[atari 2600]

Just as Newton's laws hold true in the majority of cases on this planet, but not in the whole of the universe as in Einstein, Sapir and Whorf's contention holds true for most cases, but not in every case. It is merely a description that is primarily mechanical in nature, thus the criticism of Sapir-Whorf as potential determinism, especially in its "strong" formulation.

So, as we definitely think to ourselves with an internal dialogue that manifests in how we communicate, and since our thought, and thus our behavior and hence our culture, is widely modeled after our interactions with language, there is much to be learned from the perspective of Sapir-Whorf.

But, none of this is to discount Chomsky completely by any means as Chomsky's thought is concerned with linguistic origins that are, for lack of a better word, archetypal. Chomsky in this sense is like the meditative Jung to Sapir-Whorf's bulwarking Freud. For in Chomsky we see an analysis that incontrovertibly points to the inherent similarites between all languages. Chomsky's generative grammar, while far from being fully ironed out itself, is thus held as a more all-inclusive theory.

In essence, the two really don't contradict each other as much as one may first think, but instead represent different aspects of conceptualization and "levels" of perceptive consciousness itself. And in each linguistic theory, in Sapir-Whorf and in Chomsky, there is a great deal of indebtedness to Wittgenstein.
So neither are wholly incorrect and meaningless, but neither are entirely true in every single aspect either. Fundamental leanings from nature versus nurture are evident in each persective. And in each there is data to be gleaned as well as a good deal of information to be sloughed off as extraneous.

In Charles Creegan's Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein's influences are enumerated as Leo Tolstoy, Saint Augustine, Fyodor Dostoevsky and, most notably, Søren Kierkegaard, whom Wittgenstein referred to as "a saint". I just read that at wikipedia tonight. No wonder I've remarked before that Wittgenstein is the last extremely important philosopher.

[Green_mind]

hey, where were the quotations marks, I thought you had written it, majorly impressed.
thanks Glice, if I'm ever at Guest House Paradiso, I'll go check it out.

[atari 2600]

What I just wrote is mainly just a one-off descriptive exploration that's heavy on somewhat vague analogies, with little meat. The last little bit concerning Wittgenstein's influences contains a reference.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Just as Newton's laws hold true in the majority of cases on this planet, but not in the whole of the universe as in Einstein, Sapir and Whorf's contention holds true for most cases, but not in every case.

no fucking way that comparison is even remotely applicable; but even if it were applicable, it still wouldn't be true at all.

i'm just saying this for the benefit of naive children who may be bamboozled by the rhethorical audacity of the quoted statement.

[atari 2600]

It makes some sense in some sense haha. And I admitted moments ago that the analogy was a vague one. Sorry it is so offensive to yourself.

Each thinker represents a revolution in thought or at least an improvement over other thinkers.


Nice hatchet job. You're a wonder.

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Nice hatchet job. You're a wonder.

it's doesn't take genius powers to call bullshit

[atari 2600]

The main inference is that theories are always being redefined as more information is explored over time. That is, except for relativity theory.
I wanted to squeeze in that Einstein reigns, that's all.
I really don't give a damn about Sapir-Whorf or Chomsky, you know, since they are largely masturbatory.

I've written on other occasions that I'm not a huge Chomsky enthusiast (even though he's not all bad or anything).

I'm all about the Einstein and Wittgenstein though.

Again, sorry it was so very offensive to you.

Please read the following, it's important:

Einstein proved right on gravity
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2639043.stm

 

It all adds up: Albert Einstein would be pleased

 

By Dr David Whitehouse

BBC News Online science editor

 

The speed of gravity has been measured for the first time, revealing that it does indeed travel at the speed of light.


