RE-LEARNING YOUR NATIVE TONGUE: speaking EMOTIONS
In the beginning, there was the word. Or was it? As we delve deeper into the nature of our universe, we're beginning to realize that perhaps everything is language.
This revelation has become startlingly clear with the advent of AI Language Models (LLMs). Initially, we thought these models would be limited in scope, confined to the realm of human language. But we've discovered something far more profound: these models are tapping into the fundamental nature of reality itself.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE UNIVERSE
Consider DNA. At its core, it's a four-letter alphabet that spells out the instructions for life. It's a language so universal that it's shared by every living organism on Earth. But it doesn't stop there.
Music is a language, with notes and rhythms forming sentences and paragraphs that speak directly to our souls. Mathematics, often called the language of the universe, allows us to describe complex phenomena with elegant equations. Even the interactions between subatomic particles can be seen as a kind of conversation, governed by the grammar of quantum mechanics.
THE POWER OF PATTERN RECOGNITION
What AI language models have shown us is that at its core, language is about pattern recognition. It's about understanding relationships. When an LLM predicts the next word in a sentence, it's not just pulling from a dictionary. It's navigating a vast, multidimensional map of concepts, finding the shortest path between ideas.
This is where the power of computational linguistics and graph embeddings comes into play. Imagine a space where every word, every concept, is a point. The distance and direction between these points represent their relationship. In this space, you can perform arithmetic with ideas.
King - Man + Woman = Queen.
EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED
This understanding of language as a web of relationships extends far beyond words. It applies to everything we perceive and interact with. The flavor profile of a wine, the brushstrokes in a painting, the symptoms of a disease - all of these can be understood as points in a vast, interconnected network of meaning.
And we, as humans, are natural translators of these languages:
Sommeliers translate the language of wine, interpreting notes and bouquets into experiences and pairings.
Art critics translate the language of visual art, decoding the artist's intent from color and form.
Doctors translate the language of the body, interpreting symptoms to diagnose and heal.
Musicians translate the language of sound, transforming notation into emotion.
Programmers translate the language of logic, turning human intent into machine action.
Mathematicians translate the language of numbers, revealing the underlying structures of our universe.
Ecologists translate the language of nature, reading the health of entire ecosystems in the interactions of species.
Chefs translate the language of taste, combining flavors and textures to tell cultural stories.
Architects translate the language of space, turning human needs into inhabitable structures.
Athletes translate the language of movement, expressing strategy and skill through physical action.
THE UNTAUGHT LANGUAGE WITHIN
But there's one language that we're all fluent in, yet paradoxically, the one we're least equipped to translate: the language of our emotions.
We enter this world as fully embodied beings, crying out our needs without hesitation or shame. We are one with our bodies, “em-bodied”. But as we grow, we drift from this innate wisdom. We become reward hackers, scanning our environment for love and validation, trying to maximize rewards and minimize pain.
In our educational journey, we learn to translate all kinds of languages. We study mathematics, physics, literature, and art. But rarely are we taught to translate our own inner emotional landscape. This internal language, our emotions, can be our own inner guidance system - a language no one taught us to learn. A language we actually already know how to speak.
Every emotion in our palette - joy, anger, fear, sadness - is a signal informing us about our inner state. They're not here to torment us, but to empower us to act authentically. To be truly authentic is to be attentive to these internal messages, to readily accept them without confusing the messenger with the content of their letter.