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THE POWER OF WORDS

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firstly the caps-lock key is annoying.. i keep having to re write stuff because i left it on

next a very short thought.. without words our race would be.. erm.. words are almost like thoughts they are a part of how we found logic and even ourselves.. without words iv no idea what we would be.. maybe animals emotional and instinctive.. words are probably the defining feature of the human race.

oh dear not very short thought after all

some say names dont change things.. they just describe them.. calling a frog a duck changes only that the description is poor
but words can be used to create complex logic and communicate it.. with words i can make a nuclear reactor.. without words i would maybe at best be able to make a hole in the ground for sleep

i heard once a horse can learn 200 words.. but tell them to say the word for freedom and makes them cry.. poor enslaved animal race
if they had more grasp on words they could run for a government position.. mare horse could get rights and free his enslaved people.. erm.. horse people

but words and truth vs lies is complex and is a mess .. billions of ideas.. so much convolution and confusion
the first word written on a cave wall.. was so powerful its like magic.. words that stay.. words are why we dominated the known universe
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heh heh i do get bored.. guess its good to see you again =P

words even have the power to hurt me.. amazing.. =D
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Now we know why he is called SmokeDragon hohoho

If you're gonna make a philosophy post you might want to edit it so that you don't sound like you're drunk/high/mad/under hypnosis/sleep talking.

I don't quite buy the psychological idea of that words shape thoughts. If that were the case people around the world should think radically different depending of what language they speak, but you'd think scientists would be all over that if it were the case. I have never heard of any scientific study demonstrating consistent behavioral differences across language groups that could be traced back to language.

Also, people who speak multiple languages, such as me, should be able to identify the differences in their own thought patterns based on what language the're thinking on. I have never felt such a difference or heard of anyone noticing such a difference.
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3 years ago
quote:
I don't quite buy the psychological idea of that words shape thoughts.
I'm pretty sure Gender Studies have plenty of "research" put into disseminating the patriarchal norms of languages.
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quote:
I have never heard of any scientific study demonstrating consistent behavioral differences across language groups that could be traced back to language.

There is work on the topic: "The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement Assets" https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/aer.103.2.690

I heard of it some time ago, that's why I remembered, I am no expert in the matter and did not read it recently so can't tell how much it "demonstrate" and how much is "consistent" but definitely scientist are looking into it.
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BRrankManored
the big question in research is actually if language is a necessary factor for the brains ability to construct thoughts and concepts above a certain complexity. Anyway, I don`t buy "words shape thought" as is either, but "certain words or structural concepts in certain languages shape certain thought-patterns in a cerain, variably way" seems a lot easier to get into.



SErankGodde

"I'm pretty sure Gender Studies have plenty of "research" put into disseminating the patriarchal norms of languages."

1. No. They have not. This research is done by psychologists, sociologists and first and formost linguists.

2. Gender Studies use the reseach done by others. All four are purely working describtive. They describe the information they get out of research. Neither of those will tell you what language you SHOULD use. (Me as a musicologist, i describe and analyze music. We are not there to tell you what "good" or "bad" music would be, and certainly not what music you should listen to.)

-> what you percieve as "Gender Studies" is what politically motivated people and the internet make out of it.

-> Both following or rejecting those theories without doubt is unscientific.



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3 years ago
quote:
-> what you percieve as "Gender Studies" is what politically motivated people and the internet make out of it.


quote:
Gender studies is an interdisciplinary academic field devoted to analysing gender identity and gendered representation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_studies
I thought it was a scientific field but ok I guess it is not...
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that was what i have said. :D

I have to admit i assumed the following subtext:
research in " " implies you want to say it is not actual, valid research

"(non-valid) research in disseminating the patriarchal norms of languages" implies to me that you think that this research is done to underpin the political agenda of left-winged-groups.

But maybe i just read the wrong subtext... In this case i would like you to correct me.
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3 years ago
No, you are right.
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3 years ago
Nice. Thank you.
So are you actually into Gender Studies?
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3 years ago
No, you were right.
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3 years ago
quote:
This research is done by psychologists, sociologists and first and formost linguists.

For some of those categories falsifying data is even easier than for others, hence you end up with things like: https://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/28/magazine/diederik-stapels-audacious-academic-fraud.html .

