"We can pool information about experience, but never the experiences themselves. From family to nation, every human group is a society of island universes...Words are uttered, but fail to enlighten. The things and events to which the symbols refer belong to mutually exclusive realms of experience."
Here Huxley explains the fallacy of language and other such "symbols." He claims that we have become "victims" of these systems, as they "label and distort every given fact into the all to familiar likeness of some generalization." I believe that Huxley's statement has much truth to it. Much of the reason human cultures vary so much is that they employ different symbols of reference that are not compatible, interchangable with other recognized systems. For example, many Spanish words do not translate truely into English, and vice versa. This permits for a gap, a barrier, to from between human groups, thus allowing us, as Huxley states, to become a society of island universes.
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