Linguistics - Idea

Is life the absence of death, or death the absence of life?
Is sorrow the absence of happiness, or happiness the absence of sorrow?
Is "good" the absence of evil, or evil the absence of good?
How do you define either entity? Can you come up with standalone definitions that allow for them to be opposites to each other? Or is everything simply the absence of nothing?

The absence of nothing is meaningless, a negative of a negative, valid in mathematics, alien to ideas - to concepts.

I think there is so much that humanity has lost because of language - I'm not saying we haven't gained anything, just that we've traded in a lot for that gain. In a world of, to use a platonic term, a myriad of forms and ideas and elements, language puts us into a straitjacketed mode of thought...

If the dictionary you refer to lists "sweet" as the opposite of "sour" and vice versa, you will go through life using the term "sweet or sour" in multiple contexts, to describe good memories and bad, or good manners and churlish reactions, or whatever. But the metaphor itself is flawed - why is sweet the opposite of sour? It's not! Sweet and Sour, elementally, are simply different kinds of titillations on your tongue... in no way opposite or even related.

The philosophy pundits will then take this play on words and build elaborate, sometimes mystical descriptions of the universe - each uniquely flawed in the metaphors it employs. Further flawed because only those interpreting the metaphors correctly will get it. Still further flawed because every description will inevitably be wrong.

Language is completely at a loss to the logical idea of negation. Why? Simply because language is describing the real world, one mostly without blacks and whites - a world of grays. Logic is talking about a subset of reality - an ideal model representation of yes and no. Maybe we should build a new language based on fuzzy logic huh? With appropriate levels of contrast (3, 5, 7, 11) for the right concepts.

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There is another concept which language is at a loss to incorporate. Heard the term "good, better, best"? Degrees - another glaringly flawed linguistic tool. Why? Because "good, better, best" or "bad, worse, worst" are:

a) Unidimensional (they trace only one side of a conceptual "number line")
b) Not indicative of "absolute value".

The "good, better, best" scale starts with good. It has no place on its arrow for "bad" - without getting into the negation riddle again, lets also say it also doesn't accomodate "neutral" as the "zero" linking good and bad. Therefore it is unidimensional.

Also, if A is better than B, and C is better than B, you have no idea of how A and C are related. Because the degree is relative, it doesn't communicate absolute "goodness" value.

In order to set up any negation or any degree, language has to employ either logic, or its father - mathematics.

So "A is happier than B and C is happier than B" has no analytical value unless you can say "A is happier than B because A is 60% happy and B is 40 % happy. C is happier than B because C is 50% happy. Also, A is happier than C by 10%" - don't ask how you took an abstract idea like "happiness" and converted it to a number. (flaw!)

Anyway... nuff said. We need a language with fuzzy logic and multidimensional absolute degrees. Only then will we really talk!

Sigh... wish I could build one. (now there's an idea!)