Another reason Africa is the Continent of Light: The First Alphabet was Invented There

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Chapter from Persons Beyond Borders, My Book in Progress

 

Reflecting the Nature of Things

A Grand Simplification

 

 

 

Throughout his life, John Amos Comenius kept to his vision of a grand unification of knowledge through wisdom. In his early career, Comenius worked out revolutionary educational reforms eliciting learning not from rote or force but direct observations by students. Knowledge, he believed, is not a commodity that can be passed on from teacher to student -- in fact borrowing causes corruption, passivity and, in the end, contempt for knowledge. Instead, he sought to instill curiosity, inquiry and love for learning. Efficient learning comes from deep within our nature; it is the outcome of seeking the whole truth in one world, while serving others and worshipping one God. A teacher's role is to speed and enliven this process, never to violate the mind's right to freedom by dictating to it.

 

Comenius advocated the object lesson as a way of promoting independent search. He may not have been the first to use this teaching technique, but he certainly developed and popularized it. In an object lesson a teacher holds up an ordinary object, such as a pen or a candlestick, and solicits observations from members of the class. From there lessons are drawn about morality, politics and science. Similarly, a century before Rousseau’s Emile, Comenius proposed that teachers leave their classrooms once in a while and take pupils out to learn in forests, streets and industrial sites. On these field trips, he encouraged students to cast aside trite, second-hand learning and observe, drawing conclusions based not only on what they had been reading but on what their eyes and ears told them.

 

Panorthosia takes these educational innovations to their ultimate conclusion. It would erect an entire world order where everybody learns and teaches through direct experience. In order to make each step as universal as possible, and, as we might now say, to rid the mind of cultural baggage, he advocated starting with a grand project of simplification. This radical simplifying activity would not be restricted to one worldview -- this was undoubtedly one point on which Comenius and Rene Descartes, another advocate of simplification, disagreed about in the face-to-face debate they had with one another. For Comenius, systematic simplifying is the best approach not only to science and mathematics but also of faith and policy. In fact, it should aim at setting all three on an even footing.

 

"Let our Philosophy be simplified, provided that it satisfies moderate minds and circumstances. Let our Religion be simplified, provided that it satisfies God, the source of simplicity, and men of upright conscience. Let our Political System be simplified, provided that it serves its purpose of peacefulness in human affairs." (Panorthosia II, Ch. 10, para 3, p. 152)

 

As simplification advances, knowledge would then surely become public property, not the exclusive domain of elites. For the first time knowledge would be free, and would serve liberal ends. The expert's high calling is to serve humanity by aiding this project, not by obstructing it, as was all too common among Comenius's scholastic peers.

 

 

 

Comenius did not deny that this demands unprecedented responsibility from experts, especially, though not exclusively, from experts in the three pivotal specialties, natural philosophy (science and education), politics and religion. These professionals must eschew all obfuscation and do everything possible to welcome all into their inner sanctum. Their aim must be to make everyone the best that they can be by qualifying as an amateur philosopher, politician and theologian.

 

The simplification project needs to set its sights even higher, though. Even more fundamental than science, religion and politics is language itself. If we cannot communicate with one another, none of these can exist, important as they may well be. As long as humans speak multiple languages, the benefits of education, of political progress and religious reconciliation can never have their full benefit. The language barrier, more than anything else -- even borders, geography and primitive transportation technology -- blocks freedom of movement and freedom of intercourse among peoples. A common language is absolutely necessary for the cosmopolitan outlook.

 

In the following paragraph from the final chapter of Panorthosia, Comenius demonstrates that agreement upon a common world language is not only a scientific and political necessity, it is a religious duty as well.

 

"If we are given a universal language, and it is adopted by all nations, the world will become accessible to all its inhabitants, as there will be nothing to stand in the way of anyone who wishes to travel abroad and teach or be taught in any of its climates. For if all men understand one another, they will all be as one nation, one household, and one school of God. So at last the meaning of the following prophecies will be revealed: 'All the land shall be turned as a plain,' (Zechariah 14:10); and 'Thou shalt not see a people of a deeper speech than thou canst perceive, and of a foreign tongue that thou canst not understand' (or as others translate it, 'in which there is no wisdom') (Isaiah 33:19 and 'I will gather all nations and tongues' (Isaiah 64:18), and 'All the nations were of one language, and so they were gathered together again after the Lord scattered them abroad with confusion of language' (Genesis 11:1, 7, 8), when the Lord shall begin to build up Zion and to appear in His glory (Psalm 102:16, 17, 19, 22, 23)." (Panorthosia, Ch. 26, Para 7, p. 157)

 

From Wisdom to Pansophy

 

 

 

Beyond agreeing upon a universal language, the project of simplified knowledge can be summed up in one word, wisdom. Wisdom, Comenius believed, is the main practical lesson to be learned from the Bible, as well as classical philosophy, the natural world and that of politics. Wisdom instills willing acceptance that good changes come from the nature of things; they are not an arbitrary imposition of human will or the whim of an elite.

World order will arise from an underlying "parallelism of Philosophy, Politics, and Religion..." (Panorthosia, Ch. 13, para 12, p. 204) Our vision of this parallelism, like the observations of a student, conditions us within before we can inform the world. Be it scientific, political or religious, wisdom has a common,.

 

"purpose of kindling in men's minds one full light whose rays are undivided, and therefore it is Universal Light in which everyone may see all things just as they are, and in so doing produce antidotes for error and hallucination, and cures for all the ills of Church and State, so that darkness no longer has any place in our affairs, since we are all guided towards the fountains of light, wherein there is no darkness." (Panorthosia, Ch. 11, para 2, pp. 175-176)

 

The nature of wisdom is such that a wise person is, by definition, Homo Universalis, a polymath or generalist who aspires to grasp all things, not just a segmented part of reality. Once enough leading members of society become wise, teachers will learn to teach wisdom in schools. Once they succeed in that, each new generation will come ever closer to wisdom. Eventually, society will cross a tipping point where wisdom becomes a universal aspiration, the ruling principle of every matter, big or small. This condition Comenius called pansophy, or universal wisdom.

