h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The trouble with truth is language.

This is for a couple of reasons. The first being, having read a majority of the posts in this forum, though people think that they use the same language as another person, they are only making an assumption. The use of any language for communication between two people requires there to be a common understanding of what all the vocabulary, spelling, etc. mean. A lot of the disagreements I have seen in this forum have a tendency to be derived from a difference in opinion not on the concepts presented, but the meaning of one or two words, or numbers. I believe, in this situation, the main problem is somantics, annoying as this may be.

The other problem with language is the fact that it is being used for this discussion in the first place. The nature of the discussion is centered around a concept that is beyond language, though, I do not believe beyond our capabilities of understanding.

By this I mean that some things are beyond the capabilities of language. Take for example red. Red as a color can be expressed as a region of the visible spectrum, or be pointed out by example, but it can not be expressed in words, be those words English or any other language that I am aware of, as it exsists in my mind, or anyone else's mind.

Unless we can learn to communicate thoughts and ideas directly, through telepathy or some device that translates and transfers the electrical impulses of the physical brain (Who knows where technology is going to take us.), this discussion is basically impossible to conclude to everyone's satisfaction, and even then it may not be.

That being said, I still think a good contest of verbal jousting and intellectual gymnastics is fun and entertaining, anyway.