Day 2: I've started learning German

So while thinking out loud yesterday, I realised how our languages are so limited in scope. They are nowhere near to the speed of our thoughts, and for a medium of expressing thoughts, that is a very sad limitation.

Until we have a neural network connecting two or more minds (read Elon Musk's Neuralink), I've decide to learn as many languages as I can. The idea is to think in a different language. While this might or might not change my speed of expression, it just might affect my perception.

It's bewildering to think that the way our languages are structured, is just one of the infinite ones that could be. We have defined the elements and the rules that govern them. All that we know, is by virtue of our definition of it. Paradoxical much?

But what about feelings? What happens when we read a beautiful piece of prose/poetry? Research has shown how our emotions affect our physiological development. That is a scary amount of power. And to think that we can feel things by just reading about them, not necessarily experiencing them first hand, adds even more mystery to it: Just how much are our brains wired to the languages we use? And is the process re-writable? I intend to find out.

With AI rapidly developing languages of its own, which are many times more efficient than ours, we have to ask ourselves: What is going to happen to all these beautiful pieces of text and rules that we have created? Will they be reduced to a mere means of entertainment? Perhaps a toy for the weak minded. But more importantly, would our brains be able to endure something as intense and instantaneous as Neuralink? Would we be able to truly sleep and not filter out the noise?

But here's where it gets truly interesting. AI develops its logic on probability but it starts with what we make it learn. And the way we write AI is influenced by, you guessed it, our languages. We define the elements by projecting our perception (threads, spools, fabric), we structure the code, we imagine the landscape while building these things. Sure the creation might move to a better, more efficient medium but we would be the ones who enabled it.

Languages worldwide are disappearing at an alarming rate. It's not a question of whether we should save them or not, its the fact that we are losing different schools of thought with time. Despite their glaring limitations, languages are beautiful. Because they define our collective intelligence. While their future might be bleak, there is every reason to celebrate them today, for they are all we have.

Update on 1st January 2017

Turns out I could recollect everything correctly. Yay? Well it was the first day of a new year, it'd be a shame if I couldn't remember that.

2nd January 2017

Back to work after holidays. It's really sad how the term "work" encompasses so much in such a mundane way that when you try to think of it, you can't remember the details. Even though they are pretty important. Anyhoo, went home. Dinner. Probably Rick & Morty. Does Netflix maintain a log?

PS: This is a series I'm trying to do. A brief history of me. I hope to analyse all these posts, in time, to learn my patterns and mistakes. Also, I try to remember the events from exactly a year before, just to see how seriously I take myself.