*wordflail*

[trinker]

Over the last year[1], I've been noticing moments where I have no idea how to express the thought I'm having. Not in any language I know. English is the one I have the most vocabulary in, but perhaps not the one that encompasses my innermost framework. I suspect it's not any one language, anyway

Comments

[wcg]

At the risk of sounding like I've gone off the information theory deep end, I'll allow as how I think of language as the user interface of thought. Our natural, spoken and written human languages are a lot like the high level programming languages. This is why people who program in Fortran think differently from people who program in C/C++, or Java, or $LANGUAGE. Similarly, people who think in English formulate ideas differently from people who think in Persian, or Mandarin.

But deep down, I think the ideas themselves are very much as you describe. Things happening in a very low level code where the code may be different for each person's brain. (Or maybe all brains share a common, universal low level code, as imagined in Snow Crash.) Language is the abstraction we use to share the low level ideas with others.

[trinker]

"language as the user interface of thought" makes sense, yes.

There's a scene in Nancy Kress' _Beggars in Spain_ that set off an amazing amount of longing in me. But even there, the metaphor was slightly off.

I remember learning to speak and write in ways that bridged the leaps I was in the habit of making. Sometimes I feel like I've sacrificed speed and clarity of thought for clarity of expression, and there's a Heisenbergian problem inherent in the dichotomy.

It's all being exacerbated right now by an upwelling of thoughts without proper word-containers. *sigh*

[wcg]

Can you invent the words? I figure C++ allows you to create data structures, and English is notorious for growing new terms all the time.

[trinker]

Bootstrapping the problem is a long process, as the necessary words feel like they require encyclopedic scaffolding.

But I'm a strong proponent of neologisms, as you know. I think I'm going to add the tag "language is power"to this.

[linenoise]

I've always felt a certain resonance to something I saw lilairen say once about this sort of thing. Trying to puzzle out complex thoughts for me is like playing Tetris in three dimensions. Thoughts have *shape*, and I can only make words out of it once I make a cube out of the thought-pieces, or something.

[trinker]

ooh. Thanks.

[nancylebov]

I don't generally have thoughts that won't go into words, but I run up against feelings that seem clear and obvious when I'm feeling them, but I go for words to describe them, and I have this simple faith that of course the words will be there, but sometimes they aren't. Sometimes, I can find words. I think that if I don't find words, I'm apt to forget the feeling.

As for wanting to holographically annotate, one of the transhuman powers on my wish list is the ability to communicate in hypertext-- just transfer and receive chunks of information which the associations between them. I think I'd trade ultraviolet vision for it. Holographic annotation might be even cooler.

thank you for a very though provoking post (again!)

[gh4acws]

data point it is the very imprecision of existing words that make me go silent sometimes - orin Physical terms what needs to be expressed is the superposition of all states and the words only describes particular single states.
This certainly relates to questions of motive ( why did I do what I did : the answer is usually a mix and the true answer is distorted the moment I speak. )

Lack of words will hobble ones ability to express oneself - however if we do not try at least to approximate the 'truth' in the words we have we will not be able to define the really needed expressions.

I sometimes wonder if any where there ARE words that describe feelings exactly. --- "How do I love thee, let me count the ways.." ( precise language SHOULD be shorter.

[bemused_leftist]

On the general question, if all thinking meant thinking in words, then what is happening when someone is looking/feeling around for which words to use?

Do they think it is 'words all the way down', like 'elephants all the way down'? ;-)