From owner-freebsd-chat Sun May 26 23:33:43 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from wantadilla.lemis.com (wantadilla.lemis.com [192.109.197.80]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7EBAF37B401 for ; Sun, 26 May 2002 23:33:39 -0700 (PDT) Received: by wantadilla.lemis.com (Postfix, from userid 1004) id 35C27814A1; Mon, 27 May 2002 16:03:37 +0930 (CST) Date: Mon, 27 May 2002 16:03:37 +0930 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey To: Terry Lambert Cc: pgreen , Rahul Siddharthan , chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Language in danger: Language loss Message-ID: <20020527160337.H71831@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <3CF17486.F06F3E6A@mindspring.com> <20020527104558.B43610@wantadilla.lemis.com> <3CF1D271.321A6B21@mindspring.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3CF1D271.321A6B21@mindspring.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.3.23i Organization: The FreeBSD Project Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ X-PGP-Fingerprint: 9A1B 8202 BCCE B846 F92F 09AC 22E6 F290 507A 4223 Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Sunday, 26 May 2002 at 23:30:09 -0700, Terry Lambert wrote: > Greg 'groggy' Lehey wrote: >>>>> Your ability to think about certain concepts is constrained by the >>>>> language(s) in which you are able to think. >>>> >>>> No, it isn't. >>> >>> Provide a counter example. >> >> Done. >> >> Of course, I can't communicate it to you, because to do that I would >> have to put it in language. > > Har. Your failure to cbe able to communicate it to me in language > indicates that the language you would use to try to do so is inherently > constrained from representing certain concepts, such as the one you > can't communicate in it. 8-). Yes, this is one of the more perspicacious observations you've made in this discussion. Thought is not communication. >> Imagine you're driving down a crowded freeway and a car in front of >> you suddenly stops. You have to avoid it. How do you do it? "Well, >> if I veer to the left, I may hit the gravel on the side of the road, >> if I veer to the right, I may hit the central reservation, but there's >> not enough space between the lanes for me to get through, so maybe the >> gravel's the least risk"? Of course not. Putting thoughts into >> language is too slow for your own thoughts. > > Personally, I would avoid it by stopping, since I maintain at least > 1.5 times my reaction time in distance between myself and the car in > front of me. I rather imagine that stupid people smack into the car. > There's a reason that, in the U.S., the driver who rear-ends another > automatically gets the ticket. 8-). But you're missing the point. And the driver behind you won't miss you. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message