Mapping the Structure of Language

[Bryan Lettner]

What does the ideal or objective language look like? 

If we were to map out the fundamental structure which underlies all human languages... what shape might it take?

        

                Hi guys ’n gals.  First post. Let’s get jiggy. 

 

Let's try to point at this subject from a few different angles, to give a better idea of what is being referred to:

            The “Geometry of Generality”

            The “Shape of Language” (considering only the inherent properties of language, not the human conventions)

            The “Meaning Map”

            The “United Web of all Definitions”

            The “Structure of Concept”

            The “Fundamental Circuitry of Relationship”

            The "Network of Notions"

            The “Dictionary 2.0”, which distills the english language to its essence, organizing concepts relationally and geometrically, rather than organized alphabetically (a.k.a. arbitrarily and clumsily).  For an early prototype, we could envision an app on you computer, like an indra's net or a holographic ball-and-stick molecule model, where you can zoom in on a concept and see the "neighboring" interconnections and concepts which define it.

Needless to say, finding this shape is no small task. But it is also a pretty low hanging fruit. The number of words in the dictionary is actually pretty manageable, and a lot are repetitive.

Leo’s "Contemplation" video triggered a long flow state for me. "What is it, what is it?"  I wrote down all the fundamental concepts i could think of.  Of course we can spend 1000 hours contemplating one fundamental concept alone, and perhaps only scratch the surface. Very true.  But... fortunately, mapping generality is one subject where breadth is depth! The concept you are trying to grasp is comprised of all other concepts! It is defined by an infinitely rich web of concepts. As such, it cannot be fully grasped... but you can asymptote towards a deep understanding by increasing your bit-resolution and mapping more and more of the structure of generality. And fortunately again, there are really only a few thousand fundamental concepts, in my estimation. Emanating out from only a few fundamental concepts, proliferating and expanding in a highly ordered way. (Possibly mimicking the structure of the number line itself... which may be a 1-dimensional compressed or disguised form of an infinite-dimensional fractal.)  

The Derrida episode also got into this as well.  So step 1 is recognizing the “infinite regress” property of language.  Words mutually define one another, serving as the ground for one another, or perhaps with the shared ground of being itself. 
                 But now we have to take the second step, which is mapping out  that regress.  Mapping out the inter-branching structure of meanings which mutually substrate one another, like an intricate but highly-ordered tumbleweed.  Again, easier said than done.  

--- Imagine a shape like E8, where the most pervasive notions (like "rhythm") are more proximal to the center node, and the most specific concepts (like "watersnake") are more distal.  A framework which emanates outward from the most primary concepts via a very simple pattern of iteration, and accommodates an infinite amount of infinitely subtle concepts.

--- Imagine connecting tidbits of wisdom into the connected web in which they inherently dwell, like a multidimensional jigsaw puzzle, rather than considering them in a piecemeal and isolated fashion.  One could express a truism as coordinates in the whole integrated shape.

***            I’m betting that 20 years from now, people will look back and say: “how on earth did we carry on for so long without even knowing the basic structure of language/concept/relationship, or even suspecting its existence?”   Once we have it mapped out, we’ll probably kick ourselves for not seeing it sooner.

Lots more to be said, but just wanted to raise the topic.  Your thoughts, hypotheses?

Edited May 20, 2018 by Bryan Lettner

[Arkandeus]

very interesting 

[Principium Nexus]

Watch this how they map geometric relations of words using A.I. or Deeplearning  

 

And here for music, amazing structures.

 

Edited May 20, 2018 by Principium Nexus

[Bryan Lettner]

@Principium Nexus Thank you very much for those links!  yes the first video shows we are already making much progress.

The second is also very exciting, because as a music producer, it would be very useful to be able to brows sounds by subjective quality or timbre.

[cirkussmile]

Language has everything to do with culture ?

[tsuki]

11 hours ago, Bryan Lettner said:

If we were to map out the fundamental structure which underlies all human languages... what shape might it take?

