Unnamed comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong

55 Post author: D_Malik 15 May 2013 10:27PM

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Comment author: hylleddin 28 May 2013 04:56:41AM *  9 points [-]

Try to take advantage of possible Sapir Whorf effects by constructing your own language to use for thinking in. I got this idea after finding a link here to this New York Times article which has several examples of such effects.

Random brainstorming on potential things to consider including:

It would probably be best to do this after learning at least one other language that is quite different from your native language. Also, keeping ways words can be wrong in mind is likely a good idea.

This would likely also have the same effects as thinking in any foreign language

I may or may not actually try this after I've learned Korean sufficiently well.

Comment author: Unnamed 28 May 2013 07:45:50AM 6 points [-]

Scott (Yvain) did this in his fictional world. For example:

  • Assertions require probability statements. There’s no grammatically correct way to say “The dog is in the blue house” without adding some modifier for how certain you are of this (probably along the lines of “tautologous, near-certain, probably true, uncertain, probably false, near-certainly false). There is also the option of elegantly expressing particular numerical possibilities.

  • Assertions about plurals require quantifiers. For example, it’s ungrammatical to say “Atheists break the law”. One has to clarify this by adding “all”, “most”, “at least one”, “a disproportionate number”, etc. It’s pretty hard to stereotype in Kadhamic without meaning it.