Language in terms of disagreements, conflicts, contradictions, and messes

Consisting of Quanta of “Logos”

Vasil Penchev

• Bulgarian Academy of Sciences: Institute for the Study of Societies of Knowledge

• vasildinev@gmail.com

Thursday, September 25th, 15:00 Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics of the University of Tartu, 25-27 September 2014 “Disagreements”, Tenth Estonian Annual Philosophy Conference - EFAK X

The thesis • The “opacity” of language is not less important than

its “transparency” for the understanding and philosophy of language

• The “opacity” is not any disadvantage of language but the fundamental property of it allowing of it to be constituted, and to function

• That opacity addresses indivisible units, ontological “quanta”, which are “atoms” of being, both reality and meaning

• The derivative concept of ontological quanta offers a base for a not-Saussure “semiology”, i.e. for a non-classical semantics referring to the being itself rather than to the representation of reality

Language and reality • Language is often described as a mean of the

representation of reality and the meditation between human beings for actions in reality

• That modern understanding of language culminates in the constitution of semiotics after Pierce and Saussure

• The “slogan” of that semiotics might be “Sign Represents!”, and any “good” sign should represent reality

• In fact, that conception can relate semiotics to mathematics as an interpretation of set theory

Emancipating literature • Furthermore, the language can emancipate from

that function of representing and even communicating in fictions and literature or in linguistics

• The “good” sign, which represents, suggests a “bad” and “egoistic brother”, which does not want to work, i.e. to represent

• The deeds of the “bad sign” creates fiction and literature, which is something whether less or more, but never equal to the deeds of the sign truly representing reality

The good sign and the bad sign • Obviously if that is the case, fiction and literature as

well as the egoistic signs are secondary and derivatively definable by representation as deviation from it

• The mathematical concept of function corresponds to the “good sign”:

• The ideal is the bijective function of sign where exactly a piece of reality is mapped in a single word (= scientific notion)

• Then science “corrects” language according to that ideal of absolutely precise and adequate and thus absolutely transparent representation

Opacity versus transparency • Therefor one can offer another viewpoint to the

language, according to which the language should maintain an optimal degree of opacity rather than transparency

• Furthermore, that opacity implies special ontological quanta of being, which is neither “subjective” nor “objective” but both

• In terms of the Saussure semantics, those ontological quanta of “opacity” can be hinted by “entangled” signs, in which the signified and signifier are not absolutely independent of each other: They might even coincide

Replacing reality by an image

• Thus the main function of language is to replace reality by an image of it, which should not correspond to reality exactly but more or less approximately and even fussy and foggy

• That fussy and foggy opacity of language is fruitful: It can be described as “linguistic uncertainty” analogical in essence to the Heisenberg uncertainty in quantum mechanics

• Indeed as quantum measurement chooses a value among all possible ones as language serves to replace reality by a randomly chosen image of it among all possible ones

Fictions and literature as the goal of language

• Consequently, the main function of language is to create fictions and literature rather than representations. Indeed:

• Reality is too rich, various, and diverse to be able to be singly represented in a consistent way in general

• Instead of this, language creates a set of possible images of reality inconsistent to each other

• No one of those image can represent reality but only their collection. Any separate image singly is not more than fiction (literature): Language is the tool for them to be created

The particular case of representing

• Furthermore, a very important, but only a particular and borderline case is that of representing reality in a single way alleged to be absolutely transparent

• This particular case is the ideal of classical science and even of realistic literature

• It can be reduced to that approximation where the piece of depicted reality is much and much “bigger” than the cells of ontological quanta

• That realistic painting is “pointilistic”: the single quant is so tinny that it seems as a point

About defining language • However this particular case should not serve for

researching and defining the language in general • It replaces language by big enough ensembles of

linguistic images such as words, propositions or any other units of meaning

• The main property of them is distinguishability: Then their ensemble can be accepted as statistical in ideality

• The disagreements, conflicts, contradictions, and messes between those units of meaning are considered as “defects” removable at least in principle or in average

On defining the language in terms of ontological quanta

• That definition should relate language and time • It should include the past, future, and present of

language: • The well-ordered language of “good signs”, i.e. the

language as past • The indistinguishable or hardly distinguishable

language of “bad signs”, i.e. the language as future • The transformation of “bad” into “good” signs by

distinguishing choices, i.e. the language as present • The uniform description of the above three stages

in an invariant way

Main arguments “pro” the thesis: • Reality is combined from many fragments more or

less consistent internally and rather inconsistent to each other

• Even if the hypothesis of one single reality is granted, any human being perceives and interprets it radically differently from anyone other

