fuzzed

Programming languages comprise sets of instructions. Whether the language is functional or procedural, whether its instruction set is a long sequential list or a series of messages passed between objects, ultimately it all boils down to black and white, one or zero. On or off.

Human languages occupy another level, as remote from computer programming as Newtonian physics is from quantum physics. Similar in structure, with statements, verbs and imperatives. Similar in the metalanguage used to describe them. But a bit is either on and off. Human verbs and statements can act as both wave and article, switch meaning depending on context, transform into entirely different entities given enough semantic velocity, and survive the ravages of space and time through dialect, translation and curation.

I think the closest parallel between human and computer languages in 2011 is innovation. New words and new technologies pop up daily to describe and map out new domains and avenues of communication. Sometimes this can point to a dead end, a vapid nothing, where the language fizzes and spits, then either vanishes through disuse or becomes a fossilised strain, only utilised by historians or people ignorant of its death.

But sometimes whole new poetry emerges and this is the fundamental creative force of language. The ability to forge new symbols to outline things we don’t even truly understand yet and give us a light to shine on the path of possibilities.