CHAPTER 5:
THE EVOLUTION OF LANGUAGES. ITS 3 ages.
1. Biological radiations of Languages in carbolife.
Man top predator.
The radiations of animal languages.
Evolution
of languages has existed on Earth from an earlier biological age to that of
human beings. Indeed, the nature of evolution of species on Earth, was also
linguistic. There was a first age of smelling species, when olfactory languages
became dominant. And trilobites dominated the Earth. Then it came an age of
visual species, when images created visual forms in the minds of animals. And
the first eye-species cephalopods, followed by chordates, became the kings of
creation. As visual capacity grew, new top predator species with better eyes
substituted old top predators. Finally apes developed stereoscopic vision and
became top predators.
A Biological radiation is
the fundamental concept that allows us to organize the evolution of human
languages in the Universe.
A
radiating species soon becomes the top predator of a organic space, a territory,
where it will feed, reproduce its form, and organize through communication,
complex systems of distribution of energy and information among its clonic
species.
Yet
a top predator can never totally control the open Universe.
So
within his ecosystem, and territory, in which the species or clonic radiation
has established itself, there are certain creative mutations, that bring a new,
rival species into being. A new radiation starts, which drives the previous radiations into extinction. It is what we call
the Oedipus paradox, since the new species normally comes from the previous
species. There first existed anaerobic bacteria. These mutated into aerobic
bacteria which used oxygen and destroyed the anaerobic world. Those bacteria
were displaced by plants, of rigid structure that allowed social evolution
among cells, and the apparition of networks of energy and information of
greater size. Plants again were displaced by animals, able not only of using
light as a source of energy [chlorophyll process] but also as a source of
information. The first eye-animal, the squid extinguished 90% of the species of
the pre-cambric age. The evolution of sea animals in the sea created new
species, amphibian and reptiles, that became top predators in the Jurassic Age.
They developed better eyes in the air space of land ecosystems. Then when
reptiles returned to the water, their eyes made them top predators.
Fishes
had been unable despite its better body and highly evolved smelling capacity to
defeat cephalopods with huge eyes that had survived the radiation of Fishes.
Now reptiles coming back to water had better eyes than squids. We know it because the ictosaurius that
dominated the sea in this age, had the biggest marine eye ever found. The
second is that of the giant squid...
Yet
again the Oedipus paradox was at work, and the 'sons' of dinosaurs with better
nervous/informative systems extinguished them. Indeed, mammals that came from small dinosaur species, probably
extinguished dinosaurs. Humans that extinguish mammals, come from the mammals.
Robots that might extinguish mankind is a creation of human beings.
The radiations of human languages.
This process of evolution and extinction of
species based in languages also happens in History. Among men now visual
languages, allow the design of technological forms, based in liens of energy
(weapons). And the best visual weapons give power to the owners of those
weapons that become dominant species.
Indeed.
The first radiation of visual technology was that of the Australopithecus, men
of minimal brain evolution, which used simple lineal stone technology.
We call that radiation, the lower
Paleolithic.
Then
a new species changed all (replaced), son of the Homo Australopithecus, the
Homo Erectus, which almost doubled the size of his informative organ or brain,
appears. With that new organ of information, he designs better visual lines,
better weapons. So he hunts more. He eats more and grows more. He expands his
numbers, that colonize the Earth till extinguishing the Homo Australopithecus. It is what we call the Middle Paleolithic.
A new language: The Radiation of
Eve, the verbal age.
Then
around 143.000 BC, appears the Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
We know that because in genetic clocks, there is a mitochondrial Eve born in
those dates from where we all come. So we are a product of the radiation of
Homo Sapiens, which appeared in Africa. This new human radiation has a bigger
brain than the Homo Erectus, and probably because of his foreHead development
it has verbal power, to organize hordes of hunters, unlike the Neanderthal.
I
think therefore I am defines indeed man, it defined at least potentially all
men that became modern when the first Eve acquired a brain able to speak.
Women
learn sooner to talk, they talk more, they are 'temporal species' who manage
better verbal, temporal commands, who have cyclical forms, who remember better,
who discovered the cycles of agriculture.
Sexes
is a morphological differentiation that specializes each sex, in a language of
basic perception. Women perceive better time, information with words. Men
perceive better space, and eye-information, mathematics. This has genetic,
biological and historical proves, analyzed extensively in other books of this
author. So it is very likely that the first 'human being' able to speak was a
woman. There was an Eve which started the human species, a Universal organism,
ruled as all Universal organism by a mind of information. In the case of man, a
verbal mind. "I think therefore I am".
It
is then when the history of human languages starts. Since among the big apes,
one developed a new language of temporal nature, words.
To
the point that most biologists consider the first man the first Homo that could
talk. Probably the Neanderthal with a tonal scale of very few sounds (e-o
vowels and consonants) was such first man. With words came culture and the
temporal perception of man - concepts such as life and death.
Then
as the phonic system developed fully, the Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the first Homo
species with five vowels created languages as we know, and became top predator
of Neanderthals. He started the present age of verbal languages, of sound
species, commanded by human beings. Finally man himself - according to the
Oedipus Paradox - has developed mathematics, machines and the digital language
of numbers they speak...
So
we can follow in the geological scale the evolution of languages, and its
species through those languages.
-
The age of smelling languages, or age of 'insects' in water (Cambric or age of
trilobites) and land (Carboniferous or age of Insects) followed by the age
of...
-
Visual languages, or age of cephalopods and fishes in the sea; and age of
Reptiles and mammals on the land.
-
The age of Sound languages, or age of Cetaceans in the sea, and age of humans
on the land...
-
The age of digital languages, or age of machines.
Time accelerates with languages of
higher information.
The
evolution of those languages is definitive to understand the evolution of
species on earth. We are concerned only with the last 2 ages, which are the
historic ages of human beings, and machines... To notice the 'acceleration' of
evolution languages cause. This phenomena studied in other books of this author
proves the parallelism between information and languages. As languages carry
more information, and process and change information faster, the evolution of
its species accelerates. This explains why History is such a fast phenomena
compared to Biological evolution. Now thanks to verbal languages, memetics
instead of genetics accelerates enormously the evolution of thought. The
process is the same, based in the memorial nature of the Universe, that
constantly repeats and mutates its form along the path of 3 creations. However
as languages become more complex and reach in information, they evolve in a
faster manner, and the events they command, take place much faster. So the
geological ages of the Earth evolve at increasing rate.
