons you give:

However, the present case for the English language seems to be one which, in my opinion, does not advocate so much of perfection or “political” correctness. It is for this reason, that though I identify with what Wilson has to say, do not advocate all English deterministic, (irrational?) arguments to be replaced by their E-prime counterparts.

Kissa,

Your notion that human language is “inherently flawed” may perhaps be better expressed as “two wrongs making a right” in the context of human language and empathy - perhaps it makes up for the flaw of language in people.

And may I say that IMO, your interpretation about the examples you gave was subjective or rather decided on specific preconceptions. What isnt a specific preconception to any of us, you may ask, but maybe it is that many humans iron out differences in their preconceptions over time through common allusions from communication and assumptions, and hence form a “generally accepted view”. Maybe what you say about the misogyny of the woman who said so, might be judged on just such a thing. Just a thought.

And yes, I believe that emotional communication is also based on a compromise, much like the inconcrete empathy which leads us to the interpretation of written language in the manner in which we take it up. So, certain tones of voice and certain actions certainly add to the effect that language can communicate.