For some reason, one of my favourite paragraphs on the internet is from the Wittgenstein wikipedia page.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#1953:_Publication_of_the_Philosophical_Investigations" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_Wittgenstein#1953:_Publ...</a><p>---<p>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."
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.<p>edit - just thought, making parametric smileys is somewhat linked to the fictional technology for expression that Juanita worked on in Snowcrash.
"1 Except perhaps Wittgenstein, an inspired guy, in the work of which everything can be found, but - like Nostradamus - only <i>afterwards</i>"<p>The Blind Spot, Lectures on Logic, footnote p. 141
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.
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.
Never really liked Wittgenstein. He's often misunderstood by wannabe logicians (people that don't actually want to do, you know, <i>proofs</i>) 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.<p>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.