• The process of appearing of any meaning darkens gradually all contradictions both between different aspects of the meaning and between its interpretations by different human beings: The sense of any meaning consists in the optimal proportion between its unclearness and exactness

On the formulation of the first argument • The hypothesis of a single reality underlies the

possibility for the language to be understood as an exact representation of reality

• In fact, reality is combined from many fragments more or less consistent internally and rather inconsistent to each other

• The even partial agreement even of a little part of them is too complicated and redundant puzzle, the resolving of which is one task, considerably exceeding the intellectual capabilities of any human being, even of a genius

More on the first argument • Fortunately, the language has been evolved in

another way, “bracketing” the question about the absolutely exact representation of reality either single or plural

• Therefor it has gradually and historically grounded tools such as words, which are fussy, foggy, imprecise, but which are apt to omit all immaterial contradictions between eventual parts of reality and clearing more or less only a few essential and consensual properties

• Consequently any unit of meaning outlines some area of consensus either between parts of reality or between many realities

Is reality single? • The hypothesis of a single reality underlies the

possibility for the language to be understood as an exact representation of reality

• However this is not more an axiom • That axiom is not assertable both deductively and

experimentally • Even more, the conception of many worlds and

thus of many realities is well-established in philosophy, logic, and quantum mechanics, etc.

• At least, after Lobachevski, one is free to postulate its negation in order to see whether any contradictions appear deductively after that

The kaleidoscopic reality • In fact, reality is combined from many fragments

more or less consistent internally and rather inconsistent to each other

• Thus the words of real language should be adequate to that kaleidoscopic, “many-fragments” reality

• This means that any shake of the “kaleidoscope of reality” should not change the separate words as the beads, pebbles and bits of colored glass as in a real kaleidoscope

• The constant “shake” of that kaleidoscopic reality addresses the little pieces in it as ontological quanta

The intellectual limit of an average human • The even partial agreement even of a little part of

reality is too complicated and redundant puzzle, the resolving of which is one task, considerably exceeding the intellectual capabilities of any human being, even of a genius

• Language is undoubtedly the assets of mankind as well as of any human being singly rather than only of genii

• Any average human being should use it successfully at least as a “black box”: Indeed the language as a “device” is maximally “user-friendly”

“Bracketing” the representation of reality

• Fortunately, the language has evolved in another way, “bracketing” the question about the absolutely exact representation of reality whether single or plural

• In fact, Husserl’s phenomenology suggests and develops that “bracketing” of reality in order to be able to be acquired the pure phenomenon of the thing in consciousness

• In semiotic terms, that “bracketing” leads to “pure” signs, in which the signified and signifier would coincide absolutely showing themselves in the themselves by themselves (after Heidegger)

The fussy, foggy, imprecise words • Therefor language has gradually and historically

grounded tools such as words, which are fussy, foggy, imprecise

• However the words are apt to omit all immaterial contradictions between eventual parts of reality and clearing more or less only a few essential and consensual properties

• The words can be considered as ontological quanta rather than as units of meaning: Then their fussiness, fogginess, impreciseness would be not defects but fruitful uncertainty being due to their nature

The meaning as an area of consensus • Any unit of meaning outlines some area of

consensus whether between parts of reality or between many realities

• One can say that meaning is invariant to the choice of a certain reality therefore creating the illusion of a single reality

• Nevertheless the meaning should refer only to a huge sets of uses rather than to a single use of a linguistic unit without any considerable context

• Consequently, the invariance of meaning can produce the illusion of a single reality only under these two conditions: many and many uses in a considerable context

On the formulation of the second argument

• Even if the hypothesis of one single reality is granted, any human being perceives and interprets it radically differently from anyone other

• The consistency of perceptions ant interpretations might be achieved exceptionally difficultly by the scientific picture of reality

• That picture is so sophisticated that no human being can understand it as a whole

• Only a few genii can embrace even that tiny piece of it, which is contained in a single scientific theory or discipline

More about the second argument

• The language has created tools relevant to the intellectual potential of an average human being for anyone to communicate and interact jointly and rather successfully

• Those tools abandon and darken absolutely all dividing human beings including the different intellect and experience and concentrating only on a few unifying features of reality as the meaning of the corresponding linguistic item

