Peper Abraham
Department of Biomedical Engineering & Physics, Academic Medical Centre, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Commun Integr Biol. 2024 May 26;17(1):2353197. doi: 10.1080/19420889.2024.2353197. eCollection 2024.
It is generally assumed that verbal communication can articulate concepts like 'fact' and 'truth' accurately. However, language is fundamentally inaccurate and ambiguous and it is not possible to express exact propositions accurately in an ambiguous medium. Whether truth exists or not, language cannot express it in any exact way. A major problem for verbal communication is that words are fundamentally differently interpreted by the sender and the receiver. In addition, intrapersonal verbal communication - the voice in our head - is a useless extension to the thought process and results in misunderstanding our own thoughts. The evolvement of language has had a profound impact on human life. Most consequential has been that it allowed people to question the old human rules of behavior - the pre-language way of living. As language could not accurately express the old rules, they lost their authority and disappeared. A long period without any rules of how to live together must have followed, probably accompanied by complete chaos. Later, new rules were devised in language, but the new rules were also questioned and had to be enforced by punishment. Language changed the peaceful human way of living under the old rules into violent and aggressive forms of living under punitive control. Religion then tried to incorporate the old rules into the harsh verbal world. The rules were expressed in language through parables: imaginary beings - the gods - who possessed the power of the old rules, but who could be related to through their human appearance and behavior.
人们通常认为,言语交流能够准确地阐述诸如“事实”和“真相”之类的概念。然而,语言从根本上说是不准确且模糊的,在一种模糊的媒介中不可能准确地表达确切的命题。无论真相是否存在,语言都无法以任何确切的方式表达它。言语交流的一个主要问题是,发送者和接收者对词语的基本理解存在根本差异。此外,人际间的言语交流——我们脑海中的声音——是思维过程的一种无用延伸,会导致我们误解自己的想法。语言的演变对人类生活产生了深远影响。最具影响力的是,它使人们能够质疑旧有的人类行为规则——语言出现之前的生活方式。由于语言无法准确表达旧规则,它们失去了权威性并消失了。接下来必然是一段没有任何如何共同生活规则的时期,可能还伴随着彻底的混乱。后来,新的规则在语言中被制定出来,但这些新规则也受到质疑,不得不通过惩罚来强制执行。语言将旧规则下人类和平的生活方式变成了惩罚控制下暴力和侵略性的生活方式。宗教随后试图将旧规则融入严酷的言语世界。这些规则通过寓言用语言表达出来:虚构的存在——神——拥有旧规则的力量,但可以通过它们的人类外表和行为与之联系起来。