Language as a Tool vs. Language as a Toy
Void said:
One our author who translated many books said that translator must look not only into the dictionary but outside the window as well. He has brilliant translation of english poem about royal breakfast, which seemed to me rather dulll in original.
And i have examples of such translations which, i think, were able to cacth the idea, the mood and the rhythm; and yet there are some that never will be able to match the original (and not for objective reasons)
Poetic language is different from everyday language in its distinctive purpose of the transmitter and, or, by the way it is consumed by the receiver. By taking ordinary words out of their original, commonplace usage and by putting them in a different context; spacial, temporal, intent, and perception, a piece of literature is invariably more than the sum of its parts as it would have been if used in an ordinary setting.
By nature it distances, alienates, obfuscates, and blurs the common sense of the words. Whereas a saying or paragraph leaves no residual meaning once the whole transmission is properly understood (in the sense of mechanical decoding or deciphering), poetic language always leaves 'excess meaning' even after the basic sense is well understood. This is where poetic language becomes a toy that can be played with. If we follow this definition of the poetic use of language, not only the authoritative or popular books in print, but also the silly jokes, puns, riddles, triva, and any piece of saying that employs intentional obscuring schemes for the purpose of enjoyment, advertisement, self-glorification, praise, flattery, and seduction can all be said to have the poetic element to the extent that they are playful.
When translation of straight speech is difficult enough, "translation of poetry" is obviuosly an odd combination and an illogical, contradictory phrase, itself a poetic usage. In that sense, any translation of poetry should be considered an independent and serious exploration into the new langauge it is being written in rather than an import by means of appropriate substitution of word-phrases, clauses, and paragraphs. So looking out the window would definitely help, to remind the "translator" of the tools and materials of the trade in his/her own studio, whihc is, in essence, a toy factory.
The Dialects and Languages of Science
Void said:
Let`s start with physics. Beyond every law there is a langauge of mathematics. As far as i understood after five years of university, proof of
the theorems is based on set previously proved theorems, lemmas, an definitions. If one takes a definition and disassembles it downward to the very beginning he will find set of logic rules, number of axioms and ideal concepts... That`s the form we `ve chosen to describe the nature. This is a language of science.
But yet, there exists the concept of anthropomorphous princile, which states that if the values of fundamental constants were just a little bit different, our universe would also be another (and word 'our' is quite meaningless, `cause humanity might not exist in such case)
As far as I can remember from the history of science, there have always been a number of presuppositions that have guided and dictated what the scientists evaluate what is true and what is considered more scientifc. It is rare to find any point in history that a scientist was working in a logical setting totally devoid of any preconceptions that can be called unsicentific or pre-scientific.
In the age of Ptolemios the geogrpaher, astronomer, there was an unusual obsession for the geometric form of the circle and the sphere; these being the most perfect kinds of existence should, in the minds of his contemporaries, stand at the basis of all natural order and patterns. He assumed that a number of circular orbits with differing positions and radii, and in conjuction to one another, would explain the movements of the celestial bodies all revolving around the geocenter. Since Galileo, Kepler, and Newton, the geocentric model has been phased out, and the heliocentric model has become the norm for describing the wandering planets. The difference between Ptolemy and Newton can be said;
1) constants: Ptolemy- many, Newton- few
2) calculation: Ptolemy-lengthy, Newton-short
3) theoretical complexity: Ptolemy-high, Newton-low
Science historians observe the historical process as that of a complex scientific system being replaced by a more efficient & simple system. There seems to exist much gray area in the selection of what can be qualified as scietific in the absolute sense, or quantified as more scientific than another system in the relative sense. This arbitrariness that lies at the base of scientific systems of explaning the physical world should be ample cause not to consider science as THE non-evolving, non-dialectal, monolithic language of all times.
Factual knowledge & Understanding
Void said:
About knowledge. All forms of communication help us to gain some information, sometimes useful, sometimes not. But certainly not all of them bring knowledge. It`s born by some combination of inner content and outer, i still don`t know what triggers me to exclaim "I`ve got it!", but not just accept something as mere belief, because wit and logic failed.
(Gee, that reminded of of long forgotten discussion about information, entropy, communication and staff like that)
In the anthropocentric sense of the word, your distinction between the plain knowledge of pieces of facts (which can also be long and voluminous in quantity) and the special knowledge of more layers of meanings on top of the obvious is understandable. Notwithstanding that I too am one of the human population, I would like to propose a non-human-based (abtract, detatched, unsympathetic, non-empiricist) theory. "The accumulation of a knowledge of isolated facts, under the right settings, gives rise to a knowledge of higher order facts that relates the isolated knowledges which we call understanding."