About the interpretations of reality

• Even if the hypothesis of one single reality is granted, any human being perceives and interprets it radically differently from anyone other

• In fact, any given perception of reality is being embedded in a huge picture both of physical reality and of individual and cultural experience as a coherent whole

• Even if the picture of the physical reality is approximately the same, the individual and cultural experience can be quite different therefore allowing of absolutely different interpretations of the perceived

About the consistency of scientific interpretations

• The consistency of perceptions and interpretations might be achieved exceptionally difficultly by the scientific picture of reality

• Indeed any scientific theory is much more consistent than the same piece of reality in the language

• However at the cost of this, the ruptures and gaps between different scientific theories and especially between different scientific areas are so grandiose that they address the myth of the Babylon tower

About the too sophisticated scientific picture of the world

• The scientific picture of the world is so sophisticated that no human being can understand it as a whole

• As in the myth of the Babylon tower, the scientists in different sciences speak absolutely different languages of notions

• They are not able to understand each other even when speak about one and the same for any given science interprets it in a quite different context

Genii versus crowd • Only a few genii can embrace even that tiny piece of

the alleged Great Unified Scientific Picture of the World: that microscopic piece which is contained in a single scientific theory or discipline

• What is offered to the “crowd” and even to the scientists and still even to the genii working in different scientific fields is an infinitely simplified picture apt to be adopted by an average human being without any special schooling

• Of course, that “scientific” and popular representation of one or more theories use a natural language and replace the scientific notions and conceptions by analogies, metaphors and comparisons

The language of an average human • Indeed the language has created tools relevant to

the intellectual potential of an average human being for anyone to communicate and interact jointly and rather successfully

• One can suggest that the “black box” of language contains a extremely developed and finely tailored mechanism and wisdom hidden behind the exceptionally user-friendly design

• The classical theories of semantics such as Saussure’s semiology describe its action phenomenally: without opening the “black box”

The language searching for consensus

• The tools of language abandon and darken absolutely all dividing human beings

• They might be called invariant to the different intellect and experience of the humans

• The linguistic “atoms” are able to concentrate only on a few unifying features of reality as their meaning

• Those linguistic units are live beings fed by consensus and therefore created to search for it and find its “deposits”

• Consequently the language is a map of treasures of consensus elaborated by living linguistic “cells”

On the formulation of the third argument

• The process of appearing of any meaning darkens gradually all contradictions both between different aspects of the meaning and between its interpretations by different human beings

• Consequently, the sense of any meaning consists in the optimal proportion between its unclearness and exactness: Even more, the exactness of any meaning in a language is secondary

• This is the little rest after removing all disagreements or contradictions both between different fragments of knowledge and between people’s interpretations

More about the third argument • Science hides this process alleging the words in the

language as imprecise in comparison to any scientific notion possessing ostensibly in advance an exact definition

• In fact, the scientific definitions have many disadvantages in relation to the words in a language

• The concepts in science only continue the same process in a community of scientists creating an artificial language just for this community therefore excluding the rest people and even a part of their colleagues from this newly-made language as ignoramuses

The meaning as consensus • The process of appearing of any meaning darkens

gradually all contradictions both between different aspects of the meaning and between its interpretations by different human beings

• In fact, ontological quanta do not distinguish reality from interpretation as well as reality from language: Ontology consisting of those quanta is that reality, which is language, or that language, which is reality

• Consequently the ontological quanta are those “living words” fed by consensus creating the map of reality as the locations of its deposits

The fruitful proportion of opacity and transparency

• The sense of any meaning consists in the optimal proportion between its unclearness and exactness

• The existence of ontological quanta forces the picture to be granular in principle

• The indivisibility of the ontological quanta is necessary and fruitful condition for them to behavior as living searching for deposits of consensus

• The ontological quanta are bigger, the picture is grainier, but the attraction between the quanta is stronger and the deposits of consensus are more visible

The effective exactness • Even more, the exactness of any meaning in a

language is secondary • It originates from the gathering the granules of

ontological quanta being absolutely opaque, impenetrable, and indivisible

• The outlines of any gathering of that kind constitutes a meaning

• Even still more, the single meanings attract each other constituting propositions, paragraphs, texts, articles, books, discourses, etc.: Each of them is a map of consensus in a different scale

The meaning as a “residuum” • The meaning is the little rest after removing all

disagreements or contradictions both between different fragments of knowledge and/ or between people’s interpretations

