Does Your Language Shape How You Think?

Title: Does your language shape how you think?
Author: Guy Deutscher
Publication Company: The New York Times
Publication Date: August 26, 2010
Class: English IB HL
Category: Other Class

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            This article from the New York Times suggests that language restricts us in what we are forced to think about. Languages are set up in different manners from other languages, and so this causes people to have different habits when speaking to another. This may also account for why people pay attention to different things. For example, in Chinese, there is no past tense or future tense, you just simply use present tense and put the word “yesterday” or “tomorrow” in front of the sentence. However, in Spanish, the verb changes according to when it was put into action. Therefore, people who grew up speaking Spanish may pay more attention to time than the people who grew up speaking Chinese. In the same manner, in some languages, we are forced to think about certain aspects such as time, gender etc. which can shape the way we think in our daily lives.

            But how do we prove this? This may just be a huge generalization, and be completely false, or it could be absolutely correct. How do we know? And also, what about the people who have grown up in other countries all their life? Do they still think in their mother tongue, or do they adapt to new languages? I know I’ve been living in Vietnam for basically my whole life and I rarely think in my mother tongue –Korean. I don’t think in Vietnamese either because my Vietnamese is very limited in what I can express. I think in English because it is the language I am most comfortable with, it’s the language I have been learning in for my whole life. Does this mean that we think in the language we learn in? Does it differ for different people? How will we know if the people are actually thinking about things such as time, or gender of the subject when talking or if it is just a habit they have formed?  Will we ever know the answer to all of this?

            After reading this article, we discussed about the importance of language in our English class. We talked about the significance of language. Language determines what we are able to express and allows us to share our thoughts and knowledge with other people. The more words there are the more effective we are able to communicate. Communication is very important because it allows for a society to build within our population; it lets us connect with other people and interact with one another. However, in the novel 1984 by George Orwell, language is restricted by the government, and the language is constantly being cut down into fewer words, all with good connotations. This restricted the people in how they expressed themselves. They were forced to be optimistic, and forced to praise rather than criticize. As language began to be shortened, they began to lose memories of what other words had meant. So does language really shape how we think? Does it determine what we are capable of thinking about or just how we describe such things? Could we communicate in other ways than using language? Would this be as effective? How would we know?

For more information: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/magazine/29language-t.html?_r=2&emc=eta1

1984

Title: 1984
Author: George Orwell
Publication Date: 1949
Publication Company: Harcourt Brace & company
Class: English IB HL
Category: Other classes



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           The book 1984 by George Orwell directly relates to theory of knowledge as Winston (the protagonist of the novel) tries to overthrow the Party by joining the Brotherhood which may or may not exist. When Winston is caught by the Party for trying to overthrow them, Winston is sent to the Ministry of Love to be “cured” into loving and supporting the Party and Big Brother. In Part III of the novel, it states “Anything could be true. The so-called laws of nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. ‘If I wished,’ O’Brien had said, ‘I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.’ Winston worked it out. ‘If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.’…. ‘It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It’s hallucination.’….All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens” (Orwell, 229).

            Is this correct? Is reality only in the mind? Is there a world outside our mind? Do we really imagine and hallucinate every second of our life? Does this mean reality is different for every person? We cannot possibly imagine the same exact scenario, can we? How do we know if someone is thinking the same thing we are, and perceiving the world in the same manner we do? Of course, we could ask them. But how do we know the words coming out of their mouths mean the same thing we interpret it to mean? If every word means different things to different people, it makes us question how effective is our communication system? If everything is a hallucination, are we really communicating with another person or is this, also a hallucination and not reality? Does reality even exist? Or is it just a concept that we all believe in? Will we ever know? Is knowing the answer to reality existing outside our minds possible if we can only think within our minds and not anything beyond it?

A Sightless Experience

Title: A Sightless Experience
Date: September 20, 2010.
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class

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            During this field trip to the park nearby our school, we were able to witness what it was like to lose the sense of sight. In pairs, one of us had to be blindfolded and the other person had to guide us through a certain route. The guiding person could not touch us or be in any physical contact with us, he/she had to guide us through his/her voice.

                As a guide, I had the responsibility of guiding my partner and protecting him. I had to constantly talk to him because he depended on me for instructions. Sometimes, this was frustrating because he did not trust me in the beginning and I wanted him to. I thought to myself, ‘Why is it so hard for him to trust me?’ But when we switched roles, I soon found out why –because another person was in full control of my safety and I was not used to being so dependent on someone else. This was why the first couple of steps were the hardest. I could tell he didn’t really trust me yet he still followed my directions because he was forced to; he relied on me. Without being able to see, he could have avoided dangerous situations. There was one moment where he could have almost walked into a tree because for one moment I was not fully focused on him. If he was able to see, he would have avoided this situation because he would see the tree in front of him and would change directions to avoid the tree in his next step.