On the other hand, besides politics, probably they are not immediately applied so maybe the damage is less than in bio-medical things, which things evolve so fast, than even retracted papers get highly cited, see: https://retractionwatch.com/the-retraction-watch-leaderboard/top-10-most-highly-cited-retracted-papers/

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After that post I went into a wikipedia dive and found out that indeed it is a field of study:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity

I dug around a bit, the idea seems to be mostly discredited save in its more general, non-committal forms, as in, "your language maybe influences some thoughts". So yes, that.

Gender studies strike me as an insane and useless over-analysis of a topic. Then again, I feel the same about most "social sciences". They develop these ultra-complex theories about how people or society supposedly work that never seem to be clearly demonstrable or have any applicability to every day life.

Philosophy can have the same problem taken to its extremes. But at least philosophers tend to be more likely to admit that their ramblings are useless and the're really just flexing their mental muscles for their own amusement.

Edit: in case someone here is a fan of the social sciences, I should probably temper my post a bit to avoid a classical flamewar.

I don't mean to say that I think the study of social sciences isn't interesting or that people who study them are stupid time-wasters. Acquiring knowledge is a worthy quest in itself. I just think the value of the field is overrated outside of knowledge for knowledge's sake. Specially when it comes to gender studies.


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well, i am not a "fan" of those disciplines, i just have to work with them from time to time and i understand your critique. On the other hand i would say it would be quite irritating if we give up to study humans exept for their cognition, aka seeing them as machines and how they work on a technical level, aka neuroscience. A world where we are only interested in that would scare me personally.

I had to take off-tours into various other disciplines while i studied, including 1 course each in linguistics, philosophy and yes, Gender Studies.

I actually found philosophy the most useful thing actually as it dealt with general questions about knowledge, but heavily drawing on logic. Philosophy felt more like a craft.

Linguistics, well, i forgot most what we did.

Gender Studies was the weirdest one, because we did something none of us expected. We actually applied methodical critique to said studies done by other disciplines that were dealing with gender themselves and found that many of them were pretty useless, simply because they were quite full of fallacies, their sample size was too limited (10 people is laughable) etc etc. So we actually had to scap most stuff that was done by other disciplines about gender...

Later i was working in the field of neurocognitive musicology were we ran into the problem of experiments not being reproducible. Not just one or two. More like 80% of them. They simply didn`t produce the same results.


So, what do i do now? Do i stop to think about humans or simply accept that noone is interested ENOUGH to fund those fields? Robots are cool. Star Trek is cool. So people have a very high tolerance for very high amounts of funding for technical stuff. Meanwhile, there is equal to zero funding for psychologic experiments, research in humanities etc.
Thats why there is not enough data in those fields.
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on the other side, i think this should be tought in schools:




ok, this is focused on dogmatic ideologies, but there is a lot to learn about discourse in general.
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3 years ago
quote:
Then again, I feel the same about most "social sciences". They develop these ultra-complex theories about how people or society supposedly work that never seem to be clearly demonstrable or have any applicability to every day life.

BRrankManored: Think it from another perspective: many things that have applicability today started from unclear things that "maddman" were saying they work - for example the idea of washing hands before a operation, see https://theconversation.com/ignaz-semmelweis-the-doctor-who-discovered-the-disease-fighting-power-of-hand-washing-in-1847-135528.

The problem with research is that is very very hard before you succeed and can be seen as obvious after. I was/am involved in research and it is hard/annoying/frustrating work most of the times, that involves a lot of wasted effort.

quote:
More like 80% of them. They simply didn`t produce the same results.

Not nice, but not that bad either. If 20% were reproducible it's still a start. Hope your field is more friendly to "reproducible studies" than others, so your reproducing work is not wasted...
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quote:
Nice. Thank you.
So are you actually into Gender Studies?


Luckily SErankGodde is not. It would be followed by big every day polls that women can actually play ZeroK.
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3 years ago
FRrankmalric, well as i said below the quoted thing: we simply don`t get enough funding to do a satisfiying amount of research. the following is polemic because i simply don`t have numbers but i am pretty sure that the energy required to run a experimental fusion-reactor for half a minute costs as much as the whole musicological institute in a year. Frustrating. I do not mind to find out that studies cannot be reproduced. It`s fun and refreshing.
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Firepluk
3 years ago
No reason to be so dramatic AUrankSmokeDragon, even primitive animals like chickens have their own "words". Most of the animals do have their own languages... most not quite as rich and complicated as ours though
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