It means that Einstein's General Theory of Relativity has passed yet another test with flying colours.
The measurement was made by Ed Fomalont of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Charlottesville, Virginia, and Sergei Kopeikin of the University of Missouri, in Columbia, both US.
Writing in New Scientist magazine, they say: "We became the first two people to know the speed of gravity, one of the fundamental constants of nature."
Higher dimensions
Isaac Newton believed the influence of gravity was instantaneous. Later, Albert Einstein assumed it travelled at the speed of light and built his 1915 General Theory of Relativity around that assumption.
If gravity travelled at the speed of light it would mean that if the Sun suddenly vanished from the Solar System, the Earth would remain in orbit for about eight minutes - the time taken for light to travel from the star to our planet. Then, in the absence of gravity, Earth would move off in a straight line.
Modern researchers say that knowing the speed of gravity is important in the study of branches of cosmology where the Universe has more spatial dimensions than the usual three.
Some of those theories suggest that gravity could take a short cut through higher dimensions and so appear to travel faster than the speed of light.
Jupiter's help
To measure gravity's velocity, Kopeikin determined that it could be determined with the help of the planet Jupiter, if its mass and velocity were known.
The perfect opportunity arose in September 2002, when Jupiter passed in front of a quasar - a distant, very active galaxy - that emits radio waves.
Fomalont and Kopeikin combined observations from a series of radio telescopes to measure the apparent change in the quasar's position as the gravitational field of Jupiter bent the passing radio waves.

From the observations the researchers determined that that gravity does indeed move at the same speed as light.

The results of the study have been presented to this weeks meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Seattle.

__________________
Thanks for the platform you provided so that I could share what I really wanted to share.


Einstein is rock-solid, baby. Quantum Electrodynamics is really solid, after all, it's based in relativity. Quantum Mechanics is far from being solid, but not complete bullshit. String theory, on the other hand, is gobbledegook.

[!@#$%!]

please let's remark the sleight of hand of the magician

this:

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Just as Newton's laws hold true in the majority of cases on this planet, but not in the whole of the universe as in Einstein, Sapir and Whorf's contention holds true for most cases, but not in every case.

is now somehow equated with the scientific validity of the theory of relativity, via a BBC cut & paste job.

I CALL BULLSHIT.

it gets tiresome.

[atari 2600]

"The BBC cut and paste job" shows that General Relativity is no longer a theory. I hope people explore the link or otherwise read the article.

In my original sentence I explained how Sapir-Whorf was true in many cases, but really in a mechanical, descriptive sense primarily (as opposed to the determinism it espouses), (& this reminded me of Newton in a way) as contrasted to Einstein's relativity which is now a proven universal fact (see article above). Real science is supposed to be predictive as opposed to just descriptive, you see.

Yeah, some apples got mixed with some oranges a little, that's why I wrote earlier before you even posted that some of my analogies were a bit vague.

So, no "bullshit," just a lack of patience and a fair amount of prejudice against myself evidenced on your part and an admitted little too much straying from literalness on my part. I'm sorry for the confusion, but hey, I had already written a disclaimer which you roundly chose to completely ignore.

Originally Posted by me

The main inference is that theories are always being redefined as more information is explored over time. That is, except for relativity theory.
I wanted to squeeze in that Einstein reigns, that's all.
I really don't give a damn about Sapir-Whorf or Chomsky, you know, since they are largely masturbatory.

I'm all about the Einstein and Wittgenstein though.

Again, sorry it was so very offensive to you.

[!@#$%!]

my work here is done

[atari 2600]

I guess you're just getting me back for the times I've been a butt.

Whatever, suit yourself, but that last post reeks of you thinking of yourself as "a legend in your own mind" and I know that you are better than that.

[!@#$%!]

paranoid.

[Glice]

At the risk of not following the herd, I have to say that I think Mr !@#$% is being a little unfair to Mr 2600. The separation between Chomsky and Sapir-Whorff - who are two seperate people whose position is bolstered by their inadvertant cohesion - for me is that Chomsky is aware of, and indebted to, Wittgenstein's latter period; his is a highly politicised awareness of language; the Sapir-Whorff hypothesis is only political in so far as it's prescriptive, and is thus fascististic. For those slightly less aware, 'fascist' is not a negative term in all cases, but I'd be surprised if I had to tell that to two protagonists who've clearly read Nietzsche.

I suppose !#@$ doesn't like the miscegenation of compariring properly scientific with the anthroplogical-linguistic; I think it's entirely legitimate within the realms of simile.

I must now prepare to leave, perhaps I will write at length later? Who knows...

[!@#$%!]

Originally Posted by Glice

At the risk of not following the herd, I have to say that I think Mr !@#$% is being a little unfair to Mr 2600. The separation between Chomsky and Sapir-Whorff - who are two seperate people whose position is bolstered by their inadvertant cohesion - for me is that Chomsky is aware of, and indebted to, Wittgenstein's latter period; his is a highly politicised awareness of language; the Sapir-Whorff hypothesis is only political in so far as it's prescriptive, and is thus fascististic. For those slightly less aware, 'fascist' is not a negative term in all cases, but I'd be surprised if I had to tell that to two protagonists who've clearly read Nietzsche.

