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How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)

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Re: How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)

#61

Post by glenstein »

codeulike wrote: post #21

Edge.org presents things as 'conversations' but they are generally just essays, with no possibility for other edge members to leave comments. Thats not a conversation. There's no dialogue, nothing anyone says is challenged. None of these 'great minds' at Edge are actually presented talking to each other. Consequently although Edge.org says its all about conversation and advancing knowledge, I suspect its really just…

Well I'm looking at the front page story, "A Conversation with Lee Smolin." It leads with a monologue from Smolin followed by a response from Arnold Trehub, followed by a response from Sean Carroll, followed by an entry from Lee Smolin responding to Carroll's response. Bruce Sterling enters the conversation to express sympathy with ideas Smolin as raised then Trehub comes back with another response and finally Amanda Gefter gives a reply to Smolin.

This event is put under the site's conversations section, and a quick perusal of this section reveals tons of similar conversations with multiple contributors all responding to each other, and they've been doing this for years.

Re: How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)

#62

Post by codeulike »

glenstein wrote: post #61
codeulike wrote: post #21

Edge.org presents things as 'conversations' but they are generally just essays, with no possibility for other edge members to leave comments. Thats not a conversation. There's no dialogue, nothing anyone says is challenged. None of these 'great minds' at Edge are actually presented talking to each other. Consequently although Edge.org says its all about conversation and advancing knowledge, I suspect its really just…

Well I'm looking at the front page story, "A Conversation with Lee Smolin." It leads with a monologue from Smolin followed by a response from Arnold Trehub, followed by a response from Sean Carroll, followed by an entry from Lee Smolin responding to Carroll's response. Bruce Sterling enters the conversation to express sympathy with ideas Smolin as raised then Trehub comes back with another response and finally Amanda…

Hmm, I looked before and didn't find much, but you're right. Still, on page 1 of the list of 'conversations' there only seem to be 9 that are genuine dialogues, the other 41 are just singular essays or people all answering an open question. But yeah, thats a bit more like it. Still some way to go before it becomes a bubbling forum of discourse though.

Re: How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)

#63

Post by toasterlovin »

codeulike wrote: post #21

Edge.org presents things as 'conversations' but they are generally just essays, with no possibility for other edge members to leave comments. Thats not a conversation. There's no dialogue, nothing anyone says is challenged. None of these 'great minds' at Edge are actually presented talking to each other. Consequently although Edge.org says its all about conversation and advancing knowledge, I suspect its really just…

I'm just guessing here, but the video for a lot of the "conversations" seem to be a conversation between the subject and the camera person that was edited down to make a more cohesive video. The videos are fairly well transcribed though, so I don't think this comes across in the text.

Maybe this is the conversation being referred to.

Re: How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)

#64

Post by ancarda »

fernly wrote: post #59
jeltz wrote: post #10

"For a long time, the idea that language might shape thought was considered at best untestable and more often simply wrong." I dislike sensationalism. The idea that this can be tested is as old as the modern controversy. There were studies on words for colors in the 1950s. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity_and_the_c...

All of which brings back memories of Loglan[1] which was specifically designed as a tool for testing Sapir-Whorf, although in the end and after many years of painstaking development it was never used for that. Loglan has a successor Lojban[2] which is still a hobby project for a small community. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loglan [2] http://www.lojban.org/tiki/Lojban

There are a few children who are being raised bilingually with Lojban as a mother tongue so the original purpose may end up being fulfilled. It'll be interesting to see how they turn out.

xu baupli la .lojban. .i mi nintadni

Re: How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)

#65

Post by nnq »

sanoli wrote: post #46
nnq wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any math teacher that uses language association to teach math is doing it completely wrong. If you want to teach math to children younger than 7, stop talking and start drawing! (scribbling arabic numerals is good, but things like the Japanese "multiplication by drawing" are awesome in teaching kids to "feel math") Teachers that teach children do things like "say out loud kids, what is two plus seven?* are basically…

Do you teach math to children? Can you recommend some good resources for this method? My son is not there yet, but in a couple of years will be, and I'm already interested in the subject, and studying different methods so I'll be able to help him and interact with him in a positive way. P.S. As far as I know, most schools here (Brazil) use a lot of the "Say out loud what is x plus y" way.

No. I'm probably in the same position as you are, thinking and researching about how to teach my children when the time comes. But at one point I'll probably organize all the researched resources and publish them on a blog or website and maybe try to gather an online community around this topic.

Re: How does our language shape the way we think? (2009)

#66

Post by DanBC »

nnq wrote: post #17
franzwong wrote: post #13

Number system of some Asian languages (e.g. Chinese) is base 10, so the children can learn Maths easier.

Any math teacher that uses language association to teach math is doing it completely wrong. If you want to teach math to children younger than 7, stop talking and start drawing! (scribbling arabic numerals is good, but things like the Japanese "multiplication by drawing" are awesome in teaching kids to "feel math") Teachers that teach children do things like "say out loud kids, what is two plus seven?* are basically…

Do you have any research to back this up? It feels as if it's correct, but I'd be reassured if there was some good quality research too.
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