by Bill Joslin Operational language couples context to content by how that conte

by Bill Joslin

Operational language couples context to content by how that content can exist in reality.

For example within language – nouns provide identity, and verbs provide action properties to nouns (verbs describe state).

In spoken language we can say “the dog flew off the dock into the ocean”.

But, dogs don’t fly.

We conflate the existential properties of birds (flying animals) with the properties dogs (nonflying animals).

Of course this allows us to color (load) to our speech acts, but this demonstrates conflation from one existential context to another, and then the audience uses culture and norms fill in the gap with “not literally flew – but rather travels very fast” – a substitution of the ‘poetic’ (conflationary) with the ‘descriptive’ (deflationary).

In engineering grammars (in this case mathematical formula and scientific laws) we constrain usage to only that which is possible existentially possible.

For example you could not use formula which maps electrical activity to calculate drag coefficients of an aircraft. It simply wouldn’t make sense. The inputs don’t correspond to the argument’s of that equation.

When we think this through a little bit more, means-of-measurement couple grammars (the language), in for example aircraft design, to reality. The inputs to discover a drag coefficient pertains to the geometry of the air surface, where as the inputs for electrical calculation pertain to voltages and amperes etc.

The mathematical equations express the operations (verbs), the measurement captures the properties (adverb, adjectives) which the operations depend. The start and end points of calculation express the identity(nouns) and change of state it undergoes.

Operationalism in spoken language provides a consistent “measurement”: Commensurability with reality.

The commensurability (measuring across disparate objects) across contexts, which we must choose and couple to our content, forces us to think about the relationship between properties, actions, identity and the result,. If done well, this provides a means of measurement within that domain.

Reciprocity as a means of measuring morality, property as a means of measuring impositions and gain, agency etc.

This cultivates clarity of thought and provides decidibility for those who can and are willing to invest in it’s habituation