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Western culture is predicated on a sort of positivist metaphysics, and our language reflects that. Whereas in the east, the langauges and cultures have both lon

Western culture is predicated on a sort of positivist metaphysics, and our language reflects that. Whereas in the east, the langauges and cultures have both long ago (as in, thousands of years ago) assimilated the precepts of non-dualism, which brings with it a greater degree of subtlety, through its embedded understanding of equanimity, dependent arising, and so on. It's a different ontological root, and therefore a different schema altogether. Knowing what I know of you guys in NZ, a lot of that sort of thinking has made its way into popular understanding by way of encounters with the Maori people, and some of it has to do with more modern notions of pluralism, and some of it has to do with British politeness. All that to say, it is not your fault nor the Americans fault that there's a gap in understanding. It's the byproduct of where those two schemas do not connect.

idiotsecant 10mo ago
The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome. No language is more expressive than another, some are more expressive for particular very specific things, like Inuit languages might be much better at describing the varieties of snow, but no language has a monopoly on describing dualism of ideas. It's just as silly to be overly dismissive of the language you're familiar with as it is to be overly dismissive of others.
- gsf_emergency_6 10mo ago
  How about tripartism of ideas? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0888613X23001639 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08886... https://www.academia.edu/45462252/The_Logic_Structure_of_Tao_Philosophy https://www.academia.edu/45462252/The_Logic_Structure_of_Tao... Okay, these are probably posthoc retcons
  - inavida 10mo ago
    I've just noticed this hierarchal tripartism so I'm happy to see that other people have retconned it too.
- rramadass 10mo ago
  > The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome. The author did not say this; this is your unnecessarily negative take. However the author is comparing Chinese with English where this is somewhat true and well studied; eg. A Comparison of Chinese and English Language Processing - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs/pii/S0166411508616593 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs... Google will give you lots more info. on this. > No language is more expressive than another, Objectively false. This is the same meaningless logic that since almost all programming languages are Turing Complete and can simulate any Turing Machine therefore they are equivalent. In a abstract sense they are but for all practical purposes the notion is useless as anybody trying to program in C++ vs. Haskell vs. Prolog will tell you. This is why you have the concept of "Paradigms" and "Worldviews". Every culture imposes a "Philosophical Worldview" on the Languages it invents. An ancient Indian Philosopher named Bhartṛhari (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari) actually founded a school of philosophy where language is linked to cognition-by-itself with cognition-of-content i.e. subject+object+communication as a "whole understanding". He called this Sphota (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spho%E1%B9%ADa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spho%E1%B9%ADa) defined as "bursting forth" of meaning or idea on the mind as language is uttered. This is the reason why in ancient Sanskrit literature there is so much emphasis on oral tradition i.e. using right words, right utterances, right tones etc. Previous discussion Words for the Heart: A treasury of emotions from classical India - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43249766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43249766 Also see the book The Word and the World: India's Contribution to the Study of Language by Bimal Krishna Matilal which gives an overview of Bhartrhari's (and others) ideas - https://archive.org/details/wordandtheworldindiascontributiontothestudyoflanguagebimalakrishnamatilal_202003_376_e https://archive.org/details/wordandtheworldindiascontributio...
  - popalchemist 10mo ago
    Thank you. Exactly the frame of reference I was speaking from.
    - 10mo ago
- deleted 10mo ago
  [deleted]
incr_me 10mo ago
Ever read Plato?
- popalchemist 10mo ago
  Indeed but we have veered far from Plato's school of thought ever since the dualism of Descartes and it was further reinforced by the rise in materialism following the "death of god" and the discovery of the atom.
  - incr_me 10mo ago
    I hear you on that, but it's not like Laozi's thought is particularly useful to Chinese capitalism, either. Certainly any remnant gestures towards the dialectics of Marx by the CCP are farcical. We can allow for some local variance, of course, while still seeing the vulgarization of the whole world, so to speak. I think it's important to appreciate that the seed of dialectical thought can never be vanquished; Kant accidentally paved the way for Hegel's abolition of Cartesian dualism, and Hegel had no problem making use of the German language, so seemingly divorced from Plato's Greek, to do that. Dialectical thought can't help but appear over and over again, no matter the language, because all language is a product of the real world. Again, it would be a mistake to not afford some degree of autonomy to language. The question is to what degree language is free to structure the world. Ultimately any language, I believe, can be expanded to express whatever new ideas arise in society, so that it is the real conditions that have ultimate power "in the last instance".
    - popalchemist 10mo ago
      I afford that "autonomy" (in the sense of a sponptaneous emergence of phenomena, not in the sense of having agency); nevertheless, thousands of years of culture going one way here and another way there lend themselves to pre-built apparati of perception. See other comments in this thread for a more articulated explanation of what I mean; I don't have the time to re-express it here.

