If Wittgenstein had lived in the era of Generative Pretrained Transformer AI Models, I think he would have been highly intrigued by what their output says about the auto-correlated nature of human language use. This song is dedicated to Mike Hicks, a philosopher at the University of Glasgow.
The images, the lyrics, the music and the analysis table were generated by AI. The image was edited by me.
The Language Game Blues (aka The Sprachspiel Blues)
In honour of Ludwig Wittgenstein (26 April 1889- 29 April 1951)
The Builder’s Holler
I went down to the job site, hollered out “Slab!” and “Block!”
I went down to the job site, hollered out “Slab!” and “Block!”
My assistant brought a pillar, and I went into a state of shock.
The Private Diary
I wrote “S” in my calendar, for the pain I felt today.
I wrote “S” in my calendar, for the pain I felt today.
But without a public checkpoint, meaning just drifts away.
The Beetle in the Box
I got a beetle in my matchbox, but I can’t show it to you.
I got a beetle in my matchbox, but I can’t show it to you.
The box might be empty, so the word just has to do.
The Lion’s Roar
Well, if a lion started talkin’, we wouldn’t know a thing he said.
Yes, if a lion started talkin’, we wouldn’t know a thing he said.
We don’t share his form of life, man, we’re just talkin’ to the dead.
The Fly in a Bottle
I’m just a fly in a bottle, buzzin’ against the glass.
I’m just a fly in a bottle, buzzin’ against the glass.
Show me the way out, baby, and let this mental cramp pass.
The Meaning as Use
Don’t you look for the essence, don’t you look for the soul.
Don’t you look for the essence, don’t you look for the soul.
Meaning is just the usage, it’s the way we play the role.
Philosophical Summary Table (AI Generated)
| Wittgenstein Concept | Philosophical Definition | Lyrical Implementation | |
| Language-Game (Sprachspiel) | Language is a rule-governed activity (like a game) woven into action. | Verse 1: The “Builder’s Game” of Slab/Block serves as the narrative setting. | |
| Private Language / Diary | A language for private sensations is impossible due to lack of correctness criteria*. | Verse 2: The diarist writing “S” but finding “meaning drifts away” without a check. | |
| Beetle in the Box | Private objects are irrelevant to meaning*; words function via public use. | Verse 3: The “matchbox” (Beetle) that might be empty. | |
| Forms of Life / The Lion | Understanding depends on shared biological/cultural practices. | Verse 4: The talking Lion whose language is opaque due to different “forms of life.” | |
| Fly in the Fly-Bottle | Philosophy aims to untangle linguistic confusion (show the fly out). | Verse 5**: The singer trapped in the bottle, seeking the “way out” (therapy). | |
| Meaning is Use | Meaning is defined by usage in context, not by the object named. | Verse 6: Rejection of “essence” in favor of “usage” and “playing the role.” |
[ Author’s Notes:
* I do not accept these propositions generated by the Chatbot.
**It is perhaps more apposite to view the flies as traditional epistemologists who are seeking answers to unproductive questions.]
Excerpts from the AI-Generated Exegesis of the Song
“Language-Game
To further illustrate the functional nature of language, Wittgenstein constructs the “Builder’s Language” (section §2), a primitive language-game consisting of only four words: “block,” “pillar,” “slab,” and “beam”.
The game involves a builder (A) and an assistant (B). A calls out “Slab!”, and B brings the stone he has learnt to bring at that call. Wittgenstein asks us to conceive of this as a complete primitive language. In this context, is “Slab!” a noun or a sentence? It functions as a command: “Bring me a slab.” The word is not a label attached to the stone for the sake of categorization; it is a lever that sets human bodies in motion. It is a tool.
The “Builder’s Language” is critical because it highlights that language is an activity woven into a “form of life” (the building trade, the master-assistant relationship). The meaning of “Slab!” is not the stone itself, but the role the sound plays in the workflow of the construction site. If B were to stand there and contemplate the “essence of slabness” rather than fetching the stone, he would not be understanding the language. Understanding is demonstrated by the action, not the mental image.
