Wittgenstein and emoji | Hacker News Reader

Wittgenstein and emoji

qz.com

37 pointstheaeolist26 comments

For some reason, one of my favourite paragraphs on the internet is from the Wittgenstein wikipedia page.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#1953:_Publ...

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According to Wittgenstein, philosophical problems arise when language is forced from its proper home into a metaphysical environment, where all the familiar and necessary landmarks and contextual clues are removed. He describes this metaphysical environment as like being on frictionless ice: where the conditions are apparently perfect for a philosophically and logically perfect language, all philosophical problems can be solved without the muddying effects of everyday contexts; but where, precisely because of the lack of friction, language can in fact do no work at all.[219] Wittgenstein argues that philosophers must leave the frictionless ice and return to the "rough ground" of ordinary language in use. Much of the Investigations consists of examples of how the first false steps can be avoided, so that philosophical problems are dissolved, rather than solved: "the clarity we are aiming at is indeed complete clarity. But this simply means that the philosophical problems should completely disappear."

Makes me think of Haskell for some reason.

Honestly I'd say that's a reasonable comparison.

This part - “ Horwich says Wittgenstein imagined everyone sketching individual faces to convey meaning, rather than relying on standardized faces as we do today. “I don’t think we get the variety and the flexibility unless you’re drawing them yourself,” says Horwich. “You’re shoveling ‘sad’ into one particular face. [Wittgenstein’s] idea was different degrees and shades of sadness come from ways of drawing it.” ” - made me wonder if we could do with parametric smileys.

edit - just thought, making parametric smileys is somewhat linked to the fictional technology for expression that Juanita worked on in Snowcrash.

This is why I don’t like when emoticons are automatically replaced with emoji or graphical emoticons. If I had wanted a standard face I’d’ve used one! It’s definitely a hack, but you can illustrate a lot of nuance with textual emoticons/kaomoji that you don’t get from standardised emoji. Unfortunately, emoticons also suffer because systems weren’t designed for them—for example, I use :P in a sans-serif typeface to express exasperation, irony, “oh come on”, that kind of thing, but in a serif typeface it looks like it’s smiling, which changes the tone completely—and sadly, this has become the standard way of rendering it as an emoji. If there were an easy way to embed small images in digital “plain text” we could do this kind of inline illustration with much more reliable conveyance of tone & intent.

Presumably one could simply work out the required degrees of freedom for eyes nose and mouth and assign each one a float and make something workable with metafont. I may put some time aside to have a play with this.

It also reminds me of the 'live smiley' stuff Apple weirdly put front-and-center in their unveiling of the FaceID features.

"1 Except perhaps Wittgenstein, an inspired guy, in the work of which everything can be found, but - like Nostradamus - only afterwards"

The Blind Spot, Lectures on Logic, footnote p. 141

I studied Wittgenstein in college, and with enough pot and an undergraduate mind this statement is generally true.

However, I think in this case, Wittgenstein did spell out an early version of the emoticon - emoji maybe a little far. I know my version of the text this is sourced from had emoticon like drawings next to the statement that's quoted in OP's article, but I don't recall if these were added by Wittgenstein or a later editor.

They were Wittgenstein's, the "Letters to C. K. Ogden with Comments on the English Translation of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus" includes detailed notes on their typographic treatment.

I still have to pick up and read The Blind Spot but I semi-agree with this.

I think Wittgenstein and Nietzsche are two thinkers whose aphorisms are positioned in a near perfect space such that anyone can read them and walk away feeling he's gained a powerful insight without knowing precisely what the hell the philosopher actually meant. You could read either of them for a lifetime and ceaselessly uncover further nuances in their bodies of work.

The meanings of emotion words seem to drift over time. Consider gay, nice, silly, amazed, naughty, enthusiastic. They can mislead people reading older books. I wonder if the meaning of emoji will drift more or less over time.

Probably, but the meaning hits such a wide target, it will probably take longer for the original meaning to be lost through normal usage. There could be dramatic shifts if people start using specific emoji to carry highly idiomatic meaning.

To pick the one they used in the article (:nerd-face:), it has buck teeth and glasses. Buck teeth and glasses may be virtually unknown in 100 years, due to lasik surgery and orthodontics. That symbol might suggest retro-hipster. Thus, my theory the meaning of emoji might drift less over time than words is a :pile of poo:.

A pet peeve of mine is the contemporary usage of ’incredible’, taken to be roughly synonymous with ’amazing’, while its actually shares a root with incredulous, and literally implies that what has been conveyed cannot be believed. An ”incredible story” is not one that is astonishing, but one that cannot be taken as factual.

Ok you guys, we've taken "invented" out above. Step away from the title now please.

Without "Wittgenstein invented emojis" all we are left with is an article about ol' Ludwig W. talking over-excitedly about smiley faces.

That is to say, the article used clickbait to bolster an otherwise uninspired article.

C'mon, do a better research! Emojis were spotted in middle-age Latin texts in Europe already... Probably nobody cared about claiming copyright back then and I assume educated monks back then were as curious and creative as anyone.

I thought Forrest Gump invented emoji, but I guess there's always prior art.

Never really liked Wittgenstein. He's often misunderstood by wannabe logicians (people that don't actually want to do, you know, proofs) and (imo) didn't really contribute that much to logic or philosophy of language. Much more important logicians are brushed over (Łukasiewicz, for one; Gödel, for another) when Wittgenstein is taught for entire semesters.

Arguing that he "invented" the emoji when we have entire civilizations that used pictorial forms of communication (uh, ancient Egypt?) seems just straight-up wrong.

Where in the article is the allegation or assertion of invention? Wittgenstein was focused on the philosophy of language (see Tractatus, Philsophical Investigations, the brown book, etc). I would be interested in hearing your opinion on who contributed more to the philosophy of language. I didn't mind spending multiple semesters studying Wittgenstein - in fact, it has provided some of the most lasting impact over the many years since college.

Also, not all philosophy is logic.

> Where in the article is the allegation or assertion of invention?

In the title of the article."Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the great 20th-century philosophers. He also invented the emoji"

“In the article” - literally. Not in the headline likely written by an editor.

Wittgenstein's achievements are unparalleled in twentieth century philosophy.

Who else in that period can say that they comprehensively ruined the discipline twice?

Early and late Heidegger are about that different. I don't know about ruinous.

If a discipline can be ruined, it did be ruined.

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