OUR WAY WITH WORDS - And so....

Weaving worlds from words

The central thesis of this site has been that it is the way we use words in language, above all, that shapes the culture in which we live. Conversely, the needs of the culture shape the language. We have also considered the basic components of human nature; those things that we have to admit do really exist like emotion, religious belief, self-awareness, and human creativity and how language makes an essential imprint on all of these. We have asked what happens when language fails to function in normal ways, as in autism, and how this affects the human personality, emphasising its vulnerability to malfunctioning of language. Also how abnormality leads to questions about the nature of normality. We asked how is it possible that some rare people can demonstrate the most extraordinary intellectual or mental feats, with no obviously different sort of brain. This suggests that most of us operate at a level that is nowhere near the peak of possible brain function, but at the same time that such exceptional behaviour rarely seems to occur without some impairment of another faculty. It is as if evolution has converged on a 'norm' that is, from the point of view of some unknown performance index, optimum, if not as spectacular as it might be. It does not pay to be too smart, it seems

In simplest terms, it would seem plausible to suggest that it is langauge that places us above all other living forms, and to suggest further that it is in language that all the joys and sorrows that humanity brings have their roots. Therefore, to develop any form of true machine intelligence, whatsoever, this role that language fulfills must be replicated, if any semblance of real self-awareness is to result. We must find ways of dealing with the semantics of language.This diagnosis would also seem to be compatible with the Kantian view of knowledge, concerning noumenal and phenomenal forms. Furthermore, the fact that it is language that also brings a subjective awareness of time provides a further, although less tangible, link to the formal concept of time essential in the physical sciences. Also in aboriginal communities of hunter-gatherers where no written language exists, the oral tradition generates conceptual 'structures' rich in what today would be called myth. Interestingly, such structures can even concern rights of possession to land, say, that have to be couched in song, thereby involving another basic human instinct; that of musical expression.

Right at the beginning we mentioned The Two Culture debate initiated by CP Snow, and the fact that this is now being revisited in a slightly new form under the name of The New Humanism, as on John Brockman's Edge website (see Edge 216), although we have asked if this might still be maintaining the traditional 'humanism good/science-bad' outlook, in a less obvious way.

Clive James recent book Cultural Amnesia appears to be taking this view, as confirmed by Frederic Raphael's recent review of the book in Prospect July 2007, but it also shows that the debate continues.

Emotion and Absolute Values

We also propose the notion that it is science which defines the boundaries of culture, and art which actually furnishes the wide-open cultural spaces, in a completely complementary way, not in opposition or competition to science. Art is that which is concerned with emotion, although we have no idea at present how that happens. How is the one triggered by the other? Certainly through the senses, but the actual mental 'processing' is still a mystery. Why are human emotions expressed universally by the same physical responses the world over, as Darwin showed? Above all, how can intangible thoughts and physical matter possibly be linked, as Descartes asked earlier? How do brains produce thought and cause us to express emotion quite involuntarily? All of these questions remain to be answered.

Everything we have been discussing - art, aesthetics, beauty, religion, and so on, have all been perpetual topics certainly since the Socratic and Platonic dialogues, if not before. Plato would certainly have understood much of the contemporary discussion on such subjects - understood the vocabulary - even if he disagreed with some of the conclusions. In a sense, he also has much to answer for, having established much of this vocabulary that we still use. But it is reasonable to ask how his views might have differed had he known what we know today about evolution, genetics, molecular biology, neuro-science and brain function. So often we act as if they - the old thinkers - without this recent knowledge, are better able to arbitrate than ourselves who actually have it. After all, Plato condemned art as being deluded and a sham, and feared its power. He believed deeply in the need for reason and logical analysis, but also that a political state was, ideally, an aristocracy - a view not very compatible with today's more liberal outlook.

Imagination and wonder in science

Most scientists and mathematicians might smile at the increasingly frequent revelations of liberal arts thinkers and commentators who, in moments of sudden 'enlightenment', marvel at the 'beauty' (their word) of mathematics or particle physics or astronomy. One can salvage many such examples from the 'liberal arts' press. For example, in The Daily Telegraph on Feb 2, 2002, Edward Skidelsky admitted, in reviewing a recent new book, to discovering just how 'beautiful' mathematics can be. Why has it taken this leading intellectual, so long? But one still feels that such confessions come with a certain reluctance, and definitely with some surprise. Unfortunately, although such emotional experiences are not strange to mathematicians or physicists themselves, some of them also have the unfortunate habit of using the same sort of terminology when describing their own feelings. Both Paul Dirac and Einstein were known to invoke the 'beauty' of mathematics in any tentative theory as a criteria for its eventual acceptance. Perhaps we ought now to replace the word 'beauty' with 'wonder', as it would then place the experience firmly inside ourselves, instead of suggesting that it is objectively 'out there', and separate from us.

It is surprising that someone like George Steiner, for all his erudition and prominence as an intellectual, can write in a rather impenetrably generalised way (as in his book 'Grammars of Creation') about the aesthetical and the imaginative aspects of human creativity in arts and literature, with only the most transient reference to science. He even admits, with little regret and almost proudly, to having no great acquaintance with any aspects of science, but half-heartedly acknowledges that there might be some supreme emotional experience of creativity in pure mathematics, or in the conceptual aspects of particle physics (say). However, he gives Darwin just a reluctant passing nod. He seems to be more appreciative of the objectively structured basis of music; that it is able to move us emotionally more effectively, perhaps, than any other art form, and yet, despite these acknowledgements, he fails to make the sort of connections that we have been suggesting. Ultimately, in his conclusions, he admits that his thesis must finally owe its existence, completely, to a belief in God. He is basically suggesting that the 'soul' requires a deity. For many, who do not, or cannot believe, that would be described as rather an arrogant position, which does leave them rather out on a limb. However, even if one disagrees with his view, one must commend his honesty.

The Novelists

There is no doubt that visual images are the most intrusive and effective in the way in which they can certainly invoke human response. One need look no further than television for evidence, and the continued attraction of the cinema or even to the astonishing popularity of visual pornography on the internet. Any support for a new view of how this happens must contain features that are applicable to other forms of artistic and intellectual endeavour. It is not reasonable to say, for example, that our evolutionary past influences how we see and interpret visual images but not how we read a novel, or listen to music. Recently there have been published relevant comments by some storytellers. Both David Lodge and Ian McEwan, novelists, have expressed a claim that, in effect, literature, by its very nature, provides a superior path to improving or understanding of human nature - a view that John Carey in his new book also supports. It seems a reasonable conclusion after all we have said here about the relevance of language to thought.

Literati and the philosophers have certainly had long enough to come up with some better answers, but with little consensual agreement, and perhaps we should now give science, a newcomer to the discussion, a better crack of the whip. It is only when a 'discipline' moves from becoming purely descriptive to being prescriptive, as have both biology and psychology in the last 50 years, that it becomes truly effective in advancing our general understanding.

In his published lecture at the Hay-on-Wye in 2001, Ian McEwan opened with the view that greatness in literature is more intelligible and amenable to us than greatness in science. That is probably undeniable, but it should not be used as the basis for hinting that it therefore provides more 'truth'. Literature and art can be, and certainly have been, also sources of great obscurity. A reflection of this might reside in what John Carey claims to be the value of the 'indistinctness' of literature. McEwan may be largely forgiven when, later, he does give recognition to the significance of Darwin's work, and his huge stature in the scientific pantheon. He goes on to hold up as an example the much less known of Darwin's work found in 'Emotion in Man and Animals' , that was mentioned in earlier pages here. He raises also the role of 'barriers of reticence and reserve' - taboos - and the way in which they are periodically said to have suddenly disappeared due to some new event(s). In his summing up he does eventually offer the conciliatory, and welcome conclusion;

'That which binds us, our common nature, is what literature has always, knowingly and helplessly, given voice to. And it is this universality which science, now entering another of its exhilarating moments, is set to explore'.

Further, John Gray, in his recent book 'Straw Dogs', has argued that the humanist belief is an illusion and will have to be finally abandoned. In more recent work he suggests that the related but universal human concept of 'utopia' is also misguided.

At the moment it is difficult to see how the invariance of humanistic concepts can be confidently advocated, for surely humanism, like persistent religion, is also a product of evolutionary events. In whatever form they have appeared they must have conferred some benefit to the community in order to survive for so long. It is the last fact that I have tried to support here, but at the same time to acknowledge that science has not yet had a fair share of the action. It was also very encouraging that another such distinguished person of letters as A S Byatt has considered, in depth, the significance of Darwinism within our culture as a whole, and the nature of the current antagonism between the pros and the antis, in an article (Prospect, November 2000) entitled 'Faith in Science'. As an agnostic she offered an analysis and resulting conclusion;

'I am not arguing for a return to any religious system, or even to any ethical system derived from religious systems. I believe myself that our best option is a clerkly scepticism, and a constantly corrected, constantly vigilant , scientific curiosity.'

She went on to say that

'Darwin's huge patient curiosity, his checking of facts, his leaps of intuition measured and checked and measured again, his caution and scepticism, are what remains impressive. And, indeed, hopeful'.

She finished her article with

' The harder words - like charity, like respect for life, like love, like truthfulness - have been cast loose from the religious systems in which they were used, and need rediscovering, redefining, and in some cases jettisoning. The relations of these processes to the scientific project of examining the world we find ourselves in are neither simple nor religious. But we seem to have evolved to treat them as if they were. And that in itself should be a scientific study'

Both science and art operate using the same language, but in different ways. It is when this difference is not recognised, or is ignored, or one is endowed with an undeserved general superiority, that thought becomes confused and uncertain.

Michael Frayn's recent book The Human Touch - our part in the creation of a universe was a courageous, and unique attempt to grapple with this fact, but unfortunately he only highlights the problem, in my view. He is a fine writer who has devoted considerable effort trying to understand difficult scientific theories, and even weaving them successfully into a play Copenhagen. His language in The Human Touch was as seductive as ever, but in order to really get to grips with what he was saying, it becomes necessary to resort to his copious, but excellent notes, couched in more scientific language. Interestingly, the secondary objective of the book was to encourage us to appreciate how we 'create' our own universe from the intellectual interpretation of our observations, which must be highly flavoured by personal experience. That may be the best that we shall ever do. He asks similar questions to those we have posed here.

Is the world, in one way or another, 'out there', or is it 'in here'? Succeeding schools of philosophers have reached for one horn of the dilemma or the other, but it is impossible to seize both horns equally securely at the same time. This is one of the reasons philosophy has never culminated in any generally accepted body of doctrine, or even seem to be on the road towards it, as science is thought to be by many scientists.

He continues

I'm not offering anything that requires specialist knowledge - only that we keep our eyes open, like any thoughtful tourists visiting a strange place (and the place we find ourselves in is very strange) We can't look at everything, but we can chose a few particular vantage points with wide views.

These are admirable sentiments supported by all that I have tried to say here.

However admirable were his intentions, and however great are his skills we find that it is just not possible to talk about physics as if you were writing a novel, and we have to resort to his notes, equally well written but more scientifically focussed. This reinforces the belief that the difficulty we are talking about is insurmountable. If your intention is to give pleasure, not in the specific content of your message, but in how it is expressed, we can weave as many paths as possible, but in science metaphor rarely has a place. There is often, I believe, a mistaken view that skilful and attractive manipulation of language inevitably brings more 'truth', and not more confusion.

Clive James, on the other hand, has irrationally and emotionally claimed that

The future of science …… can be assessed from our past, in which it flattened cities, and gassed innocent children; whatever we don't yet know about it, one thing we already know is that it is not necessarily benevolent

an opinion that, after all we have discussed, is certainly disturbing in its naivety, and prompts one to ask about the 'necessary benevolence' of the liberal arts.

Better to dwell perhaps on the opinion of Phillip Pullman who, when asked what children of today should be taught replied 'Teach them science and tell them stories'