Thanks for the insight. While living in Mexico briefly, doing daily chores in Spanish, I did have a different demeanor, but I thought it was all about how bad my Spanish was. But your mention has me realize other components were there. Even with English speaking locals, that I was learning the ways from, gave me different sense of self. My Spanish is even worse now, but I can still reflect on being a different thinker back then.
Yes. I know because I grew up speaking English and in my 30s I learned to speak Spanish fluently. I found out that I learned a lot more than words. You learn different ways of seeing things when you speak a second language. In Spanish you don't say "I dropped it" you say "it fell from me", giving the object the blame instead of blaming themselves. That's just a quick example, plenty more exist.
The example you are giving, although it looks like it implies blaming the object, is actually used whenever you intend to inform about something you did by accident. Whenever this is the case, you speak about it as something that happens "to you" rather than something you did, because doing something, in Spanish, is more strongly associated with intentionality or at the very least, it creates some notion of responsibility. Another example: "Se me perdieron las llaves" (The keys were lost "to me").
Also, "me gusta" is a really common one. "It pleases me" is the most literal translation, instead of the english "i like it". I believe this kind of passive formation of concepts has an effect on one's paradigm to an extent.
@@Mark-rm2yu I personally think it makes more sense to speak about emotions as something that happens to you (pasive approach), rather than something you do, as an action (active approach).
What a great subject you’re discussing here. This kind of thought is paramount in understanding why people have different “psychologies”, and implications for why people so often “misunderstand” what someone else said. Nietzsche declared in a book in the late 19th century that he felt translation was “impossible” (to get accurate), and he stated this in the context of the differences he felt there were between the French and the German “mind” of his time. Pinker’s views are fairly well-known to many educated Americans, but I feel McGilchrist’s hemispheric theory here is quite salient- I’ve often wondered that since homo sapiens and other homo species have existed for hundreds of thousands of years and were preceded by non-homo but hominid species, it seems really likely that certain universal kinds of predispositions in communicating somehow existed and were formed by repetition success to ‘evolve’ in these groups and in us, even though there is little evidence that these early hominid groups had spoken languages of the kind we think of as language today with, say, 25,000 or more words. And what about the role of body language? What about clicks and grunts and sighs, and so forth? There were universal ways of communicating certain highly important concepts, certainly. Very good video to open up this subject!
I speak Russian, English, and Latvian, and I often enjoy exploring the etymology of certain words to uncover their deeper meanings. Take, for example, the word "abroad." In Latvian, it is "ārzemes," which is made up of two elements: "ār" (outside) and "zemes" (lands). This directly translates to "lands outside," a simple description of external territories. In Russian, however, the word is "заграница" (zagranitsa), which also comes from two elements: "за" (beyond) and "граница" (border). This construction emphasizes the concept of a boundary-specifically, a man-made border separating one land from another. To me, this difference is significant. The Latvian word focuses on the existence of land inside and outside, without necessarily invoking the idea of boundaries or control. In contrast, the Russian term reflects the presence of a defined border, suggesting a boundary imposed by authority or governance.
That is very interesting. I similarly find that within the three languages I know, I sometimes find that one has a more accurate word for an experience or a feeling, which also makes it a lot easier to grasp! :)
@@DavidAndrew-t3n I look at it more from a perspective of awareness. The inside land is what is known and the outside land is the unknown, strange or unfamiliar and the only border in between is the extent of your awareness. There's no boundary, only the point at which you limit yourself or someone else limits you.
Reminds me of the movie “The Arrival” where the main character who is a professor and linguist completely alters her perception of time by learning the language of extra terrestrials who “gifted” their language as a weapon, to save the human race. Since their language is non-linear, it opened her consciousness to perceive events nonlinearly throughout past, present, and future to prevent a war. Fascinating ideas and the movie is a great illustration of the ideas to a fictional extreme. Would highly recommend if you haven’t seen it yet
Recently have been thinking that there is a fundamental restriction to us due to usage of language, and this video popped up in my recommendation. It is [the] tool for comprehending this world, it dictates our inner thought process and it is [the] method to express our thoughts to outer world. Sometimes there is this "chunk of brain activation" that I cannot translate to language but still represent something I have learned through my experience, and the more I try to conceptualize with language the farther it gets from what it really is. At the end of the day, language is still a tool of abstraction of raw external / internal sensory data so information loss is probably inevitable during this translation process.
In my linguistics seminar I studied the Papuan language Western Dani. There they use a very original counting system: "One - exactly one - two - three - many - really extremely many". That's it! But when they really see the need for other numbers, which is rare in their culture, then they simply use Indonesian numbers. For example, to determine how many passengers are on a boat. That would be impossible if their language completely determined their thinking.
@@andreahoehmann1939 That makes me want to know how they would phrase the concepts of "To much" Vs. "Not enough". I've always felt that the size of one's vocabulary would directly effect the actual bandwidth of cognition and communication, the latter of which depending on alignment of terms of both parties. Convention.
@@andreahoehmann1939 I would guess that societies like that one would do most of their important communication when bartering and in trades. The needed items and currency would be estimated vissualy and the negotiations would consist of nods and hand jesters, which would work well if the buyer and vendor spoke different languages.
Great great video, please keep it going! There is so little awareness about the limitations of our language, and on the biases it imposes on the way we decode the world!
in this perspective Wittgenstein read is much much helpful.... Ludwig Wittgenstein's language game is a philosophical concept that describes how words and language are used in context and as part of an activity. Wittgenstein believed that words only have meaning within the context of a language game, and that the rules of the game determine the meaning of the words used.
Very interesting! I advise Ph.D. theses (engineering) and often feel that something is logically wrong in the student's work before I can put it into words.
Thank you for the highly informative video. There are few channels that grapple with the linguistic phenomenon as a whole in You tube and it really is a pity. As far as we know, we are the only species walking on this earth that can express abstract ideas not yet realized in the material world via a system of communication governed by its own special rules and binding laws. Good luck and all the best to you.
My college professor said that language shapes thinking, and that thinking shapes language. He had our class spend an entire day coming up with words and phrases to describe a woman that likes to have sex (slang was allowed). There were so many. Then he asked us to come up with the same for a man who likes to have sex. I think we came up with three, and they were compliments or neutral, nothing like the mostly negative ones we had for a woman. Then he asked us, "how can we say men and women are equal, when we don't have the language to express that thought"? I found it quite profound. If I ever criticize a woman, I now try to only use the same word(s) that I would to also describe a man, otherwise it promotes sexism IMO.
Just like in calculus, we have to basically use our understanding of finite elements (which are discrete), and sum over them, since we can only visualise discrete things.
Anecdotally, there’s a lot to this. Having done therapy in a 2nd (very similar) language, and creative work (music production) in non-native English, definitely shaped my outcomes of both. All this some decades ago. More Recently (last decade) I have studied McGilchrist and Chomsky, both mentioned here. Add Graeber, Wengrow, Hegel, Nietzsche… Yes, anthropology, history and general philosophy will holistically reshape a view of being - and a reevaluation of doing. Language seems reductive in form, but beautifully humbling and transcendental in context. 😊
Yes. I've believed this since i lived in a spanish speaking part of the world for a couple years. When i found out that they don't have words for concepts i take for granted, i realized that they never even thought about those concepts before. The idea of "randomness" was difficult to explain using spanish words, for example. But the same goes for myself somewhat with languages that have words english doesn't have as well. For the most poignant example, go find the article called "how africans may differ from westerners" by gedaliah braun. It's revelatory about the fact that conceptualization and vocabulary are inseparable.
Yes. I learnt French and Italian at different stages of my life, and do dream in both these and English sometimes. How I talk and think in those languages is very different from English. I don’t really have an emotional vocabulary for sadness and so on in Italian as I learnt it at a happy, young age. When I talk in Italian I’m more outgoing and cheerful than in French or English. When I get angry or upset, it comes out in English.
Very intense video for me as someone who spends his days calculating things in his mind and solving puzzles and various logical and mathematical tasks in his mind without paper or computer. And especially for me as someone who wants to create his own language in order to be able to properly communicate. This video inspired me to realise that people actually don't wanna know the truth and don't wanna be the best in their jobs. Competition and testing themselves is very low priority compared to living in their own bubble where they can believe in being valuable contributors to something. Scientists just want to establish their theories and establish their scientific positions and careers. Not very interrested in disproving theories of others. Religious people care about establishing their religion and their position rather than openly exposing themselves to be vulnerable and losing their position in favor of their personal development and coming closer to objectively final point from which they can see flaws and benefits of their religion. Politicians establish their own governments with their own laws instead of evolving and trying to figure out how the government should look like and function. Business people make products and then care about marketing the product rather than first realising what they should be making and what should be marketed. Until seeing this video I didn't see the paralell there with science. It never properly came to my mind that scientific people could care more about establishing themselves rather than finding the truth. I can see it being obvious now but it's not easy to let myself see it. As a reaction to the video - Language does not restrict my thoughts at all. I wanna create my own language to be able to better communicate my thoughts and also to be able to create more stable environment within my mind where I can better label certain ideas and establish more developed thought structures due to sufficiently accurate linguistic assignments. Without linguistic establishment (usually words) it's much harder create independent mental layers and it all blends together since the non-linguistic parts of the mind is unified and connected in present thinking. Language allows me to make notations of the thoughts and work with them in longer periods of time without high mental power consumption. To make it more clear. In the same way it's much easier to remember someone as an individual rather than memorizing the person by various attributes and activities. All of the activities and attributes come together in the person and then I just remember the person. Without some kind of individual assignment I would have to remember all the paths leading to the person and the same would have to happen with the thoughts without linguistic assignment.
@@kepspark3362 Well. The hardest thing to set in stone is the meaning of core ideas like "I" and how much to focus on differentiating between I as the body, I as the consciousness, I as the soul, I as the spirit or I as the creator and organizer of the thoughts. How much to focus on separating these meanings and whether to even have linguistic representation for them or just have it naturaly defelop out of the context. And then whether to focus on identifying things interefering with these I's (plural of I) like ego, selfish desires etc. I find it much easier to be intelligent enough to organize the informational structures to form linguistic contruct than to have such a pure level of awareness above any philosopher or psychologist to accurately identify limits of meanings of these ideas. Creating language without differentiating spiritual existence and activities would be an easy game.
