Why Cannot We Completely Understand Ourselves?

John Locke was an English philosopher and empiricist. He had done many things in language, philosophy, politics, science and medicine. I think he had brilliant thoughts in language. He claimed that the meaning of a word is the idea in your mind while communicating. Words are the units that can be used for ideas. He thinks language is the only way to transfer knowledge. But at the same time, he thinks the language is a barrier to increasing and obtaining knowledge. So, it is imperfect. He says there is no natural bond between these meaningful sounds(words) and the ideas that represent them

 If so, we all would have one language. Words have a conventional structure that supplies a connection between the speaking one and the listening one. 

For instance, he says when you see an elephant. You do not see the elephant itself. What you take to be an elephant is the representation.

So I want to say that my elephant could be different from yours. Like when you say love, we do not think the same thing. It has a name in the philosophy of mind. It is called the "qualia effect".

Qualia is defined as individual instances of subjective, conscious experience. So every word has a different meaning for everyone. I think that is a big problem in our understanding. When I say grief, for example, maybe you had a tough life and I had a great one; that is so obvious we will not think the same thing. 

The way of expression cannot be clear enough. We should be careful about that. For instance, when you make a sarcastic comment but in a tone of sadness. It might get misunderstood. 

It is clear there are more reasons. But even these are the main ones; whatever you do, they will never be able to understand you completely. There is a saying: Whatever you say, what you say is nothing more than what the listener understands. So, don't be upset if you are complaining about this.