
Talking Is Throwing Fictional Worlds at One Another - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/76/language/-talking-is-throwing-fictional-worlds-at-one-another
======
yetihehe
> We’re born with human brains, and human brains see the world in particular
> ways and not in other ways. We can’t hear things that dogs can hear, we
> can’t see things that bats can see.

That's beginning to change[0][1].

[0]
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5523951/#S24tit...](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5523951/#S24title)
[1] [https://www.wired.com/2007/04/esp/](https://www.wired.com/2007/04/esp/)

~~~
ben_w
”See” has two meanings, the sensory input of photons and the recognition of an
object or event. “Hear” likewise, which is why people argue if trees falling
when nobody is around make a sound (is sound the vibration of air molecules
which can be recorded by a microphone or is it the experience you have when
that happens to you?).

There are things I cannot see or hear even though my eyes and ears are good
enough — the appeal of football, which key music is playing in, or (to the
surprise of friends who like that sort of thing) if certain images are
”consensual BDSM” or ”assault”.

There are thoughts that I am incapable of thinking.

Given the problem of induction and its relation to the “no free lunch” theorem
in AI, I believe that this is not merely an imperfection of my mind, but an
inevitability.

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emmelaich
I'd like to use this opportunity to ask a question of the HN community.

I remember someone (philosopher perhaps, scandinavian I think) who had a paper
/ rant on the utter impossibility of understanding one another.

From memory it was in a form of a list, with one of the items being something
like

    
    
      "If something can be misunderstood, it will be"

~~~
teddyh
Probably Osmo Wiio.

~~~
emmelaich
omg, thank you.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiio%27s_laws](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiio%27s_laws)

------
teddyh
Giraffe pimp.

[https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/aafawp/gira...](https://www.reddit.com/r/wholesomememes/comments/aafawp/giraffe_pimp/)

------
vincent-toups
I'm in favor of outfits like Nautilus, to a degree, and I felt like their
debut deporting was often interesting. But I feel like the relentless pressure
to produce "stimulating" or intellectually serious material has led to a lot
of superficial, TED-talk style, articles where the matter of fact or banal is
dressed up as the profound.

I think we ought to admit that true depth of thought is just about
incompatible with the non-stop, clickbait oriented, demands of the internet.

~~~
dwaltrip
The mundane, banal aspects of life are drenched with profundity.

The problem is that it is usually very well hidden right in front of us. It
takes a lot of life experience and careful thought to get a sense of it
(exposure to ideas of others certainly helps as well). It isn't easily
communicated or understood. We have no rigorous tools for working with it. We
are like the blind men and the elephant.

And then of course, doing something meaningful with it is another question
entirely. It happens, certainly, but it is non-trivial. Art, in all its forms,
is perhaps the easiest example (another is writing HN comments :p).

Some people take these difficulties as reasons to largely dismiss it or spend
no time thinking about it. I think that is a mistake. The elephant still
exists even if we can only perceive a piece of it.

However, it does seem that because of all this, much of the time there are
better things to do (unless you are a philosopher or some other specialist!).
Fortunately, we can slowly explore this profoundness as a background task,
with the occasional punctuated intensive investigation as life demands, while
going about our daily lives.

~~~
vincent-toups
"The mundane, banal aspects of life are drenched with profundity."

I agree with this, but I don't think Nautilus routinely hits the mark.

~~~
dwaltrip
Fair enough :)

My comment wasn't only directed at you. I used the opportunity as an excuse to
ramble a bit.

------
emiliobumachar
This being HN, I interpreted the headline as an entertainment startup named
Talking, doing some innovative crossover of literal fictional universes in new
works of art.