@@kepspark3362 Well. The hardest thing to set in stone is the meaning of core ideas like "I" and how much to focus on differentiating between I as the body, I as the consciousness, I as the soul, I as the spirit or I as the creator and organizer of the thoughts. How much to focus on separating these meanings and whether to even have linguistic representation for them or just have it naturaly defelop out of the context. And then whether to focus on identifying things interefering with these I's (plural of I) like ego, selfish desires etc. I find it much easier to be intelligent enough to organize the informational structures to form linguistic contruct than to have such a pure level of awareness above any philosopher or psychologist to accurately identify limits of meanings of these ideas. Creating language without differentiating spiritual existence and activities would be an easy game.
Fascinating subject! It raises concern for Gen Alpha and their outcomes from being moved through our failing education system without being made to put in the work to expand their abilities, knowledge, and their vocabulary.
non-phonetic thought is what all the old texts are talking about, if you make the sound of breathing in the inner voice chatterbox so you can shut up, its like freeing up processor usage to utilize another faculty as in conceptual thinking. its like thinking with your e.m.f. as opposed to electric synapse as in the recent scientific American article.
Lately I've been seeking spiritual fulfillment and this video got me thinking about how that emptiness inside is hard to define exactly but it is indeed that abstract "God concept" that many of us fail to comprehend for much of our lives, trying to satisfy it with worldly things etc. until we discover this spiritual path of enlightenment. It's like learning a new language or modality of thinking when we start setting course toward true understanding.
isnt it different to the question whether language restricts thoughts? i mean, i often used restricted language to express myself and only got a better match once i learned about new concepts, words and perspectives. And then i also see how one may not have been able to find better words and ultimately accustomed to the situation, that is, identifying with the once said words as if they were the complete story. So, thoughts are maluable in my eyes, as well as language. They both can liberate and restrict each other, depending on the degree of accuracy one is willing to accept. And then, i also see that language is not the level in where thoughts are living. I perceive my thoughts as some sort of quick, buzzing and parallel concepts flying around until they're grouping together were a stream of language ultimately emerges. It's the tiny bit of time during a visualization or a thoughtful yet empty think in which this is happening. Yea and actually there might also be a universal proto-language between that and the language that will be spoken or written in the end. Hard to tell if that also exists for people who havent been fluent in more than one language. lol, yea, Mentalese sounds cringe, but kinda accurate. i've always thoughts like that. but i would also say, those thoughts are the constant subconcious babble going on. And we could define thoughts as being all of that as well or just the concious stream of headvoice stuff when we think in silence.
Scholz's Communication Theory posits that communication, in all its forms-whether verbal, visual, or non-verbal-fundamentally shapes and constrains human thought. Just as language determines how we structure our thinking, so too does the medium of communication dictate the way ideas are formed and understood. Whether through words, images, or gestures, the act of translating thoughts into a communicable form alters both the thought itself and its interpretation, limiting or guiding our cognitive processes. In essence, communication is not just a tool for sharing ideas but a framework that directs how we conceive and interact with the world.
Bravo! Thanks for putting words to this! AI LLM is a simulation of one type of human processing. Besides lacking a left hemisphere, AI has no embodied experience (or one very different from human experience) and hasn't begun to explore the data collection and processing that is distributed all over a living organism.
One thing I’ve noticed about listening to Radiohead over the years is that Thom will pick and use commonly used Brit phrases you don’t think about twice, but in the context of the music make you realise how our language drips with violence.
I honestly feel like its our vocabulary that actually limits our thoughts. Its not fun trying to think about something without having words to describe or explain it.
while visual thinking offers a profound, often underexplored cognitive dimension, its integration into collaborative frameworks remains constrained by our current reliance on linguistic systems. The interplay between these modes of thought is central to advancing human communication.
I once read the philosophy of Hegel, in which he describes the emergence of the psyche, consciousness, and intelligence in that order. The acquisition of language is in the phase of intelligence. So, it does contribute to high-level thoughts but is not the deterministic factor of intelligence according to him.
Hegel lived several hundred years ago. His musings on the subject should probably be taken with a grain of salt considering that the answer to these questions remain elusive even with modern MRI technology.
Last comment, the battle between "emotions" and "logic" was described in the three tierd scientific process most accurately described by the great L Larouche (in aternpa vive). Level one is emotional simple sensory perception, This was described best by the great L. Larouche (in aternpa viva) in his three tiered Socratic approach to science, level one is simple sense perception, level two is "understanding" (ie "scientific specialization" which is what our "scientific" education based on "job training" aims to create, highly specialized robots), level 3 is mastering the non-reductive, multi and infinite modal dialectical process, contained in every person as imago Dei. We need to move beyond feelings and "logic" and get everyone to level 3 (which really is not a finite number, but a transfinite "variable!)
Excellent exploration from a few ideas. I find temperament and biodeterminism determine culture and language. Epigenetics and gene expression from environmental factors will cause you to modify what you thought you knew. Ect
I'm new to your channel enjoyed this presentation, having recently become interested in philology and the question of how language influences cultural perceptions. I've not read McGilchrist's work (tomes) yet, but enjoyed many of the interviews with him. You may find Mark Solms, who wrote The Hidden Spring, interesting too. And this is a good segway into the question of AI intelligence. Federico Faggin wrote Irreducible, a very accessible book on his thoughts on why AI could never attain true intelligence. Well worth looking into.
Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, in the year 600, advised people to teach their children Arabic, for it expands the mind for the acquisition of knowledge in multiple domains... that is, it expands the capacity for acquiring other knowledge forms that are not limited to language. Thought you may find that intetesting. Peace be with you.
Interesting video. But about the end with discussion of AI and LLMS: In a strange way, although LLMs are language models, they are in a sense more intuitive than they are reasonable. These neural networks decide on an output not for a reason, but because their patterns of neurons made them arrive at that answer ie. they just think it. If you ask them why they answered that way, not knowing or having memory of why, they will again conjure up a kind of 'intuitive' answer of why they may have answered that way. Then if we think of ai image creation, I believe they work in a poetic associative way. I did not expect an image creator to understand what a 'lulling lake' would look like - but 'intuitively' it got what I meant by combining the concepts of 'lulling' and 'lake' and made an image that conveyed that. What I'm trying to say is maybe it's a mistake to think of LLMs as cold machines and therefore rational and left brain. Maybe when we come to the realm of neural networks, the concept of left-brain and right-brain isn't meaningful, even if it is useful to make sense of our experiences of thinking.
My mother had a vaccine stroke and her right side of the brain is gone. She has not lost her speech at all. She still has imagination. What she lost is logic. She can remember recent events and long past events. But she can not organice them in a timeline. She is half paralyzed. She believes she went shopping or are going on a trip. You can tell her a thousand times that she no longer have her car, yet she don't belive it and gets angry if you correct her on these things. Her emotions are still there. It's not fun to visit her. She is like a audio book of her life. A book that I can't change and she changes all the time into a fantasy life that is 100% real to her. Myself, I think in words, in different languages, sometimes mixed. As I learn more words, my toughts expands. Feelings is rarely any need to express in words, unless you are involved in an interaction with another person. If I see someone suffer, tear will come without thinking. Only if someone ask why I am crying, I need tho think the words to explain why. If I was the only human in the world, there would be no need for words for different feelings. This is why humans have xenophobia, we can't understand the words of other languages, therefor we can't laugh at a joke, cry about a sad story only get angry because "they" don't understand.
@@CasanovaExplains The hospitals and old peoples homes are full of people like this now. My mother got the stroke two day after her second booster. The day before she went to the hospital with a strange head ache. They sent her home with a pain killer pill. I'm not to happy with some people in the world! Thank you.
Of the four languages I speak ranging in level-competency between B2 and C2 (my native-language falling in the middle of that range), my perception of the world feels “different”. However, in my opinion, that difference should dissipate if all four languages were to reach C2. It’s only a matter of reading and writing enough in all four languages.
Scholz's Communication Theory posits that communication, in all its forms-whether verbal, visual, or non-verbal-fundamentally shapes and constrains human thought. Just as language determines how we structure our thinking, so too does the medium of communication dictate the way ideas are formed and understood. Whether through words, images, or gestures, the act of translating thoughts into a communicable form alters both the thought itself and its interpretation, limiting or guiding our cognitive processes. In essence, communication is not just a tool for sharing ideas but a framework that directs how we conceive and interact with the world.
I wouldn't go quite that far. Can you picture an animal in your head that you don't know the name of? Or have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue that you couldn't retrieve? The thought that you are trying to express exists. But the transmission of the thought is made more difficult without the adequate language to convey it.
Obviously For anyone who's tried to speak in a language that they're just learning in the country Severely !imits your thoughts. Further thinking in the old language limit your interactions. Limit might be the wrong word Guides your thoughts pushes your thoughts in certain direction Like a storm a storm storm doesn't Necessarily stop you from going from 0.8 point B. but it doesn't affect How you go from point A. to b, It makes you not want to go from A. to B. or even think about going from A. to B. at certain times. If something is harder to do In 1 language then another That will affect you
In the film Quest for Fire, there is a proto language consisting of grunts that was invented by Anthony Burgess. It's a fun imaginaning of how early humans may have communicated. His thoughts on constrictions placed on modern language in his book 1985 plays with Orwell's ideas of Newspeak.
I have an above average vocabulary, but it’s still not what it could be. My one advantages is that I actually do art, and can express myself in a way most people can’t. I find it very interesting that people talk about the fact that they’re multilingual and it even changes the way that they think at that time they’re speaking a different language.
