Independence of written language from the non-textual world

Perhaps the greatest invention in human history, writing is sadly generally considered a representation that was attached to the meaningful world, while itself having no meaning. This great misconception has contributed to our inability to understand many aspects of the world, which is interwoven with the texts.

Writing evolved from non-texts. It has no weight; can’t eat; it is usually intangible; and except for calligraphy, it probably has no other uses of its own. Humans can live without texts, while no one can live without non-texts. Writing is made up of simple letters/characters, intrinsically adequate to represent meaning. When associated with non-texts, it appears just as significant as the associated non-texts. The integration of writing in the world is taken for granted. Both texts and non-texts are stored in the brain. They activate each other by thinking, seeing, hearing, etc. This association between texts and non-texts can hardly be separated. Few efforts were made to separate writing from the non-textural world, because writing is not needed or considered to be a medium that does not have robust properties.

It is not disputed that writing represents knowledge, which itself is a vague word. That implies that writing itself is not knowledge. “Write something” seems to mean that writing is nothing in itself! However, we definitely cannot know a complex subject without textual descriptions. Here the contradiction arises that writing plays a central role in explaining knowledge, but knowledge can exist without explanations. It’s ridiculous that people focus on the texts and say that they are simply to represent something else. This notion denies writing as a solid existence; undervalues ​​writing; and obscures the concept of knowledge.

As a kind of invention and discovery, humans always claim that their findings are principles of nature and always apply the principles of nature to invent. It means that humans, human language have little or no importance in the principles, which are inherently natural. It is “clear” enough that the twenty-six letters cannot contain any principles. It is clear that cars do not need texts to move, although they have many manuals. Computers do not need writing to work, although software codes are written in letters. However, one could never design a computer if one is illiterate, even an illiterate can appreciate, using the products created by literate minds. This tells us that literacy is necessary for complex creativity. To discover the principles of nature, literate minds are needed.

Regardless of what the principles of nature are, humans interact with the world through the senses, with vision being dominant. We must directly refer the world to what we see. Various pieces of visual information must be equally independent of each other, regardless of their physical properties or whether they are created by humans. The writing has its own effect on the reader. Texts and non-text visual information are separated from each other simply by their spatial and temporal locations, in or out of focus. Like cinema and painting, writing is a real entity that is equally solid and independent.

We are now proposing a new concept: written language is independent of the non-textual world. In our opinion, first of all, texts and non-texts function independently. Their mutual correspondences are secondary. This concept is based on the simple foundation that visual information is solid; from which most of human knowledge is derived. At this point, it seems that it is difficult to obtain a rigorous proof; and we’re not going to do it. Or a rigorous test is unnecessary since it seems self-evident.

Here is a simple example of this concept. When we read the word “river,” we take in the five-letter visual information “river.” Meanwhile, we imagine the scene activated in our brain. The default notion is that we read “river” to learn the knowledge: the scene, not the “river”. The “river” is considered a description or a complement to the scene. According to our new concept, the “river” is textual knowledge, while the scene is non-textual knowledge. The combination of them is our knowledge at the time of reading. It should be noted that the “river” is the knowledge that we learn during the reading, while the activated scene is the past knowledge that is already in our mind. The key point is that we regard new knowledge as information that is seen. This example can be generalized to complex words, long sentences, and pages. In addition, the texts in the brain can also be activated during reading. However, the generation could be very complex. It may be the subject of future discussions.

The notion of representation has been around for thousands of years. In practice, it caused few problems in social progress. Problems arise when we want to understand the nature of writing and integration. Without separating text and non-text, their respective roles cannot be truly defined. Their relationships cannot be studied properly. The role of writing will be underestimated. After recognizing writing as an independent entity, we can begin to realize that texts are real-world compositions and meanings in themselves. Things can now include both text and non-text, instead of treating text as descriptions of non-text. That is, the texts themselves are part of knowledge, meaning, society, science and technology. That is why one can gain enormous knowledge by reading alone without any real or hands-on experience on the site.

I had previously realized that written language is paramount compared to spoken language. Now, having separated the texts from the non-textual world, we are better positioned to investigate the truth of written language, the non-textual world, and their relationship. The world can be re-explained, since written language is used to explain almost everything.