Thus spake Vladimyr Ivan Burachynsky circa 10-03-22 10:43 AM: > I opened a lid and are you the surprise in side? > Language issues are extremely complex and I am not sure which position you > take, In fact I suspect you do not subscribe to either.
I'm just an Eddington style typewriter. I read a bunch of stuff. It percolates around randomly. Then I spew it back out without really knowing anything about what I'm saying. [grin] And in the great tradition of psychological reflexion, I assume everyone else is the same. > I always suspected my father was slightly mad when he would begin laughing > at something someone said, He explained that it sounded like something > obscene in Finnish or Yiddish. Exactly! Those interested in language mismatch claim that lots of "interestingness" seems to come from language mismatches, including lots of humor. > I agree with your comments but unfortunately we often have to make choices > between two bad options since there is nothing better. If we recognize the > language trap how do we escape? I tend to keep reminding myself that my grasp of reality is very tenuous regardless of my (frequent) sporadic descents into the conviction that I have a very good understanding of it. By continually reminding myself, I find that almost every time I remind myself while stuck in that conviction, the conviction is a direct result of being ensconced in a particular language. As I age, however, I'm finding my own reminders more and more difficult to maintain. So, I sporadically start arguments with people like those on this list and enlist them to help me remind myself. (Yes, that's totally selfish ... But you'll rarely find me arguing that altruism is natural. ;-) I confess, though, that these constant reminders make me a jack of many trades, master of none. And that can be a very bad thing. Luckily, I'm a simulant and my job requires that I be that way. > Creating a new language such as mathematics did not solve our difficulties > if anything it helped illuminate the issues. Yes! I firmly agree with that! Math is a language for disambiguation. -- glen e. p. ropella, 971-222-9095, http://agent-based-modeling.com ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