There is a huge gap in this discussion in the form of "The Purple Book" aka _Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition_ that is essential to round out the facts. Noam Chomsky has largely been agreed to be disproven, and that deserves is own admonition. Relational frame theory looks at how language drives cognition and behavior. The idea proposed is that there are 3 central relational frames from which a human mind can position itself. All communication is interpreted from these 3 frames: I or not I, here or not here, now or not now. Every human interprets communication from their own experience, and can only orient based on personal experience. I or not I determines if the individual or someone or something other than the individual is the subject of the communication/thought. Here or not here determines if the subject is taking place in the immediate location or somewhere non-local. Now or not now determines if the subject is immediately relevant or was/will be relevant. Grammar and syntax varies from language to language, and the inherent distance or obfuscation of proximity of the 3 frames will be dependent upon the grammar and syntax. It is reasonable to assume that the relationship of the perceiving mind will be altered by the linguistic proximity to these frames. Additionally, it would be reasonable to attribute a degree of intimacy vs pragmatism in language as well. Chinese is very poetic and inferential thus invoking more depth of the perceiver's experience while English is so pragmatic that I would argue it depersonalizes language and its content. I would go so far as to say that things become less urgent, less spiritual, and less intimate in English; English may more accurately represent phenomenon in language, but at the expense of personal meaning and value. This sterility of English may lead to people caring less about the more troubling aspects of the human experience, while crating a greater gap between those who have direct experience of tragedy compared to understanding language that represents tragedy. I believe it to be a contributing factor as to why English speaking countries are the most nihilistic and detached from global problems.
Thank you for that idea about possibly training AI to have human-like emotion and understanding. Also, no one seems to have mentioned the name, Worf, which you introduced as the name of a language researcher. Origin of the name of Mr Worf, in Star Trek? Next day I realised I might have got the name wrong; here is more -- Wikipedia: Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis. Considering how language might affect understanding, it seems that describing aspects of thought and also material objects as male-like, female-like and neuter, can influence behaviour and may be present in Dutch use of the terms, zijdig and onzijdig, as though there might be opposing views and even competition regarding what are regarded as zijdig aspects of life. In the Wikipedia article there is mention of how use of the word, energy, has been debated. From Newton's time, Energy = Force x Distance. What forces and what distances? A reasonable theory is that all particles have forces that depend on compression of fundamental constituents of the space we live in. Energy, is a piece of mathematics based on the forces and the distances through which those forces act in compression. Energy is recovered and transferred into observable and useful motion as the compressions are released. So, there is no material object corresponding to, Energy.
The only proof that you need that language influences the way you think is mathematics. Learning what a derivative is or exponents or euler's equation will completely change the way you think.
Since I have been studying in English and especially in German, instead of my mother tongue, I feel like I have less capability of thinking clearly. I had this feeling, but I don't know if this is due to a language barrier.
I only speak English and Spanish, and even between these latin based idioms, there is a decidely different flow, an attitudinal adjustment required to enter flow. In fact, I shall go as far as to say that the thought processes of a rural Australian vs. an urban Londoner is as chalk & cheese, despite possessing (nominally) the same vocab. 🤔 THEN, there's Nuspik, a literary conceit or inevitable conclusion?
Yes maam, this is why glasolalia is the universal expression of linear thought, speaking in tongues. Holistically, axiomatically assuming as true, this is exactly what Adam were commanded to do before creation of Eve -> to name the living being.
All of the theories are correct except for linguistic Determinism and linguistic Universalism. The others are not mutually exclusive, and are different ways to describe aspects of the same model. The following way of putting it may help, imo: In absence of any language, we 'think'/process the world similarly to animals, via images, emotions, abstractions. (Animals also remember smells.) Once we add language, we to tend to use it where we can. But this filters the array of vague concepts into a narrow band of more precise concepts. So we sacrifice breadth to gain precision. But as we add more words to a language, thus more nuance, we gain a lot of that breadth back, though never all of it. A simpler way to explain the Left vs Right hemisphere brain functions, imo, is to say, simply, that the Left hemisphere processes *casual* thinking, while the Right processes *associative* thinking. That's much easier, and reduces all the various functions of the hemispheres to a single polarity. Thus, as we increase the scope of language - the nuance that it can handle, for example - thus relying ever more so on language in order to think, we come to think every more causally, and less associatively.
Note: My use of 'precision' is not really correct. We _actually_ lose information when we translate analogue abstractions into words. But we create, thereby, categories which are absolute. They are less accurate, but they are more distinct and clear, thus allowing for causal thinking. You can't do causality upon a soup of everything being degrees of everything else. For A to be > B, there has to be a clearly defined A, and a clearly defined B - even if that does not as accurately reflect the state and nature of reality. But this is a _necessary_ sacrifice of accuracy, because our brains cannot process infinite degrees of soupy relativism. We need to reduce the number of variables by averaging variables into categories, so that we can make sense of the world in approximation.
Language limits the possible shape of thoughts, but doesn't determine the thoughts. For example, for any thought 'p' that a language can express, the language can express 'not-p' as well. Accordingly, even though a language corresponds to a form of life, it doesn't determine the content of the lives with that form.
Yes it does and i find English quite restrictive. Languages dont just change your thoughts, but also the way you think, behave and experience the world.
All of these debates dance around but never actually recognize, much less address what is at the heart of this. That is, people are debating different things, individual cognitive processing vs more global processing while both totally missing on critical factor. Humans are social creatures. We build cultures by exchanging thoughts and building on those exchanged thoughts. The mass is greater than the individual. It is rare that any given individual will have much of a lasting impact on the culture but rather the accumulation of the interactions of the multitude tend to have the greatest effect, with the occasional standout individual. The point is, without a codified method of interacting that facilitates certain types of thoughts fluidly, a society will not tend to evolve that aspect of thought relative to areas where the language handles such thoughts in a well codified manner. This is why language matters. Furthermore, language is constantly twisted and shaped by influencers to manipulate the society. This is the heart of 'propaganda' which uses language, phrases etc... all to shape thought, to great effect. Propaganda, youth, and other groups are always inventing new words and aspects of language with one purpose in mind (consciously or subconsciously,) to reshape thought processes in the culture. This is why language shapes thought... beginning, middle and end. This is my official statement on this. I have not heard anyone state this and I've followed this closely (as much as a layman can) for my entire life. Why, I don't know because to me it is not only so obvious, it baffles me as to why I have never seen it discussed.
Side note, I'm not trying to take away from some of what is presented in all of the other discussions as I think some valid thinking has gone on regarding the nature of language and the individual, I am simply mentioning the elephant in the room that for some reason actually addresses the point they are all supposedly focused on.
I enjoyed the discussion. I would project farther - to the subject of Natural Intelligence. A lot of contemporary discussion focuses on Artificial Intelligence, and wonders if AI is "real". I think this presupposes that we already know what makes up Natural Intelligence. Linguists would probably argue that language skill is an example of Natural Intelligence. What is missing is that this skill completely misses some important aspects of the natural world. For example, for many centuries the astronomical observations and calculations of Ptolemy and Aristotle were sufficient for our natural intelligence. This completely missed the linkage between astronomy and mechanics, that Newton would construct in the 17th century with his theory and application of Newtonian Mechanics. Then this was replaced by Einstein in the 20th century. Does any of this mean that Ptolemy, or Newton were "stupid" or simply not as intelligent as Einstein? Hardly. But it does highlight that the language used by Ptolemy, and Newton, did not express the concepts that Einstein would include in his theories of motion and mechanics. Modern physics still complains today that language cannot explain Quantum Mechanics. Or, to express this in cognitive and linguistic terms, our thinking about Quantum Mechanics is limited by the language we can use to explain it.
@@CasanovaExplains There are many aspects of natural intelligence and our language(s) that we use. I am trained as an electrical engineer, specializing in radio communications. As such I have studied information theory, radio spectrum, bandwidth, voice communication, and other relevant radio technology subjects. Our spoken language is limited by the bandwidth we can use in our physical vocal apparatus, and the related hearing constraints of our ears. In basic terms, we are limited to 3 kHz (kilo Hertz) of bandwidth, and this limits our information capacity to about 3 kbps (kilo bits per second). This is tiny, when we compare it to the bandwidth we use for video (10 Mbps), or cabled connections to familiar devices like WiFi routers (1 Gbps). This small bandwidth is reflected in our language vocabulary. Most of us only use 5 to 10 thousand words in spoken communications, but any sort of complex communication requires supplements of hundreds or thousands of specialized technical words. Even in this small note, a word like "bandwidth" is probably hardly ever used in spoken communication. An exhaustive dictionary like the OED lists over 600,000 words, and many of them have several alternate definitions and meanings. As such, the language we use places a significant constraint on how we can express our intelligent thoughts. To make some simple estimates of information in speech, a typical word of English is about 5.5 letters. With about 5 bits per letter, that comes to about 27 bits of information per word. At a rate of about 2 words per second for ordinary speech, this comes to under 60 bps, or just 2% of the maximum bit rate of 3 kbps permitted by our ears and throat. Our language is well suited to this very limited information capacity, but this is a strong limitation on our natural intelligence. This is why an artificial intelligence like a computer can solve a cryptographic problem like the Enigma crypto machine in WW II, while our natural intelligence cannot. Incidentally, this does not mean that artificial intelligence is "better" than natural intelligence. It simply says that AI is not constrained in the same way that natural intelligence is constrained.
Language conspires with time to make some ideas unreachable in a lifetime. Theoretically, it's time and not language which is restricting. But for practical purposes, because the value of spending the time needed to arrive at a linguistically challenging idea is not known beforehand the time required is not allocated.
No. Not unless the individual in question decided to stop learning (on nearly all levels) once they completed middle school or something akin. It's utterly ABSURD to think that any specific language is somehow unconnected to all (or many) of the others. English adopted and adapted SOOO many bloody words from Latin, French, Spanish, German, and more... it'd make your little grey noggin' spin. Even in my own series of books, I *deliberately* included nods to Swedish, French, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Hindi, etc. Only intelligent readers will detect this, though. 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ "Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge; hope's strength resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again." 🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨ --Diamond Dragons (series)
Not a fan of Pinker, but these "mentalese" idea describes a lot better the process of what we usually describe as "thinking in a different language", in my experience and of other people who've learned other languages. It might seem like that at first, but then you find yourself more and more in a state of having wordless thoughts, waiting to be verbalized. I've been using the concept without knowing it was his idea, now I like it a bit less, haha. I don't believe that the simplification of how the hemispheres work is too accurate, it's probably more of a gross caricature of how the brain actually works. I tend to distrust any explanation, and even more prediction or method, based on that.
I agree with you, there are several models that try to approximate how the brain works and the intangible is captured from the depths of the subconscious, some supported by studies, some completely speculative- they are great fun to toy around with in one's head! :)
The right and left hemisphere theory is not actually that much robust. As it is known that different functions works in different parts of brain so it should not be like left is weaker than right.
