We can learn from experience. I run too fast. I trip and fall and hurt myself. This knowledge goes almost immediately into my intuition. I don’t have to think about it. I just know it: Don’t run too fast!
We can also learn from thinking. Thinking is a combination of imagining and comparing. I imagine what would happen if I was running very fast and then try to come up with a way to avoid falling. Why did I fall before? What it only because of my speed or was there something else, something I can control? What if I paid more attention to where I am going?
“More attention.” What do I mean by that? I have to think back to when I fell. What was I paying attention to? Then I have to imagine a change. And then I try to compare the consequences of making that change.
Usually, this kind of thinking involves a conversation with myself. But not always. I might discuss this with a friend, a colleague, even a stranger.
This is the heart of it. Conversation. Communication. Describing a problem. Describing a possible solution. Describing what I am changing and trying to see if that might make a difference. Describing how and why that would make a difference. Coming up with a rule.
Now that I have that rule, I might think that I am in charge. Now I can always run faster and not have to worry about falling.
That is the beauty of language. It gives us control. That is the danger of language. It gives us the illusion that we are in control.
It is now time to think about apples.
If a child thinks about an apple, it thinks of the apple as a single thing. The child does not contemplate the many things that an apple might be.
Apples can be things to eat, to draw, to throw, to use as a logo, to philosophize about.
But an apple cannot be locked into a single meaning. Even when it is our intent only to eat an apple, we immediately enter other domains: cooking, measuring, physics, chemistry, allergies, metaphors.
One of these domains might be important to one particular person (such as a cook). The other domains might be considered incidental, unimportant to that same user.
What I am saying is that language is not at all as reliable as we think it is.
I might think I am in control of the language I use. Actually, I am at the mercy of that language,
This is not just about me. It is about every one of us.
I am saying ithat language is not at all as reliable as we think it is.
Talk to two people who married for “love”. They probably believed they each had the same definition of love. The same definition, right down to the importance of remembering birthdays, or what gift to buy, or the importance of honesty.
They will argue. It is almost inevitable. Perhaps it will be about where to leave dirty clothes. What to do about the dishes. What to spend money on.
And at some point, one of them might include a certain phrase in their discussion: “if you loved me”
We designate an object by using a word. But that word exists only in our mind.
The object exists elsewhere.
“Love” is an experience. It is not an object. “Love” is ineffable (a fancy word that means it cannot be truly defined).
When I am talking, I know what I am trying to say.
(I think I know what I am trying to say.)
What I am saying is that language is not at all as reliable as we think it is.
Look up any word in a dictionary.
A dictionary is supposed to make clear the meaning of words. How does it do this?
It uses words. It uses words to define other words.
Sometimes, it uses pictures to define words. A picture of an apple to define “apple”.
Now imagine a young child looking at that picture on an apple. What color is the apple in the picture? Probably red. If so, will the child realize that the color is not as important as the shape. But other fruit have the same shape. Will the child realize that the shape is not absolutely reliable for recognizing apples. What is? Size alone doesn’t describe apples. Taste? Taste alone doesn’t identify apples. (And, by the way, please notice that we are already moving far beyond what a dictionary can provide).
At this point, some smart person is saying something like this: “I know how to identify an apple. It is based on “experience”. If I have experienced enough apples, I will be able to identify apples.
Well … no, you won’t. Not absolutely.
Okay, dear reader, it is time to introduce a nasty word. It is a word that some reader among you might already be using.
Sophism.
Look this word up. There are good definitions online; and I don’t want to plagiarize them. They wouldn’t be right.
Partly because all those definitions are – well – kind of wrong.
They claim that the meaning of sophism is “an argument that seems correct, but is wrong.
I claim that sophism is a word used by people who cannot stand to lose an argument.
The thing is: I am not trying to win an argument. I am simply making a statement about something I think is obvious: Nothing is perfect; not even language. But this bothers a lot of people, especially those who use language – as I do and probably you do – to communicate, to share ideas, to convince other people of something.
