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All translations are biased by the translator; there is no such thing as a translation that "transparently" conveys the meaning of the original. Even moreso wh

All translations are biased by the translator; there is no such thing as a translation that "transparently" conveys the meaning of the original. Even moreso when you are dealing with writings from an ancient culture, where much of the cultural context is likely missing. For example, Genesis 1:1 is often translated as "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth..." but that itself reflects a particular translator bias. The medieval Rabbi Shlomo Yitzchaki (Rashi) said it should instead read, "When God began creating..." by comparing how a particular word is used in other contexts. There is a subtle but important difference in meaning between the two translations: the first implies creation ex nihilo (as it says creation occurred "In the beginning"), while the second allows for an eternal universe within which our current world was created (and which may have gone through many acts of creation -- such a belief has been common in the more recent past). Of the two it is not at all clear which more "transparently" conveys the original meaning of the text -- because that meaning would only have been obvious to someone living 2500 years ago in ancient Israel (or possibly in the diaspora in Babylon).

dragonwriter 5y ago
> All translations are biased by the translator All understanding of a communication is biased by the recipient (reader/listener), and translation necessarily compounds this by filtering the message the translator understands again though the translator’s own understanding, preferences, and style with regard to the target language. EDIT: Of course, with a religious work where you’ve waved off human fallibility in authorship and compilation by simply denying that those were human acts, but instead adopting doctrine that they were divine acts through human instruments, you can just do the same for your preferred translation and the problem is neatly solved, at least within your doctrinal framework.
- noizejoy 5y ago
  Even the sender of a communication may be a source of error by phrasing something different from what they meant to convey. From not communicating in one’s native tongue or not learning one’s native language well enough to simple brain-farts - there are numerous things that can lead to miscommunication on the sender side, too. Communication of complicated concepts is just incredibly lossy every step of the way.
wolverine876 5y ago
> All translations are biased by the translator; there is no such thing as a translation that "transparently" conveys the meaning of the original All software has bugs, but not all software is equally buggy. The same goes for translations and bias, humans and honesty, etc. This is a (common) misinunderstanding of post-modernism. The idea isn't that you should take off your critical thinking cap and dismiss everything but that you should put it on - you don't get to take it off, ever - and make judgements about the varying qualities of (the translation), while being aware of your own bias. Like software developers, we are flawed beings using flawed tools to make flawed code, but that doesn't make us powerless to do better - we still can do incredible things.
- TimTheTinker 5y ago
  Postmodernism goes further than that: > Postmodernists deny that there are aspects of reality that are objective; that there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false; that it is possible to have knowledge of such statements (objective knowledge); that it is possible for human beings to know some things with certainty[0] So in essence, postmodernism teaches that critical thinking is all about tearing down what it calls the illusion of objective reality, statements that are objectively true or false, objective knowledge, and certainty -- and finding (or at least positing) the subjective sources behind such illusions. I object to such assertions and flatly deny that reality is subjective. Only perception is subjective -- and critical thinking ought to be used to get through to the objective truth. In the case of ancient texts, critical reading helps us establish what the original text most likely said. [0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    I feel like there's Straw Postmodernism where you can make anything true by wishing really hard, and Tautological Postmodernism, where the human senses are limited in resolution and your mind is limited in memory and cognition, and somewhere between them is a postmodernism that a sane person would bother arguing in favor of. I haven't seen it, of course, but I conjecture it's out there in the libraries somewhere.
Strilanc 5y ago
You're committing the fallacy of gray ( https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallacy-of-gray https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallac... ). > The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.” > The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view ...” > —Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling
- labster 5y ago
  You have two colors. You say, “I know, I’ll make a color that covers everyone’s use case with regular expressions.” Now you have three problems.
  - GuB-42 5y ago
    That's the fallacy of gr[ae]y.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    You have two competing colors. You design a new, unified color that covers the use cases of both. Now you have three competing colors.
    - ruined 5y ago
      this list is incomplete. you can help by expanding it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_color_spaces_and_their_uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_color_spaces_and_their...
- midjji 5y ago
  This is such a great idea.
bobthechef 5y ago

dragonwriter 5y ago

> All translations are biased by the translator All understanding of a communication is biased by the recipient (reader/listener), and translation necessarily compounds this by filtering the message the translator understands again though the translator’s own understanding, preferences, and style with regard to the target language. EDIT: Of course, with a religious work where you’ve waved off human fallibility in authorship and compilation by simply denying that those were human acts, but instead adopting doctrine that they were divine acts through human instruments, you can just do the same for your preferred translation and the problem is neatly solved, at least within your doctrinal framework.

noizejoy 5y ago
Even the sender of a communication may be a source of error by phrasing something different from what they meant to convey. From not communicating in one’s native tongue or not learning one’s native language well enough to simple brain-farts - there are numerous things that can lead to miscommunication on the sender side, too. Communication of complicated concepts is just incredibly lossy every step of the way.

wolverine876 5y ago

> All translations are biased by the translator; there is no such thing as a translation that "transparently" conveys the meaning of the original All software has bugs, but not all software is equally buggy. The same goes for translations and bias, humans and honesty, etc. This is a (common) misinunderstanding of post-modernism. The idea isn't that you should take off your critical thinking cap and dismiss everything but that you should put it on - you don't get to take it off, ever - and make judgements about the varying qualities of (the translation), while being aware of your own bias. Like software developers, we are flawed beings using flawed tools to make flawed code, but that doesn't make us powerless to do better - we still can do incredible things.

TimTheTinker 5y ago
Postmodernism goes further than that: > Postmodernists deny that there are aspects of reality that are objective; that there are statements about reality that are objectively true or false; that it is possible to have knowledge of such statements (objective knowledge); that it is possible for human beings to know some things with certainty[0] So in essence, postmodernism teaches that critical thinking is all about tearing down what it calls the illusion of objective reality, statements that are objectively true or false, objective knowledge, and certainty -- and finding (or at least positing) the subjective sources behind such illusions. I object to such assertions and flatly deny that reality is subjective. Only perception is subjective -- and critical thinking ought to be used to get through to the objective truth. In the case of ancient texts, critical reading helps us establish what the original text most likely said. [0] https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy https://www.britannica.com/topic/postmodernism-philosophy
- whatshisface 5y ago
  I feel like there's Straw Postmodernism where you can make anything true by wishing really hard, and Tautological Postmodernism, where the human senses are limited in resolution and your mind is limited in memory and cognition, and somewhere between them is a postmodernism that a sane person would bother arguing in favor of. I haven't seen it, of course, but I conjecture it's out there in the libraries somewhere.

Strilanc 5y ago

You're committing the fallacy of gray ( https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallacy-of-gray https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/dLJv2CoRCgeC2mPgj/the-fallac... ). > The Sophisticate: “The world isn’t black and white. No one does pure good or pure bad. It’s all gray. Therefore, no one is better than anyone else.” > The Zetet: “Knowing only gray, you conclude that all grays are the same shade. You mock the simplicity of the two-color view, yet you replace it with a one-color view ...” > —Marc Stiegler, David’s Sling

labster 5y ago
You have two colors. You say, “I know, I’ll make a color that covers everyone’s use case with regular expressions.” Now you have three problems.
- GuB-42 5y ago
  That's the fallacy of gr[ae]y.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  You have two competing colors. You design a new, unified color that covers the use cases of both. Now you have three competing colors.
  - ruined 5y ago
    this list is incomplete. you can help by expanding it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_color_spaces_and_their_uses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_color_spaces_and_their...
midjji 5y ago
This is such a great idea.

bobthechef 5y ago