I also have same thought. There are more than 1 type of thinking like a visual thinker will just think in image form, one can think in emotions or some sensations too. All of this different types of thinking are not intrinsically dependent on language.
That does not invalidate the thesis at all. People without the power of speech at all Think Visual Visual images Think and basically a different language the language of animals like dogs or cats. Well you can do some mathematics with geometry visual Well you can do some mathematics with geometry and visual thinking A large part of mathematics is totally Remove from none lingist thought. Props with computers we can share our visual thoughts in the future cause we can now record people's dreams But until that day we are not gonna be able to communicate with visual thoughts either so collaboration is impossible at this level. At some point these visualizations have to be converted into words for them to be shared. They can be sure of course by drawing pictures and what not but that Again changes the nature of how we think about the and communicate about thoughts . Imagine communication done only by drawing pictures And just imagine that you could draw the pictures exactly as you saw them in your head it would still massively change the communication And what was interpreted
Most people disregard those claims as semantics. We say they must have an inner dialog for basic functions like planning and projection. I tend to give them their position and look for why they think or imagine they lack a vital element of human survival.
Warning!!! I am a human and I don't know anything for absolute fact except for that fact. But my brain says "Language goes both ways. Comes from our abstract. Thoughts? Conceptions etc as you said, But it also is shaping your brain because of what you hear. The more language you have, the more abstract things can become and do become. Potentially (with enough people, analytical tools, language shifts etc.) Shout out to Ruth Wodak!... Oh there's so many it's hard to describe! I'd like to thank all 👏👏👏🎬. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 😮😅😊🎉😢 oh you shouldn't have (fake crowd recorded in the 1950's cheers!) up next ANIMANIACS!
The hemispheric model you discuss really goes back to a guy named Sperry, in the 60s, at the least, and it's kind of outdated, imho. It's far too simplistic. The brain has dozens functional sections, and claiming an entire hemisphere is this or that specific function is reductionist. For instance, the parts of the brain that process and produce language both happen to be in the dominant hemisphere (usually the left), but this does not mean that the entire left hemisphere is based around language and logic. Calling it "left-brain" vs "right-brain" is also simplistic, because ofc it's not always the left hemisphere that is dominant (95% of the time it is, sure, but not always). And finally, I'll add that it totally ignores the neocortex, which connects the entire brain seamlessly and is not divided like the cortex. OTOH, a fascinating and now ignored theory is that of Julian Jaynes, in his book _The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind._ I won't try too hard to summarize it, but essentially, he suggested that pre-literate humans actually had even more of a split between the hemispheres, such that the only way the one cold communicate with the other was to create a "hallucinated" voice, with perhaps even hallucinated imagery, and the person would typically interpret this as a visit from the gods, or other spiritual sources. It's a very persuasive theory, actually, and the book is a damned fun read. I wish more people were familiar with it.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment! Perhaps I need to clarify that I did not mean to suggest a rigid dichotomy between the hemispheres (the outdated part which you mention). It’s more of a high degree of specialization than each hemisphere performing exclusively one function (and there are several studies in neuroscience supporting this) and that they are highly collaborative and interconnected (hence if you notice, I used terms like “excels” and “associated with” to avoid assigning a rigid dichotomy without overwhelming with too many details). The other thing I need to clarify, McGilchrist did not come up with the hemispheric theory, neither did he try to assign rigid functions to each. He does stress that they are interdependent and that certain functions like language can involve multiple regions across both hemispheres. He especially connects these tendencies to broader cultural and historical shifts, which I think is an interesting thought to entertain. I appreciate the perspective you add from Jaynes book, it does sound interesting and I will add it to my reading list!
No! It is not that, “All humans think the same thoughts or feel the same emotions regardless of their language.” Or that, “You would be aware of your emotions even if you did not have the words to describe them.” Yes, all emotions are universal, however, the particular language (esp. far removed from IndoEuropean group of languages) to describe them determines implicitly, the nuance, character and affective meaning and experience, that is, the attribution and meaning of what is experienced. The narrative of how something is grammatically described by their native tongue does in fact change the experience. Experience is not just raw basic stand alone universal emotions but characteristic form they take does indeed form the structural narrative of the the “how” and “what” is being experienced. So, in that regard indeed a weltanschauung. However, seemingly paradoxical but not, they are translations from and within Collective Consciousness and not isolated monads.
Wouldn't linguistic universalism, by extension, require a refutation of determinism as a philosophy? There are precious few examples (if any) of non-language-based brain processes spontaneously causing abstract conceptions that aren't explicitly preceded by physical phenomena. Emotion, and even "intuition," are predicated on biochemical messengers and electrical action potentials. When *I* think of cognition, I equate it almost exclusively to the "abstract" portion of thought; in that regard, my higher-level thinking is absolutely constrained by language. If I didn't know the word "linguistics" (to name just one of many labels used as conceptual representations in your monologue), my comprehension would be severely reduced. Perhaps ignorance of only 5 to 10 individual words like this, words important to your communication, would diminish my comprehension to the level of mere confusion. Am I missing something?
The following describes a single set that gives agency to language. It is the scaffolding of language if you will. The mind employs a set of a’ priori modes to systemically align and thus, synthesise with the order and symmetry of things. Adding is an obvious mode to most. You can’t add up what I am about to relay without it. We can’t add up the variables of evolution without it. It’s not just there for adding up the pennies in your purse. Categorisation is another mode. We categorically define the world we are of. I categorise adding as a mode of thought. We move in and out of categories continuously. Identification is another mode. Identify the structure of the cell. Identify our root on the evolutionary ladder. Identify categorisation as a mode. We can’t seem to be able to identify our own nature as human in a fixed way. Just can’t ground the predicate. Configuration is another mode. When things don’t figure, it’s because the mind hasn’t combined with the correct configuration. Unification is another mode. To unify what we are searching for. To add it up and unify it. There are many more modes. Considered together as a constellation set; as a concatenation of modes, the mind can be seen as a systemic tool. A tool prior to ego and experience. A tool for systemising and synthesising its place in the order of things as I said. You are employing them right now as you engage with me. This set is in everyone. It is a universal set and thought is impossible without it. Language by extension is impossible without it. From a phenomenological perspective, this set is what we are until we know more. It is this set that allows us to abstract and see that appearances are not what things are. It is this set that allows us to see that the body has no fixed predicate so it is a loose idea at best. In essence, we are a set of systemic modes floating in an ocean of dissipating variables and until we can say more we are that. This set is responsible for all knowledge structures. Science and philosophy are impossible without the systemic lens/eye. Kant employed them to ground his categories. Einstein employed them to ground his perspective and so forth. One ring to rule them all. One eye to systemise it all.
Language is only required to communicate thoughts, i.e.it limits the thoughts you may share. Until recently, our view of the brain was extended from being a mush to comprising of halfadozen distinct cell types by microscopes. Now,studying chemical interactions between brain cells has revealed more than 3000 distinct cell types and their combination in different areas of the brain. I now believe that the wiring of brains is as unique as a fingerprint, and an individual's capability is determined by it. I don't know to what extent this is determined by DNA.
Language has not been constant over the centuries nor the dialects. Culture is not mentioned in this discussion and yet if you speak Japanese with competence in some area, you'll see that there was ways of thinking that are NOT represented in American English no matter how long you try to explain, hence the constraint and the difference.
Exactly! Culture is what is different - language is a cultural system that has a biological basis (adaptation for language use in humans) but the worldview of a culture is cultural -- there are differences in world-view between individuals and between cultures speaking the same language, by and large.
It is important in these studies to capture the datapoint on whether the individual has internal monologues with himself or not. A vast section of the population doesnt and therefore not limited to the vocabularistic bounds of the mother tongue.
When I speak a different language, it definitely feels different, almost like a different attitude. It's hard to explain.
Thanks for the insight. While living in Mexico briefly, doing daily chores in Spanish, I did have a different demeanor, but I thought it was all about how bad my Spanish was. But your mention has me realize other components were there. Even with English speaking locals, that I was learning the ways from, gave me different sense of self. My Spanish is even worse now, but I can still reflect on being a different thinker back then.
Me too!
The paradox of using language to explore the limitations of it. Isn't it marvelous.
what is paradoxical about that?
Observation of how mouth noises, I.e. language, changes people’s thoughts and actions would be my advice 👁️
Language is the liquid that we are dissolved in, great for solving problems after it creates a problem.
@@Joshy2-E Like using math to explore it’s limitations
@@observationsofayogimouth noises ≠ language.
Yes. I know because I grew up speaking English and in my 30s I learned to speak Spanish fluently. I found out that I learned a lot more than words. You learn different ways of seeing things when you speak a second language. In Spanish you don't say "I dropped it" you say "it fell from me", giving the object the blame instead of blaming themselves. That's just a quick example, plenty more exist.
The example you are giving, although it looks like it implies blaming the object, is actually used whenever you intend to inform about something you did by accident. Whenever this is the case, you speak about it as something that happens "to you" rather than something you did, because doing something, in Spanish, is more strongly associated with intentionality or at the very least, it creates some notion of responsibility. Another example: "Se me perdieron las llaves" (The keys were lost "to me").
& have you noticed any other implications of thinking this way? (blaming eg.)
Also, "me gusta" is a really common one. "It pleases me" is the most literal translation, instead of the english "i like it". I believe this kind of passive formation of concepts has an effect on one's paradigm to an extent.
@@Mark-rm2yu I personally think it makes more sense to speak about emotions as something that happens to you (pasive approach), rather than something you do, as an action (active approach).
the implications are disturbing
What a great subject you’re discussing here. This kind of thought is paramount in understanding why people have different “psychologies”, and implications for why people so often “misunderstand” what someone else said. Nietzsche declared in a book in the late 19th century that he felt translation was “impossible” (to get accurate), and he stated this in the context of the differences he felt there were between the French and the German “mind” of his time. Pinker’s views are fairly well-known to many educated Americans, but I feel McGilchrist’s hemispheric theory here is quite salient- I’ve often wondered that since homo sapiens and other homo species have existed for hundreds of thousands of years and were preceded by non-homo but hominid species, it seems really likely that certain universal kinds of predispositions in communicating somehow existed and were formed by repetition success to ‘evolve’ in these groups and in us, even though there is little evidence that these early hominid groups had spoken languages of the kind we think of as language today with, say, 25,000 or more words. And what about the role of body language? What about clicks and grunts and sighs, and so forth? There were universal ways of communicating certain highly important concepts, certainly. Very good video to open up this subject!
