Language: No free lunch

October 20th 2024




Language is a reflection of a) the fact that our brains capture deep, complicated patterns, and b) that we are lazy. Laziness shows itself in how we reduce the amount of text used to convey information. Pattern recognition shows itself in how we are *able* to reduce the amount of text we use. The two tendencies combined create language, born of an entity that has enough processing power to capture, communicate, and receive deep patterns. Since these patterns are compressed in language anything attempting to decompress the meaning would need similar amounts of processing power. In other words, no free lunch.