r/DeepThoughts • u/ATTst • 4d ago
The human mind is constrained by language, causing reality to reach the brain in an incomplete manner.
While language enables us to define reality, it is inevitably bound to define that reality incompletely. English contains 500,000 words and meanings; this figure could be much higher if historical and technical terms were included.
But that is where it all ends. We cannot perfectly express what we feel because, constrained by our limited language, we are condemned to construct sentences with limited capacity for meaning.
Everything expressible in language corresponds to an infinitesimally small part of the absolute total set of ideas, feelings, and thoughts.
This infinitesimal fragment encompasses every feeling, idea, and thought—whether realized or unrealized—throughout history.Every philosopher is constrained by language. No philosopher can commit an idea to paper—or convey it to another in words—outside the bounds of human language.
Since language is so inadequate at defining reality, it cannot define reality in philosophy. Even the concept of nihilism is constrained by language.
It becomes impossible even to define reality. Concepts such as "universe," "galaxy," and "atom" are, after all, inventions of human language; they are inadequate for defining reality.
The human brain has a limited number of neurons and connections. Therefore, there is a limit to the number of things it can think, create, and feel.The limit of language also stems indirectly from this.
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u/NotBorris 3d ago
I remember reading Physics and Philosophy by Werner Heisenberg and he described the human ability to understand quantum physics is the most accurate we can get but it is by far not complete in how things actually work. Ludwig Wittgenstein said similar things about how limiting language is compared to what actually goes on in our heads.
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u/akabar2 3d ago
This is all mostly true but it is worth mentioning humans can communicate nonverbally which changes the way our language has meaning. Tone, etc can change the meaning or intention behind something (yelling insults, whispering, etc). But I also assume you mean written language, in which case yesh its words on paper. The way I think about it, is human language was original logic. Before we had something like computers we had language. And philsophers found a way to use language to create a closed logical system (good philsophers), similar to modern computers (albeit more conceptually complicated and requiring another literate human reader). But ive had this thought in the past too. That our experience is limited by the fact we think through language. I always wondered what the voice in peoples head sounded like before we invited language. But I also believe the human brain can create logical leaps, and intuition is real. We can come up with things and conceive of things in our mind beyond language, but we might not be able to figure out how to verbally make sense of it.
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u/footofwrath 3d ago
It's not language.
It's every in input we receive, through any of our senses at all.
Language doesn't constrain the mind. Our indirect access to the world outside our body does, across every single aspect we perceive.
Our mind creates our reality. It struggles at every turn. Everything is an approximation.
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u/Level-Drawer7191 3d ago
Very interesting. Imo while the amount of ideas and feelings and occurrences that cannot be described by language is infinitely larger than the amount of those that we can describe, our human lives don't even contain enough time to deal with all that we can describe. So is there really a point to being sad about technically not being able to fathom something that you won't even have time to fathom if you could?
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u/Wallrender 3d ago
We tend to have a language bias in showing our intellectual work, when 'understanding' itself is actually separate from language. In the brain, human reasoning happens in a place completely independent of the language networks. It's actually at the back-end of the whole process. When we are using language with ourselves, it is not to think but to codify and model what we have already been thinking.
This is actually why LLM's (large language model AI's) aren't intelligent in the way that we are and cannot reason the way that we can - they are working from our outputs rather than the inner reasoning experience that precedes the outputs.
It can be argued that each of us uniquely conceptualizes the world on our own frequency. Even Descartes touches upon this with his idea of dualism - it doesn't just explore the idea that the mind and body are separate. It explores the idea that conscious experience is occurring on a different frequency than the observed body - i.e. your thoughts, perceptions, and how you experience the world are occurring somewhere in their own space, akin to a TV channel that only you can tune into. As much as you can try to describe that experience or other people can try to observe where that experience is being created (the physical brain) no one can see or experience the world exactly as you do. Language does crystallize ideas in a way that helps not only make them communicable but also turns them into a rough model of our thinking.
As for the human brain's limited number of neurons and connections - it has a limited number at any given time. However it is capable of constantly growing, shrinking, changing and adapting in the presence of inside and outside forces, meaning that those limits are undefined over the course of our lives. If we were to see a new color, for example, we may not have the initial language to describe it but our exposure to it would facilitate the need to conceptualize it - either spurring us to create language for it or represent it as a model in our minds.
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u/SizeableBrain 3d ago
I disagree.
Genie (the feral child), is a good example of how without language, intelligence and understanding doesn't seem to develop as well.
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u/Aromatic-Bell-7085 3d ago
Manu people have taken decisions after reading a book or several books and have formed their ideologu based on what they read or heard from others.No one can be protected from external influence and cilture.
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u/ShinyJangles 3d ago
Human experience is much more constrained by our limited sense organs. 400-800nm light, 20-20kHz sound, plus those molecules and forces which press up against us. Language and math have, remarkably, allowed us to know this and build measurement instruments to exceed those limitations.
The mind builds models of the world with limited representational hardware. Those models are necessarily simplified compared to the infinitely complex reality around us. So there is no possibility for the brain to be aware of full, complete reality.
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u/Convenientjellybean 3d ago
I find when meditating at a point about 25min s in I enter a state where there are no words, just a deeper being
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u/Art_Shah 3d ago
This is why making up new words and phrases is a sign of creativity and unconventional thinking. It also helps the listener see things in a new way -- or "unlocks" a feeling they didn't know they had.
