Illutions and inaccuracy in language

Hm, I don't think these are misconceptions or even
falsifying the understanding we have of the world.
I'd call it a band aid to a harsh reality.

Sure "You're running out of time" does translate into: You are too slow to finish your project. Instead of admitting to that, you'll say "I'm running out of time" a) to blame something else and b) it sounds nicer and is more polite.

In essence, I wouldn't call it inaccuracy of language
since it is a politer way to communicate.

If nothing else time is measured by individual body clocks.

The Bird of Time hath but a little way to flutter--
And lo, the bird is on the wing.

That sounds like denial Jane. To blame something else. To admit no fault. Sure it's nicer to run out of something you never had than something you might have wasted away.

I would say it is an inaccuracy because it would be polite only if the one you're communicating with wanted to be misguided. If he wants to hear the harsh reality it is impolite not to give it.

And by the way, reality is only harsh if you see it through a veil of your own dreams.

Saying one is running out of time to do a project is different from saying that one is "running out of life" by which I'm not even sure what you're trying to say. Are you less alive today than you were yesterday? Is "life" some sort of stuff that you lose? I'm lost, here. By which I know you don't think I mean I can't find my way home.

Metaphors and euphemisms don't prevent people from knowing things. Saying that someone "passed away" does not change your understanding that they died. As for the things with time, there isn't really a way to understand time except by ascribing cultural beliefs to it, since time is not really in a position to be studied by us. By which, I don't mean that time actully is in a "position." Time does not "pass" - but what DOES it do? Things that we don't fully understand, we can't describe in language absolutely accurately.

Funny, we refer to someone who has "run out of time," ie. when dead, as "late."

What I am saying is that time is not the boat we sail in. It is rather the ladder that evolution climbes. Evolution moves through time. Time does not move through evolution. There is in reality one moment, wich we call the present. All change, everything, happens in this moment. I'd say that is a big giveaway. But all this is a little beside the point. Time is not the issue here. I only brought it up because the term time is a good example because it is the root of so many misconceptions.

The relationship between language and "reality" has been discussed many times on A2K. Benjamin Lee Whorf, a one time insurance claim examiner. made the move to celebrated linguist with observation of the language of claims. E.g. "Empty gasoline drums" were prone to explosion because "empty of liquid" disguised the fact that they still contained vapour. Hence came the "Sapir Whorf hypothesis" that language affected our perception of reality.

However there is a problem between "reality" and "illusion" because unless you are a "naive realist" it can be argued that perception is active, not passive. and that all of "reality" is socially constructed with language as its main vehicle. Within such a paradigm both "reality" and "illusion" are (merely) different aspects of social consensus.

Who's to say that time "moves" at all, as we understand the idea of moving? Who's to say, for that matter, that evolution "moves" either? Out concepts about time and evolution may be incorrect, but it's not because of the words we use, it's because we probably can't know, because we're limited to ideas like moving. If I give an alternate theory of time and alter the language to suit it, we're no closer to understanding how it actully works than we were before.

Fresco, if perception is active, than why do you think language actively creates reality? Langauge is expression, not perception. I can describe something I've never seen. What does that actively effect. since I'm not perceiving anything?

So far all the examples given have to do with our perception of what we are pleased to call time. But the problem of using language to describe ultimate reality is far deeper than that. Implicit in your original post, Cyracuz, is the unavoidable nagging worry that what we say idiomatically does not conform to what is actually happening. This is probably so in far more instances than just those dealing with time. fresco's example of the Sapir Whorf hypothesis is excellent. What do we really mean by 'empty'? In an exact sense, there can be no such condition as 'empty' except -- arguably -- in a vacuum. If you empty all the water from a bathtub, the bathtub still contains traces of chemicals, soap residue etc. It is not 'empty.' Sterilize it so that all this residue is gone, and it is still filled with the air you breathe as you look at that tub. Still not 'empty.' And if you want to be a real stickler, then even a vacuum isn't exactly 'empty.' It still contains space. And as long as there is motion(of any kind) in the space , there will exist that which we call 'time.'

I can carry this further to its inevitable ultimate absurdity, if necessary. Oh, right. I already did that.

I just remembered something I was talking about in class the other day related to this too - there's some book by Neil Stephenson (can't remember the name) where the main character creates this logical, "philosophical" language where the absolute meaning of everything is contained in the form of the word itself. So, like, a mallard is a type of duck, so the word for mallard contains the word for duck. Most conlangs that people invent have something of this system, too - but as the makers of them discovered, it's really impossible to make a language entirely like that, first of all because it would change daily as we make new discoveries, and also because there's no way to segment reality in a logical manner to be able to include every meaning without a few general categories, which are then "inaccurate". Anyway, I think the best-known conlang for that was Lojban. I think the fact that it failed to become a real language, as we know language, is proof enough that the hypothesis itself is not quite correct. http://www.langmaker.com/db/mdl_lojban.htm

Rufio,

<<I can describe something I've never seen. What does that actively effect. since I'm not perceiving anything? >>

No. You ARE perceiving it...in your "mind's eye"...and it affects your "expectations" or "receptive state" thereby delimiting or selecting what constitutes "external perceptual data" for you.

rufio

Yes, but perhaps the reason is that we do not experience time. We experience things in time. We see changements in our bodies, in the others, in everything we experience. Time and space are conditions of our experience, but they are not "objects" of that experience.

Sure, val. But, "changements"?

Fresco, by "perceive" I a verb that can only take as an object something that existed prior to the perceiving. If you mean "create" than we should use that word instead. I can describe, for instance, what makes a perfect circle perfect, or what makes a totally frictionless space so, or any number of other "perfect" physical impossibilities, and none of these things exist anywhere. My saying these things does not cause them to exist anywhere. I cannot be perceiving them because they do not exist. I cannot be creating them, because they cannot exist. Would you like to clarify your statement a little?

Yes, changes.

Rufio, forgive me to return to the Heraclit's image.
We cannot bath several times in the same water of the river.River is time. We cannot see the river, only water. Whater is changing constantly. So when you enter the water several times you experience changes. But if the water changes, the river (TIME) is the same.

Rufio

Your recent reading of Capra should have set up a semantic paradigm within which to interpret "perception" as an "organisational activity" concerned with restructuring and maintenance of "inner states". Thus "sense data" do not "impinge". rather they are actively "gathered" by functionally specific "collectors" at all levels of structure (from the physical to the cognitive).

This is very different to assuming an external "reality" which we "discover".

My bad to use time as an example. I should have known that time itself is an alluring concept likely to shift the focus of the thread away from what was the intention. Time was not the intention, as most of you obviously are aware. The saphir wolf was a much better example, and there are others. The one with the bathtub. And this:

A hole- what is it? A circular, square, elliptic, or anyformwhatsoever absense of substance in substance? I don't know. Any tips?

**Sapir-Whorf

A hole, like everything else described in language, is a concept that we have of reality, and that we apply to what is there.

Fresco, I only glanced through that thing, and my brain is at the point where it shuts off upon reading words like "paradigm". I'll get back to you on that.