“One of the miseries of life is that everybody names things a little bit wrong, and so it makes everything a little harder to understand in the world than it would be if it were named differently.”
Tsze-lu said, “The ruler of Wei has been waiting for you, in order with you to administer the government. What will you consider the first thing to be done?”
The Master replied, “What is necessary is to rectify names.”
“So! indeed!” said Tsze-lu. “You are wide of the mark! Why must there be
such rectification?”
The Master said, “How uncultivated you are, Yu! A superior man, in regard to what he does not know, shows a cautious reserve.
“If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success.
What do you mean with telepathy? You can’t just transfer data from one neural net into another with having some sort of common data protocal that makes classifications. You still need some sort of language.
I suspect shared access to the conceptual referents of words would help with that specific problem, yes. I suspect (with Feynman) that it would make only a small difference. In particular, I suspect that if we did that we’d run more often into the currently-masked problem that everybody thinks about things a little bit wrong.
(People seem to differ in their interpretations of “telepathy,” so I’ve started trying to develop the habit of Tabooing the word. The irony of this in the current context does not escape me.)
That would depend partly on the specific problems with the words, and partly on the rationality of the people.
If everyone is making the same mistake, telepathy will just amplify the problem. There will be a chorus of agreement which is amplifying the mistake.
If people are using the wrong word, but with different shadings, then perhaps people will look into how well the word fits the concept it is supposed to indicate. However, the odds favor people yelling at each other about who’s right.
--Richard Feynman
Analects of Confucius
That’s because words are in general a grossly inadequate way to express thoughts. I wonder if telepathy would help with that.
What do you mean with telepathy? You can’t just transfer data from one neural net into another with having some sort of common data protocal that makes classifications. You still need some sort of language.
I suspect shared access to the conceptual referents of words would help with that specific problem, yes.
I suspect (with Feynman) that it would make only a small difference.
In particular, I suspect that if we did that we’d run more often into the currently-masked problem that everybody thinks about things a little bit wrong.
(People seem to differ in their interpretations of “telepathy,” so I’ve started trying to develop the habit of Tabooing the word. The irony of this in the current context does not escape me.)
That would depend partly on the specific problems with the words, and partly on the rationality of the people.
If everyone is making the same mistake, telepathy will just amplify the problem. There will be a chorus of agreement which is amplifying the mistake.
If people are using the wrong word, but with different shadings, then perhaps people will look into how well the word fits the concept it is supposed to indicate. However, the odds favor people yelling at each other about who’s right.