by Greg Goode
5) You may think that if you were a bilingual translator, the difficulty would be resolved. But as Quine argues, that’s not the case, because the conditions of radical translation, and the indeterminacy they entail, have applied to all the steps along the way of becoming a bilingual speaker in the first place. Thus the indeterminacy also carries over to whatever translations the bilingual translator makes today.
6) Knowing what a speaker means by an utterance is simply being able to translate it into your own language, or your web of belief. There’s nothing extra involved. Because of the indeterminacy of the translation process the idea of a fixed, intrinsic or objective meaning of a sentence makes no sense. Where would such an objective meaning reside? How would it be defined? And who could know it? How could it be communicated? Because even the webs of beliefs among different observers who speak the same language differ, we can conclude that an objective meaning of a sentence is nowhere to be found. Sentences are empty of inherent meaning.
7) What exists in our world? Quine would say: whatever our (best) theories talk of! And although Greek theories talk about Homerian Gods and contemporary theories about electrons, Quine doesn’t think that one is more real than the other. The “inscrutability of reference” discussed in point (1) shows that there are many possibilities about which we can reasonably speak and that can thus reasonably exist. Because whatever objects exist in the world depend on the theories we have, objects are empty of any independent, inherent existence.
Here is a beautiful analogy from the philosopher Jane Heal about our process of combining the puzzle of different observations of the field linguist into a satisfying whole, and of the radical indeterminacy that entails.
We are used to unique-arrangement jigsaws. But there is no conceptual necessity to this, and an ingenious toy-maker could manufacture (perhaps already has manufactured) multiple-arrangement ones. To label an utterance “a saying that it is raining” is ... like labeling a jigsaw piece “a mountain summit piece.” In other words, such a labeling tells us that there is at least one overall satisfactory arrangement in which the utterance or piece could play the designated role. But, to reemphasize, that is no conceptual bar to the existence of another arrangement in which it plays another role.
Heal (1999)
And things get even more interesting when we apply radical translation to ourselves where new observations about our life and our world come in over time and need to be accommodated.
...we think of ourselves as, in part, self-building jigsaws, where gaps get filled in or new pieces are added round the edge in the light of the part of the scene already pictured.
Ibid
Adding new jigsaw pieces can entirely change the scenery in the jigsaw, or may even lead to a re-arrangement. This has the stunning consequence that meaning changes as time goes on. And of course, we do have ample evidence for this in our everyday lives, like when you’re losing your job. You suffer at the time, but realize later that it was the best thing that could have ever happened to you. We will explore this insight about meaning in one of our later meditations.
How Does Radical Translation Apply to Me?
On deeper reflection, radical translation begins at home. Must we equate our neighbor’s English words with the same strings of phonemes in our own mouth? Certainly not; for sometimes we do not thus equate them. Sometimes we find it to be in the interests of communications to recognize that our neighbor’s use of some word, such as “cool” or “square” or “hopefully,” differs from ours, and so we translate that word of his into a different string of phonemes in our idiolect.
Quine (1968)
Thus we use “radical translation” also with our friends and loved ones. Although we usually just map their English words to our version of them – their “book” to our “book” – at least sometimes we believe they use words differently than we do, and correct for that in our translation. But when to translate into the same word and when to translate into a different one is already an uncertain choice. It is not qualitatively different from what the field linguist in the jungle is doing. Your friend’s web of belief is different from your own, with practical consequences for translation. When your friend says ‘love’ does he/she mean what you mean by ‘love’? All the issues of the indeterminacy of translation apply!
Let’s look at a practical example of how the revision of your beliefs in the presence of new evidence can bring you more freedom. Say, your romantic partner comes home one night and tells you, “I need to tell you, I slept with someone else.” How will that affect your web of belief? There are many possibilities. You may take it lightly and just add this empirical fact about your partner to the periphery of your web of belief.
Or you may make a deeper revision within your web of belief by changing your belief from “my partner is trustworthy” to that s/he is not. More profoundly, this disclosure may even establish, or even trigger, a core belief along the lines of, “all men (or women) cheat and are not trustworthy.”
Or you may decide that no matter what your partner said and did you are committed to hold on to the belief “I am in a wonderful relationship.” To do that you might change one of your other beliefs, such as “If your partner cheats on you, that means s/he doesn’t love you anymore,” to “Men (or women) fool around sometime. That doesn’t mean anything.”
And of course, whatever belief revisions you make will have ripple effects through the rest of your belief system. Most dramatically, if one of your core beliefs changes, it will deeply affect how you look at the world.
