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Can all Knowledge be Expressed in Words or Symbols? Theme: Technology -…

- - - - R: Complete and accurate expression in this example could only be achieved by luck, and therefore words and symbols can not express all knowledge. It could be argued that advances in technology will be made that will allow this barrier to be removed, and translation to be certainly achievable.
      - E: Animals cannot communicate authentically with humans as they communicate with each other or as human communicate with each other.
      - R: Body language can allow a level of communication, but we definitely don't have the same grammatical structure, even if we could theoretically translate animal thoughts into words. We don't know if animals even HAVE grammatical structure, or if their language relies solely on body and scent cues.
    - - No; perceiving knowledge through your senses does not fall under the category of either words or symbols. **
        
        R: Counterarguments could be that any experience is a symbol because you are seeing a picture, so seeing the bee sting you was a symbol. Also that to form the thought "I am allergic to wasps", for those people who think in full words anyway, you have to construe the meaning in your mind using words - your words and unspoken and unwritten words, but still words.
        
        R: His senses of touch and sight transmitted this knowledge to him: he was able to know it without ever seeing in writing, or having anyone tell him "you are allergic to wasps".
        
        E: My grandpa spends a lot of time outdoors, and learned that he was allergic to wasps after disturbing a nests and getting stung.
- - - - E:I read something about a monkey experiment where they hooked the m o n k e s up to a headset that fed impulses directly into their heads, and they would respond.
      - R: Could be argued, especially if it bypasses the hippocampus and goes straight to a physical or chemical response, that the individual is not in fact acquiring new knowledge.
      - R: Bypassing the need for the brain to process any form of language in either words or symbols and simply A) depositing the knowledge into the hippocampus or B) going straight from outside instruction to action from the subject would not involve either words or symbols for the subject.
  - - - E: Maybe analyze the ways Helen Keller learned and explain how she still experienced words and symbols as ways of letting her know the outside world, just with her touch instead of her sight, braille
      - R: Any meaningful sound or combination of letters can be argued to be a word, and any picture or gesture, regardless of complexity, can be interpreted as a symbol.
      - R: Could be argued that just because there are only two methods of expression, not all knowledge can be expressed by them, and further that not all knowledge can be expressed period.
  - - - R: You can't gain even an incomplete picture of the victims' emotions if those weren't recorded by the individuals feeling them, in any way other than A) picturing yourself in the situation and replicating the emotions YOU would feel, or B) using any specific evidence you have of the individuals (pictures of their face maybe) to understand how they felt.
      - E: Reading about the Rape of Nanking in world history textbook
      - R: It's easy to get these wrong, but if it's possible to get it right, then it can still be considered a way of expressing knowledge. Also, does anything change if the method of expressing the knowledge was not intended to be understood or known by others?