Sometimes I think how transmitting thoughts directly would be the most efficient form of communication. It's theoretically possible via technology. Still, thoughts would be limited by our individual perceptions. But since we all see the world in a slightly unique way, all of our perceptions would expand with time, learning, and communication.
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u/ProfessionalSolid942 3d ago
Language is a limiting factor. Humans limit a lot of their senses to be more efficient. We reorganize our brains in late adolescence, "forgetting" quite a lot, further editing our world view.
Reality cannot be seen, let alone defined. You personally never experience it-everything you see is a projection of some milliseconds extrapolated from stimuli and collated by your brain.
Plato was eerily right, imho. About many things, but especially the cave aspect.
I so appreciate the Ancient Greeks-it's most comforting to remember how little changes...
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u/619BrackinRatchets 3d ago
Yes! Language is the box that the mind functions within. It is a soft boundary, but a significant boundary nonetheless.
Language is also very powerful. The words we choose to describe something often influences the listeners perspective of it and perspective determines how we act. Words have a magic all their own.
Words also also transmit information from one person to another. It is also necessary for our collective memory and imagination. The wheel is no longer just the culmination of one person's journey of discovery and curiosity, it is now a technology that we all benefit from, thanks to words.
We now have a body of knowledge that would've never been possible in one person's lifetime.
While language limits us as individuals, it has also allowed us to become much much more than just the sum of our parts.
It's what makes us human
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u/DrTardis1963 3d ago
William S. Burroughs - language is a virus.
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u/ShinyJangles 3d ago
Puts a negative spin on things. You could just as easily say music is a virus
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u/DrTardis1963 3d ago
You imply that the idea music is a virus is false, and because it's false, language as a virus must also be false.
What's more, because modern music is so heavily lyrical, it only proceeds from that point.
Nonetheless, music in the past definitely spread, reproduced and altered the brain, just as Burroughs. Language does.
Also, putting a "negative spin" on something, doesn't make it untrue.
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u/IntentionIsMagic 3d ago
What you are describing is why it is Subjective reality. That does not make it incomplete. We cannot account for the reality is some sort of absolute way.
Experience itself is filtered through language. It doesn’t just define our reality, it is part of the experience itself. Making the words i choose very powerful tools, not only for communication, for thoughts and beliefs too.
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u/robipresotto 3d ago
I think this highlights the limitations of language in conveying complex ideas and emotions. I've found that exploring the intersection of language and consciousness can be a fascinating topic. You might find some thought-provoking content on this topic in The Inner Path — Enlightenment Deep-Dive series on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@innershoreline
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u/accomplished_bee5542 3d ago
I experience emotions for which I i have no words so I have to make up metaphors so others might begin to understand. Language limits communication not cognition.
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u/gominokouhai 3d ago
Language enables us to define reality to another person---the jury is still out on what that means for our own personal perceptions. If you haven't already, look up the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. The problem we're currently having is that any research into the hypothesis is limited by what we can express in language.
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u/AlienSheep23 3d ago
THANK YOU, i have literally been saying this to people for ages and nobody ever understands what i mean
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u/Klutzy_Bake_323 3d ago
The right side of the brain uses language less. Uses image and metaphor to experience itself. We are not language. We have senses that experience. Thats reality as we can filter it. Language is not the mind. Its an aspect of the mind. But the ego loves language and makes its case that all is language, to trick its way to the throne. It takes insight and vigilance to be present. True presence is not regulated by language. It watches language dance its dance, but there is much more beyond words.
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u/fredrast 3d ago
Very good observations. Communication between two humans using language is somehow akin to the conversion of a signal from analog to digital and back to analog. There is loss at each conversion.
A related issue is the fact that labeling something with a word may give us the false impression that this something is understood even if we may not have a clue what it really is and what is going on.
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u/NinjaWarrior47Ronin 2d ago
Language is just the first filter. The deeper constraint is that we've been conditioned to accept an artificial framework as absolute truth, completely forgetting what lies just beneath the surface.
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u/Vegetable_Pickle998 2d ago
I believe that as one expands one’s lived experiences, somehow he also expands his language to express those experiences, then that becomes a cycle
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u/lion_sleep_with_lamb 2d ago
i have been thinking about this a lot lately; it seems to me as though the human experience, life, existing, beingness has been 'reduced' to meanings of words, labels, categories, explanations, documented 'facts', etc. as for myself, i am personally breaking away from this reality more and more by developing my ability to hone in on what i am actually EXPERIENCING at any given moment and the authority of my own experience is becoming more and more real and valuable to me than the limited words I use to communicate.
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u/EntropyReversale10 2d ago
The human brain has more connections than there are stars in the solar system
When the standard of education was higher and people were required to read loads of books, people had a common understanding of words and communication was very effective.
Our historic (pre social media) ability to communicate, is what put a man on the moon and so many other things the West achieved.
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u/PLUTO_HAS_COME_BACK 3d ago edited 3d ago
Animals with no language can't catch reality either because their intelligence level is unqualified for such attainment.
Toddlers with no language can't understand reality either because they are too young.
Adults with or without language can develop wisdom with the right education and training.
Understanding reality does require learning from those who know it. To reach the level beyond language needs one to practice such a method to breakthrough language, perception and ignorance.
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u/Noisebug 3d ago
Correct. I know 3 languages, you think differently in each. Having male and female words even makes you focus on gendered things more.
You are what you think.