THE BODEGA DIALOGUES, PART II: STRONG LANGUAGE

An extended in-world dialog on the ideas provoked by online worlds, with philosopher Urizenus Sklar and the Thinkers. Full context here.

In part two, we discuss Urizenus' academic background, the philosophy of language-- and how it applies to in-world conversation.

Hamlet Linden: Before I forget to ask, Urizenus, what's your background/specialty, in philosophy? Your school of thought, as it were?

Urizenus Sklar: Mostly philosophy of language, and a lot of background in linguistics-- also worked for an AI company after I got my PhD. But metaphysics and epistemology, too -- I published a book on the philosophy of time in '99. I guess [I’m] analytical, although not in the traditional Oxbridge sense. Wittgenstein needed one of his feet nailed to the floor.

Jinny Fonzarelli: My experience in chat [rooms] suggests Wittgenstein was [on to something] when he [talked] about private languages. I've spent years talking about God and stuff on the Net, and my biggest problem is explaining what I mean by words.

US: There is a problem about whether there is such a thing as language or words, and here my online life has informed my philosophy of language. So, for example, I don't believe that there are languages like English that we learn. Rather, I think that when a couple people get together they create a little language on the fly... there is a kind of game of language construction.

JF: Ah-hah! I think English exists, but we all understand it slightly differently or very differently…

US: And we tacitly negotiate our terminology and stuff.

HL: So what we call "English" is actually the sum of billions of instances of these games, in this view?

Ulrika Zugzwang: English is not negotiated but rather evolved. When we use the term "English" we are just engaged in loose talk. Geographers and geologists may use the term "near" when in the car, but it isn't a useful concept in their academic studies. There is no notion of "nearness" in geography or geology. Likewise, we can informally say we all speak English, but that is loose talk that just means there are a few common linguistic coins we are tossing around.

JF: There is though a core of non-negotiable words, I think.

US: Jinny, yeah, by "non-negotiable", I think you mean what I mean by the "common coin words".

HL: Also [meaning], a more or less absolute correspondence to words and their referent, right.

JF: Referents are funny things. I know some words people would kill over the referent of. "Truth" being the one that springs to mind immediately.

US: Referents can be negotiated, but a lot of times we simply defer to others on the meaning or reference. I say "quark", and I don't really have any idea what a quark is except that it is really small. I defer to experts in that area. There are cases, I think, where this semantic deference has to be earned, and I think that game theory is at work here, too... when more than one person is in a conversation, someone has to defer or the conversation breaks down.

JF: There's lots of examples of that to be found in religion chat rooms.

HL: Who does the overruling in a world like Second Life, where everyone is made to agree about a certain word, and they all defer? Doesn't seem to be the Lindens who do that.

US: Oh, I don't think the Lindens control that, Hamlet. I think all that is determined conversation by conversation.

JF: Have we ever had contention over meaning in the Thinkers' meetings? Only when we're talking about God and stuff like that, if I recall correctly.

HL: Far as SL-native jargon, like "prim" and other stuff, I don't think that's even Linden-speak. It came bottom-up, seems like.

US: Interesting. It would be interesting to see where SL jargon comes from. How people learn it and all.

HL: I wonder if it's people like Baccara here, who are veterans and "thought leaders", that everyone eventually defers to.

US: I wonder if the jargon evolves to distinguish the regulars from the newbies-- a kind of hazing by jargon.

Baccara Rhodes: Well. I hardly think so, Hamlet. The veteran players do still have influence, I think. I really don't think people even realize when these words and phrases are developing. They just appear in your language and you aren't always sure where or why they came to being but they did.

US: No, it usually develops without our noticing.

JF: I've picked up "woot", I must admit, and have found myself using it in real life. Where the heck did "woot" come from?