On Sunday, January 25, 2015 at 11:17:18 AM UTC-8, afke...@gmail.com wrote:
a'oi
our main question is whether you would agree with this theory or not.
I agree with it.
Does being able to speak in a different, logical language also mean that you are able to think in a different, logical manner?
And seeing that Lojban (most probably) is not your first language, do you believe that people are able to learn to change the way they percieve reality, just like they are able to learn a new language?
What is reality? Do we ever truly perceive it?
I could say the brain records electromagnetic patterns
which we then interpret as reality.
Some people believe we generate and project reality.
What is aware of the attention being placed on thought?
I started learning Lojban last month
and I can say that it has changed my thinking by
making me aware of aspects of language.
We could say that this would happen while learning any second language.
I think the real proof will only be available when you are truly thinking in the second language,
as opposed to translating in your mind.
Before I realized the concept of linguistic relativity existed,
I realized a major aspect of English (among other languages)
is putting things into two categories: "good" and "bad", "right" and "wrong".
I assume it started with the origin of language.
Some of the first words undoubtedly had the meaning: "edible" and "not edible", "dangerous" and "not dangerous".
But it's not strictly practical or fact based anymore... there are opinions and morals.
So what happens when you simply swap the categories?
Right is now wrong (morally).
Good is now bad.
Surely your life would change over night if you could accomplish this (and wanted to >_<).
So for example, does someone who can speak a Native American language as
well as regular English have the possibility to view reality in two
different ways?
I don't think so. Perspective gained is perspective gained.
Maybe if you could somehow completely segregate the two languages in your mind...
Is this the reason you are so interested in Lojban, because it enables you to think and perceive the world more logically? And if not, where did your interest for the Lojban language come from?
I started and almost finished my own English spelling reform.
(soon, door, foot... arg)
Spelling reform is nothing new though; and I decided that no reform will ever be globally accepted
because people value Etymology, and there is just too much that would need to be "translated"
before we could stop teaching the old versions of words.
The solution is simply to learn and promote a language with a phonemic orthography.
I gave Esperanto a try and after a week or two I found
http://www.101languages.net/esperanto/criticism.html
(notice the quote at the top ;D)
which made me aware of Ido and led me to the article
http://idolinguo.org.uk/whyido.htm
Every weakness of Esperanto I had noticed was in that article,
and addressed in the Ido reform.
However, the first article also made me aware of Lojban.
I decided to learn Lojban because of the promotion of linguistic relativity,
the fact that it is not Latin based, and my interest in programming.
Side note:
Since you already know English, I want to recommend the book
"Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life".
It helped me see detrimental aspects of English like: "I have to..."
Now I always think "I choose to... because..."
It also suggests some beautiful concepts such as considering:
what do you want the person's reason to be for doing something for you.
stela selckiku:
Perhaps the most perfectly Lojbanic of Lojban sentences is the sentence "
", the empty sentence, which of course asserts nothing at all about
anything, and does so in perfect elegance. All of Lojban springs from
this emptiness.
Have you ever read anything by Walter Russel?
From his book "A new concept of the Universe" (rather fitting for this conversation):
If the power to cause motion is in the balanced state of rest, it necessarily follows that energy is in the stillness of rest and not in
motion which is effect of cause.