Spot on. He's correct in that math is absolute in its precision, but it's still no more than an abstraction of what's actually going on. More importantly, our cognition is simply not good enough to intuitively comprehend a mathematical description of a highly complex entity or process. Like, it's totally possible to describe a table in purely mathematical terms, but even if you manage to compute that, good luck trying to convey it to other people without using language as a crutch.

And to take it a step further, our ability to use symantic languages is actually one of the main reasons why we're so good at maths. We wouldn't be able to handle anything more than basic algebra and geometry etc. if not for the fact that languages allow us to abstract complex concepts into very simple symbols. Remember that we developed written languages long before we ever considered using algebraic expressions as a mathematical notation. For the longest time, mathematicians relied almost entirely on geometry and vectors to describe mathematics, with a bit of help from symantic languages.

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Great thought dude. I also think that emotions are something so unique and "spiritual" that no word will ever be able to figure em and describe em. Maybe, what comes closer to showing our feeling as purely as they are, is art, and music in particular.

All in all, words are the result of our experience, and we should never take our own experiences as the universal law.

While i agree that writing an essay on a philosophical topic, it’s useful to reference the big ideas and their historical proponents and their arguments, philosophy should also be emergent and creative and that People are taking the leap to actually do philosophy themselves i find commendable.

If you find the essay lacking that’s totally fair but you did actually not present an argument on why it was lacking - you just made a snide and elitist remark that did not further the discussion at all.

I wouldn’t call my criticism “a barrier to entry,” and I’m not gonna praise an essay that’s clearly not well thought out and under-researched lol. I’m sure more than .1% of this subreddit has read Wittgenstein’s work or something similar…

This is a very elitist and non-inclusive attitude - I’d argue the exact opposite. Philosophy should be open to all, esp. In an amateur forum such as this. If the barriers to entry is to have read all relevant philosophical works to date, it would disqualify 99.9% of posters.

Humans are already «hackable animals» as per futurist Yuval Noah Harari. That’s before you put a chip in anyones mind:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/videos/world/2019/11/26/yuval-noah-harari-interview-anderson-vpx.cnn

I’ve found that as I’ve gotten older I’ve developed a better ways of educating myself, on all kinds of things. I’m a very curious person and I love to learn but I don’t have the vocabulary to match. It’s incredibly frustrating.

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Yes exactly words are just a representation of thoughts. The meaning of your thoughts is abstracted

There's a limitation of vocabulary too that contributes.

The model of the author is incorrect/weak. It's more useful to consider a conversation to be a synchronisation process between two persons (or more than two, or one/several persons and a boundary object, i.e. interface).

Thoughts are not encoded as words. Words are generated essentially as GPT does it. There is a % probability of using a particular word, you can go into many directions. There is only a weak correlation between a resulting text and what the person wants to convey. Also, it's not like there is a single goal - to convey a particular fact. It's easy to assume that and it may be useful in a theoretization context, but in reality there are many motivations. Even just to avoid the akward silence.

One can use sentences to encode information formatlly. However, usually we do not do that. Examples of when we do - google Object−Process Methodology. But normal language is not like that. There is more structure and intent to a long text/conversation than to a particular sentence. We can analyse a sentence, we can't have a similar understanding of a long text.

I believe it's much better to think about conversations in a new way. Imagine each participant (and the interface) has a mental model. A mental model can be (for simplicity) assumed to have form of objects + relations. Relations can be processes, btw. So different participants have different graphs in their minds. Then they exchange pieces of conversation (which can take many forms) to sync parts of the model. The participants may not realise they are doing that, the process is more akin to syncing of metronomes on the same surface or of people clapping together. If mental models of different participants are too different (because "domains of discourse" are two different or for other reasons), then there is no sync. If, however, there are some shared concepts or ideas, sync may happen. If people converge, then they may get to a shared mental model.

When this happens through spoken language, this basically doesn't work or barely works, because executive memory is very small and people can keep just 3-4 objects in the focus of their attention. Using boundary objects (interfaces, exocortex) is potentially much more effecitve. Using special methods of discourse (protocols) can be very powerful too. Finding a way to avoid emotional and social traps is a great enhancer as well.

My knowledge of math is limited, so forgive me of any ignorance, but there is still some limitation on what math can convey. When it comes to quantity and magnitude math is quite the efficient communicator, but does math contain any structure for conveying feeling? Conveying feeling is something art may be able to do more effectively than mathematics alone. Maybe written language is the effective bridge then between the quantitative and the pictoral, at least where humans are concerned.

They should’ve thought and researched a bit harder before presenting that essay to a bunch of philosophy enthusiasts though…

Both Freud and Lacan have stuff related to it too. It’s okay though, people shouldn’t have to have read the canon before being allowed to write essays and have opinions

The fact that some languages have one word for something where others don't means nothing to me. What matters is if it's possible to describe or not, regardless of the number of words needed. Saying "Schadenfreude" or "Their failure, pain and or harm is satisfying to me" is the same - you can get the point across. Therefore, you can think it.

The real issue that matters is if it's possible to express a thought at all in a language but not in another, that's what's interesting. The idea of 1984 was just that, making certain thoughts impossible for lack of language. But that has nothing to do with everything being one unique word or not. As long as there is a string in a language, no matter how complex or how long, that can express it, it's fine.

Now, some languages can be more efficient or cumbersome than others, but that just doesn't matter nearly as much as being possible or not to express something.

Can't argue with that.

>What's the equation for "that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard"?

This

What's the equation for "that's the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard"?

Your concerns are well-founded I think. But I think it's interesting to point out that most of those concerns are already playing out RIGHT NOW sans literal mind control. The difference between a cybernetic implant and carrying an internet-connected phone around all day is merely a difference in speed of access. It takes you a few seconds to pull out your phone and type in a query or respond to a notification, the implant would just do it faster.

And we are absolutely already seeing the issues you mention like tampering or interception of inputs and using massive data analysis to decide who sees which outputs, it's a mess. And the end result isn't exactly mind-control, but I think it's fair to say that human behavior has and almost certainly still is being shaped by our technology and algorithms for better or worse. The difference isn't one of kind, but one of scale.

So optimistically I hope you're right about the brain-to-brain interface being the end-goal, but realistically I really don't see that happening. There's too much to be "gained" by centralization, it's too enticing. It's like trying to get people to stick to walkie-talkies when they already know smartphones exist.

Someone hasn’t read Wittgenstein, or anything related to linguistics for that matter

I personally have huge concerns regarding man-in-the-middle that is computer. After all, the end goal of such a communication is transfering information from person to person. Having a computer in the middle will lead to such a massive array of problems like tampering with the input, data analysis (this reeks of never before-seen privacy issues), and maybe even mind control. All that simply because there is a programmable interface between two people. I see brain-computer interface only useful as a necessary evil and an intermediary step for brain-brain interface.

Math is the closest we come to true speech

But imagine that, but at the speed of thought instead of the speed of fingers or eyes.

Arguably we already do have brain-to-computer interfaces they're just high latency and low bandwidth.