• However in fact, the above is a description of the way for any meaning to “crystallize” or to “precipitate” as a “sediment” in terms of classical semantics categorically distinguishing reality from interpretation as well as the signified and signifier

• The concept of ontological quanta addresses the constitution of a meaning as gathering rather than as precipitating

Words versus notions • Science hides this process alleging the words in the

language as imprecise in comparison to any scientific notion possessing ostensibly in advance an exact definition

• In fact, this is not more than a possible synchronic idealization of language outlining a map of reality seeming ostensibly constant

• Unlike the dead notions killed in order to be immovable and thus precise, the words are living and moving thus re-outlining new deposits of consensus, i.e. new meanings, which science will kill again and again and prepared them as new and new notions and conceptions

About the disadvantages of notion • In fact, the scientific definitions and notions have

many disadvantages in relation to the words in a language

• First of all, they are not alive, living, i.e. self-organizing: They cannot move by themselves requiring to be reordered by the scientists as pieces of dead matter, stuff

• Consequently, the language of science is not able to think by itself:

• Unlike it, the living language thinks outlining new and new meanings again and again and thus new thoughts, conceptions, theories, which the scientists only kill and prepare in their treatises

The concepts as residua • The concepts in science only continue the

same process in a community of scientists • Thus an artificial language is created just for

this community only • The rest people and even a part of their

colleagues are excluded from this newly-made language as ignoramuses

• In a sense, the scientific notions live as usual words in those closed communities outlining the map of the scientific reality as to a given discipline

Some arguments “contra” might be:

• Science is one of the most successful areas of human activity: The thesis should explain the way of science to be so successful after it has used a maximally exact and artificial language contra the thesis

• All contradictions in the unified scientific picture of the world are removable. This picture has guaranteed the progress during the last centuries. What can the thesis offer to mankind?

On the first counterargument • Science is one of the most successful areas of

human activity • It is the base both of the contemporary global

society and technics • The scientific notions possess exact definitions even

when the used terms are the same as certain words in most languages

• Any scientific notion should be as exact as possible • The logical and deductive method is fundamental

for science • It requires maximally precious definitions to be

applied

More about the first counterargument • An essential part of the contemporary science

including thoroughly physics, informatics and chemistry is mathematized

• The mathematizing is impossible in any other base than that of absolutely precise definitions of all concepts

• The mathematics itself is built axiomatically and deductively

• The properties of all notions are rigorously fixed by axioms

• The thesis should explain the way of science to be so successful after it has used a maximally exact and artificial language contra the thesis

The success of science and scientific notion

• Science is one of the most successful areas of human activity

My retort: The success of science should not link necessarily to the classical semiotic pattern of scientific notion One can suggest that the future science can invent other or alternative models both of notions and their semiotics

The globalizing science • It is the base both of the contemporary global

society and technics My retort: The global society and technics contain and generate various contradictions and conflicts: One can suggest that a considerable part of them are due to the too dogmatic and inflexible fundament of science Science should develop as the global universal language rather than a set of theories about reality

The notion as the exact definition of words

• The scientific notions possess exact definitions even when the used terms are the same as certain words in most languages

My retort: The diachronic approach to scientific language shows that all definitions of scientific notions change too much in too short historical periods Even more: The scientific area develops faster, its notions change quicker Consequently, the constancy of the notions is the evidence of stagnation

The exactness as a supreme value • Any scientific notion should be as exact as

possible My retort: The absolute exactness is harmful: It would mean that notions are dead and incapable to development The notions should be heuristic and possess, first of all, the maximal potential of self-development The disagreements generated by the notions are not less important than that consensus, which they fix

Logical and deductive method

• The logical and deductive method is fundamental for science

My retort: A non-classical semantics based on the complementarity of the signified and signifier does not exclude logical and deductive method, neither axiomatic and deductive method Quantum mechanics offers a rigorous mathematical model of a theory grounded on complementarity

The importance of being precise • Logical and deductive method requires maximally

precious definitions to be applied My retort: Logical and deductive method can be also applied to a whole collection of alternative definitions (e.g. each in a different world) That collection can outline a fussy or foggy definition similar to real “ meaning” of a word The logical and deductive method can represent the constant use of that word, which plays options transforming the entire collection of possible definitions

The direction to mathematization

• An essential part of the contemporary science including thoroughly physics, informatics and chemistry is mathematized

