The trouble with language
The world of technology and engineering is best described by natural sciences. Physics. Chemistry. Biology. Those and other sciences all have specialized terminologies that science experts use to communicate specific concepts and ideas.
But technical languages have their limitations. We run into these dead ends when we try to scientifically describe the mind, consciousness, feelings, and the like. Technical language is good for describing the physical aspects of the brain. We can identify the brain stem, hippocampus, and limbic system of a brain. We know about neurotransmitters, brain chemistry, and electrical impulses. But biology and chemistry are not equipped to tell us how the mind processes and creates our spirit, our differences of opinion about the soul, our decision making, and why people have such different types of personalities, opinions, ambitions, and mental characteristics. Why do some people have photographic brains, while other people can barely remember what they had for lunch?
Scientific concepts and language systems cannot identify with certainty why we have different states of consciousness during different times in our lives. Why do we have a form of consciousness called dreams when we sleep? Why does our body physically react to a dream when we seem to be falling from a cliff, but we are not? How does the process of imagination work within the brain? Why are some people so good at imagination, and others not so much?
Why are some people so anxious up on a stage in front of other people, while some people are relaxed in similar situations? Why might my feelings be different from a hunter when we are both looking at a defenseless animal struggle that has been shot in the neck with an arrow from a crossbow? How do all these different states of consciousness arise from our brains? Why can we not describe them in empirical terms like we do the physical properties of electricity, the principles of fluid dynamics, or the laws of physics?
I once met computer designer Steve Wozniak, an electronics engineer, programmer, and technology entrepreneur who co-founded Apple computer with Steve Jobs. The “Woz” autographed his book iWoz for me, which I read within one day. All I can empirically know about the book iWoz is how many words are in the book, what order they are in, how many pages it takes to contain those words, and other objective facts that anyone could confirm for themselves. However, to know the meaning of the book, and to understand how his experience as a young man shaped him and helped him invent his computer, I have to rely on my own experience and subjective interpretation of his words. When I read his book, I already had experience interviewing engineers and writing stories about computer design, so I was better able to understand some concepts compared to my grandmother who had never used a computer and had very little understanding a computer.
If I tried to explain to my grandmother that a computer uses a mouse, she might think I was referring to small brown furry rodent. She would have no experience to understand mouse within the context of a computer. The meaning of words and language are context dependent. And therefore, when we try to describe our feelings, what’s inside our mind, or even what we think “reality” is, we are all always limited by our experience, our world view, our culture, and our background.
What is inside your mind is subjective. Therefore, your “reality” is also subjective. Cognition is not a single perspective. It is an interpretation.
Our language, the words we use, and how we use them, do not describe a single empirical picture of the world. Rather, language plays a part in creating the world we see in our mind, which is most likely different from the picture of the world other people see in their minds. Language helps us interpret the world in our own subjective way. Instead of seeing the sun through a clear lens, language is more like a stained glass that determines how we see the light coming through it. It doesn’t report the world. It creates it.
For example, when I say the word tree, I might see a pine tree in my mind while you see an oak tree. Or a family tree.
When I say or think of bark, I might see bark of the pine tree. You might imagine a dog being vocal.
If you want to understand your dog, you have to rely on subjective interpretation of his bark. Is he telling you he is hungry? Or does he want a drink of water?
I think that trying to write an objective piece of editorial for a magazine, a white paper about a topic, or a script for a television show presents similar challenges. Even the most highly trained and well-meaning reporters bring their history to the piece they are about to write. Some do a better job of being objective and scientific about writing than others. But all of them start within the subjective worlds of their own minds, which influences not only what they write, but what questions they ask, what weight they give to some parts of the topic versus other parts, how they structure the piece, the words they use, and so on.
What a writer may feel are well chosen words can be meaningless to some readers because the words can have different meanings that are dependent on context, culture, and structure. Words like tree, bark, and mouse have meaning only in relation to other words. Word meanings can also be culturally dependent, because culture is built into language. In some circumstances, it takes an understanding of the culture and the culture’s language to understand the meaning of a single word. A “mission” within the culture and language of NASA engineers may mean a trip to the moon or Mars. A mission to a group of nuns many mean the calling of a religious organization, especially a Christian one, to go out into the world and spread its faith. To understand the difference in meanings, you have to understand the difference in the cultures. One is scientific and technical. The other is not technical.
Words are parts of subjective networks of cultural ideas and believes, so words shape the perspective based on the cultural beliefs. Perspectives are subjective and therefore may be partial to describing the world, a world view, a belief, or a concept in a biased way.
So, when a company writes white papers and publicized reports about themselves or their products, it is always more difficult for me to look at their work the same way I look at a piece written by an outsider, or a reporter who is not beholding to the company for a paycheck. Their perspective influences the way they see the product, the company, and the topic about which they write.
I have written stories about a company who makes aerospace products. I was not employed by the company but was rather working as an agent for them. And I got paid to write the pieces, which were scrutinized and edited by the company. After doing this reporting and story writing for several years, I developed an image or perception of the company, which could be described as admiration and respect. Years later, when I worked at a different aerospace company, I had an opportunity to see the first company from a different perspective. My new job required that I contact the first company in search of some O-rings my employer needed to repair aircraft components, which the first aerospace company originally manufactured. After dozens of email and several months of being bounced from one person to another at the first company, I finally gave up trying to obtain the O-rings from them. I found them elsewhere. The experience dramatically changed my perception of the first aerospace company for the worse. But I think that change in perception was more realistic than my initial perception, because I was looking at them from another perspective. I still admired many of the good things they did. But I also saw a disappointing side of them.
Given the inherent bias created by limited perspectives, some people may believe that no single perspective is better than another. Does that mean we should treat all voices equally? No way! Is the voice of an astronaut who has seen from outer space that the world is round better than the voice of someone who believes the Earth is flat? It would be difficult for me to give the two perspectives equal credibility. Furthermore, I believe that thinking about a topic or concept from multiple perspectives is often better and more “realistic” than having only one perspective. The more things you are conscious of when writing, the better able you become to see things for what they are. Our world is not reflected by consciousness, which is subjective. It is not a perception challenge. It is an interpretation challenge. Interpretation takes place inside your subjective mind. How then should we view the world and report on it? The answer, I think, is from multiple perspectives, with the realization that a single perspective, scientific or subjective, is not enough. “Truth,” it seems to me, is best described as many streams of awareness from different sources feeding into multiple “rivers” of thought that coalesce into knowledge “oceans.” The truth, or the closest we can get to truth, is a mix of inputs from many sources. Like a liberal arts education that includes hard sciences and humanities, we gain a multi-faceted perspective that allows us to bring many sources of information to bear upon a single thought or concept.
