The Meaning of Words

Back to the Beginning

Here’s a nifty fact which I found reading historian Niall Ferguson’s The War of the World (a mind-blowing read, by the way). It’s right in the introduction:

“In terms of our DNA we are, without a shadow of a doubt, one species, whose origins can be traced back to Africa between 100,000 and 200,000 years ago, and who began to spread into new continents only as recently as 60,000 years ago – in evolutionary terms, the proverbial blink of an eye.”

This is, of course, not new, but from a writer’s point of view, these numbers are fascinating.

We Are Not Genetically Built For Language

Think about it like this: The first human did not speak any language. S/he had the same genetic ability for language that we do today, but obviously s/he only learned to communicate the way the tribe s/he was born into communicated. And the way tribes communicated back then must have been no different from the way monkeys communicate today: grunting, pointing, screaming, and so on.

Obviously, the first human did not immediately invent a language. It is unreasonable to assume that the first human suddenly came up with something like English or ancient Aramaic, for example. Even if s/he had, s/he would have no one to talk to. And, of course, no one can invent a language out of thin air without first knowing a language.

It is more reasonable to assume that the first human communicated with the tribe in the way the tribe communicated before the human had been born, and that the new human did nothing more complicated than that. Then the first human bred, and the offsprings bred, and so on. And eventually, after a few generations, maybe one word formed that the humans – and even the ones with the more monkey-like brain – could learn to understand and use to communicate better. (Monkeys, research has shown, can learn a few hundred words.)

Over the generations, a few more words must have formed. A few generations later and maybe there were a few dozen words. Take a few more generations, maybe even hundreds or thousands of years, to form something remotely akin to syntax. And take a few thousand more years to form a basis for a language that had some kind of logic or reason behind it, as all human languages today do.

According to the numbers above, mankind had anything from 40,000 to 140,000 years to form out of nothing a basis, a common denominator, for what would later become all human languages.

We are so used to seeing babies and children learn the language, and babies and children are so good at it and the human brain is so clearly geared to absorb language in a faster and more thorough way than adults can, that it seems the most natural thing for the human brain to do. And yet if we think about it, it becomes clear that the DNA that gave this ability to kids, was not created when language, even rudimentary language, existed.

We ourselves need language so much, are reliant on it for everything, and our brains are clearly quite equipped and adept at using and learning a language, that it is almost impossible to conceive that we are not genetically built for language.

The mechanism through which babies and kids learn language, the mechanism we use to communicate, must necessarily have served a completely different purpose than the one we are using it for now. When mankind formed – with the same DNA as we have today – it must have taken thousands of years for a rudimentary semblance of a language to form.

We are not genetically built for language. And yet we are.

Symbolic Logic

It’s all about symbolic logic. That’s an ability to put something into a concept, which can be a word or a number or even a picture in our imagination. Once we can think about things without seeing them, we can put two of them together, imagine consequences of things we have not seen by creating a third avatar/picture/concept/word/number in our heads, and so on.

We can plan ahead, we can think about things that haven’t happened or did happen but are not happening now. We can think about people or animals that are not in front of us. We can see our own death. We can imagine entire scenarios in our heads, an ability that also allows us to imagine and understand and invent stories.

The more concepts for which we develop names or shapes for in our heads, the better we are at thinking ahead, relying on previous knowledge. Today it’s given us languages, mathematics, stories, and more. But the mechanism for all this is the same: the ability to separate one thing from all we see or imagine or feel and see it as one thing.

That one ability separates our intelligence from the monkeys to such an extent that it let us take over the world and even get to the moon and send probes to the far reaches of the solar system.

Back to Words

So what does that mean about words?

Words are either concepts or connections between concepts. I’ve put in bold the words in the last sentence that are concepts: Words are either concepts or connections between concepts. Here is the same sentence with the connections between concepts in bold: Words are either concepts or connections between concepts.

But words resonate. Poetry resonates. Stories resonate. Certain sentences by certain authors can lay you down and pierce you right through the heart.

The Meaning of Words

Erica Jong, in her book Seducing the Demon (also mind-blowing), writes about a choice she made before giving a speech:

“There was only one way to tell the truth. And that was to tell the kids and their parents and professors why I was there. I was there because I was a writer and a writer is someone who takes the universal whore of a language and turns her into a virgin again. I wasn’t going to coast on clichés. I was going to talk about the power of words—something I had been thinking a great deal about since the so-called war on terror dragged on and on, kidnapping the language and proliferating terrorists.”

