Language is imprecise in that each person weighs what a word means differently, so it is impossible that one person understands exactly what another wishes to convey. Usually 'close enough' will serve, but it is in the nuances between individuals where the train of communications jumps the rails.

This was a great read. Beeing bilingual, I have often been asked by my friends if I think in english or my native language. I allways found it an odd question, because my thoughts are definitely not happening in word-format inside my head - If I had to describe them, I would say they are more “visual” than verbal in nature, and therefore I often say I think more visually than verbally - but this is not a fully accurate description either.

Thoughts are a unique experience and part of your conscious existence and that is an experience infinitely richer than words can convey. Of course, the broader your vocabulary, the greater the chance that you will be able to “translate” your thoughts to words at high fidelity - but much is “lost in translation” when two people speak - even if they are both fluent in a language and competent speakers.

Thoughts are an experience.

We use language to attempt to encode those experiences into a set of symbols.

Of course there is going to be a discrepancy between the richness and fullness of a lived experience and the words we would use to describe it.

Speaking is, like many of our functions, mostly authomatic. You don't need or want to consciously think about it all the time. Often you make mistakes but then you can use a conscious effort to fix those mistakes. Alot of times you don't even have to fix the mistakes since they are obvious or minor. I usually just lough it off when I open the fridge instead of the closet. I'm happy with this evulationary tradeoff.

I often feel frustrated that I can't seem to put my thoughts into the words that I would like to. Can anyone relate to that?

And this has me thinking about why small talk irritates me. I guess I understand that an exchange of words can have the purpose of just being friendly and building community, but words just for the sake of words can be kind of a bummer.

I believe that when we play games we can actually say meaningful and complete things trough math/words

This is basically the point that I think was one step beyond the one Plato was making in the Phaedrus when Socrates recounts the Egyptian story of writing. Theuth, the god of writing, touts the benefits of writing as a superior means of communicating ideas, but Thamus gives a few faults that writing has as a means of communication, one of which being that a reader can only infer what the meaning of the words might be based on what they understand those words to represent, which may differ from the meaning that the writer intended. This is true of the spoken word as well, although in the case of conversation, you have the benefit of being able to ask for clarification unlike the usual case with writing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indeterminacy_of_translation

Aside of that, saying that "words always fail to capture aspects of an idea" (outside of some perfectionist sophistry) seems more telling of the author lacking of vocabulary/creativity skills.

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

From my experience language is read and written in a linear way but thoughts aren't linear. We've habituated ourselves to linear expressions since it is an effective strategy for conveying meaning in a common way. Still our thoughts aren't linear and the first time I realized this was when I reached a moderate level of fluency in a second language. I started noticing that the second language had a different kind of shape to it. I had a big leap in progress once I started thinking in terms of the shape of a thought and now I can think in that second language.

Ah yes very nice very nice

"Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen."

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

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Language and that inner voice have become an integral part of humans. But I sometimes can enforce a "voiceless" sequence of thoughts if I am thinking about visual problems that are on the abstract side. The interesting thing is, I find it not to be an inferior form of thinking, it helps me get to the important picture and mechanics better than "word-based" thinking, which tends to get bog down in detail.

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.

the unconscious is the discourse of the other especially when examining the signifier and unconscious.

• taken from j lacan

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