How do humans acquire the competence to use language in its intended, "correct" manner? Unlike the mechanistic, explicit training necessary for LLMs, the true source of our linguistic mastery remains largely uninstructed.

How do we do it, then? Surely not the way we master a second language. Learning to speak provides for being in the world, not better communication with others.

Some point to practice, but unlike other natural capacities like learning to walk or even play, language implies a critical difference: meaning. This supra-mechanistic component defies explanation by simple repetition or mechanistic improvement.

What enables this unique faculty for generating and assimilating meaning? Where does it come from?

Here are some more reflections on this question.

How do humans acquire the competence to use language in its intended, "correct" manner? Unlike the mechanistic, explicit training necessary for LLMs, the true source of our linguistic mastery remains largely uninstructed.

How do we do it, then? Surely not the way we master a second language. Learning to speak provides for being in the world, not better communication with others.

Some point to practice, but unlike other natural capacities like learning to walk or even play, language implies a critical difference: meaning. This supra-mechanistic component defies explanation by simple repetition or mechanistic improvement.

What enables this unique faculty for generating and assimilating meaning? Where does it come from?

Here are my reflections on this question.

A deeper examination of seemingly trivial parts of speech reveals a profound paradox: far from being a clear mirror of reality, language, in its natural application, fundamentally obfuscates the reality it is meant to reflect.

While perfectly coherent on a functional level, a substantial discrepancy exists between our verbal articulation of existence and the capacity to truly conceive of the reality underlying that description. This tension is most acute when addressing the ways we speak abstract matters like truth and knowledge.

The following is an attempt to reflect upon this tension and illustrate that the mystery - the riddle - lies at the very root of our sense of coherence.