The following week, the Senior Common Room. Professor Quillibrace sits beside the fireplace. Miss Elowen Stray is reading a small volume of poetry. Mr Blottisham enters carrying two cups of tea and an expression of concern.
Mr Blottisham:
I have been thinking about last week's discussion.
Professor Quillibrace:
That is always a dangerous development.
Mr Blottisham:
I have reached a troubling conclusion.
Miss Stray:
Which is?
Mr Blottisham:
I may not actually know what anyone means when they speak.
Professor Quillibrace:
An ambitious conclusion.
Mr Blottisham:
Thank you.
Professor Quillibrace:
It was not praise.
Mr Blottisham:
I am beginning to suspect that sentence has several meanings.
Miss Stray:
You may be making progress.
The Illusion of Transfer
Professor Quillibrace:
Let us begin with the problem.
When we communicate, we often imagine that something moves from one mind to another.
A thought.
An idea.
An experience.
Mr Blottisham:
That seems obvious.
Professor Quillibrace:
Does it?
Mr Blottisham:
If I tell you something, you receive it.
Miss Stray:
Do we receive the thing itself?
Mr Blottisham:
The information.
Professor Quillibrace:
Information, perhaps.
Experience, no.
Mr Blottisham:
What is the difference?
Professor Quillibrace:
If I tell you I have a headache, you do not receive my headache.
Mr Blottisham:
Fortunately.
Professor Quillibrace:
You experience something else.
Mr Blottisham:
My own headache?
Miss Stray:
Or your memory of headaches. Or your concept of pain. Or your imagination of what another person might be feeling.
Professor Quillibrace:
You construct a model of my experience.
Mr Blottisham:
So when someone tells me they are suffering, I am not actually feeling their suffering.
Miss Stray:
No.
Mr Blottisham:
That sounds rather disappointing.
Professor Quillibrace:
Only if you expected telepathy.
Words as Pointers
Miss Stray:
Perhaps we think of words incorrectly.
Mr Blottisham:
As incorrect labels?
Miss Stray:
As containers.
Mr Blottisham:
Aren't they?
Professor Quillibrace:
A common metaphor.
Miss Stray:
We imagine that a word contains meaning, and when we speak, we hand the container to another person.
Mr Blottisham:
That seems reasonable.
Professor Quillibrace:
It is also misleading.
Mr Blottisham:
Why?
Professor Quillibrace:
Because different people open the same container and may find slightly different things.
Miss Stray:
A word is less like a box and more like a signpost.
Mr Blottisham:
A signpost?
Miss Stray:
It points.
Mr Blottisham:
But where?
Miss Stray:
Into the listener's own experience.
Mr Blottisham:
So when you say "coffee", I do not receive your coffee.
Professor Quillibrace:
Correct.
Mr Blottisham:
I receive my coffee.
Miss Stray:
Exactly.
The Coffee Problem
Mr Blottisham:
I am not convinced this matters.
Professor Quillibrace:
Then let us consider coffee.
Mr Blottisham:
A worthy philosophical subject.
Miss Stray:
Imagine someone who has never tasted coffee.
How would you explain it?
Mr Blottisham:
Simple. I would say it tastes like coffee.
Professor Quillibrace:
A remarkably circular explanation.
Mr Blottisham:
Then I would say it is bitter.
Miss Stray:
They have never tasted bitterness.
Mr Blottisham:
Rich.
Professor Quillibrace:
Richness requires experience.
Mr Blottisham:
Earthy?
Miss Stray:
Does the person know what earth tastes like?
Mr Blottisham:
This is becoming inconvenient.
Professor Quillibrace:
Language can only work by connecting new experiences to existing ones.
Miss Stray:
A word does not create an experience from nothing.
Mr Blottisham:
Then how does anyone learn anything?
Professor Quillibrace:
Through shared overlap.
The Miracle of Communication
Miss Stray:
Perhaps we focus too much on what language cannot do.
Mr Blottisham:
You mean it has limitations?
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Professor Quillibrace:
But limitations do not make something ineffective.
Miss Stray:
A map does not reproduce a landscape.
Mr Blottisham:
Yet it helps you find your way.
Professor Quillibrace:
Exactly.
Miss Stray:
Language is not the experience itself. It is a means of navigating toward understanding.
Mr Blottisham:
So when someone says, "I am happy," I do not receive happiness.
Professor Quillibrace:
No.
Mr Blottisham:
But I can still understand.
Miss Stray:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
That seems almost magical.
Professor Quillibrace:
It is one of the less appreciated miracles of being human.
The Poetry Problem
Miss Stray:
Perhaps poetry reveals this better than ordinary conversation.
Mr Blottisham:
I have always suspected poetry was where language went when it stopped explaining itself.
Professor Quillibrace:
A surprisingly perceptive criticism.
Mr Blottisham:
Thank you.
Professor Quillibrace:
It was not criticism.
Miss Stray:
A poet does not always define an experience.
They evoke it.
Mr Blottisham:
What is the difference?
Miss Stray:
A definition tells you what something is.
An evocation invites you to encounter something.
Professor Quillibrace:
When Emily Dickinson describes hope as "the thing with feathers", she is not offering a scientific classification.
Mr Blottisham:
Obviously.
Professor Quillibrace:
She is creating a structure of associations.
Miss Stray:
The reader participates.
Mr Blottisham:
So meaning is made together?
Miss Stray:
Precisely.
Translation Between Worlds
Professor Quillibrace:
Now consider translation between languages.
Mr Blottisham:
The translator's job is to replace one word with another.
Professor Quillibrace:
Is it?
Mr Blottisham:
Isn't it?
Miss Stray:
If it were that simple, every poem would have one perfect translation.
Professor Quillibrace:
But meanings are embedded in histories, cultures and assumptions.
Mr Blottisham:
So some things disappear in translation.
Miss Stray:
Sometimes.
Professor Quillibrace:
But not everything.
Mr Blottisham:
Then translation is impossible?
Professor Quillibrace:
No.
Mr Blottisham:
But something is lost.
Professor Quillibrace:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
And something is gained?
Miss Stray:
Often.
Mr Blottisham:
That sounds suspiciously like a paradox.
Professor Quillibrace:
Many important truths do.
The Final Difficulty
Miss Stray:
The really difficult question comes next.
If translation between human minds is already imperfect, what happens when minds are radically different?
Mr Blottisham:
Such as?
Professor Quillibrace:
A bat.
Mr Blottisham:
Still the bat.
Miss Stray:
An alien intelligence.
Mr Blottisham:
Less still the bat.
Professor Quillibrace:
Or an artificial intelligence.
Mr Blottisham:
Now that is interesting.
Miss Stray:
The question would no longer be merely whether we can find the right words.
Professor Quillibrace:
It would be whether we share enough conceptual ground for words to have the same significance at all.
Mr Blottisham:
So before asking whether another mind understands us, we must ask whether we understand what understanding means to it.
Professor Quillibrace:
Yes.
Mr Blottisham:
That is a very inconvenient sentence.
Miss Stray:
Perhaps.
Mr Blottisham:
I preferred when communication was just talking.
Professor Quillibrace:
Most people do.
Mr Blottisham:
And now?
Professor Quillibrace:
Now we have discovered that talking is far stranger than we thought.
The room falls silent for a moment.
Miss Stray:
Perhaps the wonder is not that communication sometimes fails.
Perhaps the wonder is that it succeeds at all.
Professor Quillibrace:
An excellent conclusion.
Mr Blottisham:
I agree completely.
Professor Quillibrace:
Do you understand it?
Mr Blottisham:
Not entirely.
Professor Quillibrace:
Then perhaps you understand it perfectly.
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