Now, the startling insight the radical translation thought experiment brings home to our everyday life is this: there is no correct translation from your partner’s declaration of cheating into what you end up hearing or how you restructure your web of beliefs. There is no predetermined, objective fact of the matter about what your partner’s cheating “really” means! Your partner’s declaration (and their situation) is empty of any inherent meaning.
And the emptiness of inherent meaning applies, of course, to any situation in your past or future. Initially, I (Tomas) was quite wary about this free flow of meanings. It unsettled so much of the world for me. But that changed over time. The world didn’t collapse. After getting used to it, I found it to be quite comforting. Let’s explore the idea of fixed meaning a bit more.
Meditation – Questioning Fixed Meaning
Imagine any situation currently going on in your life that is moderately charged for you (perhaps a difficulty from work, or some issue in your relationships, or something simple like a friend not returning your phone call). Connect with the meaning that the situation has for you. Now ask yourself, “Could this situation also have a different meaning?” “Is there an alternative explanation?” Come up with at least two alternative explanations.
After you’ve done that, would you agree that the situation does not have any absolutely correct, objective meaning? Then you have established that it is empty of an inherent meaning. If, on the contrary, you think the situation has an inherent meaning, can you find it? And could someone question that meaning (imagine, for example, what a friend, a therapist or a pastor might say)? Can you question it?
It is useful to repeat the above meditation for a number of situations until you recognize that this lack of inherent, definitive meaning applies across the board. To get the full benefit from this insight we generalize it explicitly in the next meditation.
Meditation – Can All Meaning Be Empty?
Contemplate whether it is possible that most or all the situations you are currently experiencing are empty of any objective meaning. If you answer yes, pay attention to whether you experience these situations with more ease, whether they seem lighter and less solid?
You may also be able to spare yourself assigning bad meanings to situations in case you have done so excessively. In case you discover situations that seem to have an inherent meaning, you may analyze it as you did in the “Questioning Fixed Meaning” meditation.
Holism and Cognitive Therapy
It is interesting to note that cognitive therapy also distinguishes the beliefs people hold according to the different levels of centrality they have for a person’s world view. There are relatively superficial so-called automatic thoughts, deeper intermediate thoughts and deep-down core beliefs. Cognitive therapy works on restructuring these beliefs, usually from negative to more positive ones. The centrality versus the peripherality of beliefs is merely a set of metaphors for beliefs that are difficult or easy to change.
Restructuring more deeply held beliefs is harder, but it has huge therapeutic rewards that ripple through the rest of the web of belief. Changing beliefs through therapy is a fine approach that obviously helps many people to live happier lives. However, the primary aim of “emptiness therapy” is different. We are not so much interested in modifying beliefs per se, but in recognizing all of them, positive and negative, as empty. Of course, once you know that your beliefs don’t have a fixed, predetermined meaning, you will become less attached to them. They are lighter and more easily responsive to conditions and positive change, if you wish. Let’s try this out.
Meditation – Changing Past and Future Meaning
Come up with a positive core belief you do not currently hold. If none comes to mind, you can use something like “I’m a quite competent and likeable person.” Or perhaps “The world is a wonderful place,” or “Life is so interesting and exciting.” Now imagine you held this belief within your life. Take your time to explore the following questions: How would this belief change the meaning of some situations in my life? Could I have made different choices in the past then? What is my future going to look like if I hold this belief?
Are My Own Memories and Thoughts Safe from Radical Translation?
Let’s turn the screw of our argument one more notch. You do not only perform radical translation when you listen to others, but even when you “listen” to your own thoughts and memories. To see this translation process and the resulting indeterminacy in action, pick a teacher from your past you really liked. Is there a memory like “Mr. (or Mrs.) X is so wonderful”? But you’re thinking the thought now! Has your meaning of “wonderful” changed? There are now probably very different conditions for you to assign the attribute “wonderful” to a person. So how exactly do you choose to translate the sentence into the present? The familiar (by now) indeterminacy of translation and the resulting emptiness of inherent meaning apply to your own memories as well.
Indeterminacy and emptiness even apply to the meaning of your current thoughts. Let’s take a look at this. Try to ask yourself the meaning of one of your current thoughts. For example, let’s say that the thought “This is a great cup of tea” goes through your mind right now. Now ask yourself what that thought means. You’re probably going to come up with another thought, such as “It tastes and smells like a beautiful flower and leaves a fascinating after taste.” Aha! You again made a translation from one sentence to the next. Since there are other possible translations, such as “Reminds me of my trip to Japan,” or “Tastes like I’m in a posh British club,” the lack of fixed meaning is apparent. The indeterminacy of translation and the resulting emptiness of meaning apply even to your current thoughts.
