Language has many side-effects (or unintended consequences) that are critical to recognize if we seek to understand general intelligence.

One side effect that we frequently don't realize is that the use of symbols affords the user the ability to not think. Symbols and the abstractions that they refer to implies that thinking is deferred.

What this also implies is that many people use words without understanding the meaning of those words. In commerce there are a lot of buzzwords and salesmen have the ability to decorate their language with buzzwords without actually understanding what they mean.

We also see this in "management speak" where there is a propensity to use words that are associated with leadership and motivation. 'Lip service' is a kind of language that has nothing actionable and is non-commital, but just resonates to its receptive audience.

In fact, one can't be very skilled in language and be completely stupid (i.e. GPT-3). Many in today's modern society are extremely language competent but use language that has little semantic grounding.

They are trapped in a conceptual world of word salad. They are unable to break out of their conceptual bubble because they don't have the language to break out of it.

Humans are linguistic bodies and as a consequence, our thinking is encapsulated in what we can express. What we can express however is based on the meaning of what is being expressed. Unfortunately, that meaning is decoupled from the words that we might use.

In many scientific endeavors, we are trapped inside the lingo of the field. Unable to make progress simply because we aren't equipped with the language to express how to think differently from everyone else.

Intuition is not magical thinking, but rather thinking habits that we have developed as a consequence of the language we have been immersed in. The great artist like Picasso spent decades learning the language of painting before he could creatively break out from that language.

Thinking differently does not imply not knowing anything about this world. It however implies understanding (i.e. grounding) the language used in this world and seeing beyond the meaning of that language.

By seeing beyond language, we create a new language. A new language that can generatively explore a new way of thought. Every revolution in biology and in society is a consequence of the creation of a new vocabulary and thus a new language to perceive the world differently.

To see the world differently, we should take not of the straight jacket that modern languages affords us. David Bohm noticed this when he proposed Rheomode. A language that emphasized verbs over nouns.

When one does this, 'process thinking' becomes explicit and thus more obvious. However, if one isn't introduced to this idea, the language of many process thinkers will read to you as either gibberish or mystical. That is simply because you lack the semantic grounding.

We do not come into this world with the semantic grounding to understand complexity. Complexity is an entirely different language that has to be learned through a language that is distinct from everyday language.

The difficulty of explaining complexity is simply because a majority of the audience does not have the semantic grounding to understand it and the language that is used to explain it is alien to most listeners.

Our success or failure as a civilization now hinges in the ability of our population to understand complexity. Unfortunately, this might be high an obstacle to overcome.

There is a theory out there that the collapse of bee colonies is a consequence of information overload. It is no surprise that the catalyst of today's civilization collapse are those who employ disinformation for profit.

Disinformation leads to false semantic grounding that leads to a language and thus an intuition that leads to a death spiral. Our intuition cannot save us because our intuition has been compromised. We are no different from ants walking in a circle that leads to their demise.

@threadreaderapp unroll