Indeed,
the age of smelling languages can be traced from the first cells some 3000
million years ago, to the first cephalopod, some 500 million years ago.
The
age of sound languages, lasts only 100.000 years since the first Homo appeared.
The
age of mathematical languages has lasted only 400 years since the scientific
method affirmed that only mathematics was an authorized top predator language
of truthness (provoking the fictional decadence of verbal thought).
This
is worrisome, since as time-information accelerates the chances for man to
survive the fastest digital machines of this age (computers, chips, robots)
dwindle.
We
could study each of those linguistic ages through its species, its forms,
bodies and brains, to show how they went through 3 ages, of energetic, lineal
expansion, balance of form, and final cyclical development. Take the case of
cephalopod, the first visual species. Their visual specialization went to the
extreme of developing a visual way of communication, changing with pigments
their colors to show different emotions. In this manner silent squids dominated
the Earth. They were first lineal, and grew in size, as they were top predators
of the latter Cambric age. Then they diversified in multiple species during the
Ordovician and Carboniferous. Yet in their third age as they became preys of
the most developed eyes of reptiles and fishes, most of their species
disappeared, and the ammonites (spiraloid, well protected cephalopod), the
cyclical form appeared.
Read
back if you need the analysis of the 3 ages of Temporal, linguistic species,
because it is the key to understand the creation, evolution and extinction of
cultural and artistic forms, and human languages, the theme of the rest of this
book.
Today we assist to the third age of verbal
languages, the 'fictional age' of human cultures, as numbers start to control
through the mind of machines (computers, cameras) our civilization. And we
assist to a parallel decadence of verbal art, law and religions. We only
'believe' numbers, either in polls of political power (including the so called
vote of democracies), as money that
make us survive, and value all things, or as digital science, that tells us
what is truth, even as digital images that show us the 'authorized' TV version
of reality.
Words
no longer matter. Such is the tragedy of human extinction that other species
suffered in the past.
We
and our closer species, the dolphins of highly developed verbal intelligence,
are becoming degraded and extinct by the new species, the machine and his
languages, the number.
The capacity of intelligent species
to control the decadence of form
The
process of decadence of human languages, guided by the laws of 3 creations and
the 3 ages seems automatic, if we objectively analyze how human languages grew
in power, reached a summit of complexity and richness and then decayed. As our
individual bodies do. However as we renew our body in our children, human
languages can be renewed generation after generation. Its extinction and
fictional degradation was not necessary if humans fought properly to control
the decadence of our body and languages, repressing the evolution of the rival
digital languages... Species survive by having babies, and taking healthy
measures against enemy species. Human languages could have survived by renewal
through education (the equivalent in memetics to genetic babies) generation
upon generation, and by taking social measures to control rival digital species
(today chips, computers, robots and TVs).
They
have destroyed the rational, logic, non-fictional, informative power of verbal
languages. They have destroyed the educational capacity of ethic words and
religions, of laws and art. Since men have not cared to control digital
languages, and rival machines species, since men do not care to educate their
children, we see the decadence of culture and human beings in a rather
mechanical way, as a natural process of extinction of our civilization and its
sacred artistic and religions, legal and literary forms...
2. The 3 ages of languages.
The
nature of languages as organic species, carried by hardware-brains, used by organic
organisms to defend themselves and survive in the Universe, is essential to
know a fact that will allow to classify the different forms of art and
languages: the existence of 3 organic ages in the forms of languages, cultures
and artistic species.
Amazing
as it seems linguistic forms, as
individuals do, live through a first age of youth, in which the language shows
enormous energy, and the species that talk the language becomes top predator of
the ecosystem.
Then
the language matures and the species becomes established in balance with that
ecosystem. Finally as new languages, civilizations or species take away, the
language and culture dies away,
deformed, baroque, cynical, as third age people are. In that sense the birth,
growth and decadence of any species, go hand in hand with the birth growth and
decadence of the language they 'speak'. So happens with social organisms that
we call civilizations, whose birth, growth and extinction is closely related to
the parallel process of birth, growth and extinction of their laws, religions,
artistic forms, and social beliefs - their culture.
The evolution of languages according
to the law of 3 ages.
Languages
are organic species like organisms are.
In
that sense we can study their evolution and development, both in time, through
the law of 3 ages (a young, simple, energetic age; a mature balanced age; and a
third informative age of maximum complexity). Languages grow in complexity and
become richer as time goes by, yet also they loose 'energy', which in terms of
language means power capacity to control reality. So curiously as languages
become richer in form, they become less powerful and loose their 'capacity' to
control reality entering an age of 'fiction', of lesser importance.
For
example, this happened in nature, where smelling languages reach enormous
complexity finally in insects from an initial simple dual electric system of
smells (rotten smells with positive ions, spicy smells with negative ions), to
the thousand of smells and insect today can recognize. Yet precisely when smell
became so rich in meaning, visual images dominated as language of information,
and top predator insects (flying insects) trusted more eyes than smells.
In
the human case we will study in great detail the same phenomena for verbal
languages. They started as very simple, yet sacred words, to the point that
when the pharaoh talked it was 'law', till today when verbal information has
reached enormous literary complexity and yet it has become fictional in his
third age, in which nobody cares for words and laws.
So
happened with visual languages - visual arts - that were first sacred (to the
point the cave paintings were considered to transport the soul of animals to
the case, and old cultures were frightened by photographs thinking the should
of the person was transferred to the photograph), and now have no importance.
Today when art is baroque, eclectic and very complex nobody cares...
The evolution of languages according
to the law of 3 ages.
