By Not Hegel
Some years ago, I was reading Frank Herbert’s “Dune” and I noticed that there were many words I didn’t understand. I was passing over them trying to “guess” their meaning. Because Dune was at a higher reading level than most fiction, it made this realization very striking. I decided to take action! I will look up and memorize every word that I didn’t know the definition of. At first, I found an even higher ratio of words that I had to look up than when I had this realization. I was glossing over much more than I was aware. I didn’t know if this was a battle that I could win. After many books and many months later, the vocabulary lists started accumulating more slowly. But something else happened that I didn’t expect. I began to identify things around me more clearly.
As an example, schadenfreude was one of these words which means: pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune. I saw someone that fit this definition and I realized that I now have a better word (other than Jerk) to describe what I saw. It was like a skill saw in my mind carving out ideas so crisply, I felt so empowered. I suddenly came to the profound realization: language provided me with knowledge of the world. With these new words, I didn’t feel so alone in my abstract ideas and I wanted to discover the inner working of language’s power.
Language is Rational and Discrete
Language is not truth itself, it is a tool. Language can only be symbolic of the truth we come to understand. When someone possesses the truth, they possess a model of something in the world that corresponds enough to give insight and make valid predictions.
The mind can never contain 100% truth in something because the difference between the model and reality is that the mind is rational and discrete, whereas reality is irrational and fluid. For something to be rational and discrete it must have the ability to be contained. Allow me to give you a mathematical analogy for language.
Fractions are discrete by using whole numbers whereas thoughts are discrete by storing information in patterns. Language is especially discrete by using words. Just as some numbers are irrational like pi and e, we can only represent their relationship to what it represents but we cannot show the precisely accurate number because it would go on forever. There are some words that represent something irrational in the real world like the spectrum. The concept is discrete but the reality is fluid. The concept has the ability to be contained since it is only a representation. Language contains definitions by signifying their meaning. I will add though that I do see a limit to the irrational and fluid where the smallest things end up being discrete again (there is nothing that is infinitely small). That magnification will end and become discrete (~10-100 meters for distance would be realistic). But I digress, 10-100 negative power is clearly more minute in accuracy in its parsing than the rational mind can divide a natural language into.
Language guides us to make understandings and predictions. The better language is parsed the clearer the understanding. I believe it is possible over time to create a language that parses truth more accurately, at least from a perspective, but never 100%.
Concepts are developed when a lot of languages, charts, and drawings are explained and synthesized together to make a model of the world. We say the things it is and the things it is not until we sculpt it down to where another could explain it in their own words. This shows the concept was transferred. Concepts are like the elephant-in-a-room analogy where language can only reveal small parts of the concept at a time. The danger is that if the premises are invalid then the concept ends up being a narrative called “straw man” – which is a logical fallacy. This means that each statement may be true (as in each straw) but the object created by it (the concept of the straw man) ends up being a fantastical construction. This is unfortunately very common in the real world and something to be wary of.
How do we know whether a concept has a valid construction or not? When we have differing views that create a paradox. This is why I developed this blog. When you find a paradox it would likely be because one or both of the concepts are a falsely constructed narrative. Groups end up taking opposing sides for these concepts until one concept wins out in one way or another. However, these types of battles take place over decades or millennia. One example would be Alfred Wegener, the German meteorologist and geophysicist that published his book “The Origin of Continents and Oceans” in 1912 that the continents originally fit together and that these tectonic plates drift over time. His ideas were met with skepticism and criticism, and many scientists found it difficult to accept that the continents could move. Wegener’s ideas were not widely accepted until the 1960s. The validity of a concept is often determined through an accumulation of evidence and testing over time
Concepts can get the best of us if they are not grounded in objective reality. So using a tool like the scientific method is beneficial to cultivate objectivity. But since each focused scientific observation is usually an assertion of one fact, it can end up creating false assumptions when developing concepts. To mitigate this limitation, science relies on a process of replication and validation. Societies also seem to get around these limitations by doing thousands of different experiments over time to eventually build a snapshot of what reality entails.
Derrida’s Hidden Distortions
Derrida is a Post-Modernist (which after much deliberation I disagree with and I will explain in a future article) but he spent much of his career on the problems of language. The video below shows Derrida’s critique of language:
I see Derrida’s point that language creates hidden meanings for misinterpretation. But when language is used to convey a concept, it slowly sculpts with ideas on each sentence, and a model is transferred. No, it’s not perfect, and there are hidden distortions in the process of transferring a model. I would describe language and concepts as an artist. If the artist has learned the skills effectively, they may be able to create seemingly flawless recreations. It may have taken centuries of collective knowledge to produce these skills. To convey deep concepts with language, it may take centuries to build up the collective knowledge necessary to accurately convey the truth. In this fashion, I see Derrida as pointing out the flaws in the technique and in its execution. As we learn more about epistemology, truth in the world will be easier to attain. Language happens to be the most effective tool for transferring concepts and cultivating ideas. So don’t discount it as ineffective.
The Evolution of Thought Through Language
The development of written language is another example that shows the collective development of language and how it helps to convey truth. In earlier languages such as hieroglyphs and cuneiform, concepts were often represented by pictures or symbols of the objects they referred to. This made it difficult to convey abstract ideas or to represent words that did not have a concrete representation.
With the invention of the alphabet, written language became more abstract and symbolic. The alphabet allowed for the representation of sounds and the creation of words that did not have a direct visual representation. This made it possible to represent and convey abstract concepts and ideas. For example, the invention of the alphabet made it possible to write down mathematical equations and scientific theories that could be understood independently of their physical representation.
The development of written language also led to the creation of literature, philosophy, and other forms of abstract expression. This allowed for the preservation of knowledge and ideas from one generation to the next. Just as in the example of scientific vocabulary, the development of written language, especially the alphabet, has played an instrumental role in the evolution of human thought and understanding. It has allowed the conveyance of abstract ideas and the preservation of knowledge in a way that was not possible before. This is another example that shows how the collective development of language helped to convey truth. It also reflects the evolution of human thought and understanding.
As ideas become further abstracted from reality into our future through the development of language, we need to be careful that language can only create models of the world. As Derrida warned, language can create hidden meanings and alternate interpretations that can lead to confusion and misunderstanding. As language develops and evolves, it will provide more magnified opportunities for insight but also opportunities for misunderstanding. In conclusion, the more we understand about the nature of language and its relationship to truth, the more effectively we can use it to understand and represent the world.