 

 

 

Under pansophism, the full potential of each human will finally be realized. This leap forward will make all knowledge available to all seekers and tear down every ivory tower of knowledge and privilege. The people will no longer be distracted by translators and middlemen; they will be mature enough to wield their own power responsibly. Comenius compared this epistemic transition to the difference between an ordinary key and a master or skeleton key, which is designed to open any door in the building.

 

"What is the difference between Philosophy and Pansophy? Surely it is that between the part and the whole; just as if one man who lived in a castle had separate keys for each of the rooms, and another had only a single key which opened them all." (Panorthosia, Ch. 11, para 22, pp. 184-185)

 

As a by-product of having Homo Universalis in the majority, pansophism would encourage universal engagement in the tremendous task of minding the entire planet. Earth would be a true global democracy. Unlike the ideological approaches that have been tried and failed, pansophy, by walking the tightrope of parallel worldviews, would accomplish the otherwise impossible feat of maximizing both freedom and equality.

Praxeology

Praxeology; Truth in Language, Ethics in Action

 

By John Taylor; 2011 Feb 16, Mulk 10, 167 BE

 

The birth of science in the Sixteenth Century was accompanied by dozens of attempts to devise artificial languages that would approach the perfect, primal language that Adam was thought to have invented in Eden. Invented languages were all the rage among progressive thinkers. Many new languages were proposed based not only on existing languages but also everything from music to logic to mathematics. John Amos Comenius contributed an artificial spoken language whose grammar, he claimed, made it impossible for a speaker to tell a lie. Many of his writings were burned by pillagers in a war in present day Poland, from which Comenius barely escaped. It is conceivable that he did make up notes for such a language. I often wonder, though, how such an inherently ethical language might have worked.

 

Surely, though, free will and ill will, and therefore the ability to lie, are basic to thought. How could thought even exist if there were no way to make anything but perfectly veridical statements? Would that not be as impossible as legs that cannot trip or fall? A biped's very ability to walk depends upon a sort of controlled falling. Even if a totally truthful language were possible, would it be desirable? In that case, there would be nothing to distinguish truth tellers from liars. As the Ricky Gervais film, "The Invention of Lying," demonstrates, the inhabitants of a world where anything less than total candor was never encountered in everyday speech would be hopelessly naive.

 

On the other hand, computer brains may well advance in sophistication to the point where they gain free will, and therefore the potential to consciously lie. Or maybe that will never be possible. There may not even be a need to introduce fail safes. As anyone who has written computer code knows, as soon as a computer registers a "divide by zero" error, it crashes immediately. Perhaps when some high level computer language in the future attempts to tell a lie it will encounter the Pseudomenon, the Liar Paradox, like a brick wall. As soon as it thinks, "I am telling a lie," the paradox would kick in, register the self-contradiction, and bring the whole chain of thought crashing to the ground.

 

In that case, Comenius's dream might be not only possible but unavoidable. We may imagine surgeons implanting computer chips with language circuitry into the brains of patients deprived of speech for neurological reasons. Then, when the patients open their mouths to lie, their speech chip would short-circuit, shutting down their voice box. Only silence come out.

 

Even if we have to introduce artificial fail-safe mechanisms in order to assure that intelligent machines do not lie to us, this is little different from what we already do with humans, each of whom is a potential liar. This is just what Isaac Asimov proposed with his famous "Three Laws of Robotics," laws that were built into the "positronic brains" of his fictional robots.

 

 

Many philosophical problems arise from this idea, however. Some, Asimov dealt with himself in his series of novels and short stories about robots. Others cropped up later on. One contradiction is the theme of the movie based on Asimov's book of the same name, "I, Robot," starring Will Smith. Some of these dilemmas are: If a robot cannot harm a human being (1st Law of Robotics), how do you define "harm?" How can any agent know beforehand all the results of a given action? An entire discipline, history, debates causes and interactions among conscious agents in the past. Surely deciding the consequences in future of present actions poses difficulties many orders of magnitude more daunting than what historians deal with.

 

On the other hand, in spite of these reservations, once we build a working moral compass, no matter how inadequate and complex it may be, it would then be a simple matter to miniaturize its circuitry until it fits onto a single chip. This is just what happened with Geo-synchronous Positioning Satellite devices, designed to calibrate one's location on earth using signals from overhead satellites. These calculations are so demanding that early GPS devices were as large and heavy as a small automobile. Now GPS chips are tiny and inexpensive, built into cell phones and many other hand-held gadgets.

 

So, if GPS detectors can be made ubiquitous, why not a working moral compass? At the very least, this fail-safe device would assure that no robot could intentionally harm a human being. The "Predator" drones which already are dropping in price and which are capable of attacking any point on the surface of the earth, would cease to pose the clear and present danger that they do now. At least one activist is even suggesting that Asimov's Three Laws be built into corporate charters. This, he suggests, would reduce the harm from human-run institutions as well as from autonomous machines.

 

Robotics is already advancing to the point where, it is claimed, the first "moral" robot has already been built. Named "Nao," this machine works as an orderly in a nursing home. Nao moves about the facility performing rudimentary services like making deliveries, distributing medication and changing the channel on the residents' common television set. Its programming is based on a decision tree of priorities allowing Nao to answer queries and requests from residents, while making elementary choices among several possible courses of action. (Michael Anderson and Susan Leigh Anderson, "Robot be good; Independent minded machines will soon play a big role in our lives. It's time they learned how to behave ethically." Scientific American, October, 2010, p. 72). Nao can decide, for example, whether to answer a request to change the channel or before that administering pills to a certain bed ridden patient. The makers of Nao hope that as working ethical robots gain and share their experience, they will be ever more prepared as they come across new situations.

 

Like a human worker, when they encounter an unresolvable problem they have the choice of calling for help. The moral robot does this wirelessly, even sending out "crowd sourcing" queries onto the Internet. With the aid of experts, lawyers and ethicists, and even random groups of interested parties on the Internet, robots could conceivably answer the most difficult ethical issues in real time.