I suppose !#@$ doesn't like the miscegenation of compariring properly scientific with the anthroplogical-linguistic; I think it's entirely legitimate within the realms of simile.

I must now prepare to leave, perhaps I will write at length later? Who knows...

no yee yes no yes no no yes no yes

sort of no-- see, it works like this

it's not just the simile-- some similes work very well. but even as a simile this would not work. when you say "miscegenation", that's an applicable metaphor; could be an applicable simile with a change of words

oversimplifying things: while relativity gives us a picture of a different universe altogether than newtonian physics, newtonian physics are still a good approximation to relativity at low speeds. in other words, even in a relativistic universe, newtonian physics still serves well engineers, mechanics, artillery men, etc., working at speeds nowhere near the speed of light.

sapir-whorf and chomsky are antagnists, diametrical opposites, mutually exclusive; sapir-whorf is not a subset of chomsky, sapir-whorf doesn't "work most of the time" whereas chomsky "works all the time". that's just a load of balls.

so the simile is HRONG.

about the political implications of each theory-- political analysies make for very poor evaluations of scientific theory, donna haraway notwithstanding. still, if one is going to look at that, think of new labor's notion that you can change the world by changing words-- that's a typical application of sapir-whorf nonsense. generally speaking, foucault follows sapir-whorf, and so do all the stalinists and social engineers-- social anthropologists thinking that the human subject is infinitelly malleable by language/culture. 1984's newspeak is a sapir-whorf fantasy as well. but here's a funny thing, our genes know a lot more than our culture-- now that you could say is even more "deterministic" (whatever it is that you want to say with that), but it's also more "democratic", in the sense that everyone is born with more or less the same tools.

but this is a road i don't really wanna go down unless we switch from discussing science (linguistics) to discussing bollocks (humanities). in which case i require alcohol.

and let's please not so casually call nietzsche fascistic-- il duce was a poor sad cartoon, and marinetti was a clown. nietzsche mocked german nationalism and ridiculed obedience to the state, and saw the jews as the salvation of european culture. on the other hand, he wanted some sort of aristocracy, but that had nothing to do with the mental cabbage farts of the nazis, benito, etc.

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

The main inference is that theories are always being redefined as more information is explored over time. That is, except for relativity theory.

I'm not really concerned with the erudite discussion at hand, however, Einstein fits yr rule more than he makes the exception.

the Theory of Relativity breaks down when dealing with measurements at or below the planck scale.

just sayin'.

[atari 2600]

Planck?...that's Quantum Mechanics...see post above

[Rob Instigator]

Originally Posted by floatingslowly

I'm not really concerned with the erudite discussion at hand, however, Einstein fits yr rule more than he makes the exception.

the Theory of Relativity breaks down when dealing with measurements at or below the planck scale.

just sayin'.

the Theory of relativity does not really "break down" at levels below the Plack scale. That is how it is described but it actually starts preidicting infinities, and infinities in physics are signs pointing to erroneous calculations. relativity posits that at the center of a black hole lies a singularity, an INFINITELY massive and INFINITELY small thing, but quantum mechanics does not.

weird.

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Planck?...that's Quantum Mechanics...see post above

quantum mechanics came about because the theory of relativity was found to be not as all-encompassing as it once was believed.

new knowledge, new ideas.

[atari 2600]

Originally Posted by floatingslowly

quantum mechanics came about because the theory of relativity was found to be not as all-encompassing as it once was believed.

new knowledge, new ideas.

You're confused. Quantum mechanics came along because relativity is perfectly predictive of the very large, but not the very, very small. And why? It's no fault of relativity's...it's just that we cannot see or measure subatomic particles that are so small and travel so fast. Thus, we get Planck's constant and Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and so on to make the math work out as best as we know how and this more-or-less functional hodgepodge is known by the name of, yeah, you guessed it, quantum mechanics.

"God doesn't play dice." - Albert Einstein

[floatingslowly]

Originally Posted by atari 2600

Quantum Mechanics came along because Relativity describes the very large very well, but not the very small.

right, but that didn't really become an issue until much later.

macro / micro - it's all part of the whole, but neither theory describes both very well.

anyways, I'd love to hijack this thread about language and turn it into something I care about, like quantum mechanics, but yeah.

carry on.