The limits of my language are the limits of my reality.

By 1 roamin on February 02, 2007

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Discussion (9)

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1 zuwiki who agreed, says

This is why we need Lojban.

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2 lala who disagreed, says

I have no words to tell you how wrong you are.

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2 knappster who disagreed, says

So you had no reality a few months after you were born?

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4 kybernetikos who disagreed, says

I think this would be roughly equivalent to some version of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. It's phrased here in a way that makes me fairly sure I disagree with it.

While language and its concepts certainly affect thought, there are many times when I realise that the word in my language for something is insufficient to capture as much of its reality that I am experiencing.

Colours are a good example of that. There are some reds that the word 'red' doesn't do justice to, and some blues that would be described better by the word 'soul' than 'blue', but neither captures enough of their essence.

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1 Joey Joy! who disagreed, says

Talk to Chomsky about this...

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2 Wim who disagreed, says

Interestingly, I disagree with this, but generally agree with the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

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2 Freddy Gui who hasn't voted, says

If you mean language as in "spoken-language" I'd disagree. However, If you include the visual, emotional "language" of the mind, I'd tend to agree that yes, we are limited by our experience/undestanding of the world.

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2 ididak who agreed, says

this is a good claim, if you think of language in a general sense (not just any specific written or spoken language) as building blocks of a mind. Anyone who disagree should pay attention to the "my" in "my reality."

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1 Speaker-to-Animals who disagreed, says

Re: the "my" -- the problem here is that when you speak of "my reality" you are not dealing with a closed system; the territory keeps intruding on the map, forcing revisions....

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