 

 

 

Such updating and revision is already being done, and not only in software but also in a faster, partly malleable type of hardware known as firmware. For example, Microsoft's controller-free "Kinect" interface is run by dynamically updated firmware. Off-board firmware updates, constantly revised and updated through a live wireless feed to the Internet, allows the devise to recognize each user, and respond appropriately to that person alone using visual cues alone. Although currently intended only for the XBox gaming platform, it appears that Kinect will soon be our main interface that we will use to interact with all computers. The personal computer, for the first time, will be both personal and personable.

 

Or, maybe not so personal. Who is overseeing the updating of this firmware? Can we trust a single corporation's proprietary feed to be updating the firmware that runs our world? In a time when free access to information is a hot button issue, we cannot afford to leave this issue aside. The release of unauthorized information by the likes of Wikileaks has already provoked two popular revolutions in the Middle East, with many more crowds of unhappy citizens standing in line to be next.

 

 

As democracy spreads, and as transparency and freedom of information become more sophisticated, one word will become a byword around the world: praxeology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praxeology), the science that informs decisions and action. Ethical choices are made at every level, not just the top. Good leadership is a question of praxeology; the more democratic our world becomes, not only political but economic democracy, and every other kind of democracy, the better our praxeology must be. It is praxeology that decides what course of action machines like Nao the robot will follow. The rules of computer interfaces like Kinect are entirely praxeological in nature, and should be decided by democratic, open means.

Steles and Veridical Language

By John Taylor; 2010 Oct 27, Ilm 12, 167 BE

A Language of Truth

John Amos Comenius tried to devise an artificial language whose grammar made it impossible for a speaker to tell a lie. Imagine how such a language might work. A potential liar opens his mouth to speak but somewhere in his brain the liar's paradox kicks in. It short circuits his voice box and only silence comes out of his mouth. Clearly, human free will and ill will are so basic to speech that such an inherently ethical language will always an impossible dream, at least for human languages.

As the state of the art in the technology of war and peace accelerates, it may not only be possible but imperative to make machines incapable of lying, indeed of committing any other crime or wrongdoing. Our more sophisticated handheld devices now usually have GPS detectors built into them, but none, as yet, has a working moral compass. As a result, our tools can be used for good or evil. However, as we saw in a previous chapter, some robots are already being built with a decision tree of moral choices built into their circuitry. Researchers at Microsoft have even come up with a hardware interface device whose software is off-board; that is, it is constantly being updated by a live wireless feed to the Internet.

As such wireless links advance, robots will not need an entire moral philosophy built into their circuitry. A moment's interaction with an Internet server dedicated to the problem it faces will provide it with the latest conclusions of moral philosophers about what the right thing is to do. Once software, robots and machines are reliably connected to the collective wisdom of the human race, we can rest assured that our technology, at least, will do and say the right thing. What is the right thing? This is a difficult question now, but when we have global peace and democracy on a global scale it will be possible to commission common agreements by thinkers of East and West, at least upon basic ethical standards. Once this essential human ethical foundation is firmed up, we can safely build the standard interface between humans and tools that we have been calling the stele. As long as its connection to common wisdom is maintained, the stele will at last realize Comenius' dream of a totally truthful language.

The Language of Steles

The stele is a mobile robotic interface run by core software similar to today's time management programs, known as personal information managers, or PIM's. These PIM's plan the lives of humans, and interact with the world of technology to further these ends. The main service of the stele is to act as an interface between humans and more primitive tools and technologies. It rules over other machines with absolute, incontrovertible authority. The "DNA" embedded in its PIM software speaks the perfect ethical language envisioned by Comenius, a single ethical code decided upon by the latest consensus of expert opinion.

The words in the language may err, but as the machine subject approaches the level of conscious thought, it becomes ever more incapable of lies. As long as it makes choices based upon official, off-board criteria, all subsidiary technology will operate morally as well. This of course is what Isaac Asimov anticipated with his "Three Laws of Robotics," except that this code is infinitely more sophisticated, being the product of moral philosophers working together in universities around the world. All rules are transparent, the official conclusions of experts, and are subject to continual revision.

The Stele's Reason for Being

The stele is at the top of the technological food chain, the most sophisticated robot available. What makes it a perfect life companion is the fact that it is a blank slate. This reflects the nature of the human mind, which is boundless by nature. In his best known work on education, Comenius wrote,

"Aristotle compared the mind of man to a blank tablet on which nothing was written, but on which all things could be engraved. There is, however, this difference, that on the tablet the writing is limited by space, while in the case of the mind, you may continually go on writing and engraving without finding any boundary, because ... the mind is without limit." (Comenius, The Great Didactic (1649), translated by M.W. Keatinge (1896), from Wikiquotes, Comenius)

If the stele is a dictator to other machines, for an honest, sincere human being it is not arbitrary in the slightest. But it still needs to elicit compliance because, as already mentioned, a stele's first purpose is to promulgate the rule of law, to make sure that everyone knows the law and understands the difference between right and wrong. Is that enough to get everybody to obey the law? It is, according to Socrates, who taught that none do wrong willingly. All people need in order to do the right thing every time is just to know the truth. If for some the truth seems not to be enough, they have fallen short of the whole truth by failing to live the examined life. Plato caught the spirit of Socrates when he wrote in his final major work, the Laws, that,

"...whatever the way which promises to make a member of our citizen body -- male or female, young or old -- truly excellent in the virtues of soul proper to human character, be they results of some occupation, some native disposition, some possession, or passion, or conviction, or course of study, that and no other shall be the end, as I say, toward which every nerve shall be strained so long as life endures, and that not a single soul shall be found to prefer aught which hampers these pursuits. (Laws, 770d, Collected Dialogues, p. 1348)

The stele starts off as a blank slate on which a person writes the ideals by which to live throughout life. Throughout their schooling, each cosmopolitan citizen will collaborate with teachers in choosing the particular "virtues of the soul" that appeal to him or her. Once that is clear, everything on the stele is written largely by its individual owner. Everything in it contributes to the soul mission. Of course, many laws must be obeyed in order to avoid harming the central missions of others, but as Plato put it, "Any ... fate must be borne rather than the change to a polity which will breed baser men." (Laws, 770e) Those raised with a stele as a companion will not fear it or find its rules a burden.

