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Language Beyond Words The Periodic Table as the
Alphabet of Reality by the Druid
Finn Language, in its
everyday human sense, is a structured artificial system of symbols — sounds,
letters, gestures — arranged according to rules to convey meaning between
individuals. English, Mandarin, Swahili, or Sign Language all meet this
definition. Linguists tend to emphasize its shared, cultural, and
communicative nature. But this
view, while useful, is narrow, marginal. If we strip away the human focus and
keep only the essentials — symbols plus consistent interpretation — a
much larger landscape appears. A symbol can be any mark or signal
that a receiver (as observer) can detect and interpret in a repeatable way.
By this measure, the scent trail left by an ant, the flash of a firefly, the
ripple from a fish’s fin, or the scratch of a glacier across rock all qualify
as elements of language. Language as Orientation The
primary function of any language — whether human, animal, or mechanical — is orientation,
be that within a system (as machine language) or between systems (as eco
language). It helps its user navigate a world that, without it, would be
unstructured, unpredictable, and essentially unknowable. Think of
a blind person’s stick: it doesn’t explain what the world is or where it came
from, but it offers a way to sense and map it. In the same way, a language —
any language — does not define the nature of its user or explain its origin;
it is either a natural or artificial tool for finding one’s way within a (self-
or other) context that is otherwise opaque. This
applies to bees reading the chemical signature of flowers, bats reading
echoes in the dark, or humans reading printed words on a page, or humans
‘reading’ themselves as everchanging, short-lived identifiable realities.
Each of these is a language-mediated orientation system. Without it, the user
would be left in a kind of pre-language (hence pre-communication) state — unaware
and without
reliable landmarks, i.e. ‘Lost in space.’ Marks, Symbols, and the Universal Alphabet If we
accept that a symbol is any mark that can be made, detected, and interpreted,
then language extends far beyond human tongues. Marks need not be sounds or
letters; they can be scratches on stone, vibrations in water, photon strikes
on a sensor, or even the specific arrangement of subatomic particles nested,
like quarks, within subatomic particles. At this natural level, the cosmos
itself is filled with symbols and rules for interpreting them — a web of
languages, to which each receiver has adapted (or been eliminated). This
perspective allows us to reinterpret the Periodic Table of the Elements
as a complex alphabet of reality. Each chemical element — hydrogen,
carbon, oxygen, gold — is a distinct, albeit complex “letter,” defined by its
atomic structure and physical properties. These letters combine according to
the “rules” of chemistry to form molecules — the “words” of matter.
Molecules, through their interactions, form structures and processes — the
“sentences” and “paragraphs” of the ongoing realistic (formerly called
material) narrative. A Narrative Without a Known Storyteller If we
think of the cosmos — or even a single human life or a microbe in the microbial mats that existed 3.600 million
years ago, — as a narrative composed of an elemental alphabet, we are left
with an unavoidable question: Who, if anyone, is telling the story? And to
whom? Our
orientation systems — our limited marginal languages — allow us to move
through and translate with an artificial species constrained languages the
narrative of nature, but they do not explain its origin. The alphabet exists;
the sentences unfold; the story progresses. Yet the source, if there is one,
remains unknown. Just as a blind person’s stick cannot reveal who built the
road or where it is leading, so language cannot reveal the author — if any —
of the cosmos. This
means that language, in the broadest sense, is a user-friendly map that
highlights a limited selected space within a mysterious black space: a map
because it lets us navigate the terrain of our brief, unpredictable existence,
and a mystery because it cannot, on its own, tell us why that unknown terrain
is there at all. Conclusion: The language of matter |