The Insufficiencies of Language

Foreword

The purpose of this post is my attempt to describe the insufficiencies of language and to explore better plausible solutions. The development of languages was slow and took thousands of years of biological and social evolution to attain the beginning of what we have today. Our concern with language is not so much about how it evolved but rather how it influences our relationships with other human beings and our natural habitat. We will also explore the attitudes which are shaped by what we hear, say and read. We react to language in a complex manner and in multiple ways simultaneously, namely mental, emotional, and behavioral. We call this semantic reactions. In order to reduce the reflex reactions to words we consider 'bad,' it would require our attention for us to understand the speaker first.

"There are no bad words." — Jacque Fresco

Having reached a time that demands an investigation of all aspects of human affairs, we will be looking at the evolution of language briefly to emphasize how necessity along with biological evolution has brought about more and more effective communication for the events of the time. After this, we will focus on an overview of General Semantics.

Evolution of Language

Evolution of language in humans, which is a taboo subject for some, has been discussed for decades. In the last few years, there have been several proposals of how the ability to speak came about, by comparing humans to other species.

The Evolution of the Vocal Tract

Lieberman noted an unusual difference in the human vocal tract vs other primates. Homo sapiens seem to have their larynx positioned rather low in the throat. This means that in order to avoid choking we have to coordinate breathing and swallowing carefully. Lieberman suggests that this trait in humans is the result of an adaptation to communication. The descent of the larynx over our evolutionary history changed the shape of the vocal tract from one which essentially had the acoustic properties of a straight tube to one where that tube has a bend in the middle. This increases the diversity of vowel sounds produced, which in turn increases the carrying capacity of information carried by the vocal channel.

Fitch and Reby have shown that other mammals actually do lower their larynges during vocalization, and some other species have a permanently lowered larynx in the male of the species (red deer). Here we may ask, what might be the outcome for animals that have complex vocalization?

The lowering of the larynx also increases the total length of the tract. This changes the sound in such a way as to increase the perceived size of the animal making the sound, i.e. this perceived size enhancement may add to the driving force behind the descent of the larynx in species without complex vocalizations. Males that appear to be large may be more successful in competition for mates, or they can be more successful in alerting for predators or intruders (communication.) This might also be the case for Homo sapiens since there is some sexual dimorphism with the male larynx descending a second time around puberty. At some point, this 'drop in the larynx' anomaly was what made some fitter to survive their existing environment.

This brief example merely demonstrates the role that other species can play in the understanding of the evolution of language, even if those species do not necessarily possess anything like a capacity for complex communication.

Researchers are not entirely sure of how the first word was established, i.e. a minimum of 2 people agreeing that they will use a sound to represent an object observed through their senses, something existing in the physical world. As Martin H. Levinson, Ph.D. states:

“Strictly speaking, words don’t mean; people do!”

But people do agree that this happened somewhere between one hundred thousand years ago and ten thousand years ago. It is obvious that there is a huge gap between the communication systems of our nearest primate relatives and human language. Just like the gradual process described by Richard Dawkins on the evolution of the eye. The same is true for language as is for the eye.

We can safely hypothesize that communication amongst primitive men was slow. When someone wanted to say, they didn't like something they would push it away. When their leg hurt, they would express themselves through simple utterances similar to the ones used today, such as moaning and groaning. If they held their leg, moaned and groaned, this communicated pain. When they wanted to show where the food was, they would point towards a direction. When danger was close, they might have made a loud noise, something like screaming.

There are many hypotheses, which are flawed, such as the “bow-wow” hypothesis even accepted by Darwin himself, the “yo-he-ho” hypothesis, the “ding-dong” hypothesis, and the “ta-ta” hypothesis. No matter which hypothesis is correct, or if a combination of these were responsible for making the ‘first’ language, I think I can boldly speculate that the mechanism for language was a necessity. The necessity for more effective communication in order to pass valuable information on, to organize and plan, or even deceive as is suggested by some.

