Afterword to The Abstraction Stack™

What?

What do you say? 🧏🏻‍♂️

That I’m wrong? Imprecise? That I’m referring to written language when I should be using spoken language instead?

Yes, yes, yes… I know. You are right. You are right.

But, aren’t my points more clear, more understandable using the written examples?

Check again, the points still stand even if you switch—yes, I’m also sure that spoken language was invented by software engineers 😏.

I just wrote a post using imprecise examples for the effectiveness of communication…

Not unlike the very language with which it’s written, that was designed to be imprecise for the effectiveness of communication…

I don’t see the problem.

I just see fractal poetry.

I almost didn’t make it to this week.

Typing this on the very Monday, at 6.45 am.

Some commitments on the weekend stole part of the time I planned to use.

And this week again, I repeated the same story as last week: I started writing one thing, ended up finding a thread I wanted to explore.

The field of Semantics is fascinating.

My reference book on the topic has been The Tyranny of Words by Stuart Chase. It’s fairly old—1959—and I’m surprised to not find other more recent references. I would have expected some further development.

In the end, language is absolutely essential, not just for communication.

Do you think in words?

Most of the people answer yes, but not everyone. Some people tell me they think in images or concepts and then come up with the words for it.

I think in words, hence my obsession with language. Specially since I found myself switching from thinking in Spanish to thinking in English, and alternating betwen the two depending on the context.

The effects of this, and the troubles that arise as we climb up the Stack will be the topics for the next one, The Tower of Babel.

That, if I don’t get sidetracked with some other thread of thought that I find in the way to the tower.

Traits of my ADD 😉…

Walter Marchetti mapped the trajectory of a fly on his window glass and crafted this beautiful diagram.

It’s the best illustration I can find for my thinking process while crafting these posts.

It is what it is… read it at your own risk.

See you 👋 !