My retort: The non-classical semiotics suggesting e.g. complementarity of the signified and signifies in the sign is also very well mathematizable So any scientific language based on that non-standard semiotics can be mathematized in a not less degree

Mathematizing as preciseness • The mathematizing is impossible in any other base

than that of absolutely precise definitions of all concepts

My retort: It is not true: Mathematization is not less possible on the imprecise definitions represented as collections of more or less exact definitions For example, Wittgenstein’s concept about “family resemblance” can be a ground for mathematization, too

The axiomatic and deductive method of mathematics

• The mathematics itself is built axiomatically and deductively

My retort: After Gödel (1931), arithmetic is not a sufficient base for the foundation of set theory containing infinities That base might be Hilbert space (representing a synthesis of arithmetic and geometry in a sense), though Mathematics corresponding to the semiotics of ontological quanta (“ontological signs”) might be self-grounding in the base of Hilbert space

Notions by axioms • The properties of all notions are rigorously fixed by

axioms My retort: In fact, the axioms define only contextually the mathematical notions, e.g. such as “point”, “straight line”, “plane”, etc. by the Euclid or Hilbert axioms of geometry Furthermore, they define any other notions satisfying the axioms: Those notions are always infinitely many Consequently, the axioms can determine only contextually an infinite class of notions

About the exact and artificial language of science

• The thesis should explain the way of science to be so successful after it has used a maximally exact and artificial language contra the thesis

My retort: In fact, the precise scientific notions are not more than a synchronic “photo-shot” of living language processed in order to be improved its quality Science should be considered as a technic of language allowing of “sharpening” the picture However the real base of that technic is the live language itself

On the second counterargument

• All contradictions in the unified scientific picture of the world are removable

• This picture has guaranteed the progress during the last centuries

• What can the thesis offer to mankind?

About the temporariness of all contradictions

• All contradictions in the unified scientific picture of the world are removable

My retort: In fact, this is only an inductive hypothesis at the best No one has ever created a general picture of the world perhaps besides in philosophy, but this is not a scientific picture though it can pretend to be general No one has ever tried to remove the contradictions between different scientific areas

Progress and science

• This picture has guaranteed the progress during the last centuries

My retort: The progress has been accomplished mainly for the mass technical applications and deployments of a few scientific theories first of all in physics and chemistry Neither the experimental confirmations of scientific theories nor the general scientific picture do refer immediately to the progress of mankind in the last centuries

The meaning of the thesis • What can the thesis offer to mankind? My answer: Not more than still one hypothesis in the field of semantics and philosophy, less or more already formulated many times The essence is the transformation of the Pierce and Saussure semiotic scheme in a way the signified and signifier to be complementary in the sign: That transformation leads to the concept of ontological quanta and thus to ontology instead of the twins of language and reality

Conclusions: 1. The opacity of language is not less important than its transparency. The opacity means its ability to create fictions and literature and to replace reality by them 2. The base of that opacity are ontological quanta: They allow of any average human being to use the language successfully 3. The Saussure semiology considers language as a “black box” averaged to huge ensembles of uses and only in terms of the past: the language as an well-ordering in ideality

More conclusions: • The semiotics of ontological quanta is

temporal: It can refer both to the past and future of language as well as to its present

• It describes how the indistinguishable signs of the future are transformed in the well-ordered signs of the past by means of choices in the present

• The semiotics of ontological quanta can be represented as that modification of the classical semiotic scheme where the signified and signifier are complementary

References: • Heidegger, M (any edition) Sein und Zeit (the definition of

‚phenomenon‘) • Husserl, Edmund. 1901. Logische Untersuchungen. Zweiter Theil:

Untersuchungen zur Phänomenologie and die Theorie der Erkenntnis. Halle: Max Niemeyer, p. 7.

• Kienzler, Wolfgang.1991. What Is a Phenomenon? The Concept of Phenomenon in Husserl’s Phenomenology. Analecta Husserliana. The Yearbook of Phenomenological Research. Vol. 34. The Turning Points of the New Phenomenological Era: Husserl research, drawing upon the full extent of his development (ed. Anna-Teresa Tymieniecka), pp. 517-528. Dordrecht; Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers, p. 524).

• Peirce, Charles S. (1934). Collected papers: Volume V. Pragmatism and pragmaticism. Cambridge, MA, USA: Harvard University Press.

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Thank you for your kind attention!

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eest!

I welcome your questions and look forward to them with pleasure!

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ootan rõõmuga!