That initial language development came about by using the senses that are in direct connection to the surrounding environment. Unlike the intermediate stages of the eye which have left behind fossil records, language, unfortunately, has not, simply because the language does not fossilize. So, we can briefly mention examples of three kinds of linguistic behavior that seem to have been identified by some to be living fossils; these are Pidgin communication, child language at 23 months of age and language of trained apes.

The similarities between these three, regardless of their drawbacks, are that all have some minimal structure, i.e. sentences are made of words which have been given distinct meanings, and the meaning of the sentence is in a limited way composed of those designated word-meanings. However, this is very far from what we have today in human language. But these three types of simple language can still be used to communicate the needs of the time. As needs change according to biosocial pressures so does the requirement for more complex or simpler communication systems depending on the situation. The Venus Project goes a step further by proposing a language which is relevant, meaning updatable, to our current understanding of our environment in order to reduce misinterpretation just like in mathematics or chemistry. Necessity once more has brought us to that stage that we need to formulate a language that will build a saner attitude towards communication and reality, which is implied by Jacque Fresco in his lectures.

As communities got bigger, and tools were created, people started specializing in particular areas, such as skinning of animals, making clothes, getting water and hunting, and the interaction between people became more and more complicated. At first, people communicated about things that other animals communicated and still communicate about, for example, food, water and predators, and things they could observe with their senses. Today we also communicate about things that do not exist as physical entities. For example freedom, free will, metaphysics, and rights. Perhaps it is these things that seem to separate us from other animals. Yuval Noah Harari illustrates very well how these myths also tend to unify us in entire groups which are against other groups depending on what myths they believe. Maybe without these myths, we would not have been able to unify the uninformed, scarcity driven people of that time to form villages, towns, cities, regions, countries and eventually entire unions.

Communication and interaction with each other evolved. Eventually, through necessity and gradual development, we came up with languages which branched off into different languages as villages split and people lived in different areas. We used these languages to attempt to control large groups, using metaphysical references to attempt to maintain some sort of morality in a much more uninformed population. Something which is easily overcome today by providing more relevant education, as done by The Venus Project.

Different conditions in the new environments discovered by those leaving the original village had to come up with new words for things. Also meeting other tribes caused them to adopt other words. Our languages, just like us, evolved very gradually with no end goal or purpose. If the system works within its environment, it survives. As we can see today, in our language we use words that our parents didn't use in their youth. Such as 'the internet', 'Facebook', 'Google', 'iPad' and 'iPhone'. These words produce whole sentences, "I connected to the internet, googled Facebook with my iPad and can also do so with my iPhone." If you could go back in time and say that sentence to a person several centuries ago, he would think you were speaking a different language. The Venus Project proposes that we place a purpose to language, allowing us to communicate information more accurately, concisely and to the point, with as little misinterpretation as possible.

Depending on who is counting we have anything between 3000-8000 languages in the world today. Unlike our evolution, we cannot know if all languages that exist today had a single common ancestor at some point which scattered into different directions with migration out of the plains of Africa. Even though it would be interesting information to have, it will not stop languages from being just adequate, adequate enough to survive as a simple system in an attempt to control human behavior but not adequate enough for human survival.

"Languages we speak today are subject to interpretation and therefore we speak 'at' each other rather than 'to' each other." — Jacque Fresco

He uses such examples to bridge the gap between our ignorance and existing relevant information. One phrase can be a whole field of study summarized by simple words. In this case, he is referring to the subject of General Semantics.

General Semantics

In this section we will cover:

1. The difference between Technical Terms vs Non-technical Terms,
2. Speaker vs Listener
3. Statement of fact vs Inference (Guess or Assumption)
4. Efficient Observer vs Inefficient Observer
5. Identification
6. Abstracting

General semantics should not be confused with Semantics. Semantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relationship between signifiers e.g. words, phrases, signs, and symbols, and their denotation i.e. what they stand for.

Technical Terms vs Non-technical Terms

Technical terms are words which have a narrow range, such as Hydrochloric acid. This is a specific term that if said to another person with the relevant background who speaks English, has no way of being misinterpreted.

