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To say that something is "ineffable" means that it cannot or should not, for overwhelming reasons, be expressed in spoken words (as with the concept of true love). It is generally used to describe a feeling, concept or aspect of existence that is too great to be adequately described in words, or that inherently (due to its nature) cannot be conveyed in dualistic symbolic human language, but can only be known internally by individuals.

In Zen it is often said that (by analogy) the finger can point to the moon but is not the moon; likewise words and actions can point towards what is ineffable but cannot make another know it.

Contents 1 Wiktionary 2 Quotations 3 Things said to be ineffable 3.1 Things said to be essentially incommunicable 3.2 Things said to be incommunicable due to incomprehensibility 3.3 Phrases considered too great to be spoken 3.4 Things said to be too disastrous to be spoken 4 See also

Wiktionary

1. unspeakable, beyond expression in words

   Gay Watson, Stephen Batchelor, Guy Claxton, The Psychology of Awakening: Buddhism, science, and our day-to-day lives (2000) p. 100:

   As Alan Watts (1961) wrote, it involves trying to speak the unspeakable, scrute the inscrutable and eff the ineffable.

2. forbidden to be uttered; taboo

Quotations

"Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." — Ludwig Wittgenstein

"The Tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao; the name that can be named is not the eternal name." — the Tao Te Ching

"What can't be said, can't be said. And it can't be whistled, either." — F. P. Ramsey

"What cannot be spoken in words, but that whereby words are spoken." — Kenopanishad

"We shall grapple with the ineffable, and see if we may not eff it after all." — Douglas Adams in Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

"I'm in the business of effing the ineffable." — Alan Watts

"You can't second guess ineffability, I always say." — Aziraphale in Good Omens

Things said to be ineffable

Things said to be essentially incommunicable

• The nature of qualia (sensory experiences), such as colors or flavors
• The nature of dreams
• The nature of emotions (with love being a prominent example)
• The nature of religious experiences, e.g. Søren Kierkegaard's analysis of Abraham in Fear and Trembling, Problemata III, and in particular the mystic's realization of nonduality
• The near-death experience
• The experience of birth
• The psychedelic experience is largely considered ineffable to psychologists, philosophers and psychonauts alike
• The musical experience, following Theodor Adorno, Vladimir Jankélévitch, among others
• The human soul (see also sentience and the hard problem of consciousness)
• The name of a god or gods, in some religions
• The Dao
• The ultimate definitions of good and evil

Things said to be incommunicable due to incomprehensibility

• The pre-big bang universe
• The size of the universe
• Pre-birth
• Post-death
• The concept of Infinity
• A square with 3 sides or any other illogical proposition

Phrases considered too great to be spoken

• The Tetragrammaton (YHWH, by orthodox Jewish tradition)
• The "Will of Bob" in Mostly Harmless, part of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Things said to be too disastrous to be spoken

Not ineffable; remember, ineffability refers to not being able to be properly explained in words:

• In C. S. Lewis's novel The Magician's Nephew, there is a word, referred to as the deplorable word, which ends all life on the planet on which it is spoken.
• In Terry Pratchett's the Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, the inept and cowardly "wizzard" Rincewind is said to have accidentally learned one of the eight most powerful spells in existence, which created the discworld. Although no one is exactly sure what this particular spell does, they are fairly certain that it will unmake the world if it is ever uttered.

This is the only spell Rincewind knows, and throughout the books he heroically resists the temptation to speak it. It is only at the end of The Light Fantastic that Rincewind can recite all 8 spells in the Octavo, and help new worlds come into being.-->

See also

• The love that dare not speak its name
• Inscrutability
• Unspeakable