I speak Russian, English, and Latvian, and I often enjoy exploring the etymology of certain words to uncover their deeper meanings.
Take, for example, the word "abroad." In Latvian, it is "ārzemes," which is made up of two elements: "ār" (outside) and "zemes" (lands). This directly translates to "lands outside," a simple description of external territories.
In Russian, however, the word is "заграница" (zagranitsa), which also comes from two elements: "за" (beyond) and "граница" (border). This construction emphasizes the concept of a boundary-specifically, a man-made border separating one land from another.
To me, this difference is significant. The Latvian word focuses on the existence of land inside and outside, without necessarily invoking the idea of boundaries or control. In contrast, the Russian term reflects the presence of a defined border, suggesting a boundary imposed by authority or governance.
That is very interesting. I similarly find that within the three languages I know, I sometimes find that one has a more accurate word for an experience or a feeling, which also makes it a lot easier to grasp! :)
In Spanish the word foreigner is "extranjero". Extraño means strange, so they're saying "stranger".
Outside lands means there’s an inside land therefore a border between
@@DavidAndrew-t3n and a glass half full means that same glass is also half empty. congrats you're almost there
@@DavidAndrew-t3n I look at it more from a perspective of awareness. The inside land is what is known and the outside land is the unknown, strange or unfamiliar and the only border in between is the extent of your awareness. There's no boundary, only the point at which you limit yourself or someone else limits you.
Loved this vid ! The mentioning of LLMs at the end was the cherry on top. Thank you!
Excellent video topic! 👏
Language certainly has limitations, well at least currently speaking.
Reminds me of the movie “The Arrival” where the main character who is a professor and linguist completely alters her perception of time by learning the language of extra terrestrials who “gifted” their language as a weapon, to save the human race.
Since their language is non-linear, it opened her consciousness to perceive events nonlinearly throughout past, present, and future to prevent a war.
Fascinating ideas and the movie is a great illustration of the ideas to a fictional extreme. Would highly recommend if you haven’t seen it yet
Recently have been thinking that there is a fundamental restriction to us due to usage of language, and this video popped up in my recommendation. It is [the] tool for comprehending this world, it dictates our inner thought process and it is [the] method to express our thoughts to outer world. Sometimes there is this "chunk of brain activation" that I cannot translate to language but still represent something I have learned through my experience, and the more I try to conceptualize with language the farther it gets from what it really is. At the end of the day, language is still a tool of abstraction of raw external / internal sensory data so information loss is probably inevitable during this translation process.
In my linguistics seminar I studied the Papuan language Western Dani. There they use a very original counting system: "One - exactly one - two - three - many - really extremely many". That's it! But when they really see the need for other numbers, which is rare in their culture, then they simply use Indonesian numbers. For example, to determine how many passengers are on a boat. That would be impossible if their language completely determined their thinking.
That might explaine the overloading of boats.
@timrockman7 🤗
That is quite interesting- thank you for sharing!
@@andreahoehmann1939 That makes me want to know how they would phrase the concepts of "To much" Vs. "Not enough". I've always felt that the size of one's vocabulary would directly effect the actual bandwidth of cognition and communication, the latter of which depending on alignment of terms of both parties. Convention.
@@andreahoehmann1939 I would guess that societies like that one would do most of their important communication when bartering and in trades. The needed items and currency would be estimated vissualy and the negotiations would consist of nods and hand jesters, which would work well if the buyer and vendor spoke different languages.
Great great video, please keep it going! There is so little awareness about the limitations of our language, and on the biases it imposes on the way we decode the world!
in this perspective Wittgenstein read is much much helpful....
Ludwig Wittgenstein's language game is a philosophical concept that describes how words and language are used in context and as part of an activity. Wittgenstein believed that words only have meaning within the context of a language game, and that the rules of the game determine the meaning of the words used.
Very interesting! I advise Ph.D. theses (engineering) and often feel that something is logically wrong in the student's work before I can put it into words.
Yes, that's why we invent artificial languages, like Mathematics to express, define, and solve problems that our natural won't be able to.
Thank you for the highly informative video. There are few channels that grapple with the linguistic phenomenon as a whole in You tube and it really is a pity. As far as we know, we are the only species walking on this earth that can express abstract ideas not yet realized in the material world via a system of communication governed by its own special rules and binding laws. Good luck and all the best to you.
Thanks so much! :)
My college professor said that language shapes thinking, and that thinking shapes language. He had our class spend an entire day coming up with words and phrases to describe a woman that likes to have sex (slang was allowed). There were so many. Then he asked us to come up with the same for a man who likes to have sex. I think we came up with three, and they were compliments or neutral, nothing like the mostly negative ones we had for a woman. Then he asked us, "how can we say men and women are equal, when we don't have the language to express that thought"? I found it quite profound. If I ever criticize a woman, I now try to only use the same word(s) that I would to also describe a man, otherwise it promotes sexism IMO.
Wow, good point. Very interesting. Sounds like a great professor.
Yeah. We have the c word for women and nothing remotely as offensive for men
Really fascinating point of view
What a thought provoking concept! Thank you for the video. Subscribed.
Just like in calculus, we have to basically use our understanding of finite elements (which are discrete), and sum over them, since we can only visualise discrete things.
Anecdotally, there’s a lot to this. Having done therapy in a 2nd (very similar) language, and creative work (music production) in non-native English, definitely shaped my outcomes of both.
All this some decades ago. More Recently (last decade) I have studied McGilchrist and Chomsky, both mentioned here. Add Graeber, Wengrow, Hegel, Nietzsche… Yes, anthropology, history and general philosophy will holistically reshape a view of being - and a reevaluation of doing.
Language seems reductive in form, but beautifully humbling and transcendental in context. 😊
Yes. I've believed this since i lived in a spanish speaking part of the world for a couple years. When i found out that they don't have words for concepts i take for granted, i realized that they never even thought about those concepts before. The idea of "randomness" was difficult to explain using spanish words, for example. But the same goes for myself somewhat with languages that have words english doesn't have as well.
For the most poignant example, go find the article called "how africans may differ from westerners" by gedaliah braun. It's revelatory about the fact that conceptualization and vocabulary are inseparable.
Yes. I learnt French and Italian at different stages of my life, and do dream in both these and English sometimes. How I talk and think in those languages is very different from English. I don’t really have an emotional vocabulary for sadness and so on in Italian as I learnt it at a happy, young age. When I talk in Italian I’m more outgoing and cheerful than in French or English. When I get angry or upset, it comes out in English.
Very intense video for me as someone who spends his days calculating things in his mind and solving puzzles and various logical and mathematical tasks in his mind without paper or computer. And especially for me as someone who wants to create his own language in order to be able to properly communicate.
This video inspired me to realise that people actually don't wanna know the truth and don't wanna be the best in their jobs. Competition and testing themselves is very low priority compared to living in their own bubble where they can believe in being valuable contributors to something.
Scientists just want to establish their theories and establish their scientific positions and careers. Not very interrested in disproving theories of others. Religious people care about establishing their religion and their position rather than openly exposing themselves to be vulnerable and losing their position in favor of their personal development and coming closer to objectively final point from which they can see flaws and benefits of their religion. Politicians establish their own governments with their own laws instead of evolving and trying to figure out how the government should look like and function. Business people make products and then care about marketing the product rather than first realising what they should be making and what should be marketed.
Until seeing this video I didn't see the paralell there with science. It never properly came to my mind that scientific people could care more about establishing themselves rather than finding the truth. I can see it being obvious now but it's not easy to let myself see it.
As a reaction to the video - Language does not restrict my thoughts at all. I wanna create my own language to be able to better communicate my thoughts and also to be able to create more stable environment within my mind where I can better label certain ideas and establish more developed thought structures due to sufficiently accurate linguistic assignments. Without linguistic establishment (usually words) it's much harder create independent mental layers and it all blends together since the non-linguistic parts of the mind is unified and connected in present thinking. Language allows me to make notations of the thoughts and work with them in longer periods of time without high mental power consumption. To make it more clear. In the same way it's much easier to remember someone as an individual rather than memorizing the person by various attributes and activities. All of the activities and attributes come together in the person and then I just remember the person. Without some kind of individual assignment I would have to remember all the paths leading to the person and the same would have to happen with the thoughts without linguistic assignment.
How's that language development going?
Added any interesting features? Ideas? Ways of viewing?
I'm developing my own as well.
@@kepspark3362 Well. The hardest thing to set in stone is the meaning of core ideas like "I" and how much to focus on differentiating between I as the body, I as the consciousness, I as the soul, I as the spirit or I as the creator and organizer of the thoughts. How much to focus on separating these meanings and whether to even have linguistic representation for them or just have it naturaly defelop out of the context. And then whether to focus on identifying things interefering with these I's (plural of I) like ego, selfish desires etc.
I find it much easier to be intelligent enough to organize the informational structures to form linguistic contruct than to have such a pure level of awareness above any philosopher or psychologist to accurately identify limits of meanings of these ideas. Creating language without differentiating spiritual existence and activities would be an easy game.
@@kepspark3362 Well. The hardest thing to set in stone is the meaning of core ideas like "I" and how much to focus on differentiating between I as the body, I as the consciousness, I as the soul, I as the spirit or I as the creator and organizer of the thoughts. How much to focus on separating these meanings and whether to even have linguistic representation for them or just have it naturaly defelop out of the context. And then whether to focus on identifying things interefering with these I's (plural of I) like ego, selfish desires etc. I find it much easier to be intelligent enough to organize the informational structures to form linguistic contruct than to have such a pure level of awareness above any philosopher or psychologist to accurately identify limits of meanings of these ideas. Creating language without differentiating spiritual existence and activities would be an easy game.
I'm reminded (forgive me in advance!,) of the sitcom The Big Bang, where Sheldon & Amy play a mind game where badgers inherit the Earth ... good game.
Fascinating subject!
It raises concern for Gen Alpha and their outcomes from being moved through our failing education system without being made to put in the work to expand their abilities, knowledge, and their vocabulary.
Where is this happening?
