Thread: Pain language, a universal language for the world!

Imagine a language through pain, of course not damaging or hurtful pain but pain.

A device that could induce different frequencies and types of pain and each frequency would be its own word. I just thought of this recently and thought I should post it here so I can remember about this idea, and work on it.

I believe something like this could be a sort of universal language for us.
Perhaps it could be the closest thing to telepathy
Maybe we could even translate this universal pain language to a verbal language


I will return to this thread later and think more about it.

An all the time I thought it was broken English and Manderan....

Originally Posted by Japith

[B]Imagine a language through pain, of course not damaging or hurtful pain but pain.

Why pain? Won't that just discourage everyone from wanting to use it? And what would make it universal? Why not positive or neutral sensations such as colours or vibrations or abstract symbols? The last two sound most useful; we could give them catchy names like "speech" and "writing".

Originally Posted by Strange

Originally Posted by Japith

[B]Imagine a language through pain, of course not damaging or hurtful pain but pain.

Why pain? Won't that just discourage everyone from wanting to use it? And what would make it universal? Why not positive or neutral sensations such as colours or vibrations or abstract symbols? The last two sound most useful; we could give them catchy names like "speech" and "writing".

Afraid of pinches are you? And pain could be much much faster then having a stack of color coded cards, and showing them in patterns that represent words. Just imagine a electronic device that can induce certain feelings of pain in seconds and that feeling would represent a word. it would be the closest thing to telepathy

That's the nuttiest thing I've heard in a long time.

Reminds me of a Red Dwarf episode where the "aliens" communicated through pain such as breaking arms and legs to get their message across. It was "universal" indeed. But highly comedic. So is this idea. What is wrong with mathematics, anyway? Apart from it being boring.

As for the real "pain language", there is already a universal one. No matter where we are from or what our life experiences are, we all know what pain is like and what it will feel like if we inflict it on someone else.

One can go so far as to use the Private Language Argument of linguistics that nobody knows the true meaning of a word if that word is exchanged with someone, as their meaning will differ substantially due to the person being different. They change the word. Pain could be argued to be less personal than verbal language.

Originally Posted by Japith

And pain could be much much faster then having a stack of color coded cards, and showing them in patterns that represent words.

But why pain and not tickles or pleasurable sensations?

Just imagine a electronic device that can induce certain feelings of pain in seconds and that feeling would represent a word.

I'm not sure you understand how language works. This seems to based on the same sort of misunderstanding that some people have about Chinese, for example, where they think that each character represents an "idea" and can therefore be a universal language. You need to represent much more than words, you need grammar as well. If you are going to invent a new universal set of words and a new universal grammar why the idiotci idea of using pain; why not just use our normal means of communication and call the new language, "Esperanto" or something?

Anyway, how many types of pain are there? Can you distinguish, say, 30,000 different pains?

it would be the closest thing to telepathy

Sounds more like the closest thing to pointless.

If it ain't broke....... Still, even if this scrambled intelligence could make sense, I'd be against it. Who then would read westwind's post(e)s? What could be better than Shakspeare? Or May West? First person who wanted to communicate with me by using a little pain had better had made their Will. westwind.

Originally Posted by westwind

Who then would read westwind's post(e)s?

Which can be painful enough already!