Wednesday 28th August 2019
Hello. In this entry, I’d like to discuss how language works. All conversation and communia communication is imperfect. This is important to note. When I talk to you, I assume you can understand English and that your vocabulary range is sufficient enough to understand what I am talking about. For example, when I say tree, I assume you know what a tree is. However, let’s say I want to talk about a specific tree from my childhood. I can’t telepathically beam this tree into your head so instead I will describe it to you. By doing this, I am turning this memory into a series of micromemories (e.g. the leaves were rounded, the bark felt like tire treads) which I transfer into a shared language – in this case it is English- which you would change into your own micromemories/experiences and then into your version of the tree. Technically, it’s like I supply a blueprint and you supply the materials. As everyone’s expereinces experiences are different, we know that the trees we have are different, but we don’t know how different. There is a great video that explains all of this to analyse a video game “The Beginner’s Guide”, which is a brilliant game that teaches you a lot and is very moving, I suggest you either play it yourself or watch a play-through. I will link both videos below this (I suggest you watch the play-through first). I do not own either video.
The video on the theory of language - 30 mins:
The Beginner's Guide play-through - 1 hr 30 mins: