Position and Quality

A couple of days ago, I was speaking with Soulless Hedonist and he theorized that all language was really just a communication of “good” and “bad”. This view perhaps came in reaction to pedants who enjoy using large words and complicated syntax to say rather simple thoughts. Certainly, language can be reduced, but can it really be reduced so drastically? It seemed a little far-fetched and I believe Soulless Hedonist was putting this theory forward with heavy irony

Jokingly, I said, “so, language is really just binary code? We just speak ones and zeros,”. I then theorized that our friend Shoffy spoke completely in unary- “awesome, awesome, awesome,”

Though I do not think Soulless Hedonist or I realized it at the time, but we may have actually been on to something.

Nearly the entire world has adopted a decimal (base-10) number system. We have ten symbols to represent ten different concepts (0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9). The repetition of these symbols in different positions conveys different meanings. Position is as important as the symbols. For instance 93 is different from 39 since the position one to the left of the starting positions means “multiply by ten”. With decimal points, fraction lines, superscript and positions to the right, above and below, human beings can represent quite a few numbers. In fact, there are an infinite number of positions allowing us to represent an infinite number of numbers. A few numbers escape the system- irrational numbers like pi cannot be represented.

Now, lets bring this back to Soulless Hedonist’s theory that human beings speak binary. A binary system is identical to the decimal system except there are only two symbols (0, 1). Position, though, is equally important (though, using powers and fractions in a binary system isn’t quite so much fun). 10 equals two since the position one to the left of the starting position means “multiply by two”.

Though, we have a great number of words and concepts in English, it is possible that each is merely a conveyor of position and a communicator of positivity of negativity. The word “childlike” is positive and “childish” is negative, but the position is the same. The word “delicious” is in the position of taste and “comfortable” is in the position of touch, but both are positive.

Now, of course, there are some differences here. With language, symbols are communicating position. Additionally, the interaction between position and quality produces unpredictable results. “Childlike” is positive, but “mule like” is negative. And what of seemingly neutral words like “jump” or “sky”? Yes, language is a rather complicated things and it is unlikely that Soulless Hedonist’s theory holds much water past the communication of adjectives.

And what of Shoffy and his unary language? The interesting thing about unary is that position makes no difference. 111 equals three and 11111 equals five. No matter where you place a number, it has the same meaning. As with Shoffy, position makes no difference. Everything is “awesome” no matter where he is, what time it is or who he is with.