Can machines truly understand? A client recently contacted me as an interpreter and said, “It’s critically important for me not just to convey the words literally, but to preserve the full depth and nuances of communication.”
I thought, how interesting! With all the buzz about AI replacing translators, interpreters, and writers, people still turn to people for nuanced communication. Why? This client explained it perfectly in the same email: “I want to talk about my innovation with my partners, and I need someone who can understand, not just translate words.”
But isn’t communication just words? Or is there more to it? Apparently, there is. When communication is reduced to words alone, it becomes mere reductionism. There is an invisible side to communication—what Owen Barfield called “the soul of words.” Words are more than their physical form; Barfield described their essence as “magic.”
“We can only cope with the dangers of language if we recognize that language is by nature magical and therefore highly dangerous.” History in English Words
The magic of words is the invisible energy that indwells words. Heidegger calls this energy Being.
“Language is a house of Being.”
Being is the very “soul of words.” Words that do not disclose Being are soulless. They mimic communication but do not connect. That is what my client instinctively understands—and why they ask me to convey the soul of what is being said.
When two people truly connect, it means they have gone beyond words—otherwise, there is no real communication. Women often know this best: they want men to grasp what lies behind their words. They don’t want men to analyze what they are saying, but to listen—to understand the soul of what is being spoken.
The moment we grasp the soul of words—the unseen—we connect. The magic of language lies in communicating at the level of unseen energy that reveals itself through physical means. My client wants me to transmit that energy, not just its shell. And my choice of words will always depend on whether I have grasped that energy in the first place.
If I have grasped it, the right words will come. My words carry energy only when I have touched what lies beyond linguistics. Instinctively, my client is concerned about what Heidegger called the “forgetfulness of Being” (Seinsvergessenheit). And how do we grasp Being? As my client suggested, Being is disclosed in nuances.
Interestingly, the French word nuance means “shade, slight difference, subtlety.” It is derived from nuer, which in turn comes from nue meaning “cloud” (hence nebula). The paradox of nuance is that it reveals by shading and obscuring—unveiling something precisely by making it less clear and more nebulous.
When I listen to someone and grasp what lies beyond their words, I enter a zone of mystery. By moving past concepts, we enter a cloud of unknowing—the place where Meaning dwells. That is why Asaph says in Psalm 78:
“I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old…”
My client wants to convey a certain magic—a living energy. He has captured it in certain words—his own “dark sayings.” If I penetrate the veil of the physical and enter that “cloud,” I will catch his energy and pass it on. If I remain at the level of words alone, I will lose the magic of language—the soul of words.
I once asked ChatGPT how it generates words. It replied: “ChatGPT treats language statistically, generating responses based on patterns in data rather than through genuine thinking.” ChatGPT is humble enough to admit that it does not penetrate beyond the level of data. And that is why, when people want to be understood, they turn not to machines but to humans.
It takes a certain sensitivity to nuances to recognize that meaning is never on the surface. To discover it, we must plunge into the cloud. The Machine cannot do this—it is bound to the physical by its very nature. Meaning is not natural; it is supernatural. Only beings who share in the supernatural can commune with Being and express its magic through living Language.
Looking for a writer or translator?