In
the same manner we can study in 'space' as we have done with other organisms,
in our books, languages through the law of 3 creations, to show how languages
evolve and diversify till shaping a full 'organic system', divided in
sub-species of energy and information. For example words started with the
simple sounds. Neanderthals only had at best two vowels, e, the energy vowel,
and o, the information vowel (to the point energy has 2 es, and information 2
os). Then languages evolved according to the law of 3 creations, and we have a,
e (energy vowels), i (balanced vowel) and o, u (information vowels). In other
books we have observed that pattern. From a single symbol of subspecies, we
move into 2, then 3, then 5 and finally 7 forms: 1-2-3-5-7 subspecies, give us
the standard 7 vowels of most languages. 5 vowels are proper of the primitive
languages (Basque, and Spanish, which is Latin talked by Basques, and Japanese,
under influence of the ainos). We imagine even more primitive languages had 3
vowels till getting to the 2 vowels of the phonic Neanderthal system, and maybe
a single 'a' sound, as those of children in the Homo Erectus.
Paleogenesis of languages and
meanings.
Indeed,
the study of paleogenesis, which is so useful in biology, (embryology
recapitulates evolution) works also in linguistics. So children first say the
most energetic sound A, then the most energetic consonant M, then they put them
together to design the "Universal center of their life", Ma, the
mother, then they move to the next consonant L, and they combine it with the
vowel, Ala, which in old languages such as Semite languages means God...
In
this manner the child has created 3 basic families of sounds, the vowel sounds
of maximum information, and the two types of consonants, spoken with closed
lips (ms) and with open lips (l)...
Those
3 families shape a first 3-creative split, that will continue to create the
basic 21 sounds of the man language, 7 vowels, seven open consonants, seven
closed consonants.
Yet
what seems more interesting to develop a paleogenetic theory of languages, is
the fact that at the same time the human child speaks those vowels it uses them
to refer to the fundamental concepts of the Universe around him. So in as much
as the mother is the center of his life, he uses the first words to call her.
Then as I have observed in many children, as they increase their perception of
the Universe, and see a bigger reality, parallel to their evolution of new
words (some develop the next consonant, p, and say pa, some develop the l and
say la and ala), a new concept appears: ala, God, the total reality. the first
basic concepts of children are thus concepts related to the highest arrows of
organicism: social evolution, perception of the total reality, and in some cases
basic energy food (wa, with the first informative sound u, is often heard, to
refer to the basic energy form, water). It is indeed clear that man is a conscious, rational being because he
speaks, and development of the mind and the world language is biological,
essential to the existence of man.
Generalization of the 3 ages to all
languages: Youth: Subjectivity.
We
can extend to other languages this simple examples of how the fundamental laws
of Times, the fundamental particle of the Universe, apply not only to bodies
(as we have done in our site organicuniverse.com to explain all the shapes of the
Universe) but also to brains, and language, which naturally grow, and take the
species that grows with them to the summit of ecosystemic power, and then to
its decadence, substituted by new languages and species. Only then the language
becomes fictional as the species also becomes fictional somehow, in its third
age close to extinction...
When
a language is born, it does not perceive properly reality. It merely essays how
to describe that reality. Then as the language becomes useful to individuals of
a given species, those individuals 'repeat genetically' certain sentences of
the language which are correct mirrors of reality. They are efficient sentences
which explain basic cycles and events that species have to know about energy,
information and social behavior.
That
linguistic information passes from individual upon individual of a species,
which improve the language, developing the different capacities of the language
to explain energy, information, to communicate and help to evolve socially the
species.
In
this manner the language becomes a perfect accurate mirror of the subjective
reality of the species.
So
we can talk of a first age, of a young age of a language, when it is simple and
hardly can explain reality with certain depth. Then the language matures and
becomes classic, realistic, 'truthful' to the events of the Universe, always perceived from the subjective
perspective of the species, in as much as the language has a biological
function that makes the species the center of creation in any language.
So
smells that are good for man are repulsive for certain animals. And shit which
attracts flies, is repulsive to humans...
This
also applies to more complex languages as we shall see.
Social
nature: the soul of species.
To
clarify that unlike an individual who goes through those ages within a single
life, the language needs many generations to achieve that 'classic stage'. Since the language is the genetics of the
species, is the life of the species. So genetic, chemical languages in
body-life, or memetic, verbal languages, in human life, develop as a temporal
soul through many generations.
We
talk here of any kind of language. All of them need many generations to become
a harmonic mirror which helps the species to develop itself in harmony with the
Universe. Genetic languages develop the forms of a carbolife species, in a
manner that the species will adapt harmonically to live in a certain ecosystem.
Verbal languages explain a society of humans, how those humans have to relate
to each other, through an age of war and conflict till the society reaches an
ethic or legal code that harmonizes the relationship of the individuals in the
society. The eye of species probably evolved for eons till reaching the present
classic perception that makes mammals to observe reality with minimal
distortion. The metal-eyes of science were evolved from primitive telescopes to
the present accurate cameras.
Maturity: Objectiveness.
There
is in that sense a struggle in all languages, to balance the needed
subjectivity of languages, to favor the species that speak them, and the
objectivity needed to understand fully the Universe as it is, and avoid errors
when acting upon that universe, guided by the language. It is good to think you
are the center of the Universe, to fight for your survival and hunt and be
aggressive. But if you are to egotistic, then you will fight a lion or make a
robot and die, in front of a stronger species... So you have to balance
subjective and objective knowledge through languages.
In
this manner Languages and minds evolve towards truthness, towards an stage in
which they reflect like a mirror does, with minimal aberration the universe
outside it. To do so the language has to abandon the 'Galilean paradox', (every
language thinks its species are the center of the Universe) and become
objective with its judgment of reality. Then the language, will find its
classic age.
Old age: Fiction.
And
then? For a while the language will dominate reality, it will be the tool of
power of the species. Yet at a certain time, another species, with another
language will come and take over, and dominate the old language and the old
species. The old species and language is limited by its absolute nature, the
kind of mind it exists in, the kind of force it uses, the information it carries,
the simultaneity it achieves... Those parameters of a language determine that
the language cannot go further. So the new language and species starts to take
over the territories of the old language and species, which dies away.
It
is the third age of the language.
How
that third age of a language affects the realism of the language, the truthness
of the language, the way the language mirrors reality?
