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From: hadeishi@husc4.harvard.edu (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Newsgroups: talk.philosophy.misc
Subject: Re: The meaning of language (was Re: Characterization)
Message-ID: <372@husc6.HARVARD.EDU>
Date: Fri, 10-Oct-86 15:17:18 EDT
Article-I.D.: husc6.372
Posted: Fri Oct 10 15:17:18 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Oct-86 05:30:59 EDT
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Reply-To: hadeishi@husc4.UUCP (mitsuharu hadeishi)
Organization: Harvard Science Center
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ve.  However, since you offer no evidence or
>justification for this opinion, why do you expect others to accept it?
>Exactly the opposite seems true to me; that no matter how different the
>experiences and descriptions, the necessary internal consistency would
>be enough to decipher the language, given a sufficiently large sample.

	Language does not need to be internally consistent.  A formal
logical system does, but not language.

	Actually, in the case of language I see no particular way to
adequately define what you might mean by "internally consistent."

	Question: How would one go about trying to decipher a language created
by aliens?

	Suppose these aliens had absolutely no points of experience
in common with ours.

	Imagine still further that these aliens had a system of concepts
which is for the most part orthogonal to ours.  (They cannot be
completely orthogonal because they, like we, use a form of language.)
So, for example, they may have no concept of time, space, objective
reality, et cetera.

	My assertion is this: the system of strings of symbols
which we call language always refers to some kind of internal concept
or idea.  We communicate by stringing together referents to these
concepts.  To understand another person we essentially must
recreate the thought of another by using the clues given by these
referents.  Therein lies the art of listening.

	However if the strings of symbols used by these aliens
do not refer to the ideas and concepts we are used to dealing with,
then we would not be able to translate them into any intelligible
form of English, no matter how many lengthy definitions we provide.
I.e., the wine tasters, if they only spoke of wine, would not be
able to communicate to us the quality of their taste of wine no
matter how long they spoke.  And wine tasters are human!

	The best we might be able to do is "Glibbitz glob gloo."
If they had a concept of objects, perhaps "THE glibbitz glob gloo."
If in addition they had an idea of objects acting on one another
in a time-sequence relationship, perhaps "THE glibbitz globbed the gloo."

	However, as the wine-taster example clearly shows, it is
not at all possible to transmit meaning only through the use of
language.  There must be shared experience.  (This is clear.
Do you dispute this, David?)

	Equally clear is this fact:  even if in principle we could
decipher meaning from language without shared experience (which
I argue is clearly impossible), it is certainly not possible in practice.

	In fact, there has to be a considerable amount of shared
experience before this can be done, in practice.  (cf. Artificial
Intelligence attempts at language translation.)

	When I say shared experience I also include the implicit
assumption that the two beings sharing the experiences have similar
minds; i.e., more accurately I should say shared concepts.

	What I am discussing here is practical philosophy.

	For example, even between two intelligent persons (and I
give you credit for being very intelligent, David, though perhaps not
altogether modest) even a slight difference in conceptual outlook
can render attempts to communicate almost futile.

	Between you and me, David, there exists a conceptual chasm.

	This chasm is not wide, though it is very deep.

	We can discuss the weather, the Red Sox, perhaps even the
color of the sky (unless you are color blind.)

	We can discuss the meaning of children's stories.

	Already this indicates a very, very large commonality
between our conceptual frameworks.  (Again, for extensive discussions
of this remarkable fact, please see the literature on AI attempts
to develop programs that can analyze children's stories, even very
short ones of a few sentences.  A convenient source is Dreyfus'
_What Computers Can't Do_, a controversial work but full of
fascinating examples.)

	This chasm, however, prevents you from appreciating the
nature of my argument, and in particular allows you to ignore
even the simplest elements of evidence I've adduced to support
my point.  (In this case the wine taster example is enough to
support my language argument.)

	I would like to say something more.

	I am not at all arguing for a kind of futility.

	That is, simply because of my lack of confidence in the
expressive omnipotence of language, I do not mean to imply that
we as humans are in any way limited to the limitations of our
language (or even our conceptual frameworks.)

	I am arguing for a dynamic reappraisal of our personal
intellectual frameworks.

	By this I mean: if you feel that language is expressively
omnipotent, you are satisfied with the type of discussion which
is restricted to language.

	This limits you, for the most part, to remain within your
a priori conceptual frameworks.  This is a statement of practical
reality, not necessity.  I.e., it is the trap which is easy to
fall into if you are a philosopher.

	You may feel that you are exploring many different frameworks
and possibilities through language.  However it is the language you
use that restricts you to a certain class of frameworks and possibilities.

	It is difficult to generate a radically new type of framework
from within this kind of discourse.  (Although I am attempting it here,
I did not arrive here through this kind of discourse.  I should
mention that I am not talking about drugs.  I do not take psychoactive
drugs, I have never done so, and I never will do so.)

	The question arises: do we need to generate new frameworks?
Why not consider the ones we have to be sufficient?  To this I answer:
you must look within yourself and answer this question as truthfully
as you can.

	But: In fact I do not think that *within* new frameworks lies the
answer.

	What I am talking about is a return to the basics.

	The basics being: what are the questions we should be
asking?  In what way should we go about answering them?  What are
the pitfalls into which we can fall?

	Reasoning takes you from premisses to conclusions.

	If your premisses are based on confusion, then your
philosophy will be based on confusion.

	If you do not constantly recheck you premisses against
reality, you will firstly be unable to distinguish between
plasuible-sounding premisses and secondly will not be able to
catch subtle fallacies in your premisses.

	This is why philosophers have the impression that they
frequently are getting nowhere (cf. the ethics debate.)

	Reality itself is a fertile ground for correcting your
errors.  There is no need to go to great lengths to check.
However, you have to go to some lengths.

	This is why language must be distrusted.

	Language simply represents concepts.  Some concepts lie
outside the range of language to express without direct
experience (my entire argument above.)

	Therefore we cannot just lie back in our armchairs and
expect that we will be able to fathom reality by talking and
talking.

	We will just be rearranging concepts in our minds.

	I believe this is the intuition of the artists.  If only
artists could influence philosophers!  Unfortunately it is usually
the other way 'round.  (Artists should have more confidence in their
intellectual authority, I think :-)

	The above has had resounding importance in my personal
and intellectual development.  I am speaking from experience, not
just theory.  It has reached a sufficient level of coherence for me
to feel confident in trying to express it in words.  Especially
to you philosophers out there on the net.  Even philosophers
deserve to be saved from themselves.

			-Mitsu