Re: Changing worldviews with language (LONG)

>From: Harald Stoiber <hstoiber@...>
>
>On Sun, 3 Nov 2002 06:54:19 EST, David Peterson <DigitalScream@...>
>wrote quite a lot.
>
>But it seems that he misunderstood the point I was going to make.
>First of all, none of my thoughts in fact deal with English itself.
>I would have loved to give german examples - which would have limited
>the number of persons who could actually understand such examples.
Use German examples anyway Harald :) just means you will have to translate
them for the list - but there will be a trade off if you find it easier to
think in your own language.

>Likewise, I didn't state that I found the only acceptable version
>of represent the activity of eating. Wonderful comments, David, but
>it wasn't exactly what I was talking about. :-)
>
>I am not really desiring to remove ambiguity. I am not a loglan
>crusader who waves the glowing laser sword which burns away all
>ambiguity. It's about a metaphysical view on language and meaning.
>Perhaps it was a little bit uncautious on my part to post that bunch
>of philosophy in a linguistic forum. ;-)
It's OK ;) Everything is interconnected, and there would be no language if
there were not things people need language for. There are other things in
life than the intricacies of language; I gave up linguistics at university
because the 3rd year looked crap and I was just too interested in the
philosophy options: they were really intriguing and into, well, *reality*.
Since then I have in many ways tried to transcend language, for instance in
some of the esoteric studies I have got into.

Now my interest in language is mostly in terms of functionality. I have a
great background as a linguist, as a logical philosophical thinker, and as
an investigator of otherworldly matters, so I think I am exactly the sort of
person to test out what are the limits of language's ability to express
things. I guess I want to know how much of language's nature is automatic,
organic, continuing on from the past in natural unconscious ways, and how
much of it can be determined by human will and purpose. And how does it
relate to our conceptual scheme, belief-system, self-definition, mode of
experiencing. Things like the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, Wittgenstein's Private
Language Argument, rival psychological theories are the sort of thing I want
to get my teeth into.

I have done artlangs/ficlangs and will probably do them again; but to me
often this is like bonsai. I would rather walk in a wild forest and see if I
can tame some of it.

>So, apologies to anyone who finds my considerations presumptuous.
>And an open-hearted invitation to all other people who actually
>want to discuss this topic with me. :-))
>
>Waves and greetings,
>Harald
Cool :) Two of us so far

Mat


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