4 ms·

But there are things that can only be fully described using natural language. Emotions, for example. There aren't any visuals or formalism for those. (And no, e

But there are things that can only be fully described using natural language. Emotions, for example. There aren't any visuals or formalism for those. (And no, emoticons don't count.) On the other hand, description is a form of communication anyway, so I fail to see the distinction that you are trying to make here.

cibritzio 6y ago
Just curious why you suggest emoticons are glyphs insufficient for the communication of intelligence re emotions. They seem an almost incredibly insightful development in orthography. What earlier alphabetic cultures expressed so clearly via visuals interspersed among lithographs the essence of ineffable universal emotions?
- Koshkin 6y ago
  Because a smile is not an emotion.
  - cibritzio 6y ago
    But are not emoticons smilies?
    - DonHopkins 6y ago
      Emoticons are similes for smilies.
  - lloeki 6y ago
    If I say the word ‘ellipse’ (in French) you’d be hard pressed to know if I mean an oval or an omission. You can only know that from context. Body language works exactly the same, the exact meaning of a smile by itself is ambiguous, as it’s built from context. Adding back information previously lost via traditional sentence serialisation in text medium through text emoticons, graphic emojis, and other annotations (like /s) conveys this information which might entirely change the meaning of the sentence; emotion is completely tied to the semantics and critical to understanding. To me it looks a lot like didascalies (stage direction notes) in theatre play texts.
  - andromeduck 6y ago
    And words are?
wizzwizz4 6y ago
Lojban attitudinals do a fair job at conveying emotion, without really being natural language (specifically, mere words). https://mw.lojban.org/papri/ELG._Attitudinals https://mw.lojban.org/papri/ELG._Attitudinals
chillacy 6y ago
If we get to be picky, emotions are probably better described chemically than with language. Second best would be through narrative, like reading a story or watching a movie or play. Third could be a description of it but my reading of a description doesn't necessarily lead to my feeling of the emotion.

cibritzio 6y ago

Just curious why you suggest emoticons are glyphs insufficient for the communication of intelligence re emotions. They seem an almost incredibly insightful development in orthography. What earlier alphabetic cultures expressed so clearly via visuals interspersed among lithographs the essence of ineffable universal emotions?

Koshkin 6y ago
Because a smile is not an emotion.
- cibritzio 6y ago
  But are not emoticons smilies?
  - DonHopkins 6y ago
    Emoticons are similes for smilies.
- lloeki 6y ago
  If I say the word ‘ellipse’ (in French) you’d be hard pressed to know if I mean an oval or an omission. You can only know that from context. Body language works exactly the same, the exact meaning of a smile by itself is ambiguous, as it’s built from context. Adding back information previously lost via traditional sentence serialisation in text medium through text emoticons, graphic emojis, and other annotations (like /s) conveys this information which might entirely change the meaning of the sentence; emotion is completely tied to the semantics and critical to understanding. To me it looks a lot like didascalies (stage direction notes) in theatre play texts.
- andromeduck 6y ago
  And words are?

wizzwizz4 6y ago

Lojban attitudinals do a fair job at conveying emotion, without really being natural language (specifically, mere words). https://mw.lojban.org/papri/ELG._Attitudinals https://mw.lojban.org/papri/ELG._Attitudinals

chillacy 6y ago

If we get to be picky, emotions are probably better described chemically than with language. Second best would be through narrative, like reading a story or watching a movie or play. Third could be a description of it but my reading of a description doesn't necessarily lead to my feeling of the emotion.