:up:

No, there aren't. Words/terms are in principle periphrastically describable in their own language. If they aren't, they probably mean nothing. If terms are in principle describable in their own language then they can be described using other natural languages. I'd imagine that the only cases where descriptions can't be accurate enough are when we are trying to describe in natural language scientific concepts which rest on math.

Right; poetry is generally translatable word for word from one language to another. :razz:

I disagree!

Descriptive power, it seems, requires only that a language have words that capture very general aspects of life. For example, with the words, "that", "feeling", "you", "get", "when", "lose", "a", "million", "dollars", you can describe sorrow like so:

Sorrow (description): That feeling you get when you lose a million dollars.

It looks as though description is synonymous with definition. The objective of definitions being to condense information, the description, in one word. It's very much like the concept of radix in math in which you pack quantities in different powers of a given radix. See packing problems.

Don't forget to check out Om/Aum

Om (or Aum) is the sound of a sacred spiritual symbol in Indian religions, mainly in Hinduism, wherein it signifies the essence of the Ultimate Reality (parabrahman) which is consciousness (paramatman). — Wikipedia

It looks as though description is synonymous with definition. The objective of definitions being to condense information, the description, in one word. It's very much like the concept of radix in math in which you pack quantities in different powers of a given radix. See packing problems. — TheMadFool

But at no point in history did anyone say "let's condense information into a single world and then we'll have a definition". I think you're thinking about it backwards. Definitions of words come after their use in language. Definition is academic; use is public and first.

It looks as though description is synonymous with definition. The objective of definitions being to condense information, the description, in one word. It's very much like the concept of radix in math in which you pack quantities in different powers of a given radix. See packing problems.
— TheMadFool

But at no point in history did anyone say "let's condense information into a single world and then we'll have a definition". I think you're thinking about it backwards. Definitions of words come after their use in language. Definition is academic; use is public and first. — Noble Dust

It would depend (a lot) on how literature compares historically. Did people have a word like computer back in the old days or did they use compound words like calculating-machine. Sorry, I'm too lazy and inept to Google.

Descriptive power, it seems, requires only that a language have words that capture very general aspects of life. For example, with the words, "that", "feeling", "you", "get", "when", "lose", "a", "million", "dollars", you can describe sorrow like so:

Sorrow (description): That feeling you get when you lose a million dollars.

It looks as though description is synonymous with definition. The objective of definitions being to condense information, the description, in one word. It's very much like the concept of radix in math in which you pack quantities in different powers of a given radix. See packing problems. — TheMadFool

I'll admit I'm not sure what you're trying to convey, but how would you apply it to this description? ->

'Toward early morning he woke, sat up quickly and looked about him. It was still dark and the fire had long since died, still dark and quiet with that silence that seems to be of itself listening, an astral quiet where planets collide soundlessly, beyond the auricular dimension altogether. He listened. Above the black ranks of trees the mid-summer sky arched cloudless and coldly starred. He lay back and stared at it and after a while he slept."

people have a word like computer back in the old days — TheMadFool

What are the days? Before the computers there were computers.

I don't know the etymology of "computer" by heart, but I'd assume it has to do with "one that computes". But technological words are potentially the exception to the rule, although I think they're not unlike naming planets after Greek or Roman gods; established concepts are consciously used to define a new technological or scientific concept - but that's the exception to the rule of how language functions, although maybe increasingly that will change with the evolution of technology. My point is that, barring everything I just mentioned, language functions organically in that definitions arise naturally over time and are substantiated through common use, not through any premeditated design.

Nice Tintin avatar, btw. And I can't help but ask... "Arcturus" wouldn't be a reference to "A Voyage To Arcturus" by David Lindsay, right?

Nice Tintin avatar, btw. And I can't help but ask... "Arcturus" wouldn't be a reference to "A Voyage To Arcturus" by David Lindsay, right?
2mReply — Noble Dust

You got them mixed up.

Who?..

Who?.. — Noble Dust

TheMadFool and Arcturus.

Incorrect

Incorrect — Noble Dust

Right! It was me who is mixed up. Just woke up. My humble apologies...

Nice Tintin avatar, btw. And I can't help but ask... "Arcturus" wouldn't be a reference to "A Voyage To Arcturus" by David Lindsay, right? — Noble Dust

You got it, still trying to digest that book

I pretty much agree; as I said int he linked thread, "I love you more than words can say" doesn't say how much I love you, it shows it.

Woah. We may have to have a chat about that. Cheers to Herge and Lindsay. :party:

In my mind it's light grey with a non-obvious hue of blue that perhaps suggest yellow and green might have recently been present. — Cheshire

...and then we ask Wittgenstein's question: How do you know that what you think of as french grey doesn't slowly change in your mind... so that what you thought french grey on one day is different the next? It's not that the colour defies description so much as that there is no common agreement as to what it is... even to an individual.

I pretty much agree; as I said int he linked thread, "I love you more than words can say" doesn't say how much I love you, it shows it. — Banno

Oh yeah I can get behind that. Sometimes it does show what it purports to say. And then, if we're on the same page, in other contexts, when said cynically, it shows the opposite, as in goneril's use?

I don't know the etymology of "computer" by heart, but I'd assume it has to do with "one that computes". But technological words are potentially the exception to the rule, although I think they're not unlike naming planets after Greek or Roman gods; established concepts are consciously used to define a new technological or scientific concept - but that's the exception to the rule of how language functions, although maybe increasingly that will change with the evolution of technology. My point is that, barring everything I just mentioned, language functions organically in that definitions arise naturally over time and are substantiated through common use, not through any premeditated design — Noble Dust

All that I'm saying is what happens if I take a modern text - a novel, a scientific treatise, a poem, etc. - and take it back 2,000 years into the past and ask the people then to translate it: plane = iron bird? :chin:

people have a word like computer back in the old days
— TheMadFool

What are the days? Before the computers there were computers. — VincePee

Is this - contradicting yourself - deliberate/accidental? Never mind.

I'll admit I'm not sure what you're trying to convey, but how would you apply it to this description? ->

'Toward early morning he woke, sat up quickly and looked about him. It was still dark and the fire had long since died, still dark and quiet with that silence that seems to be of itself listening, an astral quiet where planets collide soundlessly, beyond the auricular dimension altogether. He listened. Above the black ranks of trees the mid-summer sky arched cloudless and coldly starred. He lay back and stared at it and after a while he slept." — Arcturus

There are different kinds of descriptions is all I can say.

contradicting yourself — TheMadFool

? The word computer has more than 1 meaning.

...use... — Arcturus

ay, there's the rub:

The meaning is the use.

The meaning is the use. — Banno

Except when you mean to use it or the meaning is not to use it.

All that I'm saying is what happens if I take a modern text - a novel, a scientific treatise, a poem, etc. - and take it back 2,000 years into the past and ask the people then to translate it: plane = iron bird? :chin: — TheMadFool

If a scholar from 2,000 years ago hypothetically somehow had the tools to translate future language into their current language, then I suppose anything would be possible, given those parameters, so then the gravity of the hypothetical question would completely disintegrate, rendering it laughable. This is why I hate these stupid, uncreative thought experiments (P-zombies, et al; take no offense please).

contradicting yourself
— TheMadFool

? The word computer has more than 1 meaning. — VincePee

You mean to say that the word "computer" existed in Babylonian/Egyptian times? I don't think so.

Woah. We may have to have a chat about that. Cheers to Herge and Lindsay. :party: — Noble Dust

cheers :party:

You mean to say that the word "computer" existed in Babylonian/Egyptian times? I don't think so. — TheMadFool

Indeed. "Think"