abody97 comments on Rationality Quotes January 2013 - Less Wrong

6 Post author: katydee 02 January 2013 05:23PM

You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.

Article Navigation

Comments (604)
Tags: quotes rationality

Comments (604)

You are viewing a single comment's thread. Show more comments above.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 03 January 2013 08:49:14AM *  34 points [-]

In Japan, it is widely believed that you don't have direct knowledge of what other people are really thinking (and it's very presumptuous to assume otherwise), and so it is uncommon to describe other people's thoughts directly, such as "He likes ice cream" or "She's angry". Instead, it's far more common to see things like "I heard that he likes ice cream" or "It seems like/It appears to be the case that she is angry" or "She is showing signs of wanting to go to the park."

-- TVTropes

Edit (1/7): I have no particular reason to believe that this is literally true, but either way I think it holds an interesting rationality lesson. Feel free to substitute 'Zorblaxia' for 'Japan' above.

Comment author: abody97 07 January 2013 09:24:52AM *  1 point [-]

I have to say that's fairly stupid (I'm talking about the claim which the quote is making and generalizing over a whole population; I am not doing argumentum ad hominem here).

I've seen many sorts of (fascinated) mythical claims on how the Japanese think/communicate/have sex/you name it differently and they're all ... well, purely mythical. Even if I, for the purposes of this argument, assume that beoShaffer is right about his/her Japanese teacher (and not just imagining or bending traits into supporting his/her pre-defined belief), it's meaningless and does not validate the above claim. Just for the sake of illustration, the simplest explanation for such usages is some linguistic convention (which actually makes sense, since the page from which the quote is sourced is substantially talking about the Japanese Language).

Unless someone has some solid proof that it's actually related to thinking rather than some other social/linguistic convention, this is meaningless (and stupid).

Comment author: [deleted] 07 January 2013 05:27:03PM 1 point [-]

Agreed. Pop-whorfianism is usually silly.

Comment author: Toddling 08 January 2013 03:19:55AM 1 point [-]

I'm not familiar with this term and your link did not clarify as much as I had hoped. Could you give a clearer definition?

Comment author: [deleted] 08 January 2013 09:46:45AM 3 points [-]

Just-so stories about the relationships between language and culture. (The worst thing is that, while just-so stories about evolutionary psychology are generally immediately identified as sexist/classist/*ist drivel, just-so stories about language tend to be taken seriously no matter how ludicrous they are.)

Comment author: arborealhominid 08 January 2013 04:08:19AM 4 points [-]

Well, the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the idea that language shapes thought and/or culture, and Whorfianism is any school of thought based on this hypothesis. I assume pop-Whorfianism is just Whorfian speculation by people who aren't qualified in the field (and who tend to assume that the language/culture relationship is far more deterministic than it actually is).

Comment author: Toddling 08 January 2013 04:26:31AM 0 points [-]

Thanks.

Comment author: Qiaochu_Yuan 07 January 2013 10:07:02AM 0 points [-]

I don't care whether it's actually true or not; either way it still holds an interesting rationality lesson and that's why I posted it.

Comment author: abody97 07 January 2013 10:39:20AM *  2 points [-]

With all respect that I'm generically required to give, I don't care whether you care or not. The argument I made was handling what you posted/quoted, neither you as a person nor your motives to posting.

Powered by Reddit Powered by Reddit