Language is an expression of human expression.
To express the structure of language is to use language.
To have a complete model of language is to create something that contains itself.

The shape of language is fractal.
The problem with fractals is that they are expressed as a self-referential rule that is applied ad-infinitum.
The language-fractal would have to be expressed as a rule and this rule would have to be contained within it.
Even if you had the bootstrapping rule - you would not have the structure of language.
You would never obtain the structure of language, as fractals are infinitely detailed.
You can never see a Mandelbrot set in its full glory.
You can only have an approximation, just like you have now without defining it.

Language is the self-awareness of expression.
To try to express language is to be fundamentally lost.

Edited May 21, 2018 by tsuki

[Principium Nexus]

@tsuki The shape would be the blueprint of our thinking! And would resemble the brain in someway, would be very interesting to see a complete mapping of billions of words and sentences from languages all over the world to see what most common and dense structures are and how they fade into each other.

[tsuki]

@Principium Nexus The integral part of any language is a possibility to introduce new words.
A mapping of words is not a map of language. Language is not based on words.
A mapping of words is at best a temporal snapshot of a written subset of a given language.

There are no semantic units such as 'words' in language in general. 
You can convey meaning depending on the intonation and punctuation while you speak.
The same goes for written language. There is a meaning conveyed in the way I format these posts with line breaks.
There is meaning in the context of my avatar and post history.
Not to mention other forms of language such as non-lyrical songs, or paintings.
They convey meaning without syntactical units ('words').
We can't even agree on whether the frame is a part of a painting!

Word-embeddings that you posted in the context of machine learning are extremely limited.
They require one-hot encoding of a subset of words and are fundamentally closed.
Language is expansive and a definition of its boundaries is a context for its expansion.

Any expression contains the entirety of language within it.
You cannot capture language by boundaries, as boundaries are language in itself.

[Bryan Lettner]

@tsuki Tsuki you've got the idea, I agree with everything you've said.  (I was kind of being generous when i said we're already making much progress with the machine learning stuff).  What I am alluding to is a "beta-version" of the approximation of the structure, which would still have great usefulness, and which we can refine over time.  Something we can use to "kind of get an idea." A "word" is like a low-resolution Riemann approximation of a continuous curve, the continuous multidimensional tapestry of meaning and experience and phenomenological hierarchy.  Language itself is onto-conceptual... in other words, it's not just concepts, because it has its roots in experience and Being, so we obviously can't fully express the structure of Language in any kind of representation or model. But my point is, for practical purposes, it is not necessary to do so.  At best, any representation of the S.o.L (structure of language) would be a mere contemplation tool.  But we could use this tool for education purposes, as a guide to seeing conceptually  how notions interconnect (which of course would then have to be grounded in real world experience).  

 

@Principium Nexus 

Quote

The shape would be the blueprint of our thinking! And would resemble the brain in someway, would be very interesting to see a complete mapping of billions of words and sentences from languages all over the world to see what most common and dense structures are and how they fade into each other.

Yes indeed!  Thinking processes could be modeled as mini-circuits in the great Structure. The English language is tragically over-defined and conflationary and redundant, so get a clear image that's not a tangled mess, we would need to get rid of words with multiple meanings (over-definition... sooooooo dumb. a recipe for massive miscommunication ) and multiple words with the same fundamental meaning (redundancy).  We also don't need actual words comprised of letters.  A "word" can be expressed as coordinates in the Structure, and a sentence could be expressed as a circuit or graph between the nodes (words).  Even if we don't attempt to map the Structure, we should still clean up our human languages to have only one definition per word and only one word per definition.

Edited May 21, 2018 by Bryan Lettner

[knuckles]

I just have to say WOW, thought-provoking indeed!

Though I haven’t been at this for too long, this being self-actualizing, I have found that when I look in the direction of new age concepts, I often find that language in the linear, spoken fashion is just incredibly lacking and ineffective. It is seemingly the most primitive form of communication, contrary to the hierarchy in which spoken language is placed at the top in my culture at least.  We just don’t know what we don’t know and we haven’t even begun to scratch the surface on communication between other highly-intelligent species, such as dolphins or even our domesticated animals. I have recently been able to experience this nonlinear communication with animals and it is remarkable to say the least. 