Great video, subscribed!
non-phonetic thought is what all the old texts are talking about, if you make the sound of breathing in the inner voice chatterbox so you can shut up, its like freeing up processor usage to utilize another faculty as in conceptual thinking. its like thinking with your e.m.f. as opposed to electric synapse as in the recent scientific American article.
Lately I've been seeking spiritual fulfillment and this video got me thinking about how that emptiness inside is hard to define exactly but it is indeed that abstract "God concept" that many of us fail to comprehend for much of our lives, trying to satisfy it with worldly things etc. until we discover this spiritual path of enlightenment. It's like learning a new language or modality of thinking when we start setting course toward true understanding.
No doubt language restricts the nature of your thoughts, which is why learning a second or third language is both very difficult and very liberating.
Amazing video!
Very good title. Clicked immediatly. Wanted to know the answer to that mystery
Pre-language thoughts and communication? Eye contact. There’s no words going on there.
Perfect example... 💕
isnt it different to the question whether language restricts thoughts?
i mean, i often used restricted language to express myself and only got a better match once i learned about new concepts, words and perspectives. And then i also see how one may not have been able to find better words and ultimately accustomed to the situation, that is, identifying with the once said words as if they were the complete story.
So, thoughts are maluable in my eyes, as well as language. They both can liberate and restrict each other, depending on the degree of accuracy one is willing to accept.
And then, i also see that language is not the level in where thoughts are living. I perceive my thoughts as some sort of quick, buzzing and parallel concepts flying around until they're grouping together were a stream of language ultimately emerges. It's the tiny bit of time during a visualization or a thoughtful yet empty think in which this is happening. Yea and actually there might also be a universal proto-language between that and the language that will be spoken or written in the end. Hard to tell if that also exists for people who havent been fluent in more than one language.
lol, yea, Mentalese sounds cringe, but kinda accurate. i've always thoughts like that. but i would also say, those thoughts are the constant subconcious babble going on. And we could define thoughts as being all of that as well or just the concious stream of headvoice stuff when we think in silence.
Scholz's Communication Theory posits that communication, in all its forms-whether verbal, visual, or non-verbal-fundamentally shapes and constrains human thought. Just as language determines how we structure our thinking, so too does the medium of communication dictate the way ideas are formed and understood. Whether through words, images, or gestures, the act of translating thoughts into a communicable form alters both the thought itself and its interpretation, limiting or guiding our cognitive processes. In essence, communication is not just a tool for sharing ideas but a framework that directs how we conceive and interact with the world.
A quite fascinating talk.
Large Language Models emulate understanding meaning, but deep down don't understand. To understand, one needs conscious experience.
Bravo! Thanks for putting words to this! AI LLM is a simulation of one type of human processing.
Besides lacking a left hemisphere, AI has no embodied experience (or one very different from human experience) and hasn't begun to explore the data collection and processing that is distributed all over a living organism.
One thing I’ve noticed about listening to Radiohead over the years is that Thom will pick and use commonly used Brit phrases you don’t think about twice, but in the context of the music make you realise how our language drips with violence.
2:00 But "Expected" only holds future tense. "Rain is expected" is very clearly about time and the future.
I honestly feel like its our vocabulary that actually limits our thoughts. Its not fun trying to think about something without having words to describe or explain it.
while visual thinking offers a profound, often underexplored cognitive dimension, its integration into collaborative frameworks remains constrained by our current reliance on linguistic systems. The interplay between these modes of thought is central to advancing human communication.
I once read the philosophy of Hegel, in which he describes the emergence of the psyche, consciousness, and intelligence in that order. The acquisition of language is in the phase of intelligence. So, it does contribute to high-level thoughts but is not the deterministic factor of intelligence according to him.
Hegel lived several hundred years ago. His musings on the subject should probably be taken with a grain of salt considering that the answer to these questions remain elusive even with modern MRI technology.
Last comment, the battle between "emotions" and "logic" was described in the three tierd scientific process most accurately described by the great L Larouche (in aternpa vive). Level one is emotional simple sensory perception, This was described best by the great L. Larouche (in aternpa viva) in his three tiered Socratic approach to science, level one is simple sense perception, level two is "understanding" (ie "scientific specialization" which is what our "scientific" education based on "job training" aims to create, highly specialized robots), level 3 is mastering the non-reductive, multi and infinite modal dialectical process, contained in every person as imago Dei. We need to move beyond feelings and "logic" and get everyone to level 3 (which really is not a finite number, but a transfinite "variable!)
Excellent exploration from a few ideas. I find temperament and biodeterminism determine culture and language. Epigenetics and gene expression from environmental factors will cause you to modify what you thought you knew. Ect
I'm new to your channel enjoyed this presentation, having recently become interested in philology and the question of how language influences cultural perceptions.
I've not read McGilchrist's work (tomes) yet, but enjoyed many of the interviews with him. You may find Mark Solms, who wrote The Hidden Spring, interesting too. And this is a good segway into the question of AI intelligence. Federico Faggin wrote Irreducible, a very accessible book on his thoughts on why AI could never attain true intelligence. Well worth looking into.
Thank you for the recommendations, I’ll look into them! :)
Umar Ibn Al-Khattab, in the year 600, advised people to teach their children Arabic, for it expands the mind for the acquisition of knowledge in multiple domains... that is, it expands the capacity for acquiring other knowledge forms that are not limited to language.
Thought you may find that intetesting. Peace be with you.
Doubleplusgood video.
In the beginning, there was The Word
(The bible)
I bet it was a four letter word shouted in frustration
Interesting video. But about the end with discussion of AI and LLMS:
In a strange way, although LLMs are language models, they are in a sense more intuitive than they are reasonable. These neural networks decide on an output not for a reason, but because their patterns of neurons made them arrive at that answer ie. they just think it. If you ask them why they answered that way, not knowing or having memory of why, they will again conjure up a kind of 'intuitive' answer of why they may have answered that way.
Then if we think of ai image creation, I believe they work in a poetic associative way. I did not expect an image creator to understand what a 'lulling lake' would look like - but 'intuitively' it got what I meant by combining the concepts of 'lulling' and 'lake' and made an image that conveyed that.
What I'm trying to say is maybe it's a mistake to think of LLMs as cold machines and therefore rational and left brain. Maybe when we come to the realm of neural networks, the concept of left-brain and right-brain isn't meaningful, even if it is useful to make sense of our experiences of thinking.
in my case, french in writing and thought has really helped me with my disassociation problems.
and italian in cinema.
very spific things.
My mother had a vaccine stroke and her right side of the brain is gone. She has not lost her speech at all. She still has imagination. What she lost is logic. She can remember recent events and long past events. But she can not organice them in a timeline. She is half paralyzed. She believes she went shopping or are going on a trip. You can tell her a thousand times that she no longer have her car, yet she don't belive it and gets angry if you correct her on these things. Her emotions are still there. It's not fun to visit her. She is like a audio book of her life. A book that I can't change and she changes all the time into a fantasy life that is 100% real to her. Myself, I think in words, in different languages, sometimes mixed. As I learn more words, my toughts expands. Feelings is rarely any need to express in words, unless you are involved in an interaction with another person. If I see someone suffer, tear will come without thinking. Only if someone ask why I am crying, I need tho think the words to explain why. If I was the only human in the world, there would be no need for words for different feelings. This is why humans have xenophobia, we can't understand the words of other languages, therefor we can't laugh at a joke, cry about a sad story only get angry because "they" don't understand.
I am truly sorry to hear that, it's heartbreaking.
@@CasanovaExplains The hospitals and old peoples homes are full of people like this now. My mother got the stroke two day after her second booster. The day before she went to the hospital with a strange head ache. They sent her home with a pain killer pill. I'm not to happy with some people in the world! Thank you.
Of the four languages I speak ranging in level-competency between B2 and C2 (my native-language falling in the middle of that range), my perception of the world feels “different”. However, in my opinion, that difference should dissipate if all four languages were to reach C2. It’s only a matter of reading and writing enough in all four languages.
Linguistic determinism makes sense to myself. Without words there is no meaning to thought;
But I may be wrong, I will give it more thought !!
Scholz's Communication Theory posits that communication, in all its forms-whether verbal, visual, or non-verbal-fundamentally shapes and constrains human thought. Just as language determines how we structure our thinking, so too does the medium of communication dictate the way ideas are formed and understood. Whether through words, images, or gestures, the act of translating thoughts into a communicable form alters both the thought itself and its interpretation, limiting or guiding our cognitive processes. In essence, communication is not just a tool for sharing ideas but a framework that directs how we conceive and interact with the world.
I wouldn't go quite that far. Can you picture an animal in your head that you don't know the name of? Or have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue that you couldn't retrieve? The thought that you are trying to express exists. But the transmission of the thought is made more difficult without the adequate language to convey it.
Obviously For anyone who's tried to speak in a language that they're just learning in the country Severely !imits your thoughts. Further thinking in the old language limit your interactions. Limit might be the wrong word Guides your thoughts pushes your thoughts in certain direction Like a storm a storm storm doesn't Necessarily stop you from going from 0.8 point B. but it doesn't affect How you go from point A. to b, It makes you not want to go from A. to B. or even think about going from A. to B. at certain times. If something is harder to do In 1 language then another That will affect you
How did we think before there was language at all?
In the film Quest for Fire, there is a proto language consisting of grunts that was invented by Anthony Burgess. It's a fun imaginaning of how early humans may have communicated. His thoughts on constrictions placed on modern language in his book 1985 plays with Orwell's ideas of Newspeak.
Ancestral hominids had languages before homo sapiens sapiens had evolved.
But, that aside, how to dogs and cats think?
Probably in ways symilar to those used by non-verbal animals, like the other great apes.
Grunting and farting
I have an above average vocabulary, but it’s still not what it could be. My one advantages is that I actually do art, and can express myself in a way most people can’t. I find it very interesting that people talk about the fact that they’re multilingual and it even changes the way that they think at that time they’re speaking a different language.
If I can add an language model later on, I will probably pick traditional Chinese since it’s not only a complex, but a eastern language
They can now do what they referred to as brain sculpting and implant thoughts into your mind at a very basic level right now.
