> > a lot of people seem to have the opinion the language a person > communicates in locks them into a certain way of thinking.
There is an entire book on the subject, "Metaphors We Live By", which profoundly changed how I think about thinking and what role metaphor plays in my thoughts. Below is a link to what looks like an article by the same title from the same authors. http://www.soc.washington.edu/users/brines/lakoff.pdf On Sat, Apr 6, 2013 at 9:10 PM, Julian Leviston <jul...@leviston.net> wrote: > Something on the recent "discussion" titled "Natural Language Wins" got me > thinking: a lot of people seem to have the opinion the language a person > communicates in locks them into a certain way of thinking. > > I'm interested in this with respect to programming languages. I've > encountered numerous programmers in my life who only seem capable of > thinking procedurally when it comes to programming, and yet can easily > think non-procedurally in other affairs (such as using objects in their > daily life, or writing maths functions). > > Before I learned LISP at all, a lot of people told me it'd change the way > I thought, but all it really did was make me aware of another programming > language which was less locked in than the others. > > I don't think in language. I think in visual and feeling/thought > form-patterns - they're faster than language because they're smaller than > language, and they come before the language rendering is formed. Perhaps I > used to think in language when I only knew one language, but I don't > remember doing so. > > This is how I program, too. I find that programming languages express the > patterns I build better or worse, but I don't feel I'm hedged into a way of > thinking by the language - I find the language dictates what's possible to > express a lot of the time, but I don't see this as the language limiting > ME, rather what I can express is limited by the language. (ie in the latter > I remain limitless, in the formed, I would be limited). Same thing in > natural language. For example, this paragraph is poorly expressed in > english without a lot of work. > > [FOR ME], [easy+] [express myself] [precisely++] [in esperanto] than [in > english]. (for example). In LISP, it's the same thing. LISP is "perfectly" > precise. It's completely unambiguous. Of course, this makes it incredibly > difficult to use or understand sometimes. > > What I wonder is, is it possible to build a series of tiny LISPs on top of > each other such that we could arrive at incredibly precise and yet also > incredibly concise, but [[easily able to be traversed] meanings]. This > was/is the aim of the STEPS project, was it not? I continue to grapple with > this idea and its implementation(s). > > The ramifications are that one could replace any part of the system > because one could understand any part of it, but also that it would enable > a learning not possible by any other means because it would be "able to be > inspected/introspected". Thus, using would become learning would become > programming. This is one of my most passionate aims, but unfortunately > daily "grind work to pay the bills" generally takes away from my efforts. > > Julian > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > fonc@vpri.org > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc >
_______________________________________________ fonc mailing list fonc@vpri.org http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
