Beyond Language

Language and expression have always been among the most influential bridges among living things. Even when disconnected via words, we're connected via the languages' structures, body language, art, and even virtual lingo/symbolism. Reliance on language has made communicating ideas and feelings rapidly effortless. It's not a stretch to even believe that the ways language is used, influences one's understanding of phenomena, feelings, or actions. This is where things begin to complicate. 

This overreliance on quick exchanges of thought has hindered the significance of peculiarities and differences (especially within archetypes).  Language, alongside many other control structures, relies on commonality and discreteness. Lexemes that capture the 'essence' of something. This notion isn't limited to language and is something our cognition relies on at lower levels. This, in worse cases, leads to discriminatory bigotry. Despite this knack for static essences, the use of language continues to find its peculiarities (mostly in relation to the intended meaning). The forces of control manage to essentialize even these transformations by painting a linear model of a language's transformation. 

These patterns of standardization, be it in language or elsewhere, make actions, expression, and even cognition a matter of representation rather than creation and variance. Speed and ease are prioritized over accuracy, which in turn reshapes even the collective view of accuracy as something devoid of peculiarity and difference. Think of how often people debate over whether doing a certain activity makes them represent a certain lexical category, or if a phenomenon qualifies as a static concept or not. Language (as it stands) and structuralism suffer from an aversion towards difference beyond its usual conceptual notion. Both difference and repetition are seen way too intensely. As if they could never exist in lower densities. That each category or structure must have a strong number of differences, and each repetition of a category must have little to no difference.

Would it not be appropriate to consider language a system of commands that favor a majorized standard over a minor-becoming? Communication becomes secondary, and each expression becomes a case of obedience and control, through which an entity or phenomenon is subjectified to a type and is expected to be subject to it. This article's heavy influence from the works of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari may also already be evident to those familiar with their work. Familiarity with their work would help one have a better idea of the problems surrounding language that the article is attempting to summarize. Long story short, there's nothing wrong with using language, our cognitive liberation is thwarted only by relying on language as the primary source of shaping our thought and will. Acknowledging these constraints helps you see variances a lot better, with how some examples of a phenomenon only merely qualify for their respective order-words. It's insane to still refer to these cases through lexemes that acknowledge their prescribed essence (which, due to the variance may even be greatly altered) instead of all the difference they bear. 

Seeing things this way led me to conceptualize the basis for a difference-encompassing language that treats statements like ensembles that can be deterritorialized to infinity. Where each instance of what we'd usually summarize as a 'word 'is bound by its own specificities and the overall context of the assemblage it's in. Regardless, none of this would be enough to paint an accurate image if we didn't discuss the project in-depth. 

The Idea (untitled)

A language that prefers expressing things with infinite and continuous potentialities. Where each instance of a presumed 'symbol' or 'archetype' would have the potential of infinite specificity and difference, to the point of barely even fitting the archetype. Where the relationship of symbols (or their collective assemblage) holds much more importance than each symbol as a discrete entity. Messages and symbols that aren't traced down to their roots but are connected to an unlimited rhizome of similarities and differences. Something that lets the constraints of a language themselves be used for creative means, or expressing creativity.

For an extremely simplified example, which adds only minimal specificity, let's take the case of a tree. The symbol of a tree could be an assemblage of verticle lines (representing trunks), branching lines (representing branches), and small shapes (leaves). In the context of a forest, multiple tree symbols might intertwine with each other, sharing branches and leaves (| || | |/| ||| ◦ ◦◦). For an old tree, the symbol might have thicker vertical lines and fewer, more distinct branches (|| / \). Whatever the symbol assemblage, it could also connect in various ways with other symbol assemblages. For example, the tree symbol might connect to symbols for ground (horizontal lines), sun (radiating lines), and wind (curved lines). Trees in the wind would look as such: |//~/ ◦◦. 

Now, even these ensembles could have a lot more variance and specificity, with each line having differences in texture, coordinates, color, shape, and many other qualities. Their relationships, and the ensemble they're a part of would also hold a lot of significance. Even these specificities could have variations within variations............to the nth variation.  

One of the most fascinating aspects of this project is how it could use archetypes as a gestalt for familiarity, and then subvert them with variations within several levels. If systemized aptly, this project could convey highly specific, dynamic, and continuous statements with much less space complexity than traditional languages. Provided it'd also need someone versed enough to quickly recognize all the symbols and variations. 

Before we begin discussing the working of the idea, let it be known that the project, as it stands, is entirely theoretical and intends to lay the groundwork for what it perceives as a much more difference-affirming model of communication. Since the emphasis mostly lies on precision, distinction, and infinity, this may compromise the language's efficiency. 

Working   

Formula

1. Base Components and Variations

$C_i(V) = \{C_i, V(C_i)\}$

• $C_i$: i-th base component (e.g., arrows, curves, lines).
• $V(C_i):<br>$Variations of ${𝐶}_{𝑖}$ (e.g., length, curvature, color).

2. Recursive Composite Components

$CC_j = \sum_{i=1}^{m} C_i(V) \cdot X(C_i) + \sum_{k=1}^{n} CC_k \cdot X(CC_k)$

• $CC_j$: j-th composite component.
• $\sum_{i=1}^{m}$: Sum of m base components $C_i(V)$.
• $\sum_{k=1}^{n}$: Sum of n composite components $CC_k$.
• $X$: Context (position and relation) of each component.

