Ideas can be written in words, musical notation or numbers; if visual, they can be represented by a sketch or diagram. The only kind of thought that might resist language is fleeting impression or flash of psychological insight - but I'm not sure they can be classified as ideas.

The idea of infinity can't be properly expressed using language, but then again, infinity is a word. — Scarecow

The word exists because the concept was not only imagined but communicated.

Language is turing complete, so it's possible that every complete coherent idea can be expressed in language

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/15117/are-there-primitive-unanalyzable-concepts

Imagine that one day, you get the best idea in the world. You go to tell your friend, but then you realize something: You don't have any words to describe your idea. Is this scenario possible? — Scarecow

It's possible to forget words, stutter, or have a neurological disorder, paralysis, brain damage etc. that makes it difficult or impossible to express thoughts.

It is also possible that you feel that you get the best idea, but when you're about to express it, there is nothing to express. The feeling was just evoked by a wish or fantasy about what it might be like to have the best idea.

Theoretically, however, anything can be expressed.

I think that the idea that, by definition, you cannot express by language, is your subjectivity. When we express things by language, we objectify them. That's why we can talk about subjectivity in general: because we objectify it. But your specific subjectivity cannot be expressed. If we try, we are objectifying it, it isn't anymore your subjectivity. This also means, of course, that by saying "your subjecivity" I cannot know what I am talking about. What I am talking about is actually my hope that you will find inside yourself something similar to what I consider "my specific subjectivity".

Actually, from what I said, we can deduce that nothing can be expressed by language. When I say "your subjectivity", I guess and hope that you will be able to find in yourself what I mean. Actually this happens continuously whenever we communicate and use language, even when we communicate with ourselves, which is when we just think.

See:



:up:

Supose this were to occur, so that you had an idea that was inexpressible.

Call that idea "X".

You now have an expression for X.

Hence, X is expressible.

What do you expect from an expression? Expressing my subjectivity is to exemplify some property that it has, e.g. its first person point of view. So, I'll draw a perspective picture of what I see from my point of view, or describe it with words. Its subjective mode of existing doesn't prevent me from expressing it in epistemically objective ways.

Yes.

Saying "possibly" adds a wrinkle to simply noting one is at a loss of words. Can one observe a limit only when considering how to supersede it?

You don't have any words to describe your idea — Scarecow

A possible "explanation": you are describing a scenario where an unfamiliar feeling arises in your body. Your mind is at a loss to describe it because, unlike most feelings, it hasnt followed a well conditioned process, isnt habitual or conventional, and hasn't already been displaced by well tread "ideas" or words. (When the feelings displaced by many variations of sadness are triggered, the words are readily available to describe the feeling, and it is clear that it is rooted in a feeling, for e.g.)

The reason it seems like an idea more than a feeling in your hypothetical is because, albeit less familiar (or not attuned to), words still played a role in triggering the feeling, and words immediately clamor to the surface to construct meaning out of the feeling. Those "early" projections are the "idea." They might be vaguely related to the words first triggering the feeling. But they are insufficient because the feeling is novel. So you are at a loss for words.

Maybe off topic, and chances are I am wrong from a scholarly "Kantian" perspective, but I sense that is what Kant was describing regarding the "Sublime," only without the benefit of a century of psychoanalytic theory, functionalism, and Zen (for "Westerners").

Also off topic, but there is, I believe, a "what to do" with that feeling. I wonder what would happen if, in such novel feelings, one try (though this could be impossible, like in the though experiment "don't think of monkey") to silence the flow of words--by attuning solely to the feeling. Instead of constructing meaning/trying to put it into words, be (the) feeling.

And why do I say all this? Because I don't think one could have an idea without some form of representation/signifier. If not words per se, at least numbers, shapes, symbols, images. Things which can be re-represented in words. At least more than what I assume you were getting at.

When I say "your subjectivity", I guess and hope that you will be able to find in yourself what I mean. Actually this happens continuously whenever we communicate and use language, even when we communicate with ourselves, which is when we just think. — Angelo Cannata

Its subjective mode of existing doesn't prevent me from expressing it in epistemically objective ways. — jkop

Consider there's no real subjective/objective, but, rather only expressing. Words are projected into the world "I like Ice cream," and received by other. The "meaning" was never an inherent, stable, in itself thing. As Angelo implied, I don't even know what "I like Ice cream" means when I think it, let alone say it. It is expressed and heard as a process which will have an effect. If the speaker, in the next movement says the listener was wrong in the latter's "interpretation", that too is the process described. If a redescription is expressed, same. And so on.

But that hypothesis (if even acceptable) doesn't (I believe) address the OP. The OP describes a very special scenario. It may even be referring to a rare moment where that hypothetical process described is "interrupted." Where the given body is temporarily suspended from that process and faced with only a real feeling not yet displaced by that process and its construction of meanings and functions.

Epistemology includes criticism about the limits of our scientific knowledge and it warns us against the idea that we can get ultimately objective knowledge. So what does it mean "epistemically objective"?

Following through on my previous post.

