this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2026
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While qualia are not directly communicable, even they are labelable. All that can be differentiated can be labeled, if only by reference to its differences from other things (or other relations to other things). And if something cannot be differentiated, then there’s no need to have a word/label for it.
We don’t have separate words for red-green and yellow because we perceive them the same way. If we ran into aliens that didn’t, then it’d be relevant to create a word for it, and I just did by calling it “red-green”
When we need a word for something new we create one. And sure sometimes it takes science a while to refine definitions, and yeah, in natural languages words have really blurry definitions which obscures communication, but that’s not a property of the universe or a fundamental flaw in all languages, just our limited experiences and non-formal languages.
Point is: all that is relevant to be communicated via language could be communicated via some language.