Amplification of Words and Meaning
When we want to convey a concept that comes to mind, we generate words corresponding to that concept and convey it to the other person by speaking or writing it.
Often, words are perceived as labels indicating concepts for this reason.
However, words have an amplifying effect. Amplification means that a word can spread to a broader concept than the one directly indicated by the word.
In this article, I would like to delve deeper into this amplifying effect.
Amplification through Word Formation
A single word can encompass many concepts. For example, the word “Cinderella” not only refers to a fictional woman but also encompasses the fairy tale story. Saying “Mr. A’s shoe” or “Mr. B’s carriage” doesn’t amplify the meaning much, but saying “Cinderella’s shoe” or “Cinderella’s carriage” includes much more meaning.
Not only character names and stories but also scientific laws are named and worded. Words like “Pythagoras’ theorem”, “gravitational force”, and “theory of relativity” contain a wealth of academic meaning.
If they weren’t named, you’d have to explain the story, episode, law, or theory in a long sentence. By naming and forming a word, you can condense and amplify the meaning into one word, allowing it to be reproduced.
Amplification through Ambiguous Expression
Vague words also amplify concepts. Abstract and ambiguously defined words evoke various concepts depending on the receiver. Words like love, beauty, and happiness are examples.
Not just words, but sentences with ambiguity like “seems”, “might”, and “looks like” also expand imagination.
Furthermore, expressions that do not clearly represent the subject in the meaning of the sentence also have an expansion of the concept, like “a figure was seen” or “something was hidden behind it”.
Linking Two Sentences
Often, linking two sentences amplifies the meaning. For instance, linking “A is a kind of B” and “B has a property of E” amplifies the meaning compared to when they are separate.
You might have heard of the term syllogism. These two sentences fit that. With these two sentences, you gain additional knowledge, like “A also has the property of E”.
Patterns of Amplification
Amplification has various patterns like inference, speculation, association, and supplementation.
The previously mentioned syllogism is an inference. By logically combining the given information, you acquire information that is not provided. In situations where logic is clear, the acquired information is implicit but certain.
Speculation is an inference that includes uncertainty, such as past experience or probability. Generally, depending on the degree of certainty, it is expressed in various words like estimation, guess, or imagination. For example, inferring “A likes B” from the information “A was staring at B”.
Association is linking to related concepts that are not explicitly stated. For example, thinking “A is excellent” or “A lives a wealthy life” from the information “A works for a big company”. Associations often arise from inferences or speculations.
Supplementation is extracting information that hasn’t been given from the given information. From the information “there are 2 apples” and “A ate one apple”, even if it’s not written that there’s one apple left, it can be supplemented. Supplementation often arises from inference or speculation.
Mechanism of Poetry
Poetry evokes many meanings and concepts in the reader with few words. Poetry is like abstract art, yet it concretely expresses in words. It expresses the concrete while spreading various and deep concepts in the reader through amplification.
For poetry to soar, the reader must have the ability to amplify and possess the concepts evoked by the phrases of the poem. The poet cannot enhance the reader’s amplifying ability or give more concepts than the reader originally has.
In this sense, poetry is an art that heavily depends on the reader. Poets have no choice but to rely on the reader’s ability to amplify words and the concepts they hold towards those words.
The Power of the Poet
Even if the poet depends on the reader’s ability, it doesn’t mean the poet is powerless.
Firstly, poets need a deep understanding of the reader’s ability to amplify words and the concepts amplified from those words. Essentially, they need a deep understanding of humans.
Next, it’s crucial for poets to have broad and profound concepts they want to convey. If there’s nothing to convey, it’s hard to express in poetry. Some poets might focus on expressing the beauty and rhythm of words without strongly intending to convey specific concepts. Even in such cases, there’s a desire to convey the abstract beauty and rhythm of words.
Furthermore, technical skills are necessary to set up the poem in such a way that the concepts evoked from the words and their order in the short poem act on each other to further spread the concept.
In short poetry, there’s a limit to the spread of concepts from just the images evoked by the sentences. Therefore, if you can use techniques to evoke secondary concepts from the primary concepts, even short poems should be able to make concepts soar.
Moreover, if links are born between concepts in the expanded concept of the poem that weren’t linked in the reader’s mind, the reader might feel deeply moved. It’s a kind of inspiration induction. While not limited to poetry, inducing inspiration can give the same feeling as when one thinks and gets inspired, rather than directly conveying with many words.
The Meaning of Poetic Exploration
Poetry is not merely about evoking emotions or impressions in its readers. The exploration of poetry is also an exploration of the amplification of our words. By throwing out words and observing the reactions, one can reverse-engineer the connections between words and concepts and the intrinsic nature of words themselves.
This process is not only about understanding human emotions and sensibilities, but also about the nature of our knowledge and the exploration of the system of words and ideas. Many famous poets are not just experts in poetry but are also scholars and critics.
This can be attributed to the close ties between poetry, intellect, and systems of knowledge. In this sense, poetry can be seen as a kind of curved mirror that condenses our intellect and knowledge. If this curvature correctly aligns with our understanding and knowledge, even a small mirror can reflect everything. Since our intellect and knowledge also represent our cognitive understanding of the world, poetry is a mirror that reflects the world.
In Conclusion: Towards Biology and the Origins of Life
The relationship between poetry and words amplifying ideas is analogous to the relationship between DNA and living organisms.
It is well known that organisms are based on DNA as their blueprint. This blueprint, DNA, is nothing more than a sequence of bases in a double helix structure, yet it gives rise to the diverse and intricate organisms on Earth.
The emergence of life from DNA is truly amplification. Just as vivid and complex ideas spring forth from poetry, life is amplified from the sequence of bases in DNA. While poetry and DNA are static and fixed entities, the ideas evoked in our minds or the organisms that arise from DNA are dynamic and will eventually perish.
If a living organism can meet certain conditions before it dies, it reproduces and produces the DNA for the next generation. If a reader, impressed by a certain poem, creates another poem influenced by their experience of the original poem, the original and the new poem share a relationship akin to parent and offspring in DNA. Words don’t just spread as memes; they also undergo amplification and significant mutation, making them biologically analogous.
This is not limited to poetry but applies to novels, essays, and academic studies. A new theory in physics may be a descendant of Newtonian mechanics or Einstein’s theories, and biological theories may be descendants of Mendel or Darwin.
Moreover, the relationship between words and their amplifying effect is deeply related to my exploration of the origins of life.
The main reason I have been contemplating the amplification of words in this article is to link this amplification and inheritance to the idea that some form of evolution existed in the chemical evolution of organic matter even before the birth of life. Finding this connection could advance our understanding of the still-mysterious origins of life by a significant step.