When Jong writes about “the universal whore of a language”, she means two things: One, that language has been recently overtaken by Orwellian Newspeak and forced to tell lies and hide the truth; and two, that even without that, it is the writer’s job to create something new and true every time she puts old words on a page.

But as great as that line is, language is never a whore.

A writer uses two kinds of words: the words that are concepts and the words that connect concepts. The words that connect concepts are perceived in the same way in everyone’s minds (‘and’, ‘but’, ‘is’, ‘that’, ‘the’, etc.). But the words that are concepts are perceived differently in each and every person that hears them. ‘Chair’ isn’t the same for me as it is for you. Neither is ‘leader’ or ‘strong’. You know what I mean when I say these words, but the words resonate differently in every one of us.

Even our own understanding of words isn’t that clear. Do we know what we fully mean when we say ‘chair’? Can we define it properly? ‘Chair’, after all, covers all chairs possible, and that’s a hard concept to define. And yet when we see a new chair, we immediately know that it is a chair even though we’ve never seen another one exactly like it before. The word ‘chair’ also includes many memories of chairs, as well as, perhaps, certain experiences with chairs. The word ‘chair’ must necessarily carry with it the process by which we, as babies or kids, learned to tell chairs apart from things that looked like chairs but weren’t. The process of learning the word ‘chair’ is also included in our experience of it when we hear the word. The process of having been taught the word ‘chair’ (different from learning the word) must also be hidden there somewhere. The possibilities of what other chairs could be as well as the possibilities that were close but did not make it into the definition (back when we were kids) must also be subconsciously included in our experience of the word. I could go on and on and yet not cover everything.

That means that when we say the old word ‘chair’, things resonate in every one of us slightly differently. Different pictures, memories, associations are summoned within each of us, and usually we are not aware of this process. Even when we are aware of it, like now, we can’t be aware of everything that single word means to us.

Every word that is a concept is not a fully-formed concept. It carries with it memories, depths, associations to other concepts, possibilities, and who knows what else. Words that are concepts are like pillars on which you stand but that reach endlessly down, so that their bottom cannot be seen. A good writer uses that fact when putting together a sentence. A good writer would know that every one of us understands concepts differently. A good writer would subconsciously know that careful use of words-that-are-concepts resonates deep into unseen places.

In Conclusion

Language isn’t a whore. Language is made of bottomless pillars that go deep into the murky depths of our selves and reach into places we don’t fully know or understand. The words in language that are concepts rather than connections have, as far as we are concerned, endless depth, and if used properly, they will resonate in ways that reach into those depths.

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Corrections: A certain evolutionary biologist corrected me on the following things (I'm paraphrasing).
1. "Every time you said 'monkey', you meant 'ape'."
2. "It is most likely that the brain evolved together with the language and symbolic thinking. Language advanced a bit, the cortex got more complex, language advanced a bit more, the cortex got more complex, etc."

Religion and the Origin of Science Fiction

Where does science fiction come from? Since it is a form of art, and since it does touch many people, then it must necessarily touch something that was created long ago, when mankind came to be.

The origin of science fiction must necessarily start at the origin of mankind and not at the origin of modern technology (like electricity) or even ancient technology (like agriculture).

So where was science fiction when we came down from the trees?

Religion as Science

Some evolutionists have argued that religion is science without the scientific method. Religion, faith, beliefs, and superstition are all based on explanations of the world we live in. If you’re a caveman whose father is deathly sick, and after you happen to hit the wall three times or close your eyes and pray or tear your hair out, he gets better, you might assume that the events are connected. You would not test this theory as you would a scientific theory because you would not risk your father’s life.

If two months later your mother gets sick, you perform the same ritual, and it works, then your theory was right. If she dies, then perhaps you knocked on the wrong place on the wall or maybe you didn’t pray hard enough or maybe you didn’t tear out enough of your hair. You will find a malleable explanation that fits both instances rather than discard the original proposition as false.

If you’re a caveman who steals from his friend then almost gets hit by lightning, you might decide that the two events are connected. You would not test that theory, scientifically, to see if it would happen again or if the events were unrelated, because you would be afraid to be hit by lightning.

In trying to explain why there is rain or thunder, why there is a famine, a draught, a hurricane, a tsunami, or why people get sick or die, theories explaining these events are formed in our heads. When enough theories are formed, a belief system is created, what physicists call a ‘Theory of Everything’. Sooner or later a person believing strongly enough in this theory and persuasive enough to draw other people in creates followers and believers in this theory of how the universe works. From there on, rules are created that apply to the believers, and the road from there to organized religion is clear.