I also found more information on this in a book The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown. Though it didn’t go as far to suggest that telepathic/nonlinear communication is most effective, which I personally find it to be, she did mention that we are only capable of understanding what we have already experienced. So what that means here is that when we describe a concept in words to another individual, those words very well may trigger different mental images, sensations, memories, etc. in comparison to the mental images, etc., of the person who is speaking the words. As such, we’re not actually communicating the idea we think we are. We are simply doing our best, with what we know and have experienced, to try and find common ground with another while actually having no way of knowing if they are interpreting as was intended. She mentions that when we are willing to strip back the layers of our ego and be authentic, effective communication is found easier. I think she’s onto a more subtle truth that the way we think about ourselves and the self-talk that we allow into the space of our minds actually shapes the way others interpret what we say, aside from body language and tone. As in, we project our internal environment onto our external so if you’re saying something really nice, but you’re judging them in your head, that person is going to be able to sense the inconsistency although they might not mention it, or they might not even be consciously aware of why it feels “off”.  To be frank, I think it’s entirely impossible for others to interpret our intentions effectively through words alone, especially if the speaker is unaware of their own cognitive biases and pitfalls. It also makes a difference in the amount of work the individual has done as well on their self talk and limiting beliefs as these are simply projected like a filter over a light onto the person they are engaging with. 

From what I understand, and I’m always learning and growing so I could certainly be wrong; sentient beings have the innate ability to communicate in a nonlinear fashion telepathically. I have experienced this many times throughout my life. I have always had this connection with my mom, brother, and aunt. I recently found that my sister and I can also communicate in this way and I dated someone who saw my thoughts as bubble letters at times or could actually “see” the image in my head and tell me about it. I should also mention here that I have slightly-developed clairsentience as well as some clairvoyance creeping in and I regularly astral projected as a child, so I don’t know anything different than being hyper-aware of these things. Still, I think everyone is capable of these things due to the connectedness of our nature, but as with everything else our brain get so clouded with monkey chatter. Then, consequently, we miss the subtle nonlinear communication that we could receive if we were in a more still, present state of mind. Ultimately it takes self work to develop this communication and it has to be done on both ends. Both the speaker and listener must have space for this communication to exist, otherwise it is easily missed and pushed aside or ripped apart by the intellect. 

So that being said, I don’t think that the evolution of communication is necessarily in these external things that we have desperately attempted to assign meaning, but in better understanding the machine we occupy as spiritual beings living a human existence. I think that in time, as we collectively become more aware, people will also become aware of the subtle communication that is happening in the “silence” all the time. I think that we already have the tools within us to do this, we just have to turn inward and be willing to put in the labor and dig deep to find them. 

I do however agree that in the interim of finding this level of communication collectively, we can very much benefit from unraveling the structure of language and finding ways to make it more effective. One way to do that very simply is by acknowledging the inherent level of violence in one’s communication so that they can create space in the conversation for the other person to feel heard, rather than defensive and shut down. If I had to think of anywhere to start, it would not be with the complex words, but at the very basic level in how we communicate how we feel to one another as we are severely lacking in that area overall. I so love Sanskrit for the feelings that the words and sounds evoke and I have noticed similar things to be true with higher consciousness words like “gratitude” and “compassion”. I’m not sure if this is in relation to how we have been taught about these words or really what causes this, but I know my “truth” feeling in my body kicks up when I regularly use them, especially gratitude. 