In
the same manner it affects the old man, that feels himself a being of the past,
a being dying away, a being unable to cope with the external world. The
language enters into a third age. That third age means the language has to
abandon not only the Galilean arrogance and subjectivity of the first age, but
also the harmony with the Universe of the second age. Now the language is
inferior to reality. Such is the brutal justice of the 3 ages of all species,
bodies and languages, in the Universe. The existential curve of a species goes
from a youth of optimism in which everything is possible, to a classic age of
harmony with reality, in which we feel part of the total Universe, to a third
age in which reality goes beyond us, dominated by other species and languages,
and we feel inferior to reality. The third age brings a feeling of destruction,
of death, of pessimism, of inferiority, and so happens to the language.
We
call that third age of the language, the baroque age, or informative age.
Normally the language denies as the old man the fact of his inferiority. He
overreacts and strives to show his value. The species who talk the language
fight for survival. They destroy all what is new, they hate all what is new.
Think of an old man, how he pretends to be superior, and still in charge, how
he never acknowledges his errors, how he shouts and orders more than he can. So
happens to a language in his third age. It becomes cynical, baroque,
informatively, eclectic, it multiplies its statements, it shouts its forms. We
will see how the different languages of mankind, and the different arts that
expressed those languages, become baroque, cynical, eclectic, and multiply its
forms, as an old man multiplies its wrinkles when the civilization in which the
art is done, is about to die, when the culture decays.
Yet
suddenly the new species and language takes over. The old man, the old culture,
the old language, the old species, the old civilization is dying. It is no
longer in charge. The tragedy has consummated. What the language does?
It
merely abandons reality. It abandons truth. As the old man who becomes a child,
who denies death, who becomes playful, who loves fiction, myths and tales, the
language enters in the last stage of decomposition: the age of fiction, the age
of falsity, the age of myths, the age of distortion. The mirror no longer
works. Extinction is painful. So the species and the language denies it. It
looks back to the past, it looks within itself into the realm of imagination.
Fiction: Why human languages lost
their capacity to reflect truthness
All this is fundamental to understand the
problem of fiction, a characteristic of human languages in the last centuries.
We will consider that problem in detail when analyzing the death of human
languages. In essence languages are not fictional languages. Languages are
images, resumes of reality. They try to simplify that reality into meaningful
information. So they try to expel from themselves, any fiction, any wrong
translation of reality into false statements. It is important to understand the
biological function of languages, to see this. While languages are not
truthness in itself, they try to reflect truthness as the image-language
reflects it in a mirror. What is an aberration, is to use a language to invent
a false reality, to create fiction. So we find that most languages are dead
serious about themselves. And 'truth', understood as the best way to use a
language to represent reality, has been always important to any language,
including the language of man. If we consider words, they have been used mainly
in religion and laws, and technical literature, and to talk about what has
happened to us. Only very recently
fiction has invaded verbal thought. So happens with images. Most painting has
been figurative, and through the subjective truthness of an artist it has
striven to reflect part of reality. Only recently the artist has purposely
searched for a total deformation and fictional portrait of reality. Why is
that? We advance now the answer that will be reasoned in detail in the last
chapters: because mankind no longer uses his languages to carry relevant information.
But instead it has been mind-washed by digital languages. So when money pays
action s and obliges people to do something (through prices, salaries and
bribes) laws are irrelevant, and ethics and religion become submissive to
money. In consequences verbal thought looses his survival, bio-logical meaning
and escapes into fiction. Also when cameras learnt to see better than we do,
when metal-eyes substituted human eyes, in the perception of truth, painters,
escaped into the realm of imagination. We might say that languages and art
became crazy as many common people felt, because as it happens with crazy
people, reality no longer obeyed them, no longer cared for them. People
demanded photographs no longer portraits, and people demanded money to obey, no
longer ethic messages and laws carried behavior. So words became fiction and
art became imaginative, as crazy people escape inside their minds and no longer
obey social laws. So artists forgot collective styles and became
individualists, and writers forgot to show the social behavior of many people
(realist books) and moved inwards as metal-minds (TVs) erased their social
role, into the analysis of madness, and the inner mind. This is not to blame
artists, but to explain why art has become so irrelevant and so it has happened
to literature. Put the blame on sciences and machines that are extinguishing
the social role and relevance of art, that has become fiction as it is degraded
and becoming obsolete.
3: Human languages, Truthness,
information and fiction.
Truthness and informative capacity
Languages
are the main survival tool of the species that carry them. So happens in
history where societies and cultures survive better when they carry a language
with higher information. In that sense we have to distinguish two different
concepts: truthness and information.
-
Truthness in absolute terms does not exist. Since all perception is subjective,
created from a relative point of view - the mind and languages that observe
reality. So truthness only exists in the species in itself. The truthness of
the Universe, is the Universe in itself. Your truth is you. Any language will
be by force a simplification that resumes that truthness and bias it from the
perspective of the species that speaks, and the nature of the language, will
therefore be biased, subjective, never totally truth. Subjective truthness is
natural to all languages when they are used properly, and they are focused in
relevant subjects. Truthness is a relative statement, since all languages are
images of 'Universal events'. So the absolute truthness of the Universe is the
fact that the Universe is made of linguistic species that communicate energy
and information between their bodies and minds.
-
Information is the detail we obtain on that truthness. And it is also related
to survival. Since the more information it carries a language, the better will
be the image the species has of reality, over which it will impose his actions.
Those actions will be correct if the information is correct. And the species
will survive. For example if your sense of smell is not correct, you can eat a
poison and die.
Information is the parameter of
survival languages.
So
with those concepts in mind we can qualify languages by their capacity to carry
information (since truthness is subjective and cannot be qualified), as better
or worse languages in the game of survival. Take the most important comparison
established in history, between verbal languages and visual languages. In as
much as images have more information their languages (visual, mathematical
language) have ended dominating our civilization.
An
image has more information than a sentence. So visual languages, such as images
or geometry are more efficient languages, that give higher chances of survival
to those species who speak those languages. You see an image of an event in
less than a second. You need a lot of time to describe that image with words,
with the same accuracy.
This
has caused the growth of mathematical languages and the substitution of verbal
languages in our civilization.
Objectivity, measure of truthness.
However
the 'preying fact', the fact that people who speak mathematics can manipulate
reality better than with words, does not take away from words the truthness of
the verbal languages.
Verbal
thought can be as true, as mathematics.
What
is then the appropriate measure of truthness?
The
objectivity of a language. The capacity to describe the "Universal
events" of the living Universe, between organisms, that share energy and
information among them.
