Journal 7

A World of Words

The significance of the roll of languages in the constituency of human nature is practically unchallenged in the academic world. Nonetheless, as of its nature, language tends to be the ignored background behind all of our daily activities and it is, in itself, mostly unnoticed. However, this is not caused by the irrelevance of language, but by its fusion with our thought structures.

Since languages are so intricately intertwined with how we perceive, think, feel and act, it could be said that, in certain sense, we are language. Languages are filters through which we apprehend and structure both the world and ourselves. They determine what is and what is not and, therefore, languages are entire, independent worlds. This can be seen, for instance, in how people with different vernaculars, even after learning a second language, interpret reality in different ways. For example, Spanish speakers see trees as masculine entities, Portuguese speakers as feminine ones and English speakers lack the differentiation.

All this implies that language diversity brings also diversity of thought and the benefits of having different ways of thinking are obvious: more diversity means better questions and more answers. In fact, from this comes the value of cultural heritage. If we all spoke the same language, we would definitely communicate better, but we would also be constrained to only one perspective and progress is achieved only when things are seen from a new and original standpoint.

The fact that different languages go with different ways of understanding might indicate that there will always be certain distance between people who do not share the same mother-tongue. Furthermore, since no one shares exactly the same language, we would be all limited to our own structural spheres and, thus, complete mutual understanding would not be possible.

Yet the evidence leading to the inference of a common basis under all different languages is not little. The most remarkable sign is, undoubtedly, translation: even though flawless translations are probably impossible (for reasons related to the argument presented in the preceding paragraph), the fact that, as imperfect as they may be, translations can exist indicates that there are certain common structures to all humans on which language is built. And this conclusion seems quite reasonable considering we all have brains with largely similar characteristics. Moreover, from this reasoning one could it follows that understanding (i.e. translations) between us and an alien species may not be possible.

It has been said, nevertheless, that a language any intelligent being would be able to understand does exist. Evidently, this would be mathematics –the purest of all languages. However, the universality of mathematics comes with a price: although it can be applied to the world, the purity of its constituent relations would indicate math, as a system, is independent of the rest of the world.

Still, can any language completely reflect the world? The answer seems to be no: we try to capture the world through an extensive web of concepts and rules, but completely modeling it is probably far out of our capacity. Although, this might not be as clear for mathematics as for informal languages, even in the realm of math it is impossible to describe all the truths, that is, everything that exists. This has been, in fact, proved by Gödel’s theorem of incompleteness.

Since, after all and in spite of being a social phenomenon, languages seem to be so personal, a big question remains unanswered: can we really learn a new language? Because, even if we can communicate like native speakers, how can be sure that we are not just talking through a sophisticated adaptation of our vernacular or that our model of the new language does not correspond to the actual patterns of a native speaker? This is impossible to verify (at least without using brain scanning techniques, like fMRI).

However, regardless of whether one can completely acquire a new language or not, it is clear that, besides the practical benefits, studying languages is an extremely positive experience. In particular, few things can be more mind-broadening than learning to think in another language and, thus, this should be fostered as an incentive for creativity, critical thinking and intercultural understanding.

Journal 6

The Ontology of Freedom

Freedom has probably been one of the most debated problems in the history of thought. And this is understandable: whether we consider ourselves free or not infinitely conditions how we think and act. Furthermore, on this matter not only depend our notions of responsibility and rights, but also our very concept of human dignity. As such an important idea, many men of thought have devoted their lives to its development. Most notably, Sartre lays freedom at the core of his philosophy, so much as to condemn us to be free.

L'existence précède l'essence, asserts Sartre and proceeds to analyze the concept of this statement. However, he seems not very interested in studying its validity and considers evident the fact that we are free. Yet, it would be an interesting challenge to seek the reasons that make this possible, other than stating, from the beginning, that humans are free by definition. This is, nonetheless, no easy task and the present work will be limited to the making of general comments only.

As it was mentioned before, Sartre considers that, in human beings, existence precedes essence. Interpreted under our modern scientific understanding, this statement seems completely reasonable –especially when seen from the theory of natural selection. What is not so clear, however, is why this idea cannot be extended to the rest of natural things: no one serious, scientifically speaking, would presently assert that there is a final cause for things in the Aristotelian sense or, even less, a plan that guides nature. We could then say that everything that can happen happens and, thus, existence precedes essence in every entity.

One can easily see, nevertheless, that this is not the meaning that the philosopher gave to his statement. Most probably, Sartre was talking about the human capacity of self-creation and how existence precedes essence in the sense that we are not something until we decide to. Yet, are we not all bound by similar aims and desires? Do we not all want happiness for ourselves and our loved ones? Because, even if our essence is not as simple as that of a bird or a dog, we do have, besides being free, other common factors that define us. For this reason, freedom is in itself not enough to make an entity human: we can, indeed, conceive machines or animals that could be free but would still not be human.

The question is how is freedom possible and what makes humans have it. Starting from a physical standing point, the notion of freedom has been traditionally complicated. Moreover, its incompatibility with Newtonian causality led not few philosophers to assert human determinism. That is the case, for example, of Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d’Holbach, who considered humans to be nothing more than fragile machines. Yet, the modern physical background offers a model of the world radically different from that of the times of Newton. The attempts to link quantum mechanics to freedom abound, but no strong conclusion can be drawn other than, if there is a theory open enough in its predictions to leave room for the existence of free beings, that theory is quantum mechanics.

With a physical background flexible enough to admit freedom, the question can now be stated at the level of biology. What are the attributes necessary for a living being to be free? When analyzing this question, the first thing one thinks about is probably consciousness. However, although our notions of consciousness and freedom are definitely linked in deep ways, using such an ill-defined concept in the attempt to clarify the nature of freedom will evidently yield no results.

But, what is, after all, the definition of freedom? We will define freedom as the ability to act in different ways under the exact same circumstances in a deliberate manner. Taking this into consideration, analysis, imagination, memory, self-awareness and randomness seem to be prerequisites for freedom. First, we consider analysis of relevance because we identify it with the process of decision; that is, consideration and evaluation of options. For this, memory and imagination are necessary attributes of free beings, since these properties are necessary to complete decision-making: memory is needed to consider past actions and their consequences; imagination is required to considerate future actions. Finally, self-awareness is necessary for the being to recognize itself as an acting entity and randomness must be included to avoid deterministic processes.

After all this analysis, it is clear that we still do not know what the ontological characters of freedom are, or even if it is appropriate to talk in those terms. Furthermore, it becomes obvious that every clarification of the phenomena will end up in a description of what we see as our own attributes and will, naturally, exclude all other beings. What we mean by this is that every study of the prerequisites of freedom, as the one presented in the preceding paragraph, is under risk of defining terms exclusively to fit humans –such as happens with other attributes that we deeply associate with ourselves, like reasoning or feeling.

From this, one could argue that the best course of action is to postulate freedom, such as Sartre did. However, we should not stop trying to understand and define this important notion in better terms if we are to comprehend ourselves better. Grasping a notion like this is far from being out of our reach and, therefore, every attempt to progress in this way, either from science or philosophy, should be encouraged: it is only by better understanding ourselves that we will be able to make sense of and improve the world we live in.

Maximiliano Isi