John, and Chris, The problem is that language evolved to describe and make sense of daily life, what I call 'the logic of things'. Thus it is not really designed to properly describe many of the deeper more fundamental aspects of reality. Trying to do that often leads to wrong or misleading conclusions because it is often very difficult to even express the questions well in syntactical logic, much less the answers...
Edgar On Saturday, February 8, 2014 2:06:54 PM UTC-5, cdemorsella wrote: > > > > > > *From:* everyth...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> [mailto: > everyth...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>] *On Behalf Of *John Clark > *Sent:* Saturday, February 08, 2014 8:01 AM > *To:* everyth...@googlegroups.com <javascript:> > *Subject:* Suicide Words God and Ideas > > > > The invention of language was obviously of great benefit to the species > called Homo sapiens, but like all tools it is not perfect and sometimes the > brain can waste a great deal of processing power spinning its wheels over > questions of words rather than ideas. For example, a recent poll showed > that 70% of people in the USA thought that if a dying patient agreed then > doctors should be allowed to "end the patient's life by some painless > means"; however only 51% thought that doctors should be allowed to help a > dying patient who wanted to die "commit suicide". Another example would be > those who DON'T believe in a omnipotent omniscient intelligent conscious > being who created the universe and is responsible for morality but DO > believe in "God". > > Well said John – and in this (if not on all things) we agree – language is > an imprecise and sometimes tragically misleading tool, albeit one most > powerful in helping our species build out the vast assemblage of the > various human cultures. > > The importance of clearly communicating cardinal terms cannot be > overstated. Words are symbolic vehicles, conveying meaning across the > discontinuous gulf between minds. Not only must the minds in the > communication chain, share an agreement of their symbolic meaning – in > order for them to work as intended, but as you pointed out the choice of > words used to convey a thought can have a profound effect on the outcome. > > One exercise I engage in is to parse what I read for words whose purpose > is to color meaning rather than describe some fact. “News” reports are an > excellent place to discover this treasure trove of the use of adjectives > and coded phrases meant to trigger emotional responses and to generate firm > opinions. > > Chris > > John K Clark > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "Everything List" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to everything-li...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>. > To post to this group, send email to everyth...@googlegroups.com<javascript:> > . > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
