butterflies

I'll preface this with a disclaimer - I can't say I completely stuck to the topic proposed, though I did circle around and through it a few times...

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Your question brings to mind the concept of language of thought. It's a subject that's always bugged me. Do our thoughts have a structure that can be considered a language - something with a grammar and a lexicon? Are there orderly rules and a vocabulary to what's going on inside our heads? Sounds funny, but if not, what is there?

Suppose there is a language of thought. If so, either it's entirely innate or it's something that was imposed on us during our first few years of life. Or, a more appealing combination of the two - we are born with some sort of predisposition to a structured language of thought, and our experiences have the effect of configuring that language the way Chomsky believes we configure our spoken language via the setting of parameters. Note that I'll be using the term "spoken language" here to mean the language we use to communicate, whether we're speaking or writing, since spoken language is the predecessor to written language.

But what kind of parameters are there for thought? And how many different languages of thought might exist? Potentially as many as there are people. Here's why: A spoken language is a very practical tool with the specific purpose of communication between one human being and another (or a group of others). Thought doesn't have as clearly defined a goal. The only requirements for a language of thought would be (1) that the thinker himself understands it and (2) that the thinker can create a relationship between his thoughts and his spoken language that's reliable enough for successful communication with others. Within these criteria, there might be an infinite variety of ways of thinking. If our language of thought is structured by our experience of the world, each of us has a slightly (or wildly) different experience.

So, right now I'm talking about spoken language as a translation of thought - a mapping. This is where the loss of meaning between the thinker and the audience (the perceiver, the listener, the reader, etc.) comes in. If every time we communicate there are two translation steps being done (from thinker to spoken language, then from perceived words to perceiver's thoughts) there are two places meaning can be lost or skewed. With every passing-on of an idea, there's another chance for distortion, like a huge game of "telephone".

With this kind of scenario, one has to wonder how human beings can ever be sure they're being understood. Why isn't the whole of human communication on the level of me pointing to a flower and saying "flower", and one listener thinking I'm referring to the color, another thinking I'm referring to the species of flower, another thinking I'm complimenting the flower's beauty, etc.? Simply because we've had such a lot of time for trial and error to figure out what everyone's talking about. What we've got now is close enough to work most of the time. It works better between people who have spent their lives together, and doesn't work as well between strangers. When you meet someone and feel like the two of you are "speaking different languages", maybe you're just translating very differently.

I'd like to look harder at the loss of meaning we're talking about. If our words are an attempt at translation of our thought, what might be getting lost? A quality of depth, I think. My internal experience of a thing is as rich as the capacity of my senses, and as subjective as the influence of a lifetime of experience can make it. The best vocabulary and flair for words can never put you directly in touch with that perception.

My thoughts keep returning to the metaphor of butterfly collecting. Humans have a drive to capture a thing of beauty, examine it, preserve it. But what starts out as a gorgeous, delicate thing full of life becomes, when the goal is reached, something far less. The shape and color remain, but the energy and movement are gone. The urge to express our thoughts drives us to capture them, force them to be still, and pin them to a board. Something is lost. We still do it, because having an approximation of the true thing seems better than letting it fly away to be forgotten. For example, I have a memory of my grandmother, who collected butterflies. But how many words do I need to truly communicate the old house, the smell of her basement, the brittle, iridescent wings that seemed to glow in shades of blue and gold? And what about the feeling of knowing that right now all those carefully collected specimens are decaying, crumbling to dust, their colors faded to gray?

So how can a writer hope to get his point across? What techniques can we use to shrink the gap between the thinker and the audience? One way is to call on themes and archetypes that underlay civilized society and span cultural differences. Most people can understand and relate to birth, death, conflict, hope, fear, etc. Many words and images, like those employed by religion, superstition, horror movies, etc., speak directly to our instincts. I'm not saying all good writing has to be sensationalism, just that these are the things that are most likely to relate directly to something in the audience's mind.

I could say more, but I'll stop here for now. There are plenty of ideas that I'd like to explore further. If you like, you can take one and see where it goes, or pick something else entirely. Here are some: (1) Suppose there actually is no language of thought. Then what is the nature of our thoughts? (2) Can we have direct access to our own thoughts? (3) Is there any merit to the sort of Zen concept of letting thoughts (like butterflies) fly away free rather than capturing and dissecting them? (4) In the last paragraph I pretty much compare good writing to good propaganda. Any comments?