ken@ihuxq.UUCP (ken perlow) (11/18/84)
-- >> It seems to me that there is a whole at the bottem of the bag. >> I mean, does language really have THAT much control over how we think? [One of many quotes from CS Lewis presented by Ken Arndt] >> "Language exists to communicate whatever it can communicate. Some >> things it communicates so badly that we never attempt to communicate >> them by words if any other medium is available." >> ". . . what language can hardly do at all, and never does well, is to >> inform us about complex physical shapes and movements. Hence >> descriptions of such things in the ancient writers are nearly always >> unintelligible. Hence in real life we never voluntarily use language >> for this purpose; we draw a diagram or go through pantomimic gestures." How much is THAT much? (Draw me a picture.) The control is not so much over how we think as over our perception of our environment, or more important, our mythical and hypothetical environments, which then very much colors our thinking. Any English speaker could learn enough about snow to be as perceptive of a snowy environment as the Eskimo with his 17-odd words for it, but without those words (or the snow) he probably lacks the initiative, and certainly lacks the folklore. Language gives us a past and a future (actually a whole panorama of futures). Lewis's notations on the limits of language deal only with the present, the serial nature of its I/O, its ineffectiveness in conveying emotion. Living solely in the present, though, essentially obviates language. Zebras, for example, get along OK without it. In fact, for the here-and-now, language can be a dangerous nuisance. You think a Zebra thinks, "Smells like a lion, I'd better run."? By then it would be too late. The power of language, though, is in its conjuring, in the anticipation. -- *** *** JE MAINTIENDRAI ***** ***** ****** ****** 13 Nov 84 [23 Brumaire An CXCIII] ken perlow ***** ***** (312)979-7188 ** ** ** ** ..ihnp4!iwsl8!ken *** ***