Jacob on Ambiguity

“Why do I require an hour to give this lecture when all I have to say really could go into roughly six sentences? Because I could not utter six sentences which are not so heavily charged with ambiguity that no one... would get the picture... Most human sentences are... aimed at getting rid of the ambiguity which you unfortunately left trailing in the last sentence. ...It is not possible to get rid of ambiguity in our statements, because that would press symbolism beyond its capabilities. And it is not possible to get rid of ambiguity because the number of responses that the brain could make never has a sharp edge because the thing is not a digital machine.”

“Ambiguity, multivalence, the fact that language simply cannot be regarded as a clear and final exposition of what it says, is central to both science and... literature. Why to science? ...you cannot make a single general statement about anything in the world which is really wholly delimited, wholly unambiguous, and divides the world into two pieces. ...you cannot say anything about a table or a chair which does not leave you open to challenge, "...I am using this chair as a table." ...the word "table" was not invented in order to bisect the universe into tables and non-tables. And if that is true of "table," it is true of "honor,"... "love,"..."gravity,"... "mass" and "energy" and everything else.”