idiotsecant 10mo ago

The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome. No language is more expressive than another, some are more expressive for particular very specific things, like Inuit languages might be much better at describing the varieties of snow, but no language has a monopoly on describing dualism of ideas. It's just as silly to be overly dismissive of the language you're familiar with as it is to be overly dismissive of others.

gsf_emergency_6 10mo ago
How about tripartism of ideas? https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0888613X23001639 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S08886... https://www.academia.edu/45462252/The_Logic_Structure_of_Tao_Philosophy https://www.academia.edu/45462252/The_Logic_Structure_of_Tao... Okay, these are probably posthoc retcons
- inavida 10mo ago
  I've just noticed this hierarchal tripartism so I'm happy to see that other people have retconned it too.
rramadass 10mo ago
> The idea that all non-western practices, language included, have a deep and amazing and metaphysical quality that westerners simply couldn't understand is so tiresome. The author did not say this; this is your unnecessarily negative take. However the author is comparing Chinese with English where this is somewhat true and well studied; eg. A Comparison of Chinese and English Language Processing - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs/pii/S0166411508616593 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/chapter/bookseries/abs... Google will give you lots more info. on this. > No language is more expressive than another, Objectively false. This is the same meaningless logic that since almost all programming languages are Turing Complete and can simulate any Turing Machine therefore they are equivalent. In a abstract sense they are but for all practical purposes the notion is useless as anybody trying to program in C++ vs. Haskell vs. Prolog will tell you. This is why you have the concept of "Paradigms" and "Worldviews". Every culture imposes a "Philosophical Worldview" on the Languages it invents. An ancient Indian Philosopher named Bhartṛhari (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhart%E1%B9%9Bhari) actually founded a school of philosophy where language is linked to cognition-by-itself with cognition-of-content i.e. subject+object+communication as a "whole understanding". He called this Sphota (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spho%E1%B9%ADa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spho%E1%B9%ADa) defined as "bursting forth" of meaning or idea on the mind as language is uttered. This is the reason why in ancient Sanskrit literature there is so much emphasis on oral tradition i.e. using right words, right utterances, right tones etc. Previous discussion Words for the Heart: A treasury of emotions from classical India - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43249766 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43249766 Also see the book The Word and the World: India's Contribution to the Study of Language by Bimal Krishna Matilal which gives an overview of Bhartrhari's (and others) ideas - https://archive.org/details/wordandtheworldindiascontributiontothestudyoflanguagebimalakrishnamatilal_202003_376_e https://archive.org/details/wordandtheworldindiascontributio...
- popalchemist 10mo ago
  Thank you. Exactly the frame of reference I was speaking from.
  - 10mo ago
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]

incr_me 10mo ago

Ever read Plato?

popalchemist 10mo ago
Indeed but we have veered far from Plato's school of thought ever since the dualism of Descartes and it was further reinforced by the rise in materialism following the "death of god" and the discovery of the atom.
- incr_me 10mo ago
  I hear you on that, but it's not like Laozi's thought is particularly useful to Chinese capitalism, either. Certainly any remnant gestures towards the dialectics of Marx by the CCP are farcical. We can allow for some local variance, of course, while still seeing the vulgarization of the whole world, so to speak. I think it's important to appreciate that the seed of dialectical thought can never be vanquished; Kant accidentally paved the way for Hegel's abolition of Cartesian dualism, and Hegel had no problem making use of the German language, so seemingly divorced from Plato's Greek, to do that. Dialectical thought can't help but appear over and over again, no matter the language, because all language is a product of the real world. Again, it would be a mistake to not afford some degree of autonomy to language. The question is to what degree language is free to structure the world. Ultimately any language, I believe, can be expanded to express whatever new ideas arise in society, so that it is the real conditions that have ultimate power "in the last instance".
  - popalchemist 10mo ago
    I afford that "autonomy" (in the sense of a sponptaneous emergence of phenomena, not in the sense of having agency); nevertheless, thousands of years of culture going one way here and another way there lend themselves to pre-built apparati of perception. See other comments in this thread for a more articulated explanation of what I mean; I don't have the time to re-express it here.