Why A Language Resembles Physics So Much

Here's why a language is like physics. It's common knowledge that both of them help us understand the world: physics is a study of the physical word, a methodological inspection of every phenomenon we encounter, every experience we are affected by; language is tool of conveyance, and the passenger borne is meaning, and so by speaking in a language, we are only trapping the meaning of out thoughts in words and setting them afloat in a sea of communication. However, the world of physics is split into two distinct factions: the wave theorists' and the particle theorists' factions. How does this bode for language?

[caption id="" align="alignright" width="300" caption="Particle detection in a cloud chamber"][/caption]

The particle theorists see the world as being composed of discrete packets of energy that are, all of them, bound inexcusably by the law of conservation of energy and all the laws of thermodynamics. The wave theorists see the world as being seated on manifestations of energy being propagated as a continuous wave; in other words, the discretion as particles is discredited even though the law of conservation of energy and the laws of thermodynamics still hold.

Amongst particle theorists, all the energy that is present in this universe is a constitution of a very large number of packets, each of which contains a definite amount of energy that is unchanging over time. If a space contains twice as much energy as another, it does not mean the packets are twice as voluminous, it only means there are twice as many such packets. When we look out into this universe, all that we understand or all that there is to be understood at all can be done so if only there is an "amount" of meaning attached to it. Our interaction with this meaning is possible only through a tool that allows us to exchange meaning in the process - a tool like a word. A word can be said to contain a discrete amount of meaning. Even though different people may see it to be different amounts, the innate value of that meaning does not change over time. The adjective "beautiful" ascribes different amounts of beauty according to different people, and to each person therein, the amount of beauty the word describes is the same. However, "beautiful" never does come to ascribe ugliness to an object - apart from signifying its absence.

Words are discrete, like particles of meaning being strung together to create a large volume of meaning called a sentence. Sentences are then strung together to create a larger concatenation of meaning: it could be multi-dimensional, too, because a paragraph might discuss the properties of different objects through different adjectives and, in the process, create an array of meaning, so to speak. Now, if we were to zoom out to view the bigger picture, what we see is a language: there are grammatical rules that are the thermodynamic tyrants of communication, and then there are various other principles and theories that lay down how meaning is generated as well as understood - the "laws of conservation of meaning".

Even though we have described words to be discrete capsules that contain a set amount of meaning, it doesn't mean that the language as such prevents us from ascribing some amount of meaning to the gaps between these particles. Between one word and another, there is a boundary that prevents the spillage of any semantic entity, a boundary that holds it within a space in the confines of which it exists and can be understood. At the same time, with the combination of words, we create a "wave" of meaning that is present everywhere - even unto where "beautiful" and "pulchritudinous" can't reach, thereunto does "of a winsome exquisiteness surpassing the glow of a young star".