January 2nd, 2008
Private Languages
Artists are not the only ones to invent personal languages and mythologies.
Transcriptorial: I have invented languages / to speak them and not be understood.
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I’ve invented alphabets, so I can write and not be read.
You’ve invented threads, so you can weave without being woven.
I can’t seem to get enough.
I saw your banner on a softer world
and I clicked it…
I’m glad I did.
Awesome. Then I’m glad you did, too.
I speak a language that not even I understand
Most have a need to remain a mystery to others - to create an illusion of individuality only by a knowledge gap.
Guess what, guys and gals? Probability ruins just about all of that.
Could you explain how, Madness?
I can try.
Quantum Mechanics teaches us that the only values we can measure are Averages. Before the measurement is done, to check a certain theory one must put together a “Wave function” - something that clues us in about what we can *expect* to find.
I think this is true even beyond QM. Any gaps one has in their knowledge is usually filled with assumptions. If someone leaves a gap in the picture others draw of them, they will simply get it filled by what these others would expect to find there. This “Expectation value” is the average of such qualities as found in the immediate surroundings.
So in effect, instead of differing themselves from others by being ‘mysterious’ and ‘obscure’, people simply get their image pushed towards the average.
In psychology it’s called a “closure illusion.” It’s generally referred to in regards to optical perception, but I can agree that it extends to thought processes and information assimilation as well.
I find this idea contradictory to what language actually is. Language is an agreement between people that give sounds and symbols meaning. Language is a tool to make the abstract into something concrete. If the language remains abstract, is it a language at all?
Language is inevitably as much about disagreements as agreements.
I don’t think language is reliable enough to be thought of as a tool.
Purely abstract languages are still languages.
Can’t we have ongoing unreliable disagreements about imperceptible things?
A tool doesn’t have to be 100% reliable in order to still be effective. Yes, there are ideas and nuances to things that language can’t always properly convey, but enough of our ideas are capable of being expressed that the language is still effective. Yes, there are disagreements as to the meaning and intention of some words, but they are far outweighed by the agreements. I still have to disagree that a purely abstract language would still be a language. Language is meant to convey ideas to others. If nobody else can understand your ideas then how is it a language?
i’ve always had the suspicion that no one speaks the same language, that to each of us words have different meanings, and so no one is ever fully understood.
or maybe that’s just me.
It’s funny you comment here today, because I happen to be reading a lot of linguistics books and articles these days. There’s this joke, a passer-by tells a linguist “Good morning.” A couple blocks later the linguist is still wondering what he meant by that.