Sophism is a sort of “dirty word” used to shoot down an unpleasant idea
People depend on language. And here I am, saying that language is unreliable.
Yes, it is unreliable, but we need it.
Cars are unreliable; but most of us need them. Clocks are unreliable. You name something that you think is reliable. Whatever it is, it is actually unreliable.
If that were all I had to say, you would be right to reach for that word – sophism – just to get me out of you head.
But it not all I have to say. In fact, it is just the beginning of what I have to say.
I am saying that yes, language is unreliable, but it is what it is. And we need it. So we must continue to rely on it.
Our cars and stove and refrigerators and clocks may be unreliable to one extent or another, but nonetheless, we have to rely on them. Most of the time, I have enough important things to be thinking about – I can’t waste time worrying about whether my refrigerator is working at this moment.
We – myself and every reader who has made it this far – are standing at the precipice of a paradox. I will get us past this danger. (Yes, paradoxes are dangerous – they crash computer systems and destroy logic and are capable of making an AI stop communicating.) Paradoxes are important. They are responsible for most of the social problems we have, most of the things that people see going wrong. It is important to learn how to live with and survive paradoxes.
From this point on, what you will see is my previous thoughts on all this. They are unfinished. I leave them there only as a scaffolding for myself.
.
We might form a sensory image of that object using the “input” of all senses; but it is our mind that creates within itself an image of that object, on image that cannot possibly resemble the totality of that object..
I might.
What I am saying is that language is not at all as reliable as we think it is..
Others will also have an image of that object, a word for that object. The word will often be the same word we use; but that person’s mental image of the object may be quite different from our own.
And chances are we will not be aware of those differences.
So what? Does it make any difference to us?
Well, yes. A difference is a difference; and differences often lead to dissent, to confusion, fear. Anger. Danger.
What it comes down to is simple. At a certain point in learning language, we give up trying to perfectly define or understand the meaning of something. We believe that others will understand what we mean.
You know what I mean.
Except … you don’t.
Yes, you do understand in a general sense. We have conversations such as:
“You need to be on time for this workshop. We start promptly at 8:00 AM.”
“Okay, I’ll be there.”
Neither speaker is trying to mislead the other. Both believe they are conveying their intent accurately. But the first speaker means “I want you to arrive by 8 AM.” The second speaker is saying “I will arrive in sufficient time. It will be after 8 AM because I know that no meeting starts on schedule. You needn’t worry.”
This restating I just engaged in does not reflect the conscious thoughts of either speaker. Anyone who speaks the language they have been raised with will be speaking intuitively, attending only to exceptions to what they expect.
“Sometimes a Great Notion” (by Ken Kesey) is a powerful story of brotherhood and love. It is enhanced by Kesey’s use of language. In one scene, the main character chooses to get in a fight. On the surface, it would appear that he is doing this merely in response to a challenge by his opponent. But Kesey shows us that the protagonist is thinking about what his brother, having an interior conversation with his brother in which his objective is that his brother see how to fight, how to choose the risk of the fight. But beneath this, there is a deeper message: I am doing this for you; you are important to me. And there is yet another level, a gut level in which he is thinking in the moment, aware of the pain and responding to the intensity of the moment.
Each of these states is reflected in different fonts and quotation styles. We see the protagonist’s ambivalences – he wants the fight / he doesn’t want the fight; he loves the brother / he’s angry at the brother. Without the author’s writing strategy here, there would be no way to communicate all these different and contradictory emotions. Kesey allows the reader to see what the character intends to communicate better than the character himself knows, nor all the witnesses to the fight.
The movie adapted from the book does not match the depth of the book. Conveying all the nuances of feeling, all the different thoughts at different levels of consciousness could not be done cinematically. It was Kesey’s genius that allowed it to be done on paper.
It is a fallacy to believe that we can ever be precise enough in our communication to avoid any misunderstandings. Even when reading a text instead of hearing what someone else is saying, we can (and often do) misconstrue the intent of the author.