Language Affects Perception

Here’s an update to my post on the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. Lera Boroditsky answered the question, “What have you changed your mind about?” as follows:
I used to think that languages and cultures shape the ways we think. I suspected they shaped the ways we reason and interpret information. But I didn’t think languages could shape [...]

The Symbol Grounding Problem

There is a view that the meaning of words (more generally, of symbols) must be grounded in sensory perception or in physical interaction with the world (embodiment). If symbols were merely defined in terms of other symbols, then it seems that we would have an infinite regression; we would spin in circles in symbol space, [...]

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis is sometimes expressed as “language determines thought”. This is a fascinating concept, suggesting that speakers of another language might have a view of the world very different from our own. The artificial language Loglan (Logical Language) was originally intended to test the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. The idea was that a logical language [...]

Attributes and Relations: Redder than Red

An attribute is a characteristic of an entity, whereas a relation is a connection between two or more entities. In logic, we can define an attribute as a predicate with one argument and a relation as a predicate with two or more arguments. The distinction between attributes and relations can be unclear. For example, the [...]