I was wasting my time it seems. Not even got going yet.

Guess this is how things are now here.

Bye bye :)

Are some natural languages more logical than others though?

One of my biggest gripes with people discussing ethics/philosophy is that they believe ‘true’ is wholly applicable to pure abstract forms.

As I said with German do you think that is more logical?

Another matter I recall was when the European countries grouped together for political discourse Greek was given serious consideration as the Greek to mediate through as it was more suited to easy communication. They went for English simply because it was more universal not because it was the best suited.

Are the manner in which some languages are structured more ‘logical’ then? I would English is certainly not particularly ‘logical’ as it is backwards in terms of sentence structure and adjective compared to others for a start. Then there is the multiplicity of terms (small, little).

(I shouldn't say "better" -- it is politically and culturally unacceptable to say this). — L'éléphant

Why? I think more harm is caused if you pretend there is no difference, and act like languages are equal in every respect. That said, I would not as far as to say the differences are all that significant.

I recall Buckminster saying how we use up and down is kind of primitive now we know about gravity. He said we should really modernise and start saying into and out of (referring to gravitation fields). Just watching some weird TikTok person recently saying ‘like’ about 20 times in one minute got me thinking about the possible degradation of colloquial speech and whether they is anything to be overly concerned about. I find it amusing when people have no idea what acronyms mean sometimes. Blog is that a surprising amount of people do not know the origin of.

I think that because it was reported in the field by a linguist. Sicilians do not use future tense and are widely regarded as being short-sighted/fun-loving.

There are numerous instances in languages that show differences in cognitive function. In South Korean motherese focuses on prepositions where in practically every other culture nouns are the primary focus. This had an actual impact on perception and there is a measurable difference up until the age of 5-6.

German clearly impacts Germans too. There language is particularly literal and every european I spoke to living in Berlin remarked about how literal Germans were as the most significant cultural difference.

As to ‘better’ that is the open question.

Confusion about grammar? :D

Comedy thread now.

First off, all these words and terms you use "Sicilian", "English", etc are nonsense in a true discussion of languages being "better". All lingual communication is forced air through specific muscular nuance. Nothing more. Nothing less. — Outlander

Well, no. If you lack use of tenses (like Sicilians) then you are less likely to plan ahead. This is advantageous in some ays but perhaps not in others.

It’s a crying shame that I would have to explain that differences necessitate different values to some extent even though the circumstances under which they are applied may make them better in one way and worse in another.

We are different. I am likely better in some and worse in others. In terms of language the use is to communicate and explore ideas. I would suggest that all languages offer something but some more so than others (and the linguist who did field research on the Sicilians was as intrigued as me).

Pretty much done here (not due to your post, just saw it).

I was asking for opinoins and gave examples. Anyway, I get the gist done here bye

You think I am ignorant? Okay then … shut it down I will not waste my time if you assume I have not studied any linguistics. I guess you just have a pet hate.

Np bye :)

You are aware that that English is a bastardised language?

I was suggesting that the eclectic nature of English (for reasons stated) helped it expand, yet I question if the ability to pull from its romance and germanic roots has perhaps become a hinderance to communication due to a plethora of terms.

But whether one is better than the other depends on one's values. — Judaka

Some values are better than others. Not sure how you could argue otherwise?

Perhaps English promotes individualism through the extensive use of individualistic pronouns. — Judaka

There is one example where English fell short. The terms Missus and Miss used for women was not as befitting as Italian or French, when a mature woman would be referred to respect with no real need to be married. Senora and Senorita are irrespective of marital status. That is what gave rise to the invention of Ms.

English became a global language because of the combined influence of two superpowers, the British Empire and the US, not because of its advantages, right? — Judaka

I would say mainly due to the British Empire first and foremost. I was more curious about how English may have helped in any slight way? Did the structure of the language contribute to invention and human thought in any way? Is it even possible to answer this question? If we can then what use could it be?

The dominant "Westen values" are shit. It's just tribalism. — Benkei

Great argument :D

I am saying there are clearly objective values to languages beyond mere convenience.

English has changed over the years for sure maybe due to the number of people who speak it. German has certain matter-of-fact characteristics to it, and various other languages have a narrower range in some areas.

I know people who are bilingual who state that sometimes it is easier to express/think in one language more than another depending on the situation. I think English is particularly unique in that it developed in certain directions due to Latin, Ancient Greek, French and influences from colonies too.

This range could be viewed as positive or negative thing. Which is it? I would say mostly positive at one point in history, but as time has passed it may have become a little unwieldy perhaps?

reposted. I added a bit more context and an example. Maybe it was viewed as a glib post? Either way if there is a problem with it let me know and I will edit.