“But I’m a Meditator – This Doesn’t Apply to Me”
If we are experienced meditators, we may feel as though we have direct, unmediated access to our mental states. We may be used to labeling our states according to certain schemes that we learned in a spiritual path. Mental states seem easier to identify than external objects. Identifying mental states is so seamless that it appears that the states carry their meaning on their sleeves. As experienced meditators trained in introspection, we might feel strongly entitled to the claim of direct, unmediated, pure access to these states.
If you practice Eastern spiritual methods, did you ever hope to reach some sort of transcendent state of mind that is unaffected by the vagaries, disappointments and frustrations of normal life? I (Tomas) certainly did. These seemingly transcendent experiences are also good candidates for the states to which we would like to have “pure access.”
At this stage of our inquiry, we already know well that the world and our thoughts are no longer objective or inherently real. Inner sensations may seem like an exception. They may seem to be self-identifying absolutes which force their meaning upon us.
With a little help from Wittgenstein, let’s see if this view of mental states holds up.
Meditation – Pointing with Wittgenstein
Point to a piece of paper. – And now point to its shape – now to its colour – now to its number (that sounds queer). – How did you do it? – You will say that you “meant” a different thing each time you pointed. And if I ask how that is done, you will say you concentrated your attention on the colour, the shape, etc. But I ask again: how is that done?
Wittgenstein (2009)
What we can learn from this meditation is that it is hard to imagine how to point at something without the use of language.
Now let’s take a look. Is it plausible that inner sensations or images carry their unambiguous meaning on their sleeves?
Meditation – Up or Down?
I see a picture; it represents an old man walking up a steep path leaning on a stick. – How? Might it not have looked just the same if he had been sliding downhill in that position?
Ibid
Here is another example:
...suppose that a picture does come before your mind when you hear the word “cube”, say, the drawing of a cube. In what sense can this picture fit or fail to fit a use of the word “cube”? – Perhaps you say: “It’s quite simple; – if that picture occurs to me and I point to a triangular prism for instance, and say it is a cube, then this use of the word doesn’t fit the picture.” – But doesn’t it fit? I have purposely so chosen the example that it is quite easy to imagine a method of projection according to which the picture does fit after all...
Ibid
Wittgenstein and Private Language
The above meditations cast doubts on the ability of an inner sensation to unambiguously force an inherent meaning on us, without any additional help from language. Wittgenstein discredits this possibility further in his influential “private language argument”. Do we perhaps have our own private language, known to no one else, that we use to identify and understand the meanings of our mental states?
But could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give expression to his inner experiences – his feelings, moods, and the rest – for his private use? – Well, can’t we do so in our ordinary language? – But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.
Ibid
Wittgenstein now asks us to imagine a “private diarist”:
Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I associate it with the sign “S” and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensation.
Ibid
Wittgenstein then asks how the private diarist might be able to use the sign S correctly in the future. For example, later it seems to the private diarist that he has the sensation S again. But how could he know? He has simply no criteria to distinguish between truth and falsehood:
...whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk about “right”.
Ibid
If you think the private diarist could simply “remember” what S was like, what makes you so sure that a correct memory has even been formed when he was focusing his attention on S the first time? We have seen in the meditation above that we simply don’t know how to point at different aspects of a piece of paper without (public) language, so how would it work when focusing on the inner sensation?
The private language ar
gument has many more facets and we encourage you to explore them on your own, in particular if you think of your inner mental states as truly existent, or as non-empty. Thankfully, for the liberation that emptiness teachings can offer, such inherently existing inner states are simply not needed. To further clarify your understanding of the empty nature of inner states you can also explore the chapters “Deconstructing Presence” and “Recognizing the Myth of the Given” in this book which show that neither presence nor sense perceptions are given to us in a pure way.
The conclusion of this chapter is that the assumption that even our innermost states are given to us in a pure form, without recourse to a public language, is not credible.
“OK, But at Least My Pain Feels Like It Is Truly Real”
Pain is an example of an experience that seems very real to us. It is a good candidate for something that seems non-empty. It can have strong intensity, is immediate, and commands our attention. These features make pain a strong candidate for something truly real, as real as anything in our inner life could possibly be. Does this refute the arguments for the emptiness of inner states? Here are some thoughts one might have in support of that objection:
Intensity. My pain is truly real, because it’s so intense. My last toothache, where I couldn’t sleep, proves it.
Persistence. If pain were empty, as the emptiness teachings claim, it would be an illusion and I could make it go away when I want. But I can’t think it away. Pain hurts so pain is not empty! Physical pain is real and unavoidable. Emptiness can’t talk that away.