Philosophical Dialogues, Is a Just Society Possible?, Hunter and Bain, Jake Jackson, Are we limited by language?

Dialogues | Are we Limited by Language?

Hunter and Bain ache. Together they sit inside a cafe at the edge of the galaxy, watching the slow collapse of a once glorious star projected into a window that stretches high into the ceiling. They are amongst the many who have come to observe this graceful end, and all around them the chatter and excitement is oblivious to the grandeur of the event. Bain sighs, presses his palm across his cheeks in some attempt at forcing a stillness to settle there. Hunter is more sanguine, barely acknowledging the weariness of his body.

The time does not matter, nor the year.

Bain, after a long pause: I wish I could enjoy this more.

Hunter: Perhaps we should give up our seats to someone else.

Bain: No chance. I can’t move.

Hunter, grunts: Why don’t you write a poem instead?

Bain: What?

Hunter: Then you could record the moment and enjoy it later.

Bain: Have you ever known me to write a poem?

Hunter: It was just an idea.

Bain: I don’t think I could describe it, anyway.

Hunter: Your education was poor.

Bain: Well, that’s hardly news! But I mean, I don’t think it’s possible to describe it.

Hunter: You mean language itself is too limited.

Bain: Well, it seems inadequate at least. In some ways a poem is most appropriate because it uses language to evoke and echo, makes a reader think about what’s being said, rather than just describing it in a report, or a piece of prose.

Hunter: Perhaps, but that depends on the stage of development of your species.

Bain: Although we have seen humankind at various advanced stages and I’m not sure the language has become more descriptive. On some of the colonies in this part of the galaxy people seem to speak a strange mix of old earth languages, from English to Chinese, some French and Arabic.

Hunter: I didn’t know you were so knowledgeable.

Bain: Well, I heard it in…

Hunter and Bain together: … a bar.

Hunter: I thought so.

Bain: Don’t be so dismissive. When people are relaxed, that’s often when they are most eloquent, most truthful.

Hunter: But does that equip them with the means to describe what we’re seeing in front of us?

Bain: No, but I’m not sure that’s what human language is for.

Hunter: Sounds pretty limited to me.

Bain: It’s not that so much, I think it just takes a long time to describe complex processes, too many qualifiers and sub-clauses.

Hunter: Comforting to know you understand sub-clauses.

Bain: I don’t! And we would talk about the stars in a bar. Here we are, in a cafe, exhausted, but our minds are focused, and we still avoid what’s in front of us.

Hunter: Are you saying it’s the exhaustion, or the language itself that’s limiting? Is that what’s stopping us talking about the end of the life cycle in this star?

Bain: Ah, there you are, the limit of our human language. You just described the event in a simple scientific way.

Hunter: That’s only because the more complex way would have bored you, and probably me.

Bain: But I know you, you’d have just become super-scientific, explaining the forces and the energy, the consequences for mass and matter.

Hunter: Of course.

Bain: But there’s so much more. Just looking at it seems to move me. It’s an emotional response.

Hunter winces: That’s so human.

Bain rolls his eyes: And visually it’s so powerful, the shapes and the colours, the motion of the dust clouds being sucked in, the crumbling of the surface of the star, the fires breaking out then extinguished.

Hunter nods imperceptibly, and smiles: Indeed.

Bain: And the weird conflict between the imploding explosion and our expectation of sound: our brains experience the event in so many ways that are difficult to describe.

Hunter: I’ve never heard you be so poetic.

Bain smirks: I’m trying hard!

Hunter: Perhaps you can describe it perfectly adequately, perhaps the limitations you describe force you to approach the event from many different angles forcing your language too adapt.

Bain: Well perhaps; on Old Earth there’re creation myths from the indigenous folk of Australia, Dreamtime, which show the land and the skies being created as the gods walk, bringing the landscape into life with language. As an object is described, so it comes into being.

Hunter: Sounds like a perfect attempt at dealing with the limitations of language. Presumably these ancient peoples didn’t describe flying machines, or time travel.

Bain: Well, they had a mystical turn of phrase, describing the land in ways that they understood, more elliptically, artistically perhaps.

Hunter: Well, as a civilisation develops technologies to harness the land, then the scope of language increases to cope with the new inventions and systems, and people understand more, they see more. Eventually, reaching into the stars…

Bain: Up to a point, there must be genuine limits. The people we’ve met in the far future didn’t seem so different to us.

Hunter: But that’s because we’re from our time, and we’re limited by our notions of what’s possible. I see more through the meta-universe than you could possibly know, because you don’t have the language to describe it to yourself.

Bain: So a little like theoretical physics on Old Earth, using maths to explore concepts years before the techniques are developed to observe the evidence.

Hunter: Exactly so, maths is a higher language. It’s a shifting form, constantly evolving, with many participants, a single stream of language conducted by a group of individuals.

Bain: Although you can’t have a decent discussion in maths.

Hunter: Some would say you can’t have a decent discussion in a bar!

Bain lapses into silence and tries to imagine a conversation in a bar, using complex algorithms. Swirly, he surrenders to the impossibility. His eyes fall across Hunter, who is now pre-occupied with some inner dialogue, and past his shoulder to the groups of people gathered around. The various species in the wide lobby of the cafe are occupied by a mix of excited conversations, while others simply stare up at the window and the collapsing star. Bain wonders if the silence is able to speak beyond the limitation of those casting words into air, where ideas are immediately imprisoned by the form of language, and the understanding of those who receive them.

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