by Erik Dolson
Language is not precise. How often has each of us received words, then took a while to realize that what I heard was not what you meant?
Then, in trying to clarify, there are now even more words to define, and the relationships between all those words must hang together. Complexity swells, we see only the imprecise probable that we may have predetermined.
And because what I heard depends somewhat on what I had for breakfast, and what you said is inextricably linked to what your father said indifferently 40 years ago that I know nothing about. Yesterday’s rain changed the outline of the pond outside my window. Is it the same pond? Where is the drop of water that changed it?
Or will we, by using enough words, hit upon a combination that allows agreement in the moment, a collapse of previous possiblities that drift off into the past, bubbles receding on the lengthening shaft of time’s arrow?
Less can be more. Poetry? Words large and fuzzy, probabilities locked in a moment, context supplied, wave functions having no absolute existence meaningful in any way before or after immediate use.
Which does not mean information disappears, imprecise is not incoherent. But what we think of as hard-edged-always-enduring things are waves, photons and protons, drops in ponds, you and me, momentarily probability personified, momentum dependent on principles of uncertainty, now governing whether I pour another cup of coffee.