Words Fail (2020)

4 days ago

Words become invisible when communication works, making them hard to study.
To see words, one can use a 'word jail' or learn unfamiliar jargon in new domains like rock climbing or sailing.
Jargon in abstract domains like psychology can become unmoored from reality without notice, unlike in practical fields where misuse causes tangible trouble.
The DSM in psychology exemplifies jargon with ambiguous meanings that vary by community, yet is treated as globally meaningful.
Semantic deconversion, or losing faith in words, is traumatic and often leads to attempts at new forms of expression, as seen in philosophers like Wittgenstein.
Christopher Alexander's work shows signs of semantic deconversion, offering patterns to replace degraded terms, such as 'fireplace,' whose meaning shifts with cultural production changes.
Words can pick out reality, name abstract model aspects, or assess correspondence between map and territory, with useful abstraction differing from pathological, meaningless abstraction.
Changing language alone is ineffective; loss of meaning signals words disconnecting from human reality, with tragic results in fields like architecture, psychology, and politics.

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