ARE Esperanto meeting in Upper New York State

I, Marie and the kids are planning on attending the Esperanto gathering at Silver Bay resort next month. Here is some more information about the meeting, supplied by another attendee. I am planning on giving a short talk about the book I am writing, in Esperanto.



Esperantists from Montreal, Rochester, Boston and New York City have chosen Silver Bay (YMCA) near Ticonderoga, New York as a central regional meeting place for several years.

A handful of foreign-born Esperantists (not US or Canadian) are usually present.  The official event is a 3 day happening during the weekend of US Columbus Day and Canadian Thanksgiving Day. This year it is the 9-11th of October.

Prior to this location over one hundred esperantists visited  a similar meetings at Okemo Mountain Lodge in Ludlow Vermont for numerous years.

A variety of lectures occur. Reviews of international Esperanto events usually occur. Sporting events and dance have also occured. Nature walks regularly occur. The working language is Esperanto.

Esperanto is popular on the free encyclopedia, Wikipedia.

Esperanto was created in 1887 to be an easy, neutral language between nations and is affective in over a thousand local clubs, regional, national and international conventions with several thousand annual participants. Estimates of numbers of Esperanto speaker vary and go as high as two million world-wide. This author has met several thousand while visiting  34 countries and living abroad for 16 years.

Neil Blonstein, New York City

Interview with Ludwig Zamenhof

The inventor of Esperanto visited Washington in 1910. We are commemorating this event this year.

Esperanto Meeting

On Saturday we visited the Lily Show at Gage Park in Hamilton with some Esperantist friends,

From Badi Blog

An easier way to learn a language

Lingq method of learning a language promo video. For more go to lingq.com

Esperanto is...

Sea shanty sung in Esperanto

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Early Interlanguage Proposal

Baha'u'llah's Early Proposal for the Implementation of a World Language, Part I

by John Taylor; 2009 Jan 05, 06 Sharaf, 165 BE

Originally written April 18, 2002; revised January, 2009

I have not found any direct, written mention of either universal language or an international inter-language before Baha'u'llah's "Great Announcement," the letters He wrote to world leaders in the late 1860's. It would be surprising though if some mention does not turn up, especially from the Edirne period, which was Baha'u'llah's most prolific. However the earlier writings of Baha'u'llah do not ignore the general question of language. For example, the moral dimensions of words and speech come into play in at least twenty of the Hidden Words. The 68th Arabic Hidden Word in particular points out the direction for universal language by reminding us of our fundamental equality as humans and directing us to "dwell in the same land."

In His last book-length work, the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf, Baha'u'llah recalls a conversation that took in Constantinople (now Istanbul) during His stay there in 1863. During a visit, Baha'u'llah made the following informal suggestion to a former prime minister of the Turkish Empire, Kamal Pasha in 1863.

"He said that he had learned several languages. In reply We observed: "You have wasted your life. It beseemeth you and the other officials of the Government to convene a gathering and choose one of the divers languages, and likewise one of the existing scripts, or else to create a new language and a new script to be taught children in schools throughout the world. They would, in this way, be acquiring only two languages, one their own native tongue, the other the language in which all the peoples of the world would converse. Were men to take fast hold on that which hath been mentioned, the whole earth would come to be regarded as one country, and the people would be relieved and freed from the necessity of acquiring and teaching different languages." (Epistle, 137)

Kamal Pasha, Baha'u'llah says, agreed that an official second language for the world is a good idea and promised to bring the matter forward in future contacts with his government. There is no evidence that he did, though. Baha'u'llah's practical emphasis in Istanbul was in stark contrast to what had gone on before in the evolution of religious thought.

The Bible emphasizes that universal language is an outcome of the unity of God Himself. From Adam until the Tower of Babel was built, humans had only one language. Jan Amos Comenius, inspired by this legend, is said to have attempted to devise a perfect language where an untrue proposition would be impossible even to express.

This idealistic bent of scripture was taken to the most sublime heights in the Writings of the Bab, especially His latter period. In his recent study of the Bab's body of work, Nader Saiedi calls the result of the Bab's teaching a kind of "spiritual linguistics." For example, the Bab's highly abstruse "Book of Names," versions of which are extant in both Arabic and Persian, reduces (or I should say, exalts) all words and all possible language into some kind of name for God. A universal language based upon names of the perfect Being is impossible to imagine, though the virtues of the Badi' calendar seems to broach upon it. It is to be hoped that further study of the Bab's works will take us closer to understanding how a true universal language based upon the Holy Spirit might exist.

As mentioned, Baha'u'llah in the last year of His life wrote the Epistle to the Son of the Wolf as a sort of summing up of His entire Mission on earth. For that reason, it is important to bear in mind that He recalls his interviews with Kamal Pasha in determinedly pragmatic terms. It would take almost no effort by one generation to end forever the language barrier, a blight that has crippled most of the potential of most humans from time immemorial.

"How often have things been simple and easy of accomplishment, and yet most men have been heedless, and busied themselves with that which wasteth their time!" (Epistle to the Son, 137)

On 10 October, 2003 I made the following further comments about this incident in Constantinople in 1863.

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"Instead of playing the power games that were expected of Him, during the visit of Kamal Pasha Baha'u'llah instead brought up "topics profitable to man." This was probably a shocking novelty for the Pasha. Baha'u'llah's suggestion of an international language would have challenged any government; even the most enlightened and advanced ones of today, much less the warren of oppression and intrigue that was Constantinople at the time.

"Just think of the opportunity that was missed. This suggestion of Baha'u'llah to the Pasha came 22 years before Esperanto was announced by Ludwig Zamenhof and 17 years before its predecessor, Volapuk, was devised.

