Wow, that was beautiful. I often feel this way when staring into the nights sky. It is an awesome experience if you let it be one.
It always blows my mind when I look up at the night sky and think about how we're simply a product of it. We are the universe staring back at itself.
Am I a bad person if I answer 'yes'? Human languages consist of the about 800 possible speech sounds that a human being can make. Each language chooses a small subset of these sounds: in English, there are 44 speech sounds which are represented by a highly illogical system of spelling with 26 letters on paper. Embedded within that illogical system is the history of the British Isles, actually. The beauty of language is that it is infinitely expressive. Those 26 letters can be combined in infinite combinations, to literally describe anything in the universe, including language itself, and including the universe itself. The key to being able to do this is that higher order structures can be created out of the letters: words are formed by letters; sentences are formed by words; paragraphs are formed by sentences; books about anything under the Sun (or Moon) are written with paragraphs. Sentences, paragraphs and books can give rise to new concepts, which can be given their own words, as shortcuts for the book, paragraph or sentence. So, for example, instead of reciting the complete works of Linus Pauling where he developed the concept of the chemical bond, you can just say chemical bond. And then you can use that new word in more sentences, paragraphs, and books. There is great power in those 26 English letters and 800 World speech sounds. What we do with that power is up to us. (Dun Dun DUN)
I know what you mean.I think I get what you are saying @verticity, language can be a beautiful, diverse, and very complex thing. But I think what @Mrbinx69 quote is describing, is that audible sound cannot convey everything we may experience, and even our known senses are very limited in translating what really goes on in the universe, or what we try to describe as life. Even if you can describe something you are feeling, or experiencing, there is no way for certain that you can instill that exact feeling as you percieve it, into someone elses mind and body, and them have the exact same reaction to it. Like when people say "Know what I mean?", well, no I dont know what you mean exactly, because I'm not you, and dont have the same chemical reactions in my body/brain, translating it into different thought patterns, reactions, and feelings. Who is to say that anyone on this earth experiences anything at all, in a remotely similar way to any other person on this earth. There is no solid, concrete foundation to base anything off of, or to compare it to, even if we feel that we know what each other means. I do not disagree with what you are saying about language, but it can go much deeper than language, or any kind of perception we are aware of.
Sorry, I just doubled my usual kava strength, and its making me very talkative. Know what I mean?