Through this experience, I was able to once again realize the importance of our ability to see. Being able to see meant that one was able to understand and know what type of situation he/she was in. For example, in the dangerous situation, because he was not able to see, he did not know or understand why he had to change directions. He just did it because he trusted that what I was saying would benefit him in some way. In addition to this, it would be difficult to describe certain things in daily life such as a cat, or riding a bike because the blind person would have never been able to witness these things through sight. We could describe these things to them but the blind person would not be able to visualize these things perfectly. For example, if I was to describe a cat, I could say that they have large eyes, a triangular nose with two nostrils, whiskers, lots of fur, when fully-grown about 70cm long and so on. However, these blind people would not know that tigers and lions are also considered cats because they look alike. Of course again, someone could the blind people these information but it wouldn’t be the same as seeing cats in real life. Likewise, if I was to describe riding a bike, the blind person would not necessarily think of bike rides the same way as I do. This is true because riding a bike varies from one person to another. For example, if I was a bad bike rider, I could describe the bike ride as being wobbly and scary. On the other hand, if I was a great bike rider, I would describe the bike rides as being exciting, fast, and windy. The blind people would not be able to know what type of bike rider they are because bike riding without the ability to see can be very dangerous, even fatal if one was in a bad accident.

I realized that when I was guiding my partner, I thought this would be a fairly simple task (following the instructions of my partner). Yes, this was true; following instructions was simple. The difficult part was in trusting my partner. When I had to wear the blindfold, my heart started pounding, and my steps were smaller and were more hesitant than my original walk. This experience forced me to trust my partner because he was the only one I could rely on for direction. In the beginning, I could not trust him. I thought he would walk me into a tree, and so I became paranoid. I began to rely on my other senses-my hands and feet to feel my surroundings and my ears to hear my guide’s voice. For example, I felt the pavement under my foot to make sure I was going in the right direction and I reached out my arms so I could prevent myself from walking into a tree.  I realized sometimes we take things for granted. We take the experiences we see, for granted. People who are blind don’t get this experience and they must live by trusting, and overcoming paranoia.

How do these people know who to trust? Who are reliable? The main source of their knowledge is other people as they cannot rely on their eyesight. Are their sources reliable? Is depending on other people more reliable than if they were to see it themselves? I think that this is possible, as it can avoid them from having optical illusions, or hallucinations; but not entirely, as they would be able to understand critically if they were able to see it for themselves. I think the loss of eyesight can mean a loss of critical thinking. One is not able to observe and think for themselves; instead, they must rely on other people to tell them what to think and therefore know to be true. But do we necessarily know something is true just by thinking about it and hearing about it? Not necessarily. We could think about unicorns having one horn, and having similar features as a horse, but do we know they are true in reality? But if we heard that unicorns existed from someone, would it be true? Because blind people learn and know information through hearing from other people, does that mean their knowledge is not necessarily reliable? But then again, we also depend on knowledge from other people. Does that mean our knowledge is not necessarily reliable and true? How do we know whether the information is reliable or not?

Plato’s Cave

Title: Plato’s Cave
Date: September 22, 2010
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class

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            In class, we illustrated Plato’s idea of the realm of being vs. empirical world. A few students (who were supposed to be locked up in a cave since they were born) had to try and figure out what was happening as they saw silhouettes of movements on the cave wall. Some of them were able to move around in order to gain a deeper understanding of what was going on. Some are led to see the sunlight as they explore. When they come to share what they’ve seen with the others, the others deny this as being true. This is because they grew up only knowing the cave, and nothing else. The thought of another world existing outside a cave was way beyond their thoughts and so they thought it was better to consider this nonsense. They are practicing pragmatic theory because they think they will benefit if they don’t think this is true, and so they don’t believe that there is another world beyond the cave.

            This simulation relates to Plato’s idea of the realm of being and the empirical world. The realm of being was represented by the sunlight, the world outside the cave, the reality. Plato considered the realm of being to be eternal, everlasting and unchanging. Plato also thought that we were all fooled by our senses and in reality, things are always changing. Sometimes I agree with Plato, ‘What if we are fooled by our senses?’ What if the keyboard I am typing on right now, is not really there? I could just be thinking that it is there, and I think hard enough that I believe it’s there and so I believe I am touching it and typing on it right now. This is possible, but how will we know if this is the case? Or could my senses just be limited? What if this keyboard was just a tiny bit of something enormous? What if I was one of the blind men in “The Six Blind Men and the Elephant” story? This again, is possible. Like Plato, we could think that our world is concrete, and eternal, but like the movie “Inception”, our world could be just one level of our dreams, and we are just being fooled by our senses. Perhaps, but because we believe this world is real, and unchanging, we try to make the best of it and I fear that if we believe that our world is always changing, we will all give up. Does this mean I’m practicing pragmatic theory and denying reality? Or does my thinking correspond to reality? Can we ever know and how do we know if this is the case?