"In 1880, Johann Martin Schleyer, a German cleric proposed Volapuk for use as an international second language that would be not only for science but for everyman. Before that there had been no hint of a popular movement to actually implement this idea, other than theorizing among an elite few. If Kamal Pasha's Turkey had taken this up, it would have been way ahead of its time. The step, even had it failed, would have been long remembered by posterity. As long as people spoke the official world language, the `Turkish Convention' deciding upon a world language would have been on the lips of historians.

"Instead of taking the path to unity and enlightenment, what path did Turkey actually take? Well for one thing they veered the other way, towards seething religious and ethnic hatred over the next several decades, culminating in the murder of over a million ethnic Armenians living in that empire during World War One."

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Had the Turkish Empire considered this advice at this early point in the modern era they would have gone down in history as an innovative "Camelot" rather than the notorious "sick man of Europe." Ironically, the Turkey of today still periodically makes world headlines through its policy of suppressing the Kurdish, Armenian and other minority languages. By ignoring their own language problem, they have only got sicker. Parallel struggles are going on in every nations of the world, irrespective of whether they are "developed" or not. All factions, ethnic, local, regional and national, cling to their own language and refuse the advice to "cast away that which ye possess" and work for a simple international standard.

In the "Great Announcement," one of a series of letters to world leaders written in and around 1868, Baha'u'llah introduced most of the Baha'i principles to the peoples of the world. This series is collectively called the Proclamation to the Kings. It was written over several years beginning towards the end of Baha'u'llah's four years exile in Edirne (Adrianople). The Great Announcement called upon the people to give up their ties to past ways and adopt principle, the harmonious combination of thought and action,

"Cast away that which ye possess, and, on the wings of detachment, soar beyond all created things. Thus biddeth you the Lord of creation, the movement of Whose Pen hath revolutionized the soul of mankind." (Proclamation, 115-6)

Baha'u'llah then declares that this "soul revolution" starts with that most cherished of intellectual tools, language. As such, the challenge demands unprecedented levels of detachment.

The following passage as far as I have been able to determine is the first mention of a universal language in written, translated Baha'i scripture:

"The day is approaching when all the peoples of the world will have adopted one universal language and one common script. When this is achieved, to whatsoever city a man may journey, it shall be as if he were entering his own home. These things are obligatory and absolutely essential. It is incumbent upon every man of insight and understanding to strive to translate that which hath been written into reality and action." (Proclamation, 117)

Years later Baha'u'llah again quoted this passage from the Great Announcement word for word in the Tablet to Maqsud (Lawh-i-Maqsud, Tablets, 166). A good teacher repeats the most important lessons and this repetition surely shows how essential Baha'u'llah considered the principle to be.

Note that Baha'u'llah places the main burden of enacting this principle on the shoulders of the individual world citizen. We the people, not institutions or experts, are to see to it that anyone, in every town and city, will be welcomed and able to feel at home, free of language barriers. He assumes that anyone of "insight and understanding" will realize that it is essential that the peoples of the world be empowered to communicate directly one with another through a single language.

The last sentence of this passage I find particularly witty, subtle and ironic. In this age we do not just hear and obey the Word of God. Now the task of eliminating the need to constantly translate among a multiplicity of languages will be accomplished by an act of "translation" of what God has said into "reality and action." This is a good definition of principle: principle is a greater type of "translation;" translating the holy command of God into deeds comes first and makes all lesser kinds of translation redundant. Like a tested theory in science this involves a more holistic knowledge. Religious principle is a process of translation in this age because it uses the whole individual and the whole social fact. We begin in search, our end is promotion of human oneness, and the result is economy of knowledge and technical potential.

This practical leaning of Baha'u'llah is more than a prophesy, more even than a mandate. It constitutes a change in the nature of religion itself, a shift from idealism to pragmatism. Not only is there a great peace but now a transitional "lesser peace." By coming together to agree upon a common language, be it natural or planned, we put in place a neutral ladder to the heavenly linguistic ideal of earlier faiths. A standard, official second language for all leads beyond treaties and ineffectual mediation institutions to real peace, to an inexorable unification of the human race. Such decisive action is what matters most, not endless jawboning about the attributes of a particular language.

In the next instalment we will look at how this principle evolved in the 1870's and beyond.

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For those who receive the Badi essays by email, I have posted directly to the Badi' Blog the following contributions lately:

Passive House Construction

A couple of videos about passive house standards, posted on January 04, 2009, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/passive-house-construction.html

Universal Language as a Baha'i Principle

Reader feedback on recent essays about Comenius and the principle of Universal Language, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2009/01/universal-language-as-bahai-principle.html

The Seasons of Reform

Two time lapse films demonstrating words of the Master about reform, at: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/seasons-of-reform.html

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John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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Universal Language as a Baha'i Principle

Let me share the following reader feedback on the Baha'i principle of a universal auxiliary language. I have been writing about Comenius and the Biblical ideal of a universal language, and Andrew Singer offers this as a corrective to the "pure" principle of universality in a world language. I have gone over my older essays on language and found that I did write an essay on Baha'u'llah's take on this principle, but it was written a year or so before the Badi' Blog came into existence. So I will make some revisions and post it later on today.

04 January 2008 Budapest

 

Dear John,

Thank you so much once more for your postings on Comenius. Like the prodigious number of other topics you've addressed in your blog it is a wonderful window for helping apprehend our larger world from a Bahá'í perspective. The portrait you give of Comenius is that of a fortuitous thinker forging principles that remain clearly vital, into the present and beyond, and in points accords wonderfully well with our beliefs.

As Bahá'ís we have the benefit of the further Revelation of God, and in this light we can understand a couple of refinements on Comenius's thinking, deriving as it did from his study of the Christian Bible.