This functionalist view mirrors the structure of the Blues. When a blues singer shouts a “holler” or a call, it is rarely a passive description of the world. It is an operational tool used to elicit a response—from the band, from the audience, or from the singer’s own psyche. The “Call and Response” mechanism in African American musical traditions is a quintessential “language-game,” where the meaning of the phrase is contingent on the answer it provokes”
Philosophy as Therapy
Wittgenstein famously stated his aim in philosophy: “To show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle” (§309). 1
The “fly-bottle” is the trap of philosophical confusion—the “mental cramps” caused by misusing language (e.g., searching for the “essence” of Truth or Time). The philosopher is the fly, buzzing against the invisible glass of language. The goal is not to build a new theory (a better bottle), but to show the way out (to stop asking the wrong questions).”
(NOT AI)
Supporting Quotations From Philosophical Investigations by Ludwig Wittgenstein
translated by G.E.M. Anscombe
Language Game / Builders’ Game
§2. That philosophical concept of meaning has its place in a primitive idea of the way language functions. But one can also say that it is the idea of a language more primitive than ours. Let us imagine a language for which the description given by Augustine is right. The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with building stones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words “block”, “pillar”, “slab”, “beam”. A calls them out; —B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call.Conceive this as a complete primitive language
§7. In the practice of the use of language (2) one party calls out the words, the other acts on them. In instruction in the language the following process will occur: the learner names the objects; that is, he utters the word when the teacher points to the stone.—And there will be this still simpler exercise: the pupil repeats the words after the teacher——both of these being processes resembling language. We can also think of the whole process of using words in (2) as one of those games by means of which children learn their native language. I will call these games “language-games” and will sometimes speak of a primitive language as a language-game. And the processes of naming the stones and of repeating words after someone might also be called language-games. Think of much of the use of words in games like ring-a-ring-a-roses. I shall also call the whole, consisting of language and the actions into which it is woven, the “language-game”.
§23. But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command?—There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call “symbols”, “words”, “sentences”. And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language-games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten. (We can get a rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.) Here the term “language-game” is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of language is part of an activity, or of a form of life. Review the multiplicity of language-games in the following examples, and in others: Giving orders, and obeying them— Describing the appearance of an object, or giving its measurements Constructing an object from a description (a drawing)— Reporting an event— Speculating about an event— Imagine a picture representing a boxer in a particular stance. Now, this picture can be used to tell someone how he should stand, should hold himself; or how he should not hold himself; or how a particular man did stand in such-and-such a place; and so on. One might (using the language of chemistry) call this picture a proposition-radical. This will be how Frege thought of the “assumption”.
— Forming and testing a hypothesis
— Presenting the results of an experiment in tables and diagrams
— Making up a story; and reading it
— Play-acting
— Singing catches
— Guessing riddles
— Making a joke; telling it
— Solving a problem in practical arithmetic
— Translating from one language into another
— Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying.
—It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used, the multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language
Meaning is Use
§43. For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word “meaning” it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Private Language/Diary
§243. A human being can encourage himself, give himself orders, obey, blame and punish himself; he can ask himself a question and answer it. We could even imagine human beings who spoke only in monologue; who accompanied their activities by talking to themselves. —An explorer who watched them and listened to their talk might succeed in translating their language into ours. (This would enable him to predict these people’s actions correctly, for he also hears them making resolutions and decisions.) But could we also imagine a language in which a person could write down or give vocal expression to his inner experiences—his feelings, moods, and the rest—for his private use?——Well, can’t we do so in our ordinary language?—But that is not what I mean. The individual words of this language are to refer to what can only be known to the person speaking; to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language.
§258. Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I associate it with the sign “S” and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensation.——I will remark first of all that a definition of the sign cannot be formulated.—But still I can give myself a kind of ostensive definition.—How? Can I point to the sensation? Not in the ordinary sense. But I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention on the sensation—and so, as it were, point to it inwardly.—But what is this ceremony for? for that is all it seems to be! A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign.—Well, that is done precisely by the concentrating of my attention; for in this way I impress on myself the connexion between the sign and the sensation.—But “I impress it on myself” can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connexion right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk about ‘right’.
Forms of Life / The Lion
§241. “So you are saying that human agreement decides what is true and what is false?”—It is what human beings say that is true and false; and they agree in the language they use. That is not agreement in opinions but in form of life.
Part 2 Ilxi (Page 225) If a lion could talk, we could not understand him.
Beetle in the Box
§293. If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word “pain” means—must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case!——Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a “beetle”. No one can look into anyone else’s box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing.—But suppose the word “beetle” had a use in these people’s language?—If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty.—No, one can ‘divide through’ by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of ‘object and designation’ the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.
Fly in the Bottle
§309. What is your aim in philosophy?—To shew the fly the way out of the fly-bottle.