Philosophical Language

Full Title or Meme

The idea of a Philosophical Language was created to enable all humans to express any idea in a manner that all others could understand.

A Language allows expression of thought or gives commands for action.

The concept of a universal character or Philosophical Language has been explored by several philosophers throughout history. Two notable examples are John Wilkins and Gottfried Leibniz.

These Language creation efforts reflect the enduring human desire to create a universal means of communication that transcends linguistic and cultural barriers.

Context

The original use of language is not fully known, but it was clearly an evolutionary adaption. The most common theory is that language made humans better able to survive by organizing the hunt for food and encouraging the creation of stable social structures.

The original form of language was spoken and it dates back to the end of the Neolithic age, around 150,000 years ago. Written language began around 6,000 years ago, probably in Sumer.

Many of the dynamics the internet creates are, at this point, well understood: We know its capacity to help users find one another, making it easier than ever for people to get involved in conspiracy networks; We also know how social media platforms prioritize inflammatory content and that as a result, ideas and information that make people angry travels farther and faster than ever before.

Problems

• People will always try to use their words to convince you to Trust them. Why do they do that? Because it works.
• Human language was created and is optimized for social interactions. It simple does not work well in highly structured situations where exact logical decision making is required. Philosopher that use natural language can never be precise in what they mean.

Examples

John Wilkins

In 1668, John Wilkins published "An Essay Towards a Real Character, and a Philosophical Language." Wilkins aimed to create a universal language to facilitate international communication among scholars, diplomats, travelers, and merchants. His system was designed to be an auxiliary language, not a replacement for existing natural languages. It included a constructed family of symbols corresponding to a classification scheme developed by Wilkins and his colleagues.

Gottfried Leibniz

Gottfried Leibniz envisioned a universal and formal language called "characteristica universalis." This language was intended to express mathematical, scientific, and metaphysical concepts. Leibniz hoped it would serve as a universal logical calculation framework, allowing for precise and clear communication of ideas. His concept is often associated with contemporary universal language projects like Esperanto and formal logic projects.