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Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

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Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#61

Post by adrian_b »

unscaled wrote: post #6

> When talking about someone or something external to you, Tibetan grammar forces you to express whether what you’re talking about is something you’ve experienced or seen with your own eyes, whether it’s an assumption you’re making, or if it’s something that is generally true to everyone else. The grammatical category the author describes here is called Evidentiality[1], and it's surprisingly rather common[2], but mo…

In the older Indo-European languages, like Ancient Greek or Latin, evidentiality was also important and it was expressed using different verbal moods, like the so-called indicative, subjunctive and optative.

Many modern European languages have been simplified from this point of view, but some still have remnants of the older uses of the verbal moods, like the use of some kind of subjunctive for anything that is not known with certainty, e.g. from direct experience.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#62

Post by fuzztester »

sureIy wrote: post #26
fuzztester wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>by tweaking the formality of our register). what does register mean in this context? the tone of voice or something similar?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Register_(sociolinguistics) Formal: "I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your invaluable assistance in this matter." Neutral: "Thank you so much for your help with this." Slang: "Thanks bro"

Got it, thanks.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#65

Post by armitron »

Tor3 wrote: post #45
lxgr wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language and higher order thinking might not be as intrinsically related as we think. For example, not everybody has an inner voice – and this usually comes as a surprise to both people having or not having one. Another good counterexample might actually be LLMs: Definitely well-spoken, definitely still not the greatest abstract higher-order thinkers, and domain-specific “intelligences” run circles around them.

I have an inner voice when I think about dialogue. When I construct a discussion in my mind. And only then. I don't use an inner voice when I think about other things, how to do things, or figure out problems. Way too slow, and after all you can't use an inner voice to figure out how to get through a tricky four-car driving situation. You have to figure out what do do by entirely non-verbal means.

It's not solely about the inner voice. Abstract concepts, symbol manipulation, mathematical logic and reasoning are for the most part "linguistic" constructs.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#66

Post by K0balt »

lxgr wrote: post #28
armitron wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the everyday sense of self that you have if not a linguistic construct? Without language and higher order thinking, you'd be back to being an ape. Modern life drenched in information flows, much more so than the past, accellerates our fragmentation into multiple personalities.

Language and higher order thinking might not be as intrinsically related as we think. For example, not everybody has an inner voice – and this usually comes as a surprise to both people having or not having one. Another good counterexample might actually be LLMs: Definitely well-spoken, definitely still not the greatest abstract higher-order thinkers, and domain-specific “intelligences” run circles around them.

Anecdotally, when I say I am thinking in English or Spanish, I’m not usually thinking in words, more in a cultural context and in concepts that are not symbolically articulated. Some of those concepts only exist (to me) in one cultural context or another and not in both. Basically wherever I learned something is where it “lives” in my mind. I can know “of” it in another context, but to think about it directly, in the first person, I need to “enter” the context in which it was acquired.

That’s why I can’t even -think- about math in Spanish, it just doesn’t work for me. I never learned mathematical concepts inside of that thought context.

And when I think of some people inside of English context, I can’t remember what it feels like to talk to them.

When I am tired I sometimes slip between contexts without knowing and cannot easily discern what language I am speaking or listening to.

I find it absolutely fascinating. It seems like there might be some insight to be had studying the phenomenon in people that experience it.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#67

Post by DiscourseFan »

anal_reactor wrote: post #60
npteljes wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By the feeling, it's the same. But it's an important distinction. You cannot change "the people", but you can change yourself. And that is very different. In the first, you are subservient of something much larger than you, and the second is a world of possibilities. Turning your thinking around enables you to have your best possible experience of your own life - or so they say.

> In the first, you are subservient of something much larger than you, and the second is a world of possibilities. The latter is a much more grim perspective. What it means is that, if you've been putting all your effort, all your effort is still not enough, and you objectively suck and you will never stop being useless trash. But if you consider people as an unpredictable, unstoppable force, then it's much easier to…

If you lived in a place with huge storms all the time, to live joyously would mean to affirm that life. But people are not terrible.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#68

Post by nappy »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #11
unscaled wrote: post #6

> When talking about someone or something external to you, Tibetan grammar forces you to express whether what you’re talking about is something you’ve experienced or seen with your own eyes, whether it’s an assumption you’re making, or if it’s something that is generally true to everyone else. The grammatical category the author describes here is called Evidentiality[1], and it's surprisingly rather common[2], but mo…

It's also worth mentioning that although English doesn't explicitly require you do do any of this, we generally have ways of conveying respect/familiarity (by tweaking the formality of our register).

English grammar also has features for expressing uncertainty, unreality, hypothetical, wishes, demands with uncertain outcomes etc. by use of the subjunctive mood.

"If I were a bird, I would be able to fly." (were, not was) "God bless you." (bless, not blesses) "The teacher demands that students be on time." (be, not are)

Though many native speakers, even very intelligent ones, fail to properly use subjective mood at a high rate. Or otherwise do not recognize it. As some of the other comments note, there are some interesting differences around what a languages grammar will strictly enforce, where as in English, proper use of the subjunctive mood is less strict. Obviously, this is also far less expressiveness in English around this in grammar than there is in other languages.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctive_mood#English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_subjunctive https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammatical_mood

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#69

Post by DiscourseFan »

rramadass wrote: post #52
DiscourseFan wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indian philosophy is not translingual though, its all written in one language, Sanskrit, and translated from that language. If anything, Indian philosophy demonstrates hierarchal dominance in its cultural context.

That is not quite true. It so happened that much of what has survived under the rubric "Hinduism" (itself an umbrella term for a whole gamut of philosophies, religious beliefs, rituals etc. and everything in between) has been through Sanskrit texts. It does not mean that all the concepts/ideas originated in that language domain. This is why you have the many schools of Hindu Philosophy categorized as orthodox (six re…

Its possible, but still points towards, as I said, an overall hierarchy rather than a given multiplicity.

Re: Learning Tibetan changed the way I think (2023)

#70

Post by glial »

psychoslave wrote: post #40
glial wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, this is famously why we only have one programming language.

Maybe not, but most of them are expecting users to have English in mind to some degree, plus the top ten most used are definitely all procedural paradigm plus some encapsulation such as OOP, as opposed to something like prolog.

The point I was snidely trying to make is that certain languages make certain representations and tasks easier than others. Ease, convenience, and representation length are probably more useful metrics than "possible" in the context of this discussion.
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