Selectivity of information: certain
things matter.
This
means that languages have to select relevant information, about what really
matters in the Universe, which is the game of organicism, existence, survival and
extinction we have described in the first chapter. When a language is able to
resume reality around those concepts and carries to the organism that perceives
the language information on those basic subjects, the language is objective,
and carries survival information, relativistic truthness.
Let
us consider the consequences of that selectivity.
In
our brief analysis of the properties of languages, we did not consider a fourth
property of efficient languages, related to the fact that languages have to be
fast, and reach many individuals:
- Selectivity: In order to carry meaningful information in a
minimal quantity of time, reaching a maximum number of species, the information
that languages carry have to be selective. Not all information is relevant.
Information has to be meaningful for the species that hear the language, and it
has to interest them. This means information has to be related to the Universal
event described above, since species are interested in obtaining energy for
their bodies, information for their minds, and avoiding other beings who can
kill you and absorb your energy. That is why all languages speak about the
energy and information transferred in the event, and the nature of the species
that communicate in the event. If they are friendly or not. Languages are
serious, they are essential for survival. They transfer relevant information in
terms the species who speak the language understand, and care for. We do not
care about energies we do not consume, neither about information we do not
understand, or about top predators of a far away planet. This means that
languages are specific for each species, and explain only the world closer to
them.
4. The Galilean paradox. What is truth.
The previous concepts about languages - their
relative truthness, subjectivity and capacity to become degraded into fiction,
gives origin to a fundamental concept on the nature of reality, the Galilean
paradox. The fact that all information is relative and has a center of
coordinates, around which information builds up. This means each language is
understood by only a few species with minds that decode languages, and carry
information only about forms close to that center of reference of the brain
that speaks the language. So not all species decode all languages, neither we
get much information about far away stars.
Who
cares? Languages are bio-logical tools, and knowing about Sirius brings no
survival capacities to man, neither it does it to decode the dance of the bees.
This
brings a secondary consequence to the way species behave: Species only see as
real, things that subjectively matters to them. The rest is unreal or lacks
'soul', becomes an object.
Such
selfishness and arrogance of species who believe to be the only intelligent
species of reality, because they do not understand all languages and species is
natural to the nature of languages.
We
call it the Copernican or Galilean Paradox: "Every form of the Universe
believers to be the center of the Universe, because it perceives that Universe
from its relative center". So the Earth seems the center of the Universe,
because it creates a fixed gravitational center around itself. Man thinks he is
the center of the Universe, because his eyes fixes light in his brain center,
and sees things in relationship to his eye. So thinks a religion of words that
makes of man the center of the Universe. The same happens with a scientist,
slave of machines, that thinks only his machines and digital languages carry
truthness (paradox of the scientific method, a dogmatic religion of sensorial
machines and mathematics explained by the Galilean paradox).
Take
the case of Galilee himself. He thought the Earth moved, and yet Relativity proves that is both moving and fixed, as a relative center. Yet his machines
told him it was moving, and so he did not even realized that the Earth's
movement was a paradox. Till Einstein scientists believed what Galilee and his
machines said for 3 centuries... Now we know the movement of the Earth is a
paradox...
Linguistic
species also believe to be the center of the Universe, because as languages go
away from ourselves, they perceive less, with less detail. So we think reality
is only ourselves, and what surrounds us.
Thus
there is always an error of perception in any language:
"A
language is a relative perception of the Universe, biased to favor the
perspective of the species that talks the language".
Such
biological definition of a language is in tune with our present knowledge of
linguistics: species talk languages to inform themselves about the universe,
and use that information to survive. So languages tend to make their speakers
the center of the Universe.
We
call that property, the "Galilean paradox'. Since our light perception
makes the Earth a still center of the Universe when we know in fact that it
turns around the Sun. Yet it is better for us to see it still, and see around
us. So we use light, and focus it on our eye, in a still map of reality.
The
Galilean paradox is a particular linguistic case of the selfishness of all
point of view of the Universe:
"All
forms of the Universe perceive=measure the Universe from a limited numbers of
languages, and confuse reality with their perception."
We
confuse reality with the languages we measure reality.
Two
examples: we say a truth is a linguistic sentence. We say: you are tall is a
truth. You are tall is just a sentence that simplifies a truth: you, a tall
person. You are the truth. The sentence is only a mirror, a simplification of
the truth. So happens with a mathematical statement.
Real objective truthness requires
multiple perceptive languages.
In
reality the content of truth of a certain linguistic statement about a certain
being of the Universe increases as more languages=mirrors are applied to that
being. Relativity is synonymous of true knowledge: in reality we observe the Universe
from multiple logic languages. Yet the total truth belongs only to the being in
all its cycles of energy and information, that an external observer never will
be able to scan totally without modifying them [Uncertainty principle].
The
Universe has the truth about the Universe.
All
other truths will be simplified, and centered from a certain point of
perception, that deforms from that point, reality. That constant deformation of
perception caused by the fact that languages exist in brains that occupy a
place, a frames of reference is immanent to the nature of perception. The Earth
seems still, because from the Earth it operates the Galilean paradox. The Earth
fixes reality and measures it with light and gravitation, creating a false
image of reality. Reality has the Earth as the center of the Universe only in
your senses. Your perception cheats you. It makes you superior, it makes man to
feel the center of the Universe. It also downplays the living nature of the
Universe.
The
Galilean Paradox will be applied latter to show how errors of selfish arrogance
construct human history. Since humans deny perception to all other sentient
forms of nature in order to use them as energy of man, even when that denial
distorts truth.
Brains
and languages, map our a distorted vision of reality. We call those distorted
visions of reality "worlds'. Worlds are virtual truths, relative
linguistic truths over the Universal truth, which cannot be communicated in its
totality. Since only the Universe holds all the information about its self.
Truths are relative statements, conditioned by the language in which they are
expressed. This bring us to the final property that qualify languages: its
truthness.
Most
species tend to create subjective truths, truths that have their own point of
view. We feel the best, the most intelligent, the most handsome species. This
is not truth, but it helps us to survive, to have an ego, to exist, as relative
perceptors from our point of view.
