Lucretian

Lucretius, in his seminal work De Rerum Natura ("On the Nature of Things"), elaborates on the atomistic philosophy of Epicurus, asserting that all phenomena in the universe are the result of interactions between indivisible particles, or atoms. For Lucretius, the natural world, including the human body and mind, is subject to the same material laws that govern the rest of the cosmos. His materialist outlook offers a vision of nature as a self-sustaining system, devoid of divine intervention. Language, in this context, is not a divine gift but an emergent property of human beings interacting with the world and each other. Lucretius contends that language arose naturally from the needs of early humans to communicate their experiences. In Book V of De Rerum Natura, he states: "Then speech began to bring men together into agreements, and mutual understanding introduced the terms of community life". Language here is presented as an evolutionary response, a product of human beings’ need to describe and control the material world. Yet, this is language rooted in sensory perception and the physical reality of the earth. For Lucretius, language mirrors the material cosmos—it is grounded in the experiences of bodies moving through space, feeling heat, cold, pain, and pleasure. While Lucretius' framework explains how language might arise from physical interactions, modern philosophers and theorists have speculated on the existence of "alien" languages—languages not merely unfamiliar to human culture, but entirely outside human perception and understanding. These languages, in the speculative sense, would operate beyond the material and experiential foundation that Lucretius describes, involving structures of communication and meaning not accessible through human sensory experience. One can turn to philosophers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein, who argued in his Philosophical Investigations that the limits of language are the limits of one's world: "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world". Wittgenstein suggests that human language structures reality and imposes its boundaries on what can be thought. However, if we consider the possibility of alien languages—whether from extraterrestrial beings or artificially generated intelligences—these languages might operate outside these limits, describing realities, dimensions, or forms of experience that humans can neither articulate nor comprehend. Such languages would be "alien" not only in the cultural sense but metaphysically alien, pushing beyond the boundaries of human cognition itself. A potential critique of Lucretius from the perspective of alien language theory lies in his materialist assumption that human perception and language are inherently linked to physical reality. In this sense, Lucretius would argue that any language—human or otherwise—must be grounded in material interactions, atoms colliding and forming structures. From this view, even an alien language would have to correspond to the material reality of the universe, though it may describe different aspects of that reality or organize it differently. However, the speculative allure of alien languages challenges this assumption by asking whether communication could transcend the material constraints Lucretius insists upon. Could there be languages that operate in non-material dimensions or through mechanisms entirely divorced from atomic interactions as humans understand them? Some postmodern philosophers have flirted with such radical ideas. For instance, theorists like Jean Baudrillard have discussed the possibility of simulation and hyperreality, suggesting that our interactions with reality are mediated through signs and symbols that bear no intrinsic connection to the material world. Could an alien language be one that communicates through such non-referential signs, utterly detached from the atoms that Lucretius insists make up all reality? This philosophical tension between Lucretian materialism and the speculative notion of alien languages is captured in what some theorists have termed "language-horror"—the fear or awe that arises when confronted with the idea of a language that does not conform to human structures of meaning. This concept, explored in genres like science fiction and horror, suggests that the true terror of alien languages is not simply that they are unintelligible but that they may represent an entirely different mode of existence, one that escapes human comprehension. In Lucretius’ universe, everything can ultimately be understood by examining the behavior of atoms and void. Yet, the existence of alien languages would suggest that there are modes of being or forms of life that cannot be reduced to atomistic interactions. This evokes what Immanuel Kant calls the "sublime"—the overwhelming encounter with something that exceeds the limits of human reason. Alien languages, in their unknowability, may invoke a similar sense of the sublime, representing an encounter with the boundaries of human understanding.