I’ll just post it again I guess. Maybe a mistake somewhere?

not important. Autocorrect

You were the one buttering the colloquial term ‘change’ not me. Everything we know of remains similar enough to call it the same. Nothing remains the same for humans because everything is subject entropy.

There is no ethical dilemma then.

NO: one cannot torture a child nor kill a child even if it saves the entire human species. — Bob Ross

Someone would.

If that is the case then to say anything stays the same is a fallacy and it would also make the term is/change identical.

Same effectively means similar enough to be called the same. It is not some absolute term.

You are a social animal. There is no denying this.

It is not clear to me to what extent we are dependent on social interactions. — javi2541997

Every single extent. Humans need humans as much as they need food or water. Just because we can learn to survive longer and longer without human interactions does not displace the fact that imagination/psychosis will substitute the sensations of social interactions. Writing is clearly one method of ‘replacing’ social interactions.

Surely we all know that the point at which the changes to the ship make it a different ship is not clearly defined. — Ludwig V

It is pretty clear. Piece by piece if every part is replaced it is still ‘the original’ as it is their ship. Someone collecting and reassembling the parts produce their own ship not someone else’s ‘original’ ship.

Words can sometimes trick the mind.

I was commenting on that particular sentiment because when we write or speak it is undoubtedly done within a communal framework. What is said can be heard or read by anyone, just as anything we think is also partly imbued with the community held in mind.

We cannot act outside of human social interactions. On a superficial level we can state that we do not write something for anyone but by stating so we do actually appreciate that we usually do and therefore cannot escape that expressing anything is a reaching-out into the world not some isolated incident.

See what I mean?

It is a gradable antonym at best.

What evidence do you base this opinion on?

Just curious. It helps to make your point clear so others can understand why you think what you think.

literature or the art of writing is an individualistic or collectivist act. — javi2541997

It is a false distinction. Assuming one can exist with the complete absence of the other is clearly just that, an assumption. One that has little to no ground to hold it up once you analysis what is actually being suggested.

The reason this is important, is that it then establishes some other more interpretive things. That is to say, you cannot in reality have a person born under different circumstances (prior to the point of conception) because those circumstances would almost certainly result in a different set of gametes, and hence a different person than the one that is reflecting back on the altered history. — schopenhauer1

This is incorrect. There are various factors that happen prior to conception that contribute to development.

Circumstances are effectively ‘the environment’ and given that the environment is forever changing what happens prior to conception has an obvious effect on items within said environment. The only way out of this is belief in some form of dualism.

So saying that person A is person A is basically a waste of time. There is nothing here and I confused why there is a needless back and forth debating why YOU is important as some non-existent being that is never non-existent because YOU exist. It is just words used to screen clarity I feel.

That a thing cannot itself is kind of true, but to say that something cannot be effected by anything else is rather silly.

I do not believe you. You can read therefore you can think in words.

I agree that some thing must be known. For me a human definition of knowledge has more than raw data involved. I view knowledge as having weight dependent upon time.

Historical knowledge becomes less and less concrete as the physical items of the past recede into the distance. Abstractions are atemporal, but they are limited in application to items that involve all the nuances of human experience.

A quick note about ‘illusion’.

If everything perceived is an ‘illusion’ then the term has no meaning. Either there are perceptions that are illusions and perceptions that are not illusions or there are no perceptions.

Language is useful if adhered to.

I think there is a case for private billionaires as they are able to do things groups or governments cannot due to pressures of opinion.

There is something special in having a few people able to actually shake things up a little. Such as with Elon Musk.

I do wonder though whether or not people like him would be inhibited or not by caps on wealth? Guess we will never know (well, at least for a good few decades!).

There blatantly is. But the US has been rightwing for as long as I have been alive.

You cannot call several instances of cheap/free healthcare anything but leftwing. Stop being silly.

I believe this about leftism: whatever its merits may be, it lost. The western world turned away from it. The opposing perspective didn't win by a blitzkrieg, but by giving the people what they wanted. — frank

Not really. The US has always been right-wing, but there is plenty of leftism in Europe.

order of pain

2, 1 then 3 most probably. I guess it could be argued that trying to to cause pain may actually cause more pain that scenario 1 thoough.

I was merely assuming that such a truth could exist and that some peole would be able to figure it out eventually.

World 3 would would pretty quickly stop being a world. With no morality there is more of a chance people would kill babies but maybe not to the extent that the species would cease to exist.

Often on philosophy forums ;)