Subjectivity,
selfishness and perception are parallel concepts, which however oppose often to
objectivity, social evolution and truthness, and the survival skills that those
parameters give to a species. Arrogance is indeed natural to species, yet it is
also the main reason of their extinction. We will talk in this book of the
arrogance of man which is so subjective that makes machines more powerful than
himself , and yet does not even recognize that power. The explanation is the
Galilean paradox. However there is a more intelligent path of survival, and evolution,
a better way to use languages: truthness.
When
you understand the Universe properly, then you can objectively with your
language define each species, its role, and the way its energy and information
affects you. You will avoid top predators, and hunt victims, you will socialize
with parallel beings, and become a bigger system to defend yourself from the
Universe.
All
those attitudes which are positive to survival, are difficult to achieve when
you are as man is today under the effect of the Galilean paradox. When you
think you are the center of the Universe.
Problem
is that a language is in fact an entire different Universe, a mirror of reality
constructed by the individual with his mind. It is not an automatic mirror. It
is not a fact of nature that you put a language in front of reality, and the
language shows a perfect image, reflection of reality. You have to craft and
develop the language to become an accurate mirror. If you put a lot of sand
together you do not get a mirror. If you craft it, and check the image, and
re-craft it, you will finally get a polished mirror. So happens with languages.
This means that languages do need to evolve, and they evolve towards a
realistic, objective vision of the Universe. Then languages say the truth,
because in fact there is only at truth for each language.
Why?
Very simple, because there is only a Universe. So a good mirror, image of the
Universe, a good language, can only show an image of reality, as your toilet
mirror does.
The
Universe is only one. What any language of perception of the universe does, is
to explain that single Universe with the 'truth of the language'. So there will
be always a perfect combination of syntax and semantics, that will reflect the
Universe with the language. 2+2 =4 is a mathematical truth, because if you put
2 pears and 2 pears, you have 4 pears in reality. So the abstract concept of a
number as a set of beings, makes 2+2=4 the only true mathematical reflection of
the event of putting together 2 and 2 pears.
A
language is a mirror of reality, that tries to explain the Universe with the
language - a brief abstraction of the Universe.
Yet
what is the Universe? A series of species and events that take place in space
and time.
So languages of perception of the Universe will try to describe and perceive in
space and time, the species and events of the Universe.
Man
has two main languages of perception of such space-time reality. The visual
language that perceives the spatial truth of the Universe. The verbal language
that perceives the changes in time on that Universe. We might say our mind is
specialized in spatial perception through images, and temporal perception
through words, and verbs, which explain temporally what has happened.
It
is then obvious that words as a mirror of temporal truths, and eyes as a mirror
of spatial truths, are the two elements of the human mind. So a better=true
mind will be a mind that is able to focus properly his visual and verbal
language, in the perception of the spatial and temporal Universe.
Yet
because that universe is a single Universe, our eyes and our words will reflect
a single image of that Universe.
Of
course if we have a defective eye, we will see badly the Universe. We can see
it with less detail, we can see it without focus if we are myopic, we can see
it without color if we have color-blindness...
Yet
a fit human being will focus properly and see the same image in space. We will
call that image of a computer, rabbit or carrot, the visual truth of the
computer, rabbit or carrot. A single one from the perspective of the human
eyes.
In
the same manner when we describe with words an event that has happened in time,
there is only a truth, that explains the facts as they are, as they happened in
time.
This
focused mirror of the temporal reality of facts, is the verbal truth. There is
also only a verbal truth, though there might be many wrong truths, wrong verbal
descriptions of reality.
What
is the key to find such verbal or visual truths? Information.
Verbal truths are self-evident when
we have enough information
Indeed,
truths become intuitive when we have enough information. We only doubt of
truths when we have not enough information about what we describe. When we see
in black and white, we loose visual information, when we see in darkness we
loose visual information, and finally we do not know what we see.
The
same happens with words. If we do not have enough information about the events
we describe in time, we might not know what we talk about, and create wrong
truths.
Let
us consider an example of this.
Hold
a bottle in your hand. You see enough of it to know it is a bottle. You have
enough information. However if you put down the light, and ask someone what you
have on your hand, he will not know. He has not enough information. If you put
dim light, and ask him what kind of bottle you hold, he might take the bottle
of beer, for a bottle of wine. He has misleading information.
The
advantage of sight is that normally our eyes have enough information and we
have no 'mirages' about reality.
It
is for that reason that people tend to believe more in spatial truths that in
verbal truths. However there will always be only one truth, because there is
only one universe.
The
disadvantage of words is that since they talk about time things, things that have
happened in the past and we no longer see, it is easier to have misleading
information, or little information, and hence to believe in wrong verbal
truths.
]In
any case we have to conclude that since truth is possible in any language, and
truths can only be asserted from a subjective point of view, a point of view of
survival, given the main use of languages as survival tools of a certain
species, verbal truths are from the human point of view the most important
truths for mankind. Since verbal thought is our biological language, the
language that made man the top predator of the Earth.
Indeed, both the genetic clock and the linguistic
clock seems to coincide. It seems that the present Homo Sapiens is the first
species that learnt to speak. The main difference between the previous
species, the Neanderthal, and the Homo Sapiens is the language. The language is
in man is as in other species the main cause of our survival. When men learnt
to talk, they organized socially in groups thanks to the language. They hunted
better, and they extinguished all other Homo species.
The
foreHead where verbal languages are created, is the only difference between the
Homo Sapiens and the Neanderthal. Once more the rule that better languages of perception are the
fundamental cause of the survival of a certain species on Earth, works, now
with man. History does not evolve human bodies, but human languages and
technology. This is evident. Our species exists as such since perhaps 150.000
years ago without real changes of morphology. It was verbal knowledge, the
virtual worlds and the memory of the word of man what made man evolve and
control the Earth.
Information selects languages.
Yet,
despite those facts, today as
digital languages better spoken by computers and machines, control the survival
of humanity [jobs, money]. Why is this? Because ultimately in the objective
absolute universe, man is not alone, but it is fighting with other species,
with machines and animetals, for the control of Earth. And those machines and
animetals who use digital languages have imposed over human thought, verbal
thought, our biological language and his canons of beauty and ethics.