Imagine that one day, you get the best idea in the world. You go to tell your friend, but then you realize something: You don't have any words to describe your idea. Is this scenario possible? — Scarecow

Then on what basis can you be sure it was an idea, and not a sensation, a sentiment or an emotion? If the idea can't be set out, who's to say it is an idea?

Can you put it in to action? If so, those acts can be described. If someone sets out the actions involved in your idea, haven't they set out the idea?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are intended to be answered, or at least responded to. At issue is what is to count as an idea, and whether what was set out in the OP can be counted as an idea, and so to answer the first question.

I can only think of one example of an idea that can't possibly be expressed using language. The idea of infinity can't be properly expressed using language, but then again, infinity is a word. — Scarecow

But infinity can be expresses in language. It's a number greater than any countable number. There are other definitions, found in mathematics, which is part of our language. Sure, you can't count to infinity, but we have a pretty clear idea of the nature of infinity, well-expressed in our various languages.

I don't even know what "I like Ice cream" means when I think it, let alone say it. It is expressed and heard as a process which will have an effect. — ENOAH

Hence, its meaning is expressed.

Epistemology includes criticism about the limits of our scientific knowledge and it warns us against the idea that we can get ultimately objective knowledge. — Angelo Cannata

I don't know about you, but some (e.g. postmodernists) refer to epistemological problems, not because they care about epistemology but because knowledge can be decisive, change beliefs, authority, privileges etc. Some fear knowledge more than death.

So what does it mean "epistemically objective"? — Angelo Cannata

In a general sense, it means that the knowledge is about something, i.e. that there exists some object that the knowledge refers to, is directed towards.

So, for example, my experiences exist in a subjective domain within the objective world, and their mode of existing is unlike the objective mode in which mountains and molecules exist. But our experiences are just as real as mountains and molecules: we have them, think and talk about them, and we express them in various ways, e.g..in the arts, theatre etc. Thus, accumulating objective knowledge about subjectivity, i.e. knowledge that refers to something that exists.

Yes, there are many. Word Language is a tool - I would say get in touch with your wordless side - but this side is also word-full(wordless; as a directive to freeing your mind of words, and experiencing your voice without the word tool).

There are movements, or chain actions, that can't be properly described with words, only touched upon and referred to. You can pretty much touch upon anything with words.

The idea of infinity can't be properly expressed using language, but then again, infinity is a word. — Scarecow

It depends on what you mean by "infinity".

If "infinity" means continually adding one to an existing set, then the idea of infinity can be properly explained in words as "continually adding one to an existing set".

If "infinity" means something outside of what can be known by a finite brain, then the idea of infinity can also be properly explained in words as "something that is outside of what can be known by a finite brain".

But how to explain the seeming contradiction that we can know that there is something that cannot be known?

For example, I know that I am seeing colours and shapes. However, I can only infer that I am looking at an oak tree, and if in fact there is an oak tree, then I can infer what mass it has. Therefore, I shouldn't say that "the mass of the oak tree is something that I don't know", as both the oak tree and its mass are inferred, but rather "the inferred mass of the oak tree is something that I do know".

Therefore, rather than say "I know that there is something that cannot be known by a finite brain" it would be more correct to say "I infer that there is something outside of what can be known by a finite brain".

As with all inferences, as we can only infer infinity, we don't know whether infinity exists or not.

Hence, its meaning is expressed. — jkop

In our conventions that's an acceptable statement. I'm suggesting on an alternative analysis its "meaning" is (temporarily) "constructed" in the expression, by the effect it has upon the participating bodies--feeling--belief--action. And these constructions--that is, "meaning"-- is not a static and in itself thing, but a fast moving train making brief stops.

I like Ice cream has countless subtle effects upon parties from stop to stop. And while a statement like porcupines are ptickly "appears" not to be moving (because we think it is confirmed by our senses).* Meaning is neither static nor ultimately real.

*I am not saying we cannot trust our sense, or that the latter is not Real. I'm saying the statements immediately surfacing following sensation, I.e. perception, is a process of constructing functional but fleeting meaning.

Or, meaning is not expressed but constructed repeatedly in the process of every expression, internal or outward.

From a humorous point of view, I find this topic very similar to this one, that is about knowledge rather than language.
In both cases, a thought comes to my mind: so you think that human language (or knowledge) is now so advanced, so great, so powerful, so perfect, that now the problem is not about finding its possibilities, but about finding its impossibilities! So, now our difficulty is about finding what is not perfect in our language or knowledge. We have serious difficulties at finding limits in our language and knowledge! In other words, we are discovering that we are gods and now, just out of curiosity, we would like to see if there is something able to show that we are not exactly 100% gods!

It's gonna be hard to write them down.

Though something like the act of marrying two people is done with language, rather than expressed by it. Though in a less restricted sense of expression and meaning, perhaps the meaning of "I do" is the act of agreement. And in that sense "I do" expresses an agreement to the contract of marriage. But that says nothing more than an agreement was made.

Perhaps then, the use of language expresses nothing at all. It simply does. Transforming situations to other situations. Expression would then be a metaphor for an element of that transformation. A folk tale for coordinating our actions before, during and after our actions transform us.