High band, transparent language

Preambul

There are different opinions about the starting point of language. It either occurred almost suddenly about 50–100k years ago (Chomsky) or slowly evolved from 2M years ago along Homo Erectus (Daniel Everett). In both cases we observe an evolution from simple structures to more complex ones. And now back to simple ones: the Emojis 😅.

According to linguists, anthropologists and passionate people about the subject, presumably there were some inflection points:

• When hands were liberated began the need for sign language. Hands as primary tool.
• The sign language and spoken one cohabitated for a while. Both tools such as hands and mouth to communicate. Continuing to present days.
• The spoken language prevailed as it was more effective, energy wise to move and store information over time. Using mouth as primary tool.

We believe are entering the fatigue stage where the use of spoken and written language becomes exhausting as we are overwhelmed by huge amounts of data and we move into searching other ways (Neuralink, etc).

Some people name it our cognitive bottleneck and it is an open question for scientific and philosopher if there will be a way for humans to move beyond the universal 40 bits per second of spoken bandwidth. Here is Nate Jones, a smart person asking this question.

As the collective humanity system becomes more complex, each individual is pressed to communicate more effectively, fuelling this need for increased efficiency in communication.

Options

Spoken language may not be the sigle one nor the perfect one. As we evolved from sign language to spoken what could be a next evolutionary step in our communication?

The entire branch of human communication took an evolutionary path through language as it was the easiest way our biology could handle transmission of information at a particular moment in our evolution. During millions (according to some) or couple of tens of thousand years (according to others) many things have changed but language remained the same as basic mechanisms. Its gsynthax and semantics became more complex and nuanced.

It is unimaginable to reach this point of civilisation without language. But it is not unimaginable to see a world transitioning from a words-language domination as the primary means of communication to a tanscending one; in 30–50–800 years from now.

Could be through inserted tech (e.g.Neuralink ) or through external mediums, as we propose in the following pages. Or both. Somehow similar to how biology deals with the move of DNA information through both genetic/hardware/inside & epigenetic/software/outside. Both working in a synergic way.

Imagine a world with couple of % improvement ratios in the following fields:

• Bio-Sensoristics: from heart rate, beat-to-beat, etc in real time at milli/micro/nano seconds
• Visual and Acoustic Fidelity: accompanying our interactions in AR/VR/Digital, either as background or “auras”
• Pattern Recognition: Recursive mathematical patterns at global scale of virtually any depth and social complexity

All the deep basins feelings, thoughts, conscious or unconscious, any human states and any external stimulus of any kind affects our being, thus it is present in any signal, such as heart or brain waves., as the body works holistically . Body language is very rough approximation of this reflection.

What if all these readings and will be decoded and transparent to one-another in real time.

What misses now is our capacity to decode the meaning of these hidden patterns. This could be an inborn ability and a trainable one, as language is now. As a matter of fact, for sure is but we do not know exactly how skilled we can become as we are not trained to do this.

Words may not be the only structures to build higher levels of complexity in communication. May have served for millions or hundreds of thousands of years but this does not guarantee that will serve us in the future as well. At least not in current form.

One alternative

We propose a new way to engage our inborn learning skills and surrounding nascent forms of hybrid mediums AR/VR. A new way to move the information via bio-connected patterns. These patterns reveal deep aspects of our internal flow of thoughts and perceptions. They are transformed into multi sensorial symbols (visuals/sounds/tactile/olfactiv) to accompany our interactions in real time in a hybrid VR/AR communication similar to digital “auras”.

¶ Conceptual Pillars

• Language is a skill/sense developed in time to facilitate more energy efficient transfer of information. In theory we can develop new ones.
• The underlying machinery powering language is available to all of us and embedded in our biology. All children acquire any grammar on average in the same period of time, regardless of the language spoken by their parents/ancestors/community. All children come equally prepared to learn any language regardless of their past (living in a jungle or town, suggesting the deep skill did not evolved in time through speaking (Chomsky & Andrea Moro)
• There is a “closing window of language acquisition”, starting at birth from where the skill to acquire languages drops. Past this window, the skill closes permanently. Declines from birth (1–2 months) to 10–15 years. It can be permanently closed if not exposed to speech in early years.

• The mind of the child is preprogrammed to pick up from the surrounding sounds (words) just the ones fitting an unknown, internal structure, maybe generative & recursive. Compilable in terms of machines as opposed to impossible languages which would be treated as not compilable.. The sounds not fitting this structure are discarded by the brain and treated as noise. The non-linear structure of this “possible language” is not known. Could be arborescent (Noam Chomsky) or rhizomatic ( Gilles Deleuze) or else.
• Our highest band information channel is not speech : it is vision, sound and touch.

Based on the above pillars (or more) we formulate the following hypothesis.

We propose to develop a new method to train children into acquiring a new type of language using deep signals received via global accessible biometrics such as heart language as a primary, raw source of data. There is a level of variability and diversity in this signal which in theory should already incorporate “the fractal rules’ ‘ we use for speech, as the body acts holistic and leaves signatures in all places at once. The fidelity of this signal may not be fit today but we are planting the seeds for path which assumes the fidelity will improve in time.

We cannot pick up and decode these fractal/generative rules because our “senses” get atrophied in time, while the spoken sense overwrites them. With the use of technology, maybe we can translate the heart signal into different matrices of primal symbols/patterns which can group naturally in generative ways in more complex compositions. As sounds are coupling in letters and then words and then phrases.

With the use of data processing and generative art, these patterns can be translated real time into unique flows of visual, sound or haptic symbols and matrices.

Not all the readings (maybe most) will be at the beginning and most will be treated as “noise” as we cannot identify the patterns. Here is an example of how different patterns are picked up by infants. This is a long term study run by Patricia Kuhl, Professor of Speech and Hearing Sciences at the University of Washington.

Our hypothesis is that people, helped by technology, can activate this deep biological skill to learn to decode this type of symbolic flow. Maybe not replacing the spoken language but creating a hybrid deeper, more fundamental, authentic and efficient layer of communion. As stone writing and later books helped us to further generate spoken language, we hypothesized that we can create a parallel branch in which to build communication on top of a richer and more high-bandwidth communication channel.

In the upcoming world, physical and digital interactions will take place in a hybrid, digital aided environment. We can imagine heart driven flows of visuals/sounds/haptics which are easily shared between people while in communication (as background auras or imprinted in fashion as retro-futuristic profile pictures ) and deeply and authentically understood with virtually 0 losses of communication.

By hearing, seeing or feeling the heart of someone they will deeply understand what is happening inside the other person’s body; mind and context while also transmitting what they feel. Instantaneously and without losses or misinterpretations of communication. Something maybe similar to ants.

This could deepen the dialogue and can be complemented with spoken language with words fitting the deep physiological state.

And who knows?

Maybe this mix of bio semiotics meets multi sensorial, generative art can lead to transfer information interspecies.