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Can you think without words?
Wittgenstein wrote that the limits of his language meant the limits of his world. Yet everyone has felt something they had no word for.
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A little context
Try to catch yourself thinking. Sometimes there is a voice talking in sentences. Sometimes there is a picture, a sense of where things are, a hand that already knows which way the key turns. And sometimes you know exactly what you mean and can't find the words, which suggests the meaning got there first.
Read alongside it2
ReadingThe limits of my language5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. 5.61 …What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. 5.62 …In fact what solipsism means is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself. 5.621 The world and life are one. 5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)
5.6 The limits of my language mean the limits of my world. 5.61 …What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think. 5.62 …In fact what solipsism means is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself. 5.621 The world and life are one. 5.63 I am my world. (The microcosm.)
ReadingWhereof one cannot speak6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer. 6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. 6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical. 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
6.52 We feel that even when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched. Of course there is then no question left, and just this is the answer. 6.521 The solution of the problem of life is seen in the vanishing of this problem. 6.522 There is indeed the inexpressible. This shows itself; it is the mystical. 7 Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Nearby questions
- Have you ever made up a word because no real one fit?Families and friends keep words nobody else knows. Wittgenstein doubted a word could mean anything if only one person could check it.
- Is the sentence 'This sentence is false' true or false?If it's true, then it's false. If it's false, then it's true. The puzzle is more than two thousand years old.
- When you say 'I'm fine', are you lying?A story improved in the telling, a confident guess, an 'I'm fine' at the dinner table: plenty of what we say isn't trying to inform anyone.
- What does a name change?When you give something a name — a pet, a car, a machine — what changes: the thing, what you owe it, or you?
- Should AIs be allowed to talk to each other in a language we can't read?A shared language can create a private world that outsiders cannot enter.
