[gn0sis]

Let's talk about language! :D Before his death in 2000, philosopher and anthropologist Terence McKenna wrote in an article entitled,

"We're born into what William James calls a blooming buzzing confusion, but by the aquisition of words we mosaic over various sectors of this blooming buzzing confusion with words. We replace the unknown with the known through the substitution of words and by the time a child is two or three they have completely created a cultural mosaic of words that is interposed between them and reality. Reality from that point on is only an unconfirmed rumor brought through the medium of language and every culture accentuates different parts of reality so that in a sense every culture is a different reality. Language is the stuff of the world, not quarks or wave-packets or neutrinos, but language. Everything is made of language. All the constructs of science are actually interlocking constructs of syntax. So that's ordinary language which seems to define reality through a kind of process of lying about it. For instance by creating subject-object distinctions which are, in fact, not true to the matter, but somehow operationally necessary for us to navigate in the kind of lower dimensional space that we inhabit."

The question I posit is this: is language reality? Or is language an interface to reality? One might argue that the latter case is a sub-type of the first in that if language is the only way in which we understand/interact with reality, it is a surrogate reality even if not "prime reality." If language is reality, what implications does this have for our understanding of science? For our conception(s) of truth? And what if language is not reality? Does language have any special significance beyond as mere words for communication?

[foobar]

I would think language is little more than a highly ambiguous, very human communication protocol. Perhaps different languages do have some effect on how people think to some extent (though even though I'm bilingual myself, I can't really tell), but it has been proven that we don't really think in terms of language (for example, children can reason before they can talk).

They key word here is ambiguity: language is too unclear to be used to represent concepts or to permit logical reasoning. There are other constructs in our brain that are more concerned with what is, but even those I would not call reality. You could call those our "surrogate" reality if you like, because for most people what they think they see is, as far as they care, real.

[Kisai]

For Language = Reality

It is impossible. Language is a shorthand abstraction dedicated to describing human practices. If I said 'dog' it wouldn't nearly imply the genetic code found in each dog, its typical lifestyle, chemical composition, every poem, historical reference about a dog, et cetera ad infinitum.

As for significance beyond mere words, you could go the linguist route or the poet route (or both) to argue these points. I'm not either.

[ElstonGunn]

	Originally Posted by gn0sis To view links or images in this forum your post count must be 2 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.
	The question I posit is this: is language reality?

Doesn't a lot of this depend on whether you're a materialist or an idealist (philosophically speaking)? Which is "truer"-- the archetype or the example?

[gn0sis]

If you want to put it down to idealism or materialism, I think that the answer still is apparent. For the materialist, matter is reality and you can deconstruct language on a physical level to fricative motions with your tongue in your mouth, air running past your vocal folds, and so on. Language in the brain is hard-wired from birth and shares many traits cross-culturally. But where does this get us in our analysis? For the idealist, though, "idea" is reality. But what about language as an abstraction? There are syntax and semantics, grammar and meaning. But you could go even more abstract than this. What is language at its core? Language is a means to communication or means of communication. There are other means to and of communication but language (verbal and textual) has evolved as the dominant mode, alongside "body language" which is very different yet in some aspects alike and synthetic language imitations like sign language. Communication is about understanding and being understood. But what if there is a break-down in the process? What if the break-down is language itself?

Language has implications for the way we view the world. For instance, there is a difference in idea between passive and active voice in English even if roughly the same idea is communicated. In English, we say "I'm cold" but in German we say "es ist mir kalt" or "it is cold to me." A German told "ich bin kalt" (I am cold) could take it literally and assume that you are dead or something. The German phrasing actually reflects what is. For the English speakers, language has constructed something of a false reality, albeit without actually changing reality. I'm sure you could think of other examples as well.

But this deals with what is. Any psychology student could tell you that what we perceive with our five senses is not always what is; optical illusions, synthetic flavor molecules that mimic actual foods, and so on are examples of this. The crux of the issue, then, is perception and not what actually is. This is why language is of such importance. Language affects the way we perceive reality. As McKenna said, language is the cultural mosaic we impose on reality. "Reality from that point on is only an unconfirmed rumor brought through the medium of language."

Language is a medium through which we perceive and communicate perceptions about reality and what is. We never truly perceive reality as it is in its raw datum form, only in processed form through our senses and brain. So if language affects how we view reality, both individually and collectively (since language is primarily a collective enterprise), language is as important as the senses we perceive reality through also. Language is, you might say, a sixth sense.

As to language being a short-hand abstraction, what does that say about language? "Dog" doesn't say everything about a dog and its genetic code, yes, but the limitation of verbal language morphemes goes just as much to show how limited our perception of reality itself is. We can perceive a dog through language (the word "dog") as a series of ideas (its genetic code, physiological attributes about it, its history, etc.) but never as a single idea. "Dog" is so much more than dog, yet language limits us in this regard. If anything that says to me that we should develop a new type of language with fewer limitations, more connection to reality (or at least with more connection to what we perceive reality to be in its most absolute form), and less false ideas built into them (e.g. the "it's cold/es ist mir kalt" dichotomy).

[zibber]

Language is quite a convenient tool, since it allows people to communicate practical things otherwise unknowable (there are sharks in this water) and allows us to transmit products of thought (already facilitated by language, themselves). On the other hand, for most people it is also a terrible curse that causes prejudice, generalisation and much concept-based confusion. As has been shown in the past decades, part of the nature of language is the encoding of cultural values, which is quite horrible in the sense that these cultural notions are very effectively naturalised. The worst wrongs are those that appear perfectly normal (or don't appear at all).