Three Theories of Truth

Title: Three Theories of Truth
Author: Bertrand Russell, Bland Blanshard, C.S. Peirce, William James, James Dewey
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class



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            The authors have come to conclude that there are three theories of truth-correspondence theory, coherence theory and pragmatic theory. They state that we use these theories to categorize what we think to be true as actually being true or just a thought. Correspondence theory of truth includes information we are able to sense and measure. Russell states that because we are able to sense and observe these things, they are correspondent to reality and therefore be true. Blanshard’s idea of the coherence theory of truth states that if there are true arguments supporting a new idea, the new idea must be true. It uses logic to explain why it is true and therefore uses rational thinking. It is frequently used in subjects such as math and science to explain why such theories are true.  Philosophers supporting the pragmatic theory of truth such as Peirce, James and Dewey state that this theory explains things as being true if people want to believe it as being true. We see pragmatic theory being practiced in our daily activities. Take medicine for example. People take medicine because they think that it will cure them. But does it really? Or do they think it works because they want it to work and because of this, they believe that it works? Is it really the medicine that cured them? Or do they just feel better because they believe that the medicine has cured them?

            All of these theories are practiced throughout our lives whether we are aware of it or not. But do all of these theories necessarily all truth? Is it truth at all? What is truth? The definition of the word “truth” is as follows: a fact that has been verified. How do we know if something is necessarily true? How do we know the verification of the truth is valid? Are these theories enough to know whether something is true or not? Is the word “truth” just an idea or does it really exist?

The Elephant and the Six Blind Men

Title: The Elephant and the Six Blind Men
Book: Fifty Famous Stories Retold
Author: James Baldwin
Date: September 6, 2010
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class

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            There are many variations of this story but the basic plot line remains constant with six blind men feeling a different part of the elephant and concluding what an elephant must be like. One states that it is like a fan (touching its ears); another man states that an elephant is like a wall (touching the elephant’s side), another claims that it is like a spear (feeling the tusks). Another disagreed and said the elephant was similar to a snake because he felt the trunk, but another argued that it was like a tree feeling its legs. The last man thought the others were all mistaken, and that the elephant was clearly like a rope by touching its tail. In the end, everyone had their own ideas about what an elephant was like and had their own vision of what it would look like.

            Everyone has their own opinions and their own ways of perceiving something. How they develop their ideas about a certain object depends on their experience. If the six men combined all of their ideas, they would be able to figure out what an elephant was really like. In this sense, we should be open to new ideas and try to collaborate with another, instead of arguing that one was right over the other. Details are important when collaborating, but we should be open to the big picture. In a way, knowledge is like a puzzle. We must put all the possible perceptions together in order to see the whole picture, rather than limiting our thought to our own opinions. However, one must wonder, ‘When will the puzzle ever be complete?’ How will we know that we are taking in the big picture, that the puzzle is complete? Is knowledge ever absolute, unchangeable? If we’re always open to ideas, doesn’t this mean that our knowledge of the certain subject is always growing and never final? How will we account for the thoughts that are nonsense, that we know is false? After all, they are all still perceptions. How do we know what is false?  

Building a Nation of Know-Nothings

Title: Building a Nation of Know-Nothings
Author: Timothy Egan
Publication date: August 25, 2010, 8:30 pm
Publication organization: New York Times
Class: Theory of Knowledge
Category: In Class

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            This article from the New York Times states that many of the Americans believe that Obama is not a U.S. citizen but instead, a Muslim. Most of the people believing in this are Republicans who were for McCain during the election. Although McCain has disproved this idea, many continue to believe this as being true. This article suggests that this is due to the media’s influence. It points out that the media is to blame for this rapidly spread idea as many people depend on the media as one of their source of knowledge. Although Obama clearly states that he is an American, and there is a birth certificate available as proof, many still believe he is not an American citizen and that he is a Muslim instead.

            To these people, is media their main source of knowledge? I begin to wonder why it is so hard for them to believe Obama when there is a birth certificate to explain that he was born in the United States. Is it because our technologies have improved so much that they think that the birth certificate is fake? Or is it because they don’t want to believe it and so they come up with reasons that support their ideas? They are practicing the pragmatic theory. Because believing that Obama is a Muslim will make them feel secure in the sense that they will be able to think that Obama is ineligible to become the president of the United States, they will believe it. Thus, they believe this to be true. But we, who also believe that Obama is American, could also be practicing pragmatic truth. We want to believe that Obama is American. We believe this because it will make us feel like we are right and the others are wrong. If everyone practices pragmatic theory, how will we ever know which is true? With everyone wanting to believe that they are correct, is it possible to know which is true? Is truth all opinions? If so, should they really be considered as something that is true?