Non-technical terms are terms (or words) which have a very broad range, such as 'good', 'bad', 'right', 'wrong'.

A technical term seems to give precise information, but non-technical terms seem to be subject to our personal interpretation. When we say subject to our interpretation, we mean when we hear or read (sense) these words. More accurately, when the vibrations of sound traveling through the air impact our eardrum and these signals created by the vibrations go to our brain for processing. The brain associates it to past observations and current understanding of its environment, the process involves different 'filters,' such as:

• Culture
• Religion
• Politics
• Memories of encountering similar words or situations

Suppose a Swedish person is speaking to a local from Dubai, the Swede says:

"It is hot today, what is the weather like there?" The person in Dubai will say:

"It is hot here too."

Looking at the average temperature in Sweden during summer it is 20-25°C and in Dubai during the summer, temperatures reach 45 °C. Even the sea temperature reaches 37 °C, with humidity averaging over 90%. The highest recorded temperature in Dubai is 52.1 °C. On a neurological level when the Swede says it is hot, this goes through the different filters and the information interpreted in a very different picture. In other words, they mean two different things.

"The message goes in through your ears and comes out in relation to your background." — Jacque Fresco

If the Swede came from a very hot country, which he visited for several months, he would probably need a sweater back in Sweden. So words can mean different things for different times even for the same speaker.

These type of issues cause a lot of misunderstandings across most areas of discussion. Non-technical terms are subject to interpretation. Aviation tries, but does not get far enough to reduce these errors in all areas, but it takes care of most. When the control tower clears the pilot to land they do not say:

"...the wind is strong but you are cleared to land."

they say:

"...the wind is 100° at 25 knots, you are cleared to land."

Which means the pilot has to make an assessment if the wind is strong based on the company, airplane and personal limitations. That language is not subject to interpretation provided you speak English.

Paul R Porter, a self-taught economist, attended a banquet in Greece in which he was a guest in and representing America. In a polite manner, wanting to relate to his generous hosts, he said in his speech:

"...you Greeks and we Americans have very much in common. We like to eat, we like to drink and we want to sit around and talk."

The next day the Greek communist party (KKE) wrote that he insulted the Greeks, calling them gluttons, alcoholics, and gossipers.

Different variations of language exist such as those in different jobs, different time periods, new knowledge (insufficiency of words like 'sunrise'/'sunset' whereas Earth rotates instead), new words invented every day (neologism), and in different nations, e.g. a British person will use the word 'pants' as a synonym for 'underwear'; an American will use the word pants for 'trousers', 'jeans', 'cords', 'sweat pants', 'slacks', 'shorts', and 'parachute pants'. Hand gestures, the body language between cultures, different languages, tone of voice- all of these can cause misunderstandings which are not only embarrassing but also possibly dangerous.

We tend to treat words as if a word is a self-containing center of meaning. It isn’t! Words are sounds in the air or marks on a piece of paper. We give meaning to words. Mathematics, biology, chemistry, and physics are languages that are not subject to interpretation. These languages do not have a prejudice towards gender, culture, nationality or religion. If an Argentinian chemist writes down a formula for a product, a Japanese chemist looking at the same formula will turn out the same product. Their beliefs and philosophies of life play no role in this languages. Although the product might offend some people (human cloning), the language itself is clearer than other systems in the world today. Now, someone might ask what is the importance of all this?
When a speaker is using a word like 'beautiful,' it should be followed by an explanation of what the speaker means by beautiful. In 1960, Prof. Ken Johnson found out that 500 of the most used words in the English language, the Oxford Dictionary lists 14, 070 meanings. This is before it is interpreted through the filters on a personal level. Attempting to explain ourselves and what we mean by certain words allows us to mitigate the threat of most misunderstandings, but we cannot be utopian hopefuls thinking that we will ever eliminate all misunderstandings. What we can alter though is the way people view communication.

Speaker vs Listener

Today we see:

In other words, the listener hears the words, and he is interpreting them according to what he thinks they mean, as explained earlier with the Swede and Dubai local.