Not
because they were right, but because they carried more information. We should
revise thoroughly our concepts of languages and knowledge to include the
fundamental reason of such knowledge: the capacity to survive that 'virtual
images of the Universe' provided by a certain language give to a species.
Mathematical knowledge has provided that survival rights to machines, not to
men, because machines spoke better the mathematical language...
The
consequence has been the decadence of human languages... of verbal languages.
The
death of the word, since the word is indeed a organic species, a mind species,
the brain of mankind, and as such has a birth, a life and an age of
extinction...
5: Birth, evolution and devolution of human languages.
In
that sense the analysis of languages of mankind is crystal clear, once we are
aware of the nature of languages, the human species, and the historic and
economic ecosystem in which those languages accomplish their informative
function. We have to consider 3 ages for all human languages, that will show
different forms and functions for those languages. A first age of 'energetic
languages' full of force and arrogance, when the language is invented by
mankind and achieves its maximum power. An age of maturity when the language
founds its balance between energetic arrogance and formal beauty, and becomes
classic, controlling human societies in subtle ways and making our life better.
And finally as history moves on, and economic ecosystems develop digital
languages that substitute human languages, we talk of a third age of decadence
in the language, the baroque age, when either the civilization that uses the
language decays, or the nature human races - as we have done in the past 4
centuries - substitutes the language for a digital version that makes the
language obsolete, and corrupts it.
Take
the most well known use of a human verbal language to organize societies: the
verbal religion. We find a first age of tribal religions, arrogant religions in
which a certain tribe such as Assur or Judea becomes chosen of God, and builds
a set of religions ideals that make of Assur the God of reality or Yvwh the
supreme God and the Jewish people the chosen people. Then we evolve religiously
and we find religions that accept all men, and make mankind God (Muslim and
Christian religions). Finally as money becomes the new language of informative
power, from the XVI century onwards we find either the disappearance and
extinction of religious believers, or the corruption of those religions in what
we call Go(l)d religions, (Calvinism, Protestant sects, Modern Catholicism and
inner sects such as Opus Dei, Modern Judaism called also in our books Aaronism,
or modern religions of economical-national power). Those are the 3 logic ages
of religions as languages of social control that we studied in higher detail in
our book "Bio-history', from the perspective of civilizations, but we will
also consider in this book from the perspective of languages.
A graphic analysis of the languages
of man.
All
this said we can do a simple analysis of the 3 ages of human languages, as
humans evolved their informative capacity, and new languages substituted as top
predators, previous languages, till provoking the final extinction of all human
languages by digital languages.
We
have described now the elements and parameters, the properties and ages of the
universal and human languages of perception of space and time.
Now
we will study the birth, evolution maturity and death of those human languages,
and their remains, the 'art' of the human mind.
The
superiority of man over other Earth's species was caused by the evolution of
our two mental languages, visual, spatial information and verbal, temporal
information. So we will escape the previous smelling and skin languages of
perception, that controlled the information of lower animals, but are highly
irrelevant to the history of mankind.
Such
visual=spatial and verbal=temporal evolution of information in man gave birth to some basic human languages, of which
finally mathematical languages imposed themselves over all other languages. We
talk of a series of languages, arts and human subspecies that became dominant
one after another, as each of those languages lost their top predator status.
Then the language no longer was considered 'sacred', 'truth', 'survival', but
became fiction, 'decorative', 'profane':
- Pictorial languages [Homo Pictus]. Or age of simple images, which catered to the light senses of
the first men. It was a sacred language in the age of the Caves, when magicians
painted animals and thought those images to be truth, and able to bring hunting
to their tribes. Then as words became over powerful, pictorial languages became
fiction, decorative...
- Music Languages [Homo
Harmonicus] which cater to the feelings, body senses. We ignore the sacred age
of Music. Yet probably took place very earlier, as it happened among
Paleolithic tribes in Africa that used musical rituals to bring the spirits of
ancestors and invoke Gods. Today is obviously a fictional language, that
entertains, and even degrades the mental state of humans, specially children,
connected to computerized music, dancing 'acid house' with drugs or dreaming of
fantasy emotions with love songs - as vulgar as it might seem to affirm those
topic truths of modern society.
Both
earlier spatial-temporal (image-sound languages) evolved into:
- Verbal languages [Homo Socialis] which
cater to the feelings, and human senses, to the communication among men, and
the social evolution of individuals into complex societies. They became sacred
in the Neolithic. They allowed the organization of Human masses into complex
social structures, social Gods and ideologies that increase the cohesion of a
human mass, and hence the survival of a culture against the hostile Universe.
Now
religious thought is in decadence, and words are mainly fictional... as men no longer believe in
words but in numbers and computers.
- Mathematical Languages in human
support [Homo Scientificus]. The first age of language used
human brains as support. It was mainly an age of geometry, which uses forms
derived of the Pictorial, geometrical evolution of paintings into abstract
symbols in ceramics. Again the first schools of mathematics in human support
(Pythagoras, Chinese astronomers) believed in the magic connection of numbers
with God. So did the first scientists of the modern age (Galilee) who affirmed
the Universe was written in numbers.
Languages change support from human
brains to machines.
Those
two last languages of space-time in human support, were however further evolved
when man discovered 'metal-pieces' and 'metal-machines' able to carry
information, and started the evolution of the Carbo-Earth into the
"metal-earth', an ecosystem of machines in which man plays a secondary
role.
- Pricing Languages [Metal-information associated to the Homo Economicus] Money, a cyclical bit of
metal information in the form of coins, changed the values of mankind,
substituting the values of human religions (the evolution of mankind, and the
creation of human goods) for values proper of the new metal-species. So money
denied the sacredness of man, and allowed the organization of Humans as
workers=reproducers, and consumers=vitalizers of machines, through the
linguistic equality: man=price(money)=object, that makes men and objects
species of the same value. In other words, money enslaved man as an object with
price, susceptible to be controlled for the purpose of making objects.
- Scientific Languages [Machines].