Don't talk, live it 👉 Dominion (2018)
There is a huge gap in this discussion in the form of "The Purple Book" aka _Relational Frame Theory: A Post-Skinnerian Account of Human Language and Cognition_ that is essential to round out the facts. Noam Chomsky has largely been agreed to be disproven, and that deserves is own admonition. Relational frame theory looks at how language drives cognition and behavior. The idea proposed is that there are 3 central relational frames from which a human mind can position itself. All communication is interpreted from these 3 frames: I or not I, here or not here, now or not now. Every human interprets communication from their own experience, and can only orient based on personal experience. I or not I determines if the individual or someone or something other than the individual is the subject of the communication/thought. Here or not here determines if the subject is taking place in the immediate location or somewhere non-local. Now or not now determines if the subject is immediately relevant or was/will be relevant.
Grammar and syntax varies from language to language, and the inherent distance or obfuscation of proximity of the 3 frames will be dependent upon the grammar and syntax. It is reasonable to assume that the relationship of the perceiving mind will be altered by the linguistic proximity to these frames. Additionally, it would be reasonable to attribute a degree of intimacy vs pragmatism in language as well. Chinese is very poetic and inferential thus invoking more depth of the perceiver's experience while English is so pragmatic that I would argue it depersonalizes language and its content. I would go so far as to say that things become less urgent, less spiritual, and less intimate in English; English may more accurately represent phenomenon in language, but at the expense of personal meaning and value.
This sterility of English may lead to people caring less about the more troubling aspects of the human experience, while crating a greater gap between those who have direct experience of tragedy compared to understanding language that represents tragedy. I believe it to be a contributing factor as to why English speaking countries are the most nihilistic and detached from global problems.
Great video❤
Thank you!
The point is to escape ideology, vocabulary can give you nuances
Very interesting video. Thank you.
Command The Word and you subdue The World.
This data you present is very important for ppl to hear, esp concerning limits in politics and governance.
Can you elaborate on that?
Thank you for that idea about possibly training AI to have human-like emotion and understanding.
Also, no one seems to have mentioned the name, Worf, which you introduced as the name of a language researcher.
Origin of the name of Mr Worf, in Star Trek?
Next day I realised I might have got the name wrong; here is more --
Wikipedia: Benjamin Atwood Lee Whorf
American linguist and fire prevention engineer best known for proposing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.
Considering how language might affect understanding, it seems that describing aspects of thought and also material objects as male-like, female-like and neuter, can influence behaviour and may be present in Dutch use of the terms, zijdig and onzijdig, as though there might be opposing views and even competition regarding what are regarded as zijdig aspects of life.
In the Wikipedia article there is mention of how use of the word, energy, has been debated.
From Newton's time, Energy = Force x Distance.
What forces and what distances?
A reasonable theory is that all particles have forces that depend on compression of fundamental constituents of the space we live in.
Energy, is a piece of mathematics based on the forces and the distances through which those forces act in compression.
Energy is recovered and transferred into observable and useful motion as the compressions are released. So, there is no material object corresponding to, Energy.
The only proof that you need that language influences the way you think is mathematics. Learning what a derivative is or exponents or euler's equation will completely change the way you think.
Since I have been studying in English and especially in German, instead of my mother tongue, I feel like I have less capability of thinking clearly. I had this feeling, but I don't know if this is due to a language barrier.
Reversed orders of abstraction
"The map is not the territory"
Alfred Korzybski
I only speak English and Spanish, and even between these latin based idioms, there is a decidely different flow, an attitudinal adjustment required to enter flow. In fact, I shall go as far as to say that the thought processes of a rural Australian vs. an urban Londoner is as chalk & cheese, despite possessing (nominally) the same vocab. 🤔 THEN, there's Nuspik, a literary conceit or inevitable conclusion?
Language shapes thought and thought shapes your perception of reality, so it can be both restricting and liberating.
Yes maam, this is why glasolalia is the universal expression of linear thought, speaking in tongues.
Holistically, axiomatically assuming as true, this is exactly what Adam were commanded to do before creation of Eve -> to name the living being.
The Hopi language sounds great!
Yes
I think about this all the time!!!!
All of the theories are correct except for linguistic Determinism and linguistic Universalism. The others are not mutually exclusive, and are different ways to describe aspects of the same model. The following way of putting it may help, imo:
In absence of any language, we 'think'/process the world similarly to animals, via images, emotions, abstractions. (Animals also remember smells.) Once we add language, we to tend to use it where we can. But this filters the array of vague concepts into a narrow band of more precise concepts. So we sacrifice breadth to gain precision.
But as we add more words to a language, thus more nuance, we gain a lot of that breadth back, though never all of it.
A simpler way to explain the Left vs Right hemisphere brain functions, imo, is to say, simply, that the Left hemisphere processes *casual* thinking, while the Right processes *associative* thinking. That's much easier, and reduces all the various functions of the hemispheres to a single polarity.
Thus, as we increase the scope of language - the nuance that it can handle, for example - thus relying ever more so on language in order to think, we come to think every more causally, and less associatively.
Note: My use of 'precision' is not really correct. We _actually_ lose information when we translate analogue abstractions into words. But we create, thereby, categories which are absolute. They are less accurate, but they are more distinct and clear, thus allowing for causal thinking. You can't do causality upon a soup of everything being degrees of everything else. For A to be > B, there has to be a clearly defined A, and a clearly defined B - even if that does not as accurately reflect the state and nature of reality.
But this is a _necessary_ sacrifice of accuracy, because our brains cannot process infinite degrees of soupy relativism. We need to reduce the number of variables by averaging variables into categories, so that we can make sense of the world in approximation.
💚
Language limits the possible shape of thoughts, but doesn't determine the thoughts. For example, for any thought 'p' that a language can express, the language can express 'not-p' as well. Accordingly, even though a language corresponds to a form of life, it doesn't determine the content of the lives with that form.
Yes it does and i find English quite restrictive. Languages dont just change your thoughts, but also the way you think, behave and experience the world.
All of these debates dance around but never actually recognize, much less address what is at the heart of this. That is, people are debating different things, individual cognitive processing vs more global processing while both totally missing on critical factor. Humans are social creatures. We build cultures by exchanging thoughts and building on those exchanged thoughts. The mass is greater than the individual. It is rare that any given individual will have much of a lasting impact on the culture but rather the accumulation of the interactions of the multitude tend to have the greatest effect, with the occasional standout individual. The point is, without a codified method of interacting that facilitates certain types of thoughts fluidly, a society will not tend to evolve that aspect of thought relative to areas where the language handles such thoughts in a well codified manner. This is why language matters. Furthermore, language is constantly twisted and shaped by influencers to manipulate the society. This is the heart of 'propaganda' which uses language, phrases etc... all to shape thought, to great effect. Propaganda, youth, and other groups are always inventing new words and aspects of language with one purpose in mind (consciously or subconsciously,) to reshape thought processes in the culture. This is why language shapes thought... beginning, middle and end. This is my official statement on this. I have not heard anyone state this and I've followed this closely (as much as a layman can) for my entire life. Why, I don't know because to me it is not only so obvious, it baffles me as to why I have never seen it discussed.
Side note, I'm not trying to take away from some of what is presented in all of the other discussions as I think some valid thinking has gone on regarding the nature of language and the individual, I am simply mentioning the elephant in the room that for some reason actually addresses the point they are all supposedly focused on.
I enjoyed the discussion. I would project farther - to the subject of Natural Intelligence. A lot of contemporary discussion focuses on Artificial Intelligence, and wonders if AI is "real". I think this presupposes that we already know what makes up Natural Intelligence. Linguists would probably argue that language skill is an example of Natural Intelligence. What is missing is that this skill completely misses some important aspects of the natural world. For example, for many centuries the astronomical observations and calculations of Ptolemy and Aristotle were sufficient for our natural intelligence. This completely missed the linkage between astronomy and mechanics, that Newton would construct in the 17th century with his theory and application of Newtonian Mechanics. Then this was replaced by Einstein in the 20th century. Does any of this mean that Ptolemy, or Newton were "stupid" or simply not as intelligent as Einstein? Hardly. But it does highlight that the language used by Ptolemy, and Newton, did not express the concepts that Einstein would include in his theories of motion and mechanics. Modern physics still complains today that language cannot explain Quantum Mechanics. Or, to express this in cognitive and linguistic terms, our thinking about Quantum Mechanics is limited by the language we can use to explain it.
Thank you for the insightful comment- I was indeed thinking of exploring the relationship between language and science in a future video! :)
@@CasanovaExplains There are many aspects of natural intelligence and our language(s) that we use. I am trained as an electrical engineer, specializing in radio communications. As such I have studied information theory, radio spectrum, bandwidth, voice communication, and other relevant radio technology subjects. Our spoken language is limited by the bandwidth we can use in our physical vocal apparatus, and the related hearing constraints of our ears. In basic terms, we are limited to 3 kHz (kilo Hertz) of bandwidth, and this limits our information capacity to about 3 kbps (kilo bits per second). This is tiny, when we compare it to the bandwidth we use for video (10 Mbps), or cabled connections to familiar devices like WiFi routers (1 Gbps). This small bandwidth is reflected in our language vocabulary. Most of us only use 5 to 10 thousand words in spoken communications, but any sort of complex communication requires supplements of hundreds or thousands of specialized technical words. Even in this small note, a word like "bandwidth" is probably hardly ever used in spoken communication. An exhaustive dictionary like the OED lists over 600,000 words, and many of them have several alternate definitions and meanings. As such, the language we use places a significant constraint on how we can express our intelligent thoughts. To make some simple estimates of information in speech, a typical word of English is about 5.5 letters. With about 5 bits per letter, that comes to about 27 bits of information per word. At a rate of about 2 words per second for ordinary speech, this comes to under 60 bps, or just 2% of the maximum bit rate of 3 kbps permitted by our ears and throat. Our language is well suited to this very limited information capacity, but this is a strong limitation on our natural intelligence. This is why an artificial intelligence like a computer can solve a cryptographic problem like the Enigma crypto machine in WW II, while our natural intelligence cannot. Incidentally, this does not mean that artificial intelligence is "better" than natural intelligence. It simply says that AI is not constrained in the same way that natural intelligence is constrained.
Language conspires with time to make some ideas unreachable in a lifetime.
Theoretically, it's time and not language which is restricting. But for practical purposes, because the value of spending the time needed to arrive at a linguistically challenging idea is not known beforehand the time required is not allocated.