Ideally, we would like to see this:

In other words, it should not only be the speaker the one attempting to be understood, but the listener should seek to understand the speaker. Evidently, it takes effort from both sides for effective communication to occur. The speaker and listener must establish similar meaning or preferably have physical referents for the words. We are not taught this way in school; we are taught to debate.

Statement of Fact vs Inference

An inference is used much like the word guess or assumption. In other words, if I asked you Are there seeds in this apple? You may reply Yes! Without cutting it open and seeing if there are seeds in it. You could say I used my past experience to formulate my answer, but if I were to ask you to bet your life on it while holding a gun to your head, you might cut the apple open before you answer.

Statement of fact is cutting the apple open and looking to see if there are seeds and saying There are seeds in this apple. This is a statement made after having direct experience with the seeds. Again you might ask, why this is relevant to The Venus Project. Not understanding the difference between inference and a statement of fact tends to cause misunderstandings. A declarative statement such as The Venus Project is communism is an inference claiming to be a statement of fact, but that does not necessarily make it a fact. A father making a declarative statement such as All Turks are bad! may sound like a statement of fact that might stick depending on the amount of indoctrination exercised on his child.

"In the past, people used to say 'You'd never be able to get to the Moon, not in a 1000 years!'; they'd look up the next day and we're going to the Moon." — Roxanne Meadows

How do we measure if a statement is one of fact or an inference?

Efficient Observer vs Inefficient Observer

Suppose I ask what are these things above? Normally we have four different answers:

1. “They are designs or figures.“
2. “Variety of shapes.”
3. “Straight or regular figures.”
4. Naming Individual items

The majority of people (80%) stick to numbers 1 and 2, some (15%) on 3 and least (5%) on 4. Keeping in mind that no two events are ever the same, by using the mechanism that produces items 1,2 and 3 (abstracting) we are generalizing or rather passing judgment. Through abstracting, we tend to place groups of people into one category without considering the individual. It is very hard to think about individual differences without considering what shapes those differences. Few examples of generalization are Those corrupt Africans!, Those lazy Greeks!, Those drunken Brits!

"There are no Negro problems, Polish problems, Jewish problems, Greek problems or women problems. There are human problems!" — Jacque Fresco, 1974

Similarities and Differences

If we were unable to see the similarities in events (associate), we would, indeed, have a tough time learning anything. Math or Chemistry would be almost impossible to learn. This is what makes us different from other primates — the fact that we can continuously learn and pass on that information to others. One can argue that sometimes things we learn and pass on are not often the most relevant information. This is also the case with values and language, meaning as you grow up you identify specific objects necessary for survival, e.g. food, water, and danger. As you grow older to a mature adult and have gone through different experiences, you can place different objects and living beings into different categories, which sometimes (in the case of race or gender) ends up causing social and personal problems. With relevant education, you will be less susceptible to most of these prejudices.

It is a sign of the trained mind when one speaks of differences. Language that identifies differences is a mark of the ability to extract relevance from a situation (intelligence). A pianist can hear a piano piece, and he can identify the left from the right hand, which part of the piano is making what sound, in which key his colleague is playing, and when he changes key. He can identify if too much paddle is being pressed, or if his colleague made a mistake. An untrained ear cannot identify this easily. I remember playing a piano piece in front of 500+ people, in which 95% of them were not trained, musicians. I skipped five pages of the song which otherwise was 13 pages long. Only the 5% noticed. The observation passed to me by the 95% was that, I am a brilliant piano player. Needless to say, the musicians didn’t feel the same.

Our language is filled with opinions by only noticing the similarities. While noticing the similarities is useful in everyday life, but it should be combined with the differences to result in a more relevant action pattern. It is easier to speak in general terms, neglecting the differences. This, unfortunately, results in impulsive or hasty behavior because it takes to much work to see the differences. Be aware of this the next time you use the verb 'to be.' Stop and Think!

"He/she is …"

You might want to ask yourself Am I about to show that I have only noticed the similarities?

