6 ms·

This is IMO largely false, and empirically things like Sapir-Worf and strong linguistic relativism, or that language == thought are widely considered disproven

This is IMO largely false, and empirically things like Sapir-Worf and strong linguistic relativism, or that language == thought are widely considered disproven [1-3]. This is also sort of a wordcel take, in that it neglects that there are plenty of mental structures that are not solely linguistic. I.e. visuo-spatial models, auditory models, kinaesthetic, proprioceptive, emotional, gustatory, or even maybe intuitive models, and symbolic models (which have both linguistic and visuo-spatial aspects). Yes, your models constrain your perception of reality, but it is not clear how important language really is to many of those models (and there is strong evidence it may not matter at all to a lot of cognition [3]). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity [2] https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/relativism/supplement2.html https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2015/entries/relativi... [3] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4874898/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4874898/

paganel 7mo ago
Disproven by whom and under which context? > evidence from neuroimaging and neurological patients Has "neuroimaging" successfully modelled those "universal human rights" the OP was mentioning? If yes, how did it look? More generally, positing that all languages are, in the end, interchangeable (because that's what the opponents of something similar to Sapir-Worf are saying) is very reactionary and limited in itself, and its telling them me calling those anti-Sapir-Worf people "reactionaries" will for sure tickle in them something that wouldn't have happened had I used a different "neuoroimaged" concept which, supposedly, should have meant the same thing for them (but it doesn't).
- D-Machine 7mo ago
  > Disproven by whom and under which context? See any of my links, but especially the third. Animal cognition and human neuroscience studies strongly disprove the importance of language to cognition. Conflating language and thought is so obviously false in 2026 it is extraordinary that people still think like this. I was ignoring the comment about fascists because it is simplistic and low-quality, and will similarly not be responding to whatever you (incorrectly) think I was claiming about universal human rights. I only wanted to correct the extremely false (or at least hugely overstated) assumptions about language and perception of reality.
  - uoaei 7mo ago
    Fascism is an overly simplistic ideology, hence the obvious description. It was just an example. I'm not sure what you thought the other commenter was trying to say either but they were just recalling a specific example to stay on topic in the conversation.
uoaei 7mo ago
Spatio-temporal, auditory models, etc. are themselves abstractions, sure. But they are fundamentally different in kind, in that those models respond to immediate sensory stimuli. Per se, they do not allow for abstract reasoning over internally generated representations. One aspect of the ever-elusive "intelligence" is the ability to practice reasoning over things not immediately in front of you. This extra abstract reasoning capacity absolutely does constrain your ontology -- you don't know what you don't know (the graph doesn't witness its substrate).
- D-Machine 7mo ago
  > But they are fundamentally different in kind, in that those models respond to immediate sensory stimuli. Per se, they do not allow for abstract reasoning over internally generated representations This is obviously deeply incorrect, and the kind of thing that people call "wordcel" thinking. Mathematical intelligence is highly visuospatial, and often requires constructing images and/or imagining motion (arguably invoking also either proprioceptive and/or kinaesthetic qualia). Is it possible you are aphantasic? This seems to me to be the only way one could think that one cannot have non-verbal internally generated representations.
  - uoaei 7mo ago
    Visuospatial abstraction as distinct from visuospatial perception/interpretation is the dichotomy in question here. I have a fine mind's eye and a functional inner voice. I'm speaking to the difference between, say, a reactive perception model (which is a model) and an abstracted cognition model (which is also a model, but one that can be interacted with without external input). It is clear almost all animals have the former, and a couple might have the latter, but this distinction is a core concern for usage of abstract systems such as linguistics.
    - D-Machine 7mo ago
      > I'm speaking to the difference between, say, a reactive perception model (which is a model) and an abstracted cognition model (which is also a model, but one that can be interacted with without external input). It is clear almost all animals have the former, and a couple might have the latter, but this distinction is a core concern for usage of abstract systems such as linguistics. This distinction seems perfectly fine and clear to me, so I suspect we probably actually don't disagree that much on specifics, and that this was maybe a semantic / violent agreement thing. I still don't think this distinction helps defend your statement "Language constrains your perception of reality to only the set of concepts conceivable within that language.", because, obviously, you can have abstract cognitive models ('concepts') that are non-linguistic, and thus, your perception of reality is not constrained only by language. I.e. remove the "only" and I have no real substantive disagreement. So it seems we can probably mostly agree on something like "Your abstractions constrain your perception of reality to only the set of concepts [ideas, representations] conceivable from those abstractions". It is tricky because "concept" can strongly imply a linguistic model, and "model" is really the term we want here, e.g. a "visuospatial concept" is unusual, I admit. But, still, linguistic models are definitely not the only game in town re: perception.

