What It Means To "Go Meta"

Joel says:

Thank you, Leo. By the way the world’s greatest concert pianist is Alexander Malofeev. Check him out on YouTube. Joel

Random College Kid says:

Some of my added examples from the meta examples in the video.

Breaking the 4th Wall (A fictional character knows they’re a fictional character) : See the TV tropes page for multiple examples of this. Interesting that you say that the 4th wall can possibly be broken in video games, where Mario can become aware that you’re playing him as a video game character. There are actually examples of video games that have a story line entirely based on the fact that the characters are aware that they’re in a video game, though obviously this is planned by the video game developers, and not like the characters are sentient like in your example of what future video games may be like. I’m not sure if this counts, but kind of reminds me about the video game Simulacra and Simulacra 2, which is a mystery video game where you use the phone of someone in the format of a real phone, and you have to discover the supernatural origins of why the owner of the phone was murdered. Spoiler alert: The “monster” in the game, which is basically an evil sentient AI, is aware that you are using a phone in the sense that you just think of it as a “game”, which is obviously planned, but very creative.

Metadata (Data about data) : Interesting that you mention metadata even when it comes to even physical letters. It kind of reminds me of the job interview advice of not just making the content of your resume excellent, but also the envelope containing the envelope. That is, someone should buy a very formally decorated envelope, to use a very fancy seal, even with a perfume like scent to it, to grab the attention of your employer who has to probably look after dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of the same types of resumes all day.

Metahumor (Humor about humor) : Anti-jokes sound similar to this idea. This is a joke where something is made where you expect a punchline, but the comedian goes on and on without any punchline actually coming, hence an anti-joke. A joke made to make fun of how people expect a real joke.

Metalearning (Learning about learning) : Barbara Oakley’s free course on the website Coursera Learning How to Learn, on her research on the brain and how it learns made for educators, but due to its general nature, becomes the most popular course on the website. I suggest you look into it yourself.

As an IT engineer, I also know the math website Better Explained has a very meta exploration of how to learn math, and WTF professor also has this but on a lesser level. For bloggers on learning, there’s Thomas Frank on his famous study habits blog, and on a lesser extent (because they’re very Stage Orange, but their ideas still have a lot of insight though only for growth on an intellectual level), Scott Young and Cal Newport’s blogs on their learning experiences.

Metalanguage (Language about language) : This is actually proven in psychology that different languages influence how you think. For example, in many languages such as Spanish or many European languages, many objects have a gender, and even in different languages, the same objects are referred to by opposite genders. This then colors how we associate cerain objects with gender, and even very neutral objects, by the perception of English speakers, have an associated gender in many languages.

Also some languages are focused on the structure of subject first then object after, such as “Bob eats an apple.” Though other languages, like Japanese, has the object first then the subject after, in a way that sounds like “The apple is being eaten by Bob.” We can say that in English, but it sounds more awkward than it does compared to Japanese. In casual language in Japanese, you can even say the “The apple has been eaten,” without saying the whole sentence, while in English, a more casual speaker would just say, “Bob ate.” This makes it so that cultures that have subject first languages are more likely to place fault and responsibility on the person or other subject performing the action, while those that place object first may put more fault and responsibility on the object or item itself.

Also, if you look up “Foreign words that don’t have translations in English,” you end up finding a lot of concepts English speakers do not tend to have a concept of.

Considering you mention the possibility of aliens coming in the future and the languages they have, the science-fiction movie Arrival comes to mind, which is about a linguist professor and her team researching the language of the aliens, which is composed of the circular patterns they make from their blank ink, considering they’re like octopuses in some way. Then by learning the language of the aliens, she ends up gaining the ability to see into the future, as the aliens do. Very interesting, though some types may not like it because it’s not a very action oriented science fiction film.

If you object to the fact that languages cannot be visual, see for example sign language for deaf people, and how there is even a different set of “tone” and “grammar” based on how you gesticulate with your hands. For example, someone who is very energetic with how they move their hands is like someone speaking enthusiastically with their voice, while someone who is slower and more deliberate with moving their hands, is like someone who speaks in a gentler, planned and quieter manner.