Our perception originates entirely from the five senses. For instance, when eating something spicy, can the sensations of “delicious” or “hot” exist without symbols such as words? I do not believe they are impossible without language. One can certainly feel something without words. However, to categorize that spicy food as “something delicious” requires a symbol. This is because the moment we perceive “spicy food” as “delicious,” we are already mediating that experience through the symbol of language. If we eat something spicy with someone and agree that “it’s delicious,” it becomes a delicious thing; if not, it becomes “unpalatable.” Thus, human preferences diverge.
Symbols do not define sensation; they are tools for sharing it. In a world established through mutual interdependence, could we not say that anything is possible as long as it exists as “something shareable”? Language is necessary to designate something delicious as “delicious.” Even without symbols, we can feel the difference between “tasty” and “distasteful,” or sense whether something is pleasant or unpleasant. What I am suggesting is that symbols are necessary to align that perceived difference as a recognized “difference.”
Even for the same “delicious” or “unpalatable” experience, the expression varies from person to person. Is it ever possible for two people to feel exactly the same way? Language does not enable the identification of difference itself; rather, it manifests and aligns that difference. Language expresses sensation without defining it, and sensation is shared through the medium of language. Sensation belongs to the five senses; language is but one symbol used for sharing.
This sharing and empathy also require symbols—not necessarily limited to language. Music, art, facial expressions, and gestures are all types of symbols. In the process of manifestation and sharing, “difference” is carved out by symbols. This contains an element of contingency; one could say it just “happens” to be so. This act of carving out expression through symbols can be seen as inherently violent. Even if individual sensory experiences appear to align through a symbol, it is not synonymous with perfect unity. In the process of sharing, the finer details of each individual’s sensation are inevitably shorn away. This is precisely why we find sharing so difficult, and why we exhaust our words and seek various other methods of expression.
If the details of our sensations are cut away during symbolic sharing, does this not imply that humans originally feel a vast amount of information through the five senses, and then narrow it down through symbolization? Might this not relate to the distinction between the conscious and the unconscious? In other words, perhaps to become conscious is to symbolize, while the unconscious is that which occurs without the mediation of symbols.