paganel 7mo ago

Disproven by whom and under which context? > evidence from neuroimaging and neurological patients Has "neuroimaging" successfully modelled those "universal human rights" the OP was mentioning? If yes, how did it look? More generally, positing that all languages are, in the end, interchangeable (because that's what the opponents of something similar to Sapir-Worf are saying) is very reactionary and limited in itself, and its telling them me calling those anti-Sapir-Worf people "reactionaries" will for sure tickle in them something that wouldn't have happened had I used a different "neuoroimaged" concept which, supposedly, should have meant the same thing for them (but it doesn't).

D-Machine 7mo ago
> Disproven by whom and under which context? See any of my links, but especially the third. Animal cognition and human neuroscience studies strongly disprove the importance of language to cognition. Conflating language and thought is so obviously false in 2026 it is extraordinary that people still think like this. I was ignoring the comment about fascists because it is simplistic and low-quality, and will similarly not be responding to whatever you (incorrectly) think I was claiming about universal human rights. I only wanted to correct the extremely false (or at least hugely overstated) assumptions about language and perception of reality.
- uoaei 7mo ago
  Fascism is an overly simplistic ideology, hence the obvious description. It was just an example. I'm not sure what you thought the other commenter was trying to say either but they were just recalling a specific example to stay on topic in the conversation.

uoaei 7mo ago

Spatio-temporal, auditory models, etc. are themselves abstractions, sure. But they are fundamentally different in kind, in that those models respond to immediate sensory stimuli. Per se, they do not allow for abstract reasoning over internally generated representations. One aspect of the ever-elusive "intelligence" is the ability to practice reasoning over things not immediately in front of you. This extra abstract reasoning capacity absolutely does constrain your ontology -- you don't know what you don't know (the graph doesn't witness its substrate).

D-Machine 7mo ago
> But they are fundamentally different in kind, in that those models respond to immediate sensory stimuli. Per se, they do not allow for abstract reasoning over internally generated representations This is obviously deeply incorrect, and the kind of thing that people call "wordcel" thinking. Mathematical intelligence is highly visuospatial, and often requires constructing images and/or imagining motion (arguably invoking also either proprioceptive and/or kinaesthetic qualia). Is it possible you are aphantasic? This seems to me to be the only way one could think that one cannot have non-verbal internally generated representations.
- uoaei 7mo ago
  Visuospatial abstraction as distinct from visuospatial perception/interpretation is the dichotomy in question here. I have a fine mind's eye and a functional inner voice. I'm speaking to the difference between, say, a reactive perception model (which is a model) and an abstracted cognition model (which is also a model, but one that can be interacted with without external input). It is clear almost all animals have the former, and a couple might have the latter, but this distinction is a core concern for usage of abstract systems such as linguistics.
  - D-Machine 7mo ago
    > I'm speaking to the difference between, say, a reactive perception model (which is a model) and an abstracted cognition model (which is also a model, but one that can be interacted with without external input). It is clear almost all animals have the former, and a couple might have the latter, but this distinction is a core concern for usage of abstract systems such as linguistics. This distinction seems perfectly fine and clear to me, so I suspect we probably actually don't disagree that much on specifics, and that this was maybe a semantic / violent agreement thing. I still don't think this distinction helps defend your statement "Language constrains your perception of reality to only the set of concepts conceivable within that language.", because, obviously, you can have abstract cognitive models ('concepts') that are non-linguistic, and thus, your perception of reality is not constrained only by language. I.e. remove the "only" and I have no real substantive disagreement. So it seems we can probably mostly agree on something like "Your abstractions constrain your perception of reality to only the set of concepts [ideas, representations] conceivable from those abstractions". It is tricky because "concept" can strongly imply a linguistic model, and "model" is really the term we want here, e.g. a "visuospatial concept" is unusual, I admit. But, still, linguistic models are definitely not the only game in town re: perception.