Identification

Go to your kitchen and find an apple. Hold it in your hand and imagine I gave this to you. If I ask you What did I just give you? you might reply An apple to which I'll say No, I didn’t give you the words 'Apple,' what I gave you was… I pause, and I point at the fruit we have come to call 'apple' which is in your hand. These words point to the apple, they are not the apple, much like I cannot drink the word 'water'. In other words, there are two ways of answering a question: a verbal way and a nonverbal way. You can show me the apple in your hand as if to say This is what you gave me, or you can 'give' me a bunch of words.

A child growing up eventually discovers that things in existence have words pinned to them. We learn to place so much emphasis on the words that they can give us different emotional reactions. Holding a dinner for your friends and offering a tasty meal might get them to praise your cooking skills until you reveal to them that it was snake meat they ate. Some might even return an excess of the consumed amount. They were able to eat it, digest it and even enjoy it, and one might wonder Why the unpleasant reaction? The words that have negative associations in the brain may give you an unpleasant feeling. Values today partly seem to be formed around the verbal rather than the nonverbal.

“Love is a bullshit word!” — Jacque Fresco

The term 'love' means more to people than what the nonverbal could signify. That goes for words like 'democracy', 'freedom', 'human nature', and 'free will'. Claiming that you 'love' The Venus Project means you are ready to learn and apply the teachings to yourself in order to achieve a different way of life — organizing the nonverbal as to extend as much 'love' (extensionality) to people and nature as possible.

To make an accurate map it takes a lot of hard work. In order to make the map reflect the territory, it takes analysis, observation under a certain amount of guidance and a lot of technical work to achieve this level of accuracy. If I had to ask you to describe the apple that I handed you, you might proceed to tell me the shape and the color, and maybe some may go as far as attempting to describe the taste. The thing to ask yourself is, Is this the Apple? It takes a lot of work to create an accurate 'map' of what 'the' apple is. When we are working in the realm of the verbal and nonverbal observations, exaggerations, misinformation, and misunderstandings are inevitable.

Saying I love The Venus Project is not going far enough. Guided education, as provided for now by the mentor program, is key for one to be able to describe what The Venus Project is. Some may say, I don’t have the time or it’s too much work or even that it’s unnecessary. As the map takes a lot of guided observations and a lot of technical work, the same stands for The Venus Project. If you feel 'to be' well informed on your own, remember what I said about the efficient observer vs inefficient observer.

In our everyday speech, it is very easy to distort or misrepresent something. Suppose I asked you What do you think about democracy? No matter what answer I get, It's good! Or It’s bad!, I would have to ask you Is it bad now while you are reading this post? Is it good when the leader does something you don’t like, but you still could speak openly about it in your local coffee shop with your friends? Is it bad when you are walking your dog? When is it bad? And when is it good?

In certain absolute monarchies, I know that there is no tolerance to public display of affection. I know there is no tolerance to a woman having intercourse with a man before their marriage. These things are not things that threaten people in a 'democratic' country. There are atheists on television making very insulting statements to theists, and these happen in open forums without fear of apprehension. When you say, It’s bad! It implies 'always.' You have to adopt a language which points out the details, as far as you can see those differences. In order to make an accurate map you have to ask When is it bad? What do you mean by bad? We seem to be imprisoned in statements that might be said about The Venus Project and in general everyday conversation without attempting to learn the 'when.'

So, if you say to yourself, or when you hear someone making a statement as if it was a statement of fact, ask When? I am a failure. Ask When were you a failure? Keep going along those lines and you might have an interesting conclusion. The one that General Semantics has arrived at is that people’s verbal picture of themselves does not reflect the nonverbal, and this might cause disappointment. Imprisoned in the phrase, I am a failure. But I might have been a failure only in certain aspects of my life between 2010 and 2012, and so much exaggeration was placed in that statement (failure) that it has caused me to generalize my whole life. The same can be said about people who might say they are ugly. Ugly to whom? What is ugly and who decides what is ugly and what is beautiful? These are nontechnical terms, and we have to bear in mind that:

“If everyone had a nose a foot long, you would have surgery done to fit in with your culture.” — Jacque Fresco

