Words are useless in describing experience

[impulse9]

You can't even describe how a tomato tastes.

https://i.imgur.com/mPQAtVq.png

[Tim R]

So useless, that you can't even describe them as useless. 

[GreenWoods]

If that were completely true then language wouldn't even exist.

[Vibroverse]

I think it is not useless but contextual and relative like every other manifestation. For instance, when i go to a cafe and say "can i have a latte please", it is useful there to put sound and syntax and meaning like that. Those words are describing my experience of my desire in a sense haha. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Vibroverse

[impulse9]

16 minutes ago, GreenWoods said:

If that were completely true then language wouldn't even exist.

Languages are great at describing things that aren't experience. You can describe a mechanism in great detail with language. But you can't describe how yellow looks like to a blind person, and you can't describe how chocolate tastes like to someone who's never had it.

Edited September 30, 2021 by impulse9

[GreenWoods]

@impulse9 I would say language is limited.

4 minutes ago, impulse9 said:

 you can't describe how chocolate tastes like to someone who's never had it.

If that person tasted stuff that is a bit similar, then you can describe the taste of choclate to a small extend.

Enough so that if the person later blindly tasted choclate and a lemon, he would know that the choclate is choclate and the lemon not.

[impulse9]

I really don't think so. How exactly would you describe the taste of chocolate?

[Mason Riggle]

...he said, using words, to describe experience.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Mason Riggle

[GreenWoods]

9 minutes ago, impulse9 said:

I really don't think so. How exactly would you describe the taste of chocolate?

sweet, nutty, milky.

 That is close enough to be able to differentiate it from a lemon when blindly tasting.

[impulse9]

10 minutes ago, Mason Riggle said:

...he said, using words, to describe experience.

Haha.

Just now, GreenWoods said:

sweet, nutty, milky.

 That is close enough to be able to differentiate it from a lemon when blindly tasting.

You know how many things fit that description?

[GreenWoods]

1 minute ago, impulse9 said:

You know how many things fit that description?

Yes, therefore it is limited.

But not completely useless, because things like lemons and stones are filtered out.

[impulse9]

The point is there is no real way to convey experience to another person, unless they themselves share that experience. Try as hard as you may, you'll never adequately describe the taste of chocolate to someone who's never had it. What you described as taste of chocolate is basically a bunch of qualitative classifiers. You present these qualifiers and then hope someone on the other side can adequately piece them together to form a picture of the experience. But there's no earthly way of conveying how the actual *taste* of chocolate feels like. Words cannot penetrate the dimension of taste, other than superficially and by clumsy classification.

Heck you can't even put into words how you decide to open or close your fist. Ponder that one for a minute.

Edited September 30, 2021 by impulse9

[GreenWoods]

@impulse9 true.

[Someone here]

Now I'm craving chocolate ?

[GreenWoods]

8 minutes ago, Someone here said:

Now I'm craving chocolate ?

@impulse9 See how vivid my description was lol 

[Moksha]

There is a saying in the Upanishads that "Words turn back frightened." This is especially true when words are used to describe ultimate reality. Inevitably, they invoke paradoxes, and confuse more than they enlighten.

Spiritual teachers may use words as pointers, but the words themselves cannot make someone see. The most powerful teaching is the presence of the teacher, beyond anything that might be said. Ramana Maharshi is known for simply sitting in silence.

[The0Self]

Yes, this is utterly indescribable. Even going on for 100 years just constantly describing this would never actually resemble what this is. The description itself would also just be this, which has no other.

Edited September 30, 2021 by The0Self