Those objects of metal, machines, evolved from simple metal-bodies (boats,
weapons, trains) into metal-minds able to think with numbers, and translate
reality into images (digital cameras, computers). They represent the total
decadence of all previous human languages, that have become fictional, and
further on are started to be created by computers. So we have even computer
music, that dominates our metal-ears=radios, and we have computerized images,
that dominate our metal-eyes=TVs, and we have the first computers that talk,
correct texts, spell, and translate verbal languages, even some write with
software, 'scripts'... Of course this means a further degeneration of our human
languages, even at fictional level. So even within the degeneration that means
the use of a language as fiction we find that fiction performed by computers is
even more shallow and degrading of the human condition that the one artists did
for money in the pre-computer age.
Let
us now consider in detail the different species of human languages, and their 3
ages, as new subspecies with higher information substituted them and caused
their decadence.
Graph:
evolution of Human Languages
In
the graph, the x coordinates show the lineal evolution in clock-time, while the
Y coordinates show the informative evolution, or growth of informative capacity
of each language. We see how from an age of sings, of men-like-apes we came
into the earlier Homo Pictus, and his cave images. Then it came the age of the
Homo Verbalis with his higher form, religions in which a relationship of power
was established: God as the human society was on top -> then man was the
supreme being -> then the action of men (verbs) was commanding reality ->
And finally objects were submissive to reality. Man was the top predator of
history, and society was the only organism that for the good of man controlled
us, through laws, ethic texts, and realistic literature, that exemplified what
individuals should do in society. That age however ended in the XVII century,
when money took over, and company-others and science developed digital
machines, and societies based in monetary laws (lobbyism and corrupted
democracies). So the fictional novel appears, with Don Quixote, an account of
the decadence of verbal ethics and we enter the age of mathematics, in which
man are compared to objects through prices, wages, and salaries
(man=price=product). The top predator language is money, the top predator species,
is the machine, and the top predator organization is the company-mother that
reproduces machines, enslaves men, and controls governments. With the arrival
of chips, that speak mathematics, the extinction of previous obsolete
languages, and symbiotic species is at sight. Even money has become a thought
of those computers (e-money), and men no longer believe verbal scientists, but
computer models of reality.
We
can resume the human linguistic wave in 3 ages:
-
The birth of man, or age of dramatic thought
-
The maturity of man, or age of verbal, written thought.
-
And the decadence of man, or age of fiction and mathematical thought.
The
rest of the book will be dedicated to the study of those 3 ages.
Growth in dimensions of perception
In
our book "Theory of Times" (organicuniverse.net) we explained how
dimensions of reality were created in the plane of spatial reality. In the
plane of temporal reality, of informative languages, the same process explains
the growth of languages in complexity and capacity to explain the dimensional
Universe. Words in that sense have to be understood as the growth of a temporal
dimension in the mind of man.
In
each stage of life evolution, a new temporal or spatial dimension of perception
has grown from skin senses (spatial sensations) to chemical, smelling animals
(temporal sensation) to sight animals (spatial sensation) to words (temporal
sensation) to geometry (spatial sensation) to algebra and algorithms (temporal
sensations). In this manner from the simplest animals to the most complex
robots, there has been a growth in linguistic evolution, that explains also the
dominance of new species on this planet. We are now about to create with
algorithms and software that final temporal perception in robots that will give
them the dominant position in the planetary ecosystem.
Words
added a new temporal, memetic dimension to man.
This
is exactly what happened to man when verbal thought appeared, and gave humans a
temporal extra-dimension over the spatial perception of animals and its
chemical-genetic-temporal intelligence.
Now
men had a faster temporal-genetic intelligence, the intelligence of memetics,
of words, that learnt about the cycles of existence of Universal beings.
In
"Theory of Times" we explained the ultimate principles of the
Universe: the existence of temporal, cyclical inertia, that transformed all
acts of perception in memorial, genetic material, translated by a language.
Exactly that linguistic translation of reality, is what chemical genetics,
allowed in the first simple animals. Yet only with man animals acquired a new
genetic system of memory and adaptation to external environments. Which was
much faster in its description and capacity to adapt the organism to the
environment that chemical genetics were. In as much as words were electronic
and transmitted through sounds, while genetics were chemical and transmitted
through sexual reproduction, the enormous new speed of memetics, of words, gave
to man an advantage that no animal could match, even when mutating at full
speed.
It
is that same advantage what we are now observing in computer minds, that are
able to create with algorithms, accurate representations of reality with much
more detail than words do, and with enormous capacity to adapt to new actions.
As new software multiplies and allows machines to create temporal actions, as
words did with man, we witness an acceleration in time, and evolution on this
planet that forecasts our extinction within decades...
The evolution of dimensional
languages in man and machines.
It
is then clear that we should talk of two stages of evolution of languages, in
the age of history, the evolution of verbal and visual languages in man, and
its recent evolution in machines.
What
were those stages of dimensional growth in the mind of man?
First
verbal thought allowed to add to the visual direct experience of spatial
perceptions, a 'memory' of those species, which were given names.
Names
gave a temporal dimension to species, that now were part of groups qualified by
names. And indeed children learn first to say names, such as those mentioned
ma, pa, and ala... or wa (for water). Names gave more spatial meaning to
beings, by qualifying them with 'Universal names', clonic names that included
many spatial individuals into a single word.
We
talk of the most primitive languages, as languages with names. Those names then
were used to add a new dimension of reality, that of movement. In movement a
form of space, is able to trace a cycle of time, and so it adds distance and
dimensionality to its existence. Languages acquired that new dimensionality
through the verbal experience. Verbs are names acting in time. Verbs added a
temporal dimension of organic actions to names, which gave origin to verbal
sentences. And the most complex modern languages, varied that verbal
experience, expanding it from the simple present of primitive English, to the
past and the future ... Even the hypothetical future , that requires changes in
the basic conditions of the ecosystem (subjunctive)
So
verbal thought became a top predator language able to create memetics, the
reproduction of memories about forms and cycles of existence, both in space and
time.
Dimensional writing. Expansion of
words to social organisms.
When
writing appeared the same process of enlarging the spatial and temporal
dimensions of perception occurred, now beyond the individual mind, into the
collective mind of a social, historic organism. Writing could remember in time,
events that have already happened... So human information expanded both in time
and space. And again when the press
came, multiplying the message that expansion happened at industrial scale (see
Chapter 12). In this manner words became the temporal mind of entire
civilizations. What was written mattered, to the survival of societies to the
point that religious wars were started with the opinion of press writers...