In particular regarding a language for the world, whereas Comenius thought to conquer the world's langauges with a single universal langusge, Bahá'ís seek to manage the rich diversity of the world's cultures by adopting one shared language, rather than supplanting the rest. Comenius, as you quote him, says: "From Who shall persuade the Nations of so many languages to discontinue their traditional tongue in favour of a strange one?" As Bahá'ís our goal rather is as explained in the following quote from the Divine Philosphy by 'Abdu'l-Bahá:

"In order to facilitate complete understanding between all people, a universal auxiliary language will be adopted and in the schools of the future two languages will be taught -- the mother tongue and this international auxiliary tongue which will be either one of the existing language or a new language made up of words from all the languages -- the matter is to be determined by a confederation met for the purpose which shall represent all tribes and nations."

We can derive much inspiration from Comenius's view as you explain it, that "change and growth is a basic characteristic of spirit. Faith must grow along with the Spirit and Word." This is exactly what we bring to the table as Bahá'ís. One such development will be this universal shared language as a supplement to the tongues of the world.

Whether or not we "devise" a new language or use an existing one will be determined at a future date. Bahá'u'lláh tells us in the Kitáb-i-Aqdas that we will "select" a single language for the purpose. On this point I am not inclined to speculate further, keeping faith that when the appointed time comes it will be decided on by a body duly authorized.

Again thanks for your ceaseless dedication to this and other topics. With your work you are helping keep the flame of committed study and scholarship alive in my heart and I am sure in many others as well.

All best wishes,

Andrew

Self-Installing Language

A Self-Installing Universal Language, Part IV

By John Taylor; 2009 Jan 01, 02 Sharaf, 165 BE

Up until the 19th Century it was generally believed, following stories in the Bible, that Adam devised a single, perfect language in Eden and that this primordial language, based on reality rather than illusion, was spoken right up until human arrogance built the tower of Babel and broke speech into many languages. The dream of that age was to reconstruct the pristine language of Eden, the original language of a united human race. Early attempts to devise a universal language were thus backward looking, inspired by a quest for the long lost lingo of Eden, not what we now expect, a futuristic vision of things to come. A universal language was thought to involve not only human speech but also that of animals and indeed the entire universe. This is reminiscent of how some quantum physicists are maintaining today that the universe is acting as a giant calculating machine. To speak the language of Adam would be to see the machineries of Creation at first hand. Having seen them, we could speak and act them out too.

We have seen that Comenius divides everything into three parts, knowledge, will and action, and human activity into three crafts associated with them, science, religion and politics. We also saw that this is straight from the Greek view. But there is more to it than that. In the history of education, Frances Bacon and Jan Amos Comenius are often lumped under the "sense realist" school <http://www.archive.org/stream/studentstextbook00duggrich/studentstextbook00duggrich_djvu.txt>. That is, they theorized that the mind learns only through the intermediary of the senses, especially sight. This was derived from the contemporary understanding of the Bible, which the Gutenberg printing press had made affordable for the first time.

A new universal language, Comenius held, would reform all three stages, knowledge, volition and action, completely and concurrently, since language is the "bond and interpreter" (Ch. 14, para 3) among them. Comenius held that if we reformed our vision, language and action a new method of self-directed language would be possible. The universal language would become, as it were, "self-installing,"

"If the question is asked, 'How is this possible?' my answer is that it will be impossible either to teach or learn the new language by interchanging words, phrases, and sentences, which is the method at present employed in teaching and learning ordinary languages. Instead we should adopt the method of Paradise, which consists of seeing, speaking, and practising for ourselves. The candidate for the new language should be confronted with real objects to see, hear, taste, and touch, so that he may grasp them through his own senses: then each object should be named separately and the pupil asked to repeat its name, seeing and saying it for himself at the same time, until the same thing is clearly conceived in his mind and expressed in speech in the same way." (Panorthosia, Ch. 14, para 17, p. 213)

The first step of learning for Comenius, then, is to see with your own eyes and through that gain a consensus with others ("without vision the people perish," the Proverb says). Having seen we then speak the lesson, and finally practice it. Three steps. Comenius thus applied "sense realism" to language learning. This was a tremendous improvement over the random, rote methods of teaching Latin that preceded him.

In the above Comenius calls this not "sense realism" but the "method of paradise," because seeing, speaking and acting were the basic job description of Adam in Eden. Adam witnessed each creature as it came into being, he then gave it a name and God watched the results in their behavior, in mutual interaction.

In the Baha'i principles this sense realism is equivalent to the first principle, search for truth. Baha'u'llah certainly seems to agree that vision is the fundamental "agent and guide" to learning in the first Taraz,

"We cherish the hope that through the loving-kindness of the All-Wise, the All-Knowing, obscuring dust may be dispelled and the power of perception enhanced, that the people may discover the purpose for which they have been called into being. In this Day whatsoever serveth to reduce blindness and to increase vision is worthy of consideration. This vision acteth as the agent and guide for true knowledge. Indeed in the estimation of men of wisdom keenness of understanding is due to keenness of vision." (Tablets, 35)

Thus for Comenius the universal language will not be an abstract entity learned in isolation from world governance. Only by reforming all three, science, religion and politics, at the same time can such language be made up and taught. It would be born along with a universal curriculum where theory, planning and practice are worked out all at once. Thus Comenius continues,

"Then if Universal Books, containing accurate descriptions of things, are correctly written in this language, and circulated to nations all over the world and introduced into their schools, our task will be accomplished, since the minds of the younger generation will eagerly seize upon everything, captivated, as it were, by the sweet harmony of things, ideas, and language, and will readily continue to study them." (Ch. 14, para 17, p. 213)

The push for a world curriculum would come from our inherent desire to investigate reality. The pull, on the other hand, comes from our common human nature, from love's attractive force. This is termed in the Baha'i principles the oneness of humanity.

"Our love for mankind and the universal yearning for conversation should be sufficient to influence us in favour of desiring and trying to achieve this. For since we are all one blood, brothers and sisters, dwellers together in the one Home of the World, we ought to live and talk together, and to engage in the mutual exchange of advice; yet this is impossible owing to the diversity of languages: what an absurd situation! There are so many uncivilised nations in the world, sharing the same nature with us, and all seized with desire for the Highest Good: yet they do not know it and we are unable to demonstrate it to them."