As much as I have loved learning new vocabulary and stuccoing intellectualism to myself, I have really come around to believing that simplicity in understanding is where it’s at. All the intellectualism in the world can’t help you to sit down face to face with someone and truly experience them. That is entirely different and a rut I found myself in for many years and still get stuck in occasionally. The problem with complexity in words and definitions is that, depending on the context, we can completely disconnect ourselves from the person with whom we are speaking if our intent is to look intellectual or superior in some way which is a very easy pitfall to succumb to or simply be heard rather than attempting to connect. Complex words absolutely have their place in certain writings and I will always love them, but they don’t breed human connection and we are lying to ourselves if we think that overthinking the basics of language we can in any way solve our disconnection. Like all things, that only happens looking inward. I think overanalyzing mere verbal and written communication can easily become another distraction in this context from looking inward at the deeper truths of communication. 

Though I am truly truly fascinated by this, especially the tidbit of proximal and distal word relationships. Wow. I love that concept.  

[Bryan Lettner]

As inspiration for what the shape might look like, we could imagine something like the GIF image on this post:

http://community.wolfram.com/groups/-/m/t/1358541

That's a mere 2-dimensional image with only a few points... but perhaps with the number of points and number of dimensions approaching infinity, we could get something resembling the fundamental structure of language.  Complete correlation, connections between all possible connections... resulting in "emergent divinity", or beauty arising from particular patterns of relationship.  A word = a snapshot or portion or subset of the shape, with more fundamental concepts corresponding to more prominent features of the shape, and less fundamental concepts corresponding to finer or less prominent features.  Note that such a model readily supports infinitely nuanced shades of meaning.

 

@knuckles Enjoyed your reply, appreciate the enthusiasm.

Edited June 24, 2018 by Bryan Lettner

[electroBeam]

@Bryan Lettner mathematics is also a language.

Also you are using language to describe a language, which is circular. How can you define and understand a language through using language? Its an epistemological problem.

[Bryan Lettner]

@electroBeam Yes, it is indeed circular, a representation of Representation itself.  But some representations would be inaccurate, and some would more accurate.  The goal with this is to uncover the most accurate representation of Representation possible.  And yes, language cannot be understood through language, only through direct experience.  Understanding happens with the beholding of a representation, which is experiential.  No understanding occurs within the confines of the model itself; Understanding only occurs within beholders of the model.  Certainly, data points in a computer model cannot entirely encapsulate Reality or Language itself, or any of it at all.  There is no attempt to do so.  But it can be a good enough microcosm or representation or reflection so as to be a useful navigation tool.  The geometrical relationships between timeless phenomena (Universal Laws) are fixed.  Knowledge of those geometries would enable us to make more educated assessments and life-choices.

I've been toying with the idea that Reality itself might be the one exception to the rule, "the Map is not the Territory".  In other words, Reality describes itself with itself.  Which might explain Terrence McKenna's gut feeling or suspicion that "the world is made of Language".  Representation and embodiment may be two sides of the same coin, in some sense.

Edited June 24, 2018 by Bryan Lettner

[electroBeam]

56 minutes ago, Bryan Lettner said:

@electroBeam

Reality describes itself with itself.  Which might explain Terrence McKenna's gut feeling or suspicion that "the world is made of Language".  Representation and embodiment may be two sides of the same coin, in some sense.

Yeah that's almost right, the world is almost made of language, but language is actually made of something, and its not language. Its something literally, actually literally, parallel to language and cannot be touched by language, a boundless boundary/wall. This stuff is made of itself, creating itself in an infinite loop for infinity. Its existence comes from its act of infinitely creating itself.

See the world can't quite be made of language, because language is an appearance, there is something under the appearance. Its like language is the green leaves and the stuff I talked about above is the brown stem and branches. If you look at language closely, you will see its made of stuff which is a representation of itself. But language does not make the world, its the stuff underneathe the language that makes it. Its the branches that spawn creation not the leaves.

Its a very normal and common mistake to not look closely enough at language, and to overlook the fact that its an appearance. language seems like an essence, and from that standpoint asserting "the world is made of language" makes total sense. But if you look through the language, like looking through a window, you will see a substance that is not language, but is the thing language is made of. It is undoubtably true that "the world is made of language that substance"

Edited June 24, 2018 by electroBeam