language and clarity
wittgensteinian infotainment
clear expression demands clear sight.
to accurately represent reality we must see it clearly.
sometimes, we have not the capacity or peace of mind to articulate. then we must grunt or moan or scream or wail.
sometimes, we have not the capacity to understand. then we must call it a mystery, or admit our ignorance.
problems arise when we stop trying to articulate and understand. when everything becomes inarticulate expression. when we call things that are very much expressible incomprehensible mysteries that should not be put into words. this is ‘primitivism’.
people who have not read the dao de ching sometimes appeal to daosim to to say thinking and words are lame. they often cite (short) lines from poems they have not read about how heaven is inexpressible and therefore we should reason less. the dao de ching, however, contains many words that seem to describe structures in reality.
—-
many ipad kids wish to return to the world of pure sound. a world where clear articulation, and thus clear thought, is not necessary. this is the attraction of italian brainrot and non-sensical semi-onomopeias such as skibidi toilet and GRRRRRRRRT-BOW.
people who can barely read and have especially not read the birth of tragedy sometimes call this a ‘dionysian’ mode of being.
yelling skibidi toilet seems fine in moderation. but the one who is brain-rotted becomes addicted to this verbal sloth. and before they know it, their conceptual space is reduced to that of damianluck925 who repeats the same few phrases again and again day after day. “bro i’m fried right now”, “we’re out here hitting blinkers”, etc.
the terp guy is a similar phenomena. but he is self-aware. he says: i don’t speak english, i speak terpenese.
the dao de ching says the dao cannot be expressed. but other things can be expressed. the expression: “my hands touch my laptop” can be expressed.
we can think rigorously about what cannot be expressed. we can delineate the boundaries between what is expresible and what is inexpressible. good scientists and philosophers do this.
to describe is not to reduce. i used to think to describe was to reduce. but this is not necessarily true. i had just picked up some strain of pseudo-spiritual mind virus. such viruses thrive in grey and hazy minds, especially those exposed to youtube videos such as Blinkers in TARGET! *i got too lit*.
to describe is to enhance and to clarify. to describe the movement of atoms is beautiful. to reduce all of reality is atoms because we can describe bits and pieces of atom-related causality is wrong. this is the mindset of reddit atheists.
facts do not just describe reality. they are reality. this is what wittgenstein believed.
language is our tool to represent facts, and so to represent reality. philosophy, according to him, is the task of clarifying reality via clarifying its representation in language.
mathematics also clarifies reality by clarifying a symbolic representation.
because language is our primary mode of representing reality, the degeneration of language corresponds to the degeneration of clarity.
wittgenstein thought this more clearly than i am capable of:
from colloquial language it is humanly impossible to gather immediately the logic of language.
language disguises the thought; so that from the external form of the clothes one cannot infer the form of the thought they clothe, because the external form of the clothes is constructed with quite another object than to let the form of the body be recognized
the silent adjustments to understand colloquial language are enormously complicated.
basically, colloquial language conceals rather than portrays reality. to understand reality from colloquial language is like trying to see someone’s physique when they are inhabiting a full body mascot suit. e.g:
rudolf steiner says similar. he loves german and hates english. and french. see also notes on languages.
word on the street is that heidegger once said the only languages he could think in were greek and german.
i understand, i think. i’m learning latin. it feels more noble. at the very least, the namespace is less polluted.
ayn rand’s fountainhead is in part a polemic against people who refuse to clarify what can be clarified and reason about what can be reasoned about.
if you cannot articulate what is in your mind, your thoughts are unclear.
it is ok to have unclear thoughts. all of us have unclear thoughts (with the possible exception of thomas aquinas). but unclear thoughts, aka confusion, is not something, i think, to take pride in.
when my thoughts are soup i feel like confused mr krabs:
some antidotes: grammar, learning latin, talking to people, locking in.