3. Recursive Symbols

$S_k = \sum_{j=1}^{p} CC_j \cdot X(CC_j) + \sum_{l=1}^{q} S_l \cdot X(S_l)$

• $S_k$: k-th symbol.
• $\sum_{j=1}^{p}$: Sum of p composite components $CC_j$.
• $\sum_{l=1}^{q}$: Sum of q symbols $S_l$.
• $X$: Context of each component and symbol.

4. Ensemble

$E = \sum_{k=1}^{r} S_k \cdot X(S_k)$

• $\mathrm{E:\; Ensemble,\; a\; collection\; of\; r\; symbols}$​ 𝑆k.
• $X$: Context of each symbol in the ensemble.

5. Connections and Interactions

$Cn(CC_j, CC_k) = f(X(CC_j), X(CC_k))$

• $Cn$: Connections at various levels.
• $f$: Function defining interactions based on context and variations.

6. Meaning Derivation

$M(E) = g\left(\sum_{k=1}^{r} \sum_{l=1}^{r} Cn(S_k, S_l)\right)$

• $M(E)$: Meaning derived from the ensemble $E$.
• $g$: Function interpreting the sum of all interactions $Cn$.

Example Walkthrough

1. Base Components and Variations

   • $C_1$ (Arrow with variations in length and curvature)
   • $C_2$ (Curve with variations in thickness and bend)
   • $C_3$ (Line with variations in color and texture)

2. Recursive Composite Components

   • $CC_1 = C_1(V) \cdot X(C_1) + C_2(V) \cdot X(C_2)$
     
   • $CC_2 = C_3(V) \cdot X(C_3) + CC_1 \cdot X(CC_1)$
     

3. Recursive Symbols

   • $S_1 = CC_1 \cdot X(CC_1) + CC_2 \cdot X(CC_2)$
     
   • $S_2 = S_1 \cdot X(S_1) + CC_2 \cdot X(CC_2)$

4. Ensemble

   • $E = S_1 \cdot X(S_1) + S_2 \cdot X(S_2)$
     

5. Connections and Meaning

• Meaning $M(E)$ is derived from the unique interactions within the ensemble.

Summary

• Each base component has its variations. 
• Components could recursively define components within themselves.
• A system of presumed 'symbols', too, could recursively craft variations. 
• An ensemble of all the content is created, which defines the relationships, modes, directions, and other potential specificities regarding a symbol. 

Links with Object-Oriented Programming

My computer science background contributed fairly to the becoming of this idea. In fact, its initiation occurred when I had freshly finished my OOP course. How OOP techniques like polymorphism and inheritance rely on different ways of performing the same function and composition (having subclasses within subclasses, etc). 

It wouldn't even be a massive stretch to consider this project a visualization of object-oriented programming. OOP, despite the constraints of programming languages and computer hardware, holds the potential to simulate infinite deterritorialization. There are, however, significant differences between OOP and this project. Compared to the project's decentralized, fluid, continuous, and dynamic characteristics, OOP has a fixed, hierarchical, and discrete nature. All of this provides OOP a much more representational quality than this project.

Regardless, for those  who fancy programming more than mathematics, here's a basic exemplary simulation of the project's concepts within object-oriented programming: 

class Leaf:

    def __init__(self, size, color):

        self.size = size

        self.color = color

class Branch:

    def __init__(self, length, thickness):

        self.length = length

        self.thickness = thickness

        self.leaves = []

    def add_leaf(self, leaf):

        self.leaves.append(leaf)

class Tree:

    def __init__(self, height, age):

        self.height = height

        self.age = age

        self.branches = []

    def add_branch(self, branch):

        self.branches.append(branch)

 A complex object would be created as such: 

# Create leaves
leaf1 = Leaf(size="small", color="green")
leaf2 = Leaf(size="large", color="yellow")
# Create branches and add leaves
branch1 = Branch(length="long", thickness="thick")
branch1.add_leaf(leaf1)
branch1.add_leaf(leaf2)
# Create tree and add branches
tree = Tree(height="tall", age="old")
tree.add_branch(branch1)

The Philosophy Behind the Project

In case the Deleuze and Guattari influence wasn't already clear enough. Speaking consistently with the project's philosophy, there's no specific purpose behind its creation (like any other project). Factors like an opposition towards the controlling nature of language, a knack for variance, and even mere creative drive are within the ensemble that desires such a project.  

As discussed above, the project does not intend to practically define the language, as that would require a lot of effort to ensure a great density of composition. It is, rather, a statement of the potential for something of this sort to exist altogether. For a sort of language far less constrained by a system of command and control. Something where a statement or a lexeme continuously transforms and becomes rather than being anchored to a fixed root. 

The project bears the perspective that the most objective thing that can be said about existence is the collective, infinite acknowledgment of existence itself. That the perceived components within this 'truth', if taken individually, would rid them of the interdependent qualities that transform them via their ensemble and/or transform the ensemble via themselves. In that case, it's only appropriate to rely on a model of language that encompasses difference, is continuous, and emphasizes the ensemble instead of the statement being traced down to its components. 

Ultimately, the project is still bound by many limitations of traditional languages, but it uses these very limits to subvert them. Let's say, for example, a certain stroke typically represents a certain idea. One holds the ability to combine these representational strokes across the various levels of composition in such ways that the end result would simply cease to be representational.