Abstracting

”...when reading the bible, some people say 'Jesus meant this', others say 'No, he meant that' because it is subject to interpretation, and therefore you get the Christians, the Lutherans, the Seventh-day Adventists…” — Jacque Fresco

People reading the same source but understanding different aspects may be explained on a neurological level where the nervous system abstracts, therefore, selecting, picking out, separating, summarizing, deducting, removing, omitting, disengaging, taking away and stripping are actual parts of the abstracting process. Similarly to what the untrained mind might do about the current system that exists today. Most western countries have police departments to go to if someone is harassing them, they have a medical system to go to if you wish to get some help. You can call a plumber if you have a problem. There are transportation systems that can carry you around the world. They are not as efficient as they can be, but we cannot dismiss that in China they have an operating Maglev train, in the UAE they wish to build the Hyperloop. In Switzerland they have CERN. Many reputable university professors e.g. Robert Sapolsky, teach that there is no 'free will' nor 'human nature' as most people mean it. Most of the relevant information to create what we wish to see in society exists in this system, because of this system. It is scattered everywhere, separated by nations and people’s values. This is one small part of what The Venus Project is trying to improve — bringing all the latest information together to create a better system. Not the best, but much better than what we have today!

When deep criticism of the current system occurs in some of Jacque Fresco's lectures, it is because he does not have enough time to go into most inadequacies of capitalism. Repeating these criticisms yourself publically does not justify his many decades of research and experience. Learning from his sources enables you to manage the information optimally depending on the situation you are in. In other words, you can present the parts that are relevant to your audience according to their background and capacity, but you must not give the impression that This is all there is to know. Also, if people are not interested in what you are saying, you need to understand that two people looking at the same picture extract different aspects. Looking at a picture of a car, depending on your background you might wonder, How fast does it go?; another might think, Does it come in black?; a third person might wonder, How rich is the owner of this car? We abstract that which we are interested in based on our background.

“A tree does not just grow; it needs sunlight, water, gravity…” — Jacque Fresco.

Conclusively, the subject of 'all knowing,' i.e. saying the tree just grows, omitting everything else as if it grows on its own without external influences, is not a statement of fact. Always be aware that you might be selecting something based on your environment or just making an easy statement which might be interpreted in a way that can give the wrong picture. Saying he is a criminal, sounds as if you are saying this is all he is. He might be a good engineer or a great speaker. It is this way of thinking that has imprisoned many people — that this is all there is to know about the subject. Such attitude and other factors have locked the human mind in a loop of placing labels on people and events. If we can create the notion that there is always more to something or someone we can somehow reduce the arrogance and ignorance when people talk at each other.

The 'all knowing' attitude manifests when a father enforces his beliefs on his child as if he is the 'all knowing' being, saying This is what you will believe, and this is how you will act, and there is nothing more! We see it in certain leaders and in most teachers today, giving the impression that what they say is not questionable. Even nations express their 'all-knowingness' to each other, and this is one mechanism that builds walls between nations and people, even between parents. Next time you hear a child saying, Mom doesn’t understand me. The child has been a victim of 'all-knowingness' and reverberates the same back to the mother. This in turn, along with other factors, causes tension and resentment which slow down individual and social development towards a saner attitude.

As the population of the world gets older, we become more rigid in our ways and carry attitudes from the past which hinder our progress. Attitudes that say, It will never happen, or It’s no use. Our outdated opinions and those which are inherent in our language tend to hinder tremendously our progress as a more capable species.

Summary

We have discussed:

• The difference between Technical Terms vs Non-technical Terms,
• Speaker vs Listener
• Statement of fact vs Inference (Guess or Assumption)
• Efficient Observer vs Inefficient Observer
• Identification
• Abstraction

All of these in combination make our language subject to interpretation and effect our lives in multiple ways. If we are to move towards a saner future, as proposed by The Venus Project, we have to place everything we know under intense scrutiny. Indeed, we cannot continue with our current ways of thinking if we wish to see some sort of change that enhances all life on Earth.