"They are all `serving an unknown God' (as one may see from their altars, temples, holidays, and ceremonies) yet we are unable to proclaim the true God to them as Paul could do to the Athenians.

"Lastly, they are seeking a political system and peaceful way of life, yet they are unable to find it (acting contrariwise to their goal), and we are unable to reveal to them where their faults lie, and how they should mend their ways. Therefore there is an urgent need to find a cure for such serious faults, and this is possible only through the use of a universal language which cannot be introduced into the world until we devise one which is natural and fluent and suitable for universal adoption." (Panorthosia, Ch. 14, para 6, pp. 208-209)

I will close with some points that Oxford scholar Anthony Smith made in a review of a critical biography of Comenius. These comments help place Comenius in the history of ideas. It is interesting that on Abdu'l-Baha's first trip to London in 1911 somebody saw a close parallel between Him and Tolstoy (Abdu'l-Baha in London, pp. 94-95). Smith places Tolstoy in the same tradition leading up to the "world brain" movement of the 1990's.

"Deeply buried in Comenius's ideas are the lessons derived from attempts to impart the Judaeo-Christian scriptures to centuries of children; his approach is steeped in religion. There is a line running from Comenius (and Bacon) to Tolstoy and Froebel which emphasises the integrity and inextricability of the moral, the cultural and the religious. Comenius is separate from that other line of pragmatic, progressive and secular thinking about education which links, say, Rousseau and Dewey. But if you are looking for the roots of Kenneth Baker's view of the national curriculum you are more likely to detect it in Comenius than in Rousseau.

"Buber's concern with the "co-intentional dialogue of teacher and pupil" is Comenian, as is Tolstoy's vision of love as the heart of the educational process. The value of Murphy's resurrection of this 17th-century divine is that his book also illuminates and categorises so many strands of 20th-century thinking about education which have become interwoven in our own day into a stodgy liberalism in which many traditions are fused - or fudged.

"The new translation of Panorthosia (published with a useful preface summarising Comenius's great projects) gives us access to a typical piece of his writing in which he sets out one of his universal schemes to reform education, church and politics through good learning...

"Comenius's ideas are paralleled in this century by H. G. Wells whose writings on the idea of World Mind and World Brain have been brought together by Alan Mayne with a comprehensive introduction. Wells wrote at the eve of a war similar to the Thirty Years War in the havoc it wreaked upon Europe, and with some acknowledged debt to the work of Comenius. Wells's scheme was for the reorganisation and rededication of all the reliable information and education available in the world. He wanted the founding of a new social organ or institution "whereby we can solve the jigsaw puzzle and bring all the scattered and ineffective mental wealth of our world into something like a common understanding, and into effective reaction upon our vulgar, everyday political, social and economic life".

"The world has now grown irritated with universal schemes; the more brotherhood is preached the more our sceptical hackles rise and, certainly, Wells writes with the verve of a utopian snake-oil salesman, although his idea of using universal forms of knowledge to eradicate mutual suspicions is today enjoying a powerful new vogue among people who see in the computerisation of information the tool of a real utopian politics. Alan Mayne has long worked in this field and uses his introduction to restate the position of 1990s World Brain enthusiasts.

"We are so habituated today to seeing education treated as an instrument of wealth creation or for creating voting citizens, or to inculcate correct thinking about culture, politics and self-fulfilment, that it is quite hard at first to read this material with the seriousness it deserves. For Mayne (and Wells) are saying that education, if it uses all the techniques available, could become the means by which some vision of human brotherhood could be given meaning and reality. One has to suspend one's ever-ready pre-jaundiced scepticism but this reader found himself doing so willingly once entered into the spirit of the discourse. Cybernetic idealism has a place."

from a review of: Comenius: A Critical Reassessment of his Life and Work Author - Daniel Murphy ISBN - 0 7165 2537 2 Publisher - Irish Academic Press, at: http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=163333&sectioncode=42

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John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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Universal Language, Part III

The Secret and Panorthosia; Universal Language, Part III

By John Taylor; 2008 Dec 31, 01 Sharaf, 165 BE

I just came across some time lapse videos that seem designed to illustrate Abdu'l-Baha's words about reform in the Secret of Divine Civilization. I put them together in the following blog entry:

http://badiblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/seasons-of-reform.html

Abdu'l-Baha's "Secret of Divine Civilization" is the foundation document for this blog. Some five years ago the Universal House of Justice called this book "a celebration of the creative role played by the rational faculty -- God's greatest gift to humankind -- in the advancement of civilization." (Letter dated 2003 Nov 26, To the Followers of Baha'u'llah in the Cradle of the Faith, p. 1) In this book, Abdu'l-Baha writes,

"The basis of Europe's progress and civilization was actually laid in the fifteenth century of the Christian era, and from that time on, all her present evident culture has been, under the stimulus of great minds and as a result of the expansion of the frontiers of knowledge and the exertion of energetic and ambitious efforts, in the process of development." (Abdu'l-Baha, The Secret of Divine Civilization, p. 10)

I have no doubt that the most far seeing of these "great minds" was Jan Amos Comenius. A few days ago we took up Comenius's proposal for a universal language in Panorthosia. As a result the Badi' blog has been joined by a new group of readers interested in an international language. I probably should give a little background as to just who Johannes Amos Comenius was.

Born in 1592, Comenius is largely known today for his contributions to education. He invented what we now call "child centered learning," wrote the first illustrated children's book and was an early advocate of kinder and gentler treatment of students, both young and old. He also invented a more effective way to teach the De Facto Lingua Franca for intellectuals of the time, Latin.

He wrote some 160 books and was actively involved in the adult home study movement allowed by the cheaper books put out by the newly invented printing press. Perhaps most important, he argued for universal education (that is, everybody goes to school, including girls and the poor), which has yet to be fully implimented around the world.

Recent research has turned up further contributions of Comenius beyond education. That is what I am popularizing here.

