Language of the unreal - by Adit Gupta - Indian Philosophy

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Language of the unreal<br>Understanding the Buddhist theory of Apoha

Adit Gupta<br>Aug 02, 2021

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At the turn of the 22nd century, we trashed the notion that mathematics is the language of the universe. Humans, with their limited cognitive abilities, still believe in the primitive knowledge of math and physics. No wonder that they have unresolved questions about the cosmos and even their own body. But we are not concerned with creatures of flesh in this log. Our primary objective is to completely decipher the gravity language — an unusual method of communication used by an unknown higher-order alien species.<br>Our universe is their language, with the cosmic matter as the fundamental linguistic unit and gravity defining its grammar. From what we have understood so far, the young ones of this alien species use the visible cosmic matter and gravity to practice their language while the adults transform the visible matter in strange ways to communicate with each other through what was known as dark matter. Their infants use matter and gravity to express themselves with stars. After attaining certain cognitive maturity, they convey their thoughts with pulsars and black holes. But these are just the basic forms of their language, similar to what a human child communicates by the age of four. By transmuting the fundamental nature of gravity, the adults share esoteric ideas using dark matter and dark energy. We still don’t have a complete understanding of their knowledge. But it seems that our universe is just one of their many languages, with each universe for one language resulting in various multiverses. These higher-order aliens live beyond our known dimensions of the universe. We think it’s beyond our capacity to understand their form and world. But, strangely, we reside in a language. Although we have a complete understanding of our universe, it seems that we are just useless by-products in their interplay of matter and gravity.<br>P.S - Humans at Earth — We are in the year 2200. The above log, written in some alien language, has a peculiar combination of waves in the electromagnetic spectrum. We call it the EMS language. It took us close to one hundred years to decode it. We might have lost some of its meaning during translation. And we still don’t understand anything about the gravity language. From what we can comprehend, it’s certain that we are a puny and powerless species existing inside a language of some ultra-advanced, possibly non-organic, higher-order alien life.

There’s no need to worry about the EMS or Gravity language yet. We have more than enough human languages to keep us busy for a lifetime. It’s rather interesting to know how our perception of reality varies with different languages. For example, in the Australian Aboriginal language, Guugu Yimithirr, there’s no concept of left, right, forward, or backward. The speakers convey spatial information only through geographical directions — north, south, east, and west. Rather than saying that an object is in front of you, a Guggu Yimithirr speaker will ask you to look towards the north of your body.<br>As strange as it sounds, studies in linguistics and cognitive science have shown that the languages we speak profoundly shape our experiences of the world.<br>And when we talk about thoughts and experiences, philosophy has a lot to say along with other disciplines. The philosophy of language gained momentum with the linguistic turn in the 20th century. Be it the distinction of sense and reference by Frege or the picture theory of language by Wittgenstein, language came at the forefront of western philosophy.<br>However, it has always been a centerpiece for Indian philosophy. Many epistemological and metaphysical theories from the Indian subcontinent have their basis in language.<br>As Matilal points out,<br>“In India, philosophy of language formed part of a comprehensive theory of knowledge, for one of the ways of knowing what is the case is to rightly understand what is said by an expert and trustworthy person. The philosophers of knowledge in classical India established a connection between the traditional problems of knowledge and those in the philosophy of language.”1

The Naiyāyikas, with their realist philosophy, believe that things have mind-independent existence that we can categorize and identify with language (except in the case of indeterminate perception).<br>अस्तित्वं ज्ञानेत्वं अभिद्येत्वं

Whatever exists is nameable and knowableAccording to Vaiśeṣika Sūtra, we can classify all existing things into substance, quality, and action.<br>अर्थ इति द्रव्य गुण कर्मसु

The Mīmāmsa also have an interesting theory of language and meaning that has its basis in the rituals and injunctions of Vedas. In what seems like a page out of a book on string theory, the Mīmāmsa philosophers believe that the fundamental nature of all things is vibratory. Sanskrit, the language of the...