As a side note, this means that any life-form on earth or in space whose intelligence would be advanced enough to create science and overcome nature would also develop religion. In fact, it would develop religion first.

The Emotions of Religion

But religion also carries with it a few extras that science does not. It carries with it a few emotions that are easily classifiable.

It allays fears – Religion allays fear of death, as much as possible, by telling us that death isn’t the end and that there is something good afterwards. It also allays fears during hard time, telling us that things will be better or that god has a plan, etc.

A feeling of unity – Many religions provide its community a feeling of togetherness that can’t usually be found in other communities. Everyone knows everyone else is likeminded. Everyone gathers in the same place at certain times to celebrate the same things. A feeling of unity is a powerful thing, and both democracy and science stay away from them.

A feeling of the divine – When you believe in certain gods, you feel like you can touch something that is beyond you and above you. For a few short instances, you feel what true grandness must feel like. It’s a feeling of majesty, of a grand plan, and of your place in the universe.

Science Fiction and Divinity

A large part of science fiction and its allure is the feeling it gives, that grander things are possible, that majesty bigger than what we know exists. Technology we haven’t dreamt of, races the likes of which we’ve never seen, mysteries we haven’t conceived of, societies more advanced than our own that are now dead - all these things hint at things that are bigger than us, at a majesty to a universe of which we are but a cog. Many stories are based on a grand plan to the universe. It could be that laws of physics are introduced or supposed that make us see a more logical Theory of Everything. An alien race or advanced technology may give us a hint of things grander than ourselves.

A good chunk of science fiction tunes into that basic human feeling that existed when we came down from the trees, the feeling of majesty, of awe, of things greater than what we know, of a big plan that might exist - things that are found through science... and religion.

Science fiction comes from religion. And religion comes from science.

Why Did Evolution Leave Us the Artists?

Why do we even have artists? Do we really need them, from an evolutionary point of view?

Artists should have died off

Who needs artists, anyway?

Most of them, historically, are not very good at the productive stuff, which makes them a burden on society. The thing that they are good at is not very useful for society and all other animals have done well without pictures or stories or music. We don't really need movies or music or dancers or poets to survive, do we?

Not only that, artists are usually a destabilizing influence on society. They keep trying to break rules (usually), they keep living a wild and sordid life (overall), their art keeps pushing boundaries that disturb the careful balance of society (mostly).

It would seem to make sense that a society that succeeded in eliminating its artists would survive better and therefore have an evolutionary edge. Its people would work better and longer, would not dream of better things, and the rules of the society would be less threatened.

Why didn't artists die off and leave our societies more stable?

Art increases people's intelligence

Most stories are good for our intelligence. When small kids listen to stories, they experience in their minds situations they haven't been in and learn how to cope. They listen again and again to the same stories, and imagine what it feels like to be in that situation. The same is true with grownups. Some stories help us prepare for future situations and/or understand past situations better.

Imagination also helps increase people's ability to think, seeing as it breaks old forms and helps imagine new ones. Imagination is a very good surviving tool. The better your imagination, the better your ability to cope with change, to win wars, to advance in society, etc.

Being able to think outside the box promises a more intelligent society, even if the person who first thought outside the box was one of them artist types. Being forced to push back when somebody pushes your boundaries or buttons, magnifies your ability to justify the boundaries, and also helps you move them should the need for it arise. If change becomes necessary, the fact that your boundaries were already in question, makes it easier to change them. An ability to bend under changing circumstances is a mark of intelligence.

But these things don't exist in all pieces of good art.

Art crystallizes ideas and emotions

What every piece of good art does is crystallize ideas and emotions.

The better the art the more precise the expression of emotion. Artists make solid emotions that are fluid and that don't have a name. If you hear a piece of brilliant music and it captures the way you feel precisely, you are then able to look at some of your emotions in a more precise manner. If a painting captures a feeling you never knew you had, now you know you have it. Your emotional intelligence increased somewhat. If a brilliantly constructed building shows you a relationship of the spaces around you that you saw but couldn't place or that brings some enlightenment to a place in your mind you didn't know was there, you are now a slightly wiser person. If a dance tugs at your heart in a place that has no name, if a play makes you feel like you experienced something bigger than yourself, then your world is richer and your ability to handle it has marginally increased.

So. Turns out artists are good for us. Take two a day before each meal and you'll be fine.