It turns out Comenius was an early advocate of world government, universal language and several other principles of world federalism. To give more background, here is my latest draft of a précis of this project on the Badi' blog for the Association for Baha'i Studies,

"Among the geniuses in the Western Canon, the utopian vision of Johannes Amos Comenius (1592-1670) comes closest in spirit to the Baha'i principles. Today, Comenius is known largely as an educational reformer but in a recently translated, largely posthumous work, the Panorthosia (Universal Reform), Comenius offers a plan for broad reform on a planetary level that, like the Baha'i principles, remains far ahead of anything seriously considered on the world stage today. I am an essayist and author of the Badi' Blog, a daily blog specializing in the application of the Baha'i principles. Over the past year I have been examining the Panorthosia in detail, comparing and contrasting its proposals with the Baha'i viewpoint. I have so far found that many principles and teachings that uninitiated Baha'is think of as distinctive features of their Faith are clearly discernable in the writings of Comenius. For example, education for all, including girls as the mothers of the next generation, independent search for truth, a common faith for all, universal language and world government were all pioneered by Comenius..."

That said, let us continue with the fourteenth chapter of the Panorthosia, "Concerning A Universal Language, Why, And By Whom, And How It Should Be Introduced."

There is a detailed history of the various proposals and candidates for an international language through the centuries called, as I recall, "The Universal Language Movement." I borrowed the book from the McMaster University library and read it many years ago. It is an interesting document, but unfortunately I no longer have access to it. The Wikipedia article on Universal Language mentions many early proponents of a universal language and Francis Bacon is the earliest. Comenius was an enthusiastic reader of Bacon, and there is evidence that Leibniz, the next major writer on this theme, had access to the Panorthosia in his early years. That would make Comenius either the first or the second major European thinker to advocate for a universal language. Of course, as the Wikipedia article points out, the earlier Arab civilization had Arabic as its own equivalent to a universal language, India had Sanscrit and China had classical written Chinese.

As far as I have so far found out, Bacon did not come up with a specific proposal for a world language but rather emphasized the dangers of the "Idols of Language," speaking in general terms of the deceptiveness of the means of communication, speech. Like Wittgenstein, he gleaned his linguistic vision directly from long and careful reading of the Bible. Comenius also elaborated on this Biblical understanding, but as far as I can tell right now, he was the first person in history to advocate a universal language that would be formally agreed upon by a world federation and placed under the aegis of a world ministry of education, an institution that he termed the "Collegium Lucis," or College of Light. Comenius saw the universal language as integral to the reform program that a world government would implement. In the second paragraph of the chapter of the Panorthosia that we have been examining is his mission statement for this new, consensual language of the human race:

"For in the Universal Reform of Affairs it would be both wrong and impossible to desire anything but the very best. But only one thing can be the very best of its kind. Therefore LANGUAGE also should be no exception to the rule that we desire but one, and that the very best and most suitable in all respects for its purpose, namely, to give accurate expression to things and the nature of things, and to communicate every meaning fluently and clearly from one mind to another, as I have outlined in my Panglottia, chapters VI-VIII.'" (Panorthosia, p. 207)

Some of the Psalms (2 and 22) speak of the dominion of the heavens and the earth being placed by God into the hands of mankind. Comenius reasons from this that language too must, by its very nature, be unitary and as boundless as earth and sky. Language should not, therefore, be an ethnic or national possession, it must be the domain of all,

"Therefore language should also be in keeping with this infinite extent. And since the languages at present in use among the nations are confined within their own territory (although some of them do not even cover it as they are suppressed by foreign powers, or if they do spread abroad they only infiltrate into the neighbourhood), there is every reason to seek a Universal Language, whose boundaries are the uttermost ends of the earth, as widespread as Mankind itself." (Panorthosia, para 7, p. 209)

As soon as all nations gather into a world federation the first task of educators, Comenius holds, will be to come together and agree upon a universal language. Language is the one thing that can make all the various cultures into one human race. The outer political act of joining nations together has no effect, in itself, on the hearts and minds of the world's people. It does not involve education or religion. The paltry results are to be seen today with the half-hearted, stilted token gesture that is the United Nations. The only way to make a true act of union would be to start with a universal language and follow it up with a well organized educational system for all students, everywhere, and to involve all the world's religious denominations as well. This, for Comenius, could not help but be wrapped up in the expected Return of the Christ,

"For it is the custom of new monarchs to pass on their laws to conquered nations in their own language, and thereby impose on them the need to learn their language (as the Greeks and the Romans did, and the kings of Peru' and Turkey etc.); surely Christ, the new monarch of the universe, will impose some new language on his World? It would be most fitting for the majesty of the most high monarchy to provide a language that is wholly wise and enlightened and worthy to represent it." (para 7, p. 209)

"If the Romans felt it necessary to enforce the adoption of their language by all nations as a measure towards easier control and administration of their empire (although it was not destined to last for ever), how much more shall we be justified in our efforts to establish one universal language as a measure towards securing an everlasting Empire for Christ all over the world? Therefore the whole Babylon must be destroyed and no trace of it must be left to survive." (Panorthosia, para 16, pp. 212-213)

After Comenius there were many weird and wonderful suggestions for a world language, most more weird than wonderful. More than one was entirely based on mathematics and another on music, so that Beethoven's opening phrase of the Fifth was actually saying something rather more mundane than its sublime flavour would suggest. As some readers have pointed out, Esperanto found a broad following because of its learner friendliness. As the following makes clear, Comenius envisioned a world language that would be attractive in itself. It would be not only appealing but robust; that is, if part of it were somehow lost it would still be possible to reconstruct it again using basic principles.

"Who shall persuade the Nations of so many languages to discontinue their traditional tongue in favour of a strange one? My answer is that if the new language is wholly reasonable, harmonious, pleasant, and clear according to our requirements, it will freely commend itself to every nation that has a taste of it. Therefore philosophers, churchmen, and the political leaders will make a concerted effort to extend it to all nations. For it is in the common interest to promote light and peace and the favour of God among all people." (Panorthosia, 14:16, pp. 212-213)

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John Taylor

email: badijet@gmail.com
blog: http://badiblog.blogspot.com/

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