Not having enough personal knowledge, vocabulary, or model directly bearing upon information and understanding, let me draw an analogy from a more developed field of science. Although still in the stage of development, the idea of your dear comrade Oparin presented called chemical evolution as the origin of life would be an apt point of departure. Simply put, a physically and chemically active environment containing the inorganic elements, compounds, and mixtures will give rise to organic material such as glucose, fatty acids, amino acids, nucleic acids, phosphoric acids, chlorophyl in time. Although the first possibilites of self-reproducing nucleotide strings have yet to be modeled and demonstrated, thermal energy itself would have been enough to try all the necessary, numerous, intermediate, even spurious combinations given enough time, which we understand to be around 1.5 billion years.
Quite a few nucleotide sequences good enough for self-reproducing must have occured initally, sporadically, and then more profusely, with the greater instances failing in one way or another in making their way into the acestral community of the current life forms. The simple principle of natural selection, given the limited nature of natural resources at any given point in time, more efficient, or rather adequately competetive variants would have emrged from the predecessors. It does not require a special, magical 'life force' for either simple life forms to emerge, nor for more complex life forms to evolve out of primitive life forms. Although this chemical analogy of vision, reflexes, sonsory perception, memory, and higher order reasoning may or may not suffice to explain our cognitive-to-symbolic reasoning capability, the model of simple patterns giving rise to more complex, higher order patterns should work with proper logical adjustments.
Going back to the human-centered point of view, it may also be said that the human brain is constantly excercising many processes of combinatorics and alignment of symbols representing the physical world and other symbols. The brain storing a vast amount of sensory & symbolic memories, such moments of inspiration are not always predictable, but can be assisted by various means, which may or may not be universal, meaning there may be general guidelines that worked for other people, each person will invariably have one's own quirks and idiosyncratic ways of solving problems. Some people work better surrounded with people; some in secluded concentration; some in a drinking frenzy of hallucinogeic substances. For Archemedes, it was a warm bath, for some the smell of a rotten apple, for some a refreshing gaze out the window.
Socrates describes the philosopher (himself) as one ugly person (referring to himself) in pursuit of the beatiful (sophia=knowledge, wisdom). The simile refers to the fact that he was constantly aware of a stangeness of certainty that made him wonder about the true nature insead of what's been fed him by tradition and the Homeric bards. The mind will fall asleep when not challenged, either by others, some outside stimulus, or by oneself thru continuing self examination. What gives you the inspiration to be able to say, this is it, would be hard to nail. But it could be a perfect match, a similarity, an analogy, or vastly simplifying alignment of the amassed facts. Or it could be something else, whatever fits your fancy under the given settings.
Code, Conversation, & Machine Translation
Void said:
People do not understand each other for many reasons (even without emotional ones). Sometimes we use the same words to describe different things, sometimes different words for the same subject, sometimes our vocabularies just different due to many causes... and so on.
This is an interesting point you make, for it is often thru the study and understanding of an anomally that we understand the normal. What does it mean that a communication has succeeded or failed ? This may sound a bit mechanical, but let me borrow the analogy of a radio signal transmitter.
Do correct me if I'm not giving proper attention to the heart of the matter. Why does a coded radio transmission fail ? There can be many possibilities.
1. The code tables on either side of the channel are different.
2. The message is too short to exclude impossible readings.
3. The message contains ambiguous words. 1-to-many definitions.
4. The originator knows more than the receiver, and is withholding that info.
5. The originator assumes the receiver knows more than (s)he actually does.
6. The receiver assumes more than (s)he knows as a fact.
7. The originator has lied before; the receiver does not trust the originator.
8. The assumed genre of the communication is misunderstood.
Stripping away the analogy, and reducing the list for inter-personal communication, we get
1. They are speaking two, mutually unintelligible idiolects.
2. Not enough talk.
3. Lazy talk.
4. Not talking straight.
5. Originator overvalues receiver.
6. Receiver is presumptuous.
7. Receiver mistrusts originator.
8. No pilot signal.
I would say most of these misaligned communications can improve with a better understanding of communication and an improved protocol. But the case with no. 1 would pose great difficulty to good, noise free communication. Two brains that do not share the common experience, or a coomon interpretation of that experience will have a different set of logic, and hence would face constant misunderstandings.
The following example from the 1970's demonstration of machine translation would serve as an interesting example of communication failure. An excerpt from
The Gospel according to Matthew's 26.40 "(Jesus) found them asleep, and said to Peter...'The spirit is willing, but the flesh is unable.'" When translated to Russian and back, this became, "The vodka is fresh, but the meat is rotting." In this case, the communication breakdown can be attributed to errors of 2., 4., 6., and 8.