No. Not unless the individual in question decided to stop learning (on nearly all levels) once they completed middle school or something akin. It's utterly ABSURD to think that any specific language is somehow unconnected to all (or many) of the others. English adopted and adapted SOOO many bloody words from Latin, French, Spanish, German, and more... it'd make your little grey noggin' spin.
Even in my own series of books, I *deliberately* included nods to Swedish, French, Japanese, Chinese, Italian, Hindi, etc. Only intelligent readers will detect this, though.
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
"Before I start, I must see my end. Destination known, my mind's journey now begins. Upon my chariot, heart and soul's fate revealed. In time, all points converge; hope's strength resteeled. But to earn final peace at the universe's endless refrain, we must see all in nothingness... before we start again."
🐲✨🐲✨🐲✨
--Diamond Dragons (series)
Not a fan of Pinker, but these "mentalese" idea describes a lot better the process of what we usually describe as "thinking in a different language", in my experience and of other people who've learned other languages. It might seem like that at first, but then you find yourself more and more in a state of having wordless thoughts, waiting to be verbalized. I've been using the concept without knowing it was his idea, now I like it a bit less, haha.
I don't believe that the simplification of how the hemispheres work is too accurate, it's probably more of a gross caricature of how the brain actually works. I tend to distrust any explanation, and even more prediction or method, based on that.
I agree with you, there are several models that try to approximate how the brain works and the intangible is captured from the depths of the subconscious, some supported by studies, some completely speculative- they are great fun to toy around with in one's head! :)
If you can think only in one language, then yes (it limits everything a lot).
😂😂😂
Poetic language can be a language within a language?
If you can think only in language, then yes (it limits everything a lot).
Anyone who's thought deep enough and tried to discuss what they thought, already know the awnser to the title/question 😂
And that is?
Is it ironic we're talking about thought in terms of file formats?
Yes.
The right and left hemisphere theory is not actually that much robust. As it is known that different functions works in different parts of brain so it should not be like left is weaker than right.
I feel like the argument that language determines thought falls apart when confronted with people without an inner monologue
I also have same thought. There are more than 1 type of thinking like a visual thinker will just think in image form, one can think in emotions or some sensations too. All of this different types of thinking are not intrinsically dependent on language.
Exactly! I think in words. But not everyone. & even i don't everytime.
That does not invalidate the thesis at all. People without the power of speech at all Think Visual Visual images Think and basically a different language the language of animals like dogs or cats. Well you can do some mathematics with geometry visual Well you can do some mathematics with geometry and visual thinking A large part of mathematics is totally Remove from none lingist thought. Props with computers we can share our visual thoughts in the future cause we can now record people's dreams But until that day we are not gonna be able to communicate with visual thoughts either so collaboration is impossible at this level. At some point these visualizations have to be converted into words for them to be shared. They can be sure of course by drawing pictures and what not but that Again changes the nature of how we think about the and communicate about thoughts . Imagine communication done only by drawing pictures And just imagine that you could draw the pictures exactly as you saw them in your head it would still massively change the communication And what was interpreted
Most people disregard those claims as semantics. We say they must have an inner dialog for basic functions like planning and projection. I tend to give them their position and look for why they think or imagine they lack a vital element of human survival.
Colors without labels can't be conveyed to others.
What is "true phenomenology"?
"Quantum Psychology" by Robert Anton Wilson (1990)
Warning!!! I am a human and I don't know anything for absolute fact except for that fact. But my brain says "Language goes both ways. Comes from our abstract. Thoughts? Conceptions etc as you said, But it also is shaping your brain because of what you hear. The more language you have, the more abstract things can become and do become. Potentially (with enough people, analytical tools, language shifts etc.)
Shout out to Ruth Wodak!... Oh there's so many it's hard to describe! I'd like to thank all 👏👏👏🎬. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious 😮😅😊🎉😢 oh you shouldn't have (fake crowd recorded in the 1950's cheers!) up next
ANIMANIACS!
It does restrict actions and thoughts.
The hemispheric model you discuss really goes back to a guy named Sperry, in the 60s, at the least, and it's kind of outdated, imho. It's far too simplistic. The brain has dozens functional sections, and claiming an entire hemisphere is this or that specific function is reductionist. For instance, the parts of the brain that process and produce language both happen to be in the dominant hemisphere (usually the left), but this does not mean that the entire left hemisphere is based around language and logic. Calling it "left-brain" vs "right-brain" is also simplistic, because ofc it's not always the left hemisphere that is dominant (95% of the time it is, sure, but not always). And finally, I'll add that it totally ignores the neocortex, which connects the entire brain seamlessly and is not divided like the cortex.
OTOH, a fascinating and now ignored theory is that of Julian Jaynes, in his book _The Origin Of Consciousness In The Breakdown Of The Bicameral Mind._ I won't try too hard to summarize it, but essentially, he suggested that pre-literate humans actually had even more of a split between the hemispheres, such that the only way the one cold communicate with the other was to create a "hallucinated" voice, with perhaps even hallucinated imagery, and the person would typically interpret this as a visit from the gods, or other spiritual sources. It's a very persuasive theory, actually, and the book is a damned fun read. I wish more people were familiar with it.
Thank you very much for your thoughtful comment! Perhaps I need to clarify that I did not mean to suggest a rigid dichotomy between the hemispheres (the outdated part which you mention). It’s more of a high degree of specialization than each hemisphere performing exclusively one function (and there are several studies in neuroscience supporting this) and that they are highly collaborative and interconnected (hence if you notice, I used terms like “excels” and “associated with” to avoid assigning a rigid dichotomy without overwhelming with too many details). The other thing I need to clarify, McGilchrist did not come up with the hemispheric theory, neither did he try to assign rigid functions to each. He does stress that they are interdependent and that certain functions like language can involve multiple regions across both hemispheres. He especially connects these tendencies to broader cultural and historical shifts, which I think is an interesting thought to entertain.
I appreciate the perspective you add from Jaynes book, it does sound interesting and I will add it to my reading list!
No! It is not that, “All humans think the same thoughts or feel the same emotions regardless of their language.” Or that, “You would be aware of your emotions even if you did not have the words to describe them.”
Yes, all emotions are universal, however, the particular language (esp. far removed from IndoEuropean group of languages) to describe them determines implicitly, the nuance, character and affective meaning and experience, that is, the attribution and meaning of what is experienced.
The narrative of how something is grammatically described by their native tongue does in fact change the experience. Experience is not just raw basic stand alone universal emotions but characteristic form they take does indeed form the structural narrative of the the “how” and “what” is being experienced. So, in that regard indeed a weltanschauung. However, seemingly paradoxical but not, they are translations from and within Collective Consciousness and not isolated monads.
Wouldn't linguistic universalism, by extension, require a refutation of determinism as a philosophy? There are precious few examples (if any) of non-language-based brain processes spontaneously causing abstract conceptions that aren't explicitly preceded by physical phenomena. Emotion, and even "intuition," are predicated on biochemical messengers and electrical action potentials. When *I* think of cognition, I equate it almost exclusively to the "abstract" portion of thought; in that regard, my higher-level thinking is absolutely constrained by language. If I didn't know the word "linguistics" (to name just one of many labels used as conceptual representations in your monologue), my comprehension would be severely reduced. Perhaps ignorance of only 5 to 10 individual words like this, words important to your communication, would diminish my comprehension to the level of mere confusion. Am I missing something?
The following describes a single set that gives agency to language. It is the scaffolding of language if you will.
The mind employs a set of a’ priori modes to systemically align and thus, synthesise with the order and symmetry of things.
Adding is an obvious mode to most. You can’t add up what I am about to relay without it. We can’t add up the variables of evolution without it. It’s not just there for adding up the pennies in your purse.
Categorisation is another mode. We categorically define the world we are of. I categorise adding as a mode of thought. We move in and out of categories continuously.
Identification is another mode. Identify the structure of the cell. Identify our root on the evolutionary ladder. Identify categorisation as a mode. We can’t seem to be able to identify our own nature as human in a fixed way. Just can’t ground the predicate.
Configuration is another mode. When things don’t figure, it’s because the mind hasn’t combined with the correct configuration.
Unification is another mode. To unify what we are searching for. To add it up and unify it.
There are many more modes. Considered together as a constellation set; as a concatenation of modes, the mind can be seen as a systemic tool. A tool prior to ego and experience. A tool for systemising and synthesising its place in the order of things as I said. You are employing them right now as you engage with me.
This set is in everyone. It is a universal set and thought is impossible without it. Language by extension is impossible without it.
From a phenomenological perspective, this set is what we are until we know more. It is this set that allows us to abstract and see that appearances are not what things are. It is this set that allows us to see that the body has no fixed predicate so it is a loose idea at best.
In essence, we are a set of systemic modes floating in an ocean of dissipating variables and until we can say more we are that.
This set is responsible for all knowledge structures. Science and philosophy are impossible without the systemic lens/eye. Kant employed them to ground his categories. Einstein employed them to ground his perspective and so forth. One ring to rule them all. One eye to systemise it all.
What is your native language and the others you learned?
Language is only required to communicate thoughts, i.e.it limits the thoughts you may share.
Until recently, our view of the brain was extended from being a mush to comprising of halfadozen distinct cell types by microscopes.
Now,studying chemical interactions between brain cells has revealed more than 3000 distinct cell types and their combination in different areas of the brain.
I now believe that the wiring of brains is as unique as a fingerprint, and an individual's capability is determined by it.
I don't know to what extent this is determined by DNA.
Of course . No language = No thoughts, only impulses and moods/emotions.
Interesting proposition. I'm not sure I agree.
Language has not been constant over the centuries nor the dialects. Culture is not mentioned in this discussion and yet if you speak Japanese with competence in some area, you'll see that there was ways of thinking that are NOT represented in American English no matter how long you try to explain, hence the constraint and the difference.
Exactly! Culture is what is different - language is a cultural system that has a biological basis (adaptation for language use in humans) but the worldview of a culture is cultural -- there are differences in world-view between individuals and between cultures speaking the same language, by and large.
Area of meaning matters. Context matters. But supeficial meanin does restrict thought. Poetry expands it.
It is important in these studies to capture the datapoint on whether the individual has internal monologues with himself or not. A vast section of the population doesnt and therefore not limited to the vocabularistic bounds of the mother tongue.