4 ms·

While not really discussed in the article, it's interesting to look for instance at Robin Wall Kimmerer's "language of animacy". She makes the point that the pr

by kaitai 8y ago

While not really discussed in the article, it's interesting to look for instance at Robin Wall Kimmerer's "language of animacy". She makes the point that the pronouns used to refer to people vs objects influence the directions your scientific thoughts may go, because of fundamental assumptions carried in the form of address. Her language is Potawatomi if I remember. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis remains controversial, but it's a well-known linguistic hypothesis that language available influences thought. (Totally different and yet related: Heard Kimmerer on a podcast recently and she proposed something I don't even have words for. We created neural networks inspired by the way we understand mammalian brains to work, right? But plant communities have a distributed chemical method of communicating and 'learning', across organisms rather than within one. What would the machine learning equivalent of that be?)

microcolonel 8y ago
> The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis remains controversial, but it's a well-known linguistic hypothesis that language available influences thought. As far as I'm aware, it wasn't even a hypothesis, it was a shower thought. It's probably right in some limited ways, but until somebody shows me the exotic grammar in their language which makes it dramatically simpler to express the discoveries of the field of astrophysics, I'm not convinced there's much there. There are a handful of languages whose speakers express radically different views of numeracy from indo-european and asian language speakers, but as long as you're expressing the same concept with broadly similar power, it's not clear that the language itself informs the concept. There's nothing profound about a numeral, especially a numeral for "1", and there's mostly nothing special about words like "ennui". > We created neural networks inspired by the way we understand mammalian brains to work, right? Not exactly, no. The neural network metaphor is broadly related to all things with neurons, and based on a specific simplification of the concept of neurons which is general and abstract enough that it maps about as well to plant signaling as it does to insect or mammal signaling.
- chousuke 8y ago
  To me, it seems like vocabulary definitely has an effect. My native tongue is Finnish, but I find it easier to discuss (and think) some things in English because English has more specific vocabulary in certain areas. It's not that is impossible to express these things in Finnish, but it sort of feels uncomfortable. It's also difficult to separate a language from its culture, so that might be another reason it feels so compelling to think that languages influence your thoughts. My internal thoughts switch between Finnish, English and sometimes Japanese depending on context.
- kaitai 8y ago
  I have to say I'm disappointed in your reply. Neurons only occur in animals, and the concept of neural signaling is not directly analogous to plant signaling in communities. Plants have a much wider vocabulary than electrical activation. I appreciate that you're trying to stick to astrophysics and the numbers one through three, but you have failed to engage with the "language of animacy" concept, which makes this sort of a pointless reply. In addition, "it's not clear that the language itself informs the concept" -- yes, that's the point of there being a hypothesis, and that's the point of this discussion. I don't propose that the truths of astrophysics are going to be different in Blackfoot. I do propose that languages carry fundamental values and concerns of societies. These values and concerns of course influence scientific inquiry. Now, it may be that language, choices regarding directions of research, and approaches to scientific inquiry are all just results of underlying drivers, but that's the interesting part of the discussion.
  - microcolonel 8y ago
    > Neurons only occur in animals, and the concept of neural signaling is not directly analogous to plant signaling in communities. Plants have a much wider vocabulary than electrical activation. Are some integers impossible to express in binary?

by kaitai 8y ago

microcolonel 8y ago

> The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis remains controversial, but it's a well-known linguistic hypothesis that language available influences thought. As far as I'm aware, it wasn't even a hypothesis, it was a shower thought. It's probably right in some limited ways, but until somebody shows me the exotic grammar in their language which makes it dramatically simpler to express the discoveries of the field of astrophysics, I'm not convinced there's much there. There are a handful of languages whose speakers express radically different views of numeracy from indo-european and asian language speakers, but as long as you're expressing the same concept with broadly similar power, it's not clear that the language itself informs the concept. There's nothing profound about a numeral, especially a numeral for "1", and there's mostly nothing special about words like "ennui". > We created neural networks inspired by the way we understand mammalian brains to work, right? Not exactly, no. The neural network metaphor is broadly related to all things with neurons, and based on a specific simplification of the concept of neurons which is general and abstract enough that it maps about as well to plant signaling as it does to insect or mammal signaling.

chousuke 8y ago
To me, it seems like vocabulary definitely has an effect. My native tongue is Finnish, but I find it easier to discuss (and think) some things in English because English has more specific vocabulary in certain areas. It's not that is impossible to express these things in Finnish, but it sort of feels uncomfortable. It's also difficult to separate a language from its culture, so that might be another reason it feels so compelling to think that languages influence your thoughts. My internal thoughts switch between Finnish, English and sometimes Japanese depending on context.
kaitai 8y ago
I have to say I'm disappointed in your reply. Neurons only occur in animals, and the concept of neural signaling is not directly analogous to plant signaling in communities. Plants have a much wider vocabulary than electrical activation. I appreciate that you're trying to stick to astrophysics and the numbers one through three, but you have failed to engage with the "language of animacy" concept, which makes this sort of a pointless reply. In addition, "it's not clear that the language itself informs the concept" -- yes, that's the point of there being a hypothesis, and that's the point of this discussion. I don't propose that the truths of astrophysics are going to be different in Blackfoot. I do propose that languages carry fundamental values and concerns of societies. These values and concerns of course influence scientific inquiry. Now, it may be that language, choices regarding directions of research, and approaches to scientific inquiry are all just results of underlying drivers, but that's the interesting part of the discussion.
- microcolonel 8y ago
  > Neurons only occur in animals, and the concept of neural signaling is not directly analogous to plant signaling in communities. Plants have a much wider vocabulary than electrical activation. Are some integers impossible to express in binary?