How much your language controls your thought/reality

[ZenSwift]

Just wanted to share a quick 1 minute clip that gave me some serious insight/shock into just how much language plays a part in your reality. 

https://youtube.com/shorts/x1lcPLW8Cfs?feature=share

The amount of devilry is insane! 

A couple of comments from that video:

 

I'm going to take building my existential vocabulary a lot more seriously now... 

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by ZenSwift

[Carl-Richard]

[mandyjw]

Interesting use of the word "devilry". Where'd that come from? 

[Preety_India]

I guess language impacts us very deeply. People usually assume that words don't have an impact. But they do. Behind every word there is a thought or idea 

In other words, thoughts are encapsulated into words. How we choose to speak to others impacts them. So how we choose to speak to ourselves equally impacts us. 

That's why positive affirmations are so powerful. 

 

[ZenSwift]

@mandyjw

See Leo's episode: what is the devil

[mandyjw]

9 hours ago, ZenSwift said:

@mandyjw

See Leo's episode: what is the devil

Was just pointing out that in order to communicate this above you used unique language based on religious belief.

[bloomer]

@ZenSwift

“The universe looks more and more like a great thought rather than a great machine.” - Sir James Jeans, The Mysterious Universe

Reality and truth is just a concept and not the things itself. Language is just a way we convey that inherent truth but we get so caught up in the tool we use that we forget that its even a tool. Kinda like trying to direct a dog to something in the distance with your finger but the dog just stares at the finger not grasping that you're trying to direct.

Of course there's going to be differences between the languages we use in the way they formulate ideas. I'm too ignorant to know though.

[hyruga]

I see two ways language will affect you.

1. Your level of vocabulary will affect your consciousness. Even the word consciousness or enlightenment can mean different things to different people. So if you want to increase your consciousness, the best option is to read more books and understand more from teachers and gurus as well as understand your own self.

2. The second way language will affect you is you tend to read and use the same words daily. So you need to be aware and read or do something new daily.

[Bernardo Carleial]

 

@ZenSwift If you really wanna go down that path,

I recommend you to read the book "Philosophical Investigations " by Ludwig Wittgenstein,  the problem is much deeper than that... language is a complete abstraction of the human mind, it can influence our perception, but it actually comes from that, and, as an abstraction, it can be shaped in whatever way we want to, it's not North Korea, nor Iraq, nor any other authoritarian regime that is controling it(at the fundamental level), but the nature of language itself, because its development, on both individual and collective level, is completely arbitrary,  we can't think without language, (unless you're an artist, which uses intuition, not words...).

Edited November 23, 2021 by Bernardo Carleial

[ZenSwift]

@Bernardo Carleial

Yes! Going forward I'm going to ask "How I can take this idea deeper? ".

---

"Philosophy is just a byproduct of misunderstanding language" 

"Language gives a picture of the world, but it can't give a picture in how it does that. It would be like seeing yourself seeing something. "

This guy sounds like a philosophical badass! 

Definetly will look into the book, I love going rock bottom deep into philosophy. 

Thankyou! 

 

@hyruga I definetly definetly need to read more books on consciousness, reality, etc to have a bigger set of understanding attached to these words. Much like how the word "survival" has massively expanded in meaning for me because of Leo's videos on survival. 

Constant new input is totally important, constantly expanding your knowledge network value by adding more and more nodes to the network for more connections to be made is important! I'm starting to see the significance of this now! 

 

@bloomer the tool of language is all encompassing! It's hard to see outside of it if that's the only thing you experience. I need to come up with ideas on how to experience reality outside of language altogether... 

That way I'll have outside reference experience to be able to see language as the tool it is. It really makes me think now. Every time I speak or write it feels like that I'm just simply converting thought into words. How there is a feeling in my head, in my consciousness, and somehow through that feeling I create a network of words to attempt to communicate that feeling. 

 

@mandyjw ah I think I know what you're communicating here. You're pointing out the interpretation is different based on what context/meaning you attribute to a word. Kind of like the "how do I know my red is your red" problem. The problem of when I use a certain set of words I'll mean one thing but when you use the same exact set of words you mean a different thing because each individual word was learned from a completely different set of direct experience. Which is responsible for all the misunderstandings that result in our language. Really just pointing out how much of a miracle it is that a language can provide the amount of communication that it does! 

 

@lxlichael 100%. Just learning about self improvement to such a degree has allowed me to rearrange my "language furnature" so much that I now automatically default to a positive mindset most of the time.

So important to get to a point where you're thinking pure thoughts! Shadow work has got me so far in that direction. 

[PurpleTree]

well i'm glad then that i speak multiple languages

 

 

[Spence94]

There's no greater trip than living in another country and learning a new language. It will blow your mind and shatter your worldview.

[ZenSwift]

@Spence94 Yes! This is why I want to learn Japanese! Because it is so different from English. 

[integral]

I'm not seeing the connection between language and thoughts.

All thoughts are had with out language. 

There is a knowing. 

When you say language what you mean is culture and the ideas circulating in it, the cultural component that shapes your field of potentiality, ego. 

Edited November 25, 2021 by integral

[Bernardo Carleial]

8 hours ago, integral said:

I'm not seeing the connection between language and thoughts.

All thoughts are had with out language. 

There is a knowing. 

When you say language what you mean is culture and the ideas circulating in it, the cultural component that shapes your field of potentiality, ego. 

I understand what makes you think  I'm talking about culture when I refere to language, actually I'm not. Because it's development doesn't need anyone to reinforce it.

I'm actually referring to your whole experience as a human,  how can you converge a message directly to someone else(or to yourself) without recurring to some symbol that helps as a guideline to compartmentalize the meaning of an idea  you try to converge? Language is a human method to share information,  perceptions and experience in a way that suits our needs. because we can't grasp the totality of reality that we're in, so we need to narrow it down to some abstraction. 

It's a map, and because the map is not(never) the territory, it may leave room for contradiction, because although human animals perceive and experience things in a similar manner, the degree to what we grasp these things can be quite different from one another ,and the more personal/intimate the experience is(or feels) to someone, the more it can blend lots of different meanings,because it is fused with a lot of our own biases, both cognitive and culturally, which can makes things quite confusing,  and that's why we see a lot of these culture wars in our society, I'm not saying that both are equally right or wrong, I'm just saying that all these judgments comes from  that issue of language being intertwined with our perceptions and experience. 

I don't know if I made myself clear...

What I suggest you is to go read the Wittgenstein's book,  he explains this notion a lot more eloquently than I do, with lots of examples that are easy to read and understand. ??

Edited November 25, 2021 by Bernardo Carleial

[Carl-Richard]

7 hours ago, integral said:

I'm not seeing the connection between language and thoughts.

Ever heard of the internal monologue?

[integral]

@Carl-Richard @Bernardo Carleial Thanks for the direction, is there a language that has no people-referencing or self-referencing words? Like i, he, she, we, you, they, us? Lets imagine there is no equivalent to the sentence "i am sad", no way to express the ownership of a emotion?

If so how does a native of that language differ to English natives? 

Edited December 1, 2021 by integral

[At awe]

@Spence94 Definite joy for a person loving mindfucks. I’m currently in my third?

[Aaron p]

@ZenSwift oh my word