TheOtherDave comments on Post ridiculous munchkin ideas! - Less Wrong

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

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

Comments (1240)

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

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: TheOtherDave 30 September 2013 03:55:06PM 5 points [-]

Incidentally, learning a new language isn't required for this.

One can, for example, adopt the habit of saying "I want X to work" or "I expect X to work" or "I would be happier if X worked" or "I would be happier if I expected X to work" instead of "X should work" while continuing to speak English.

Put differently: the habit of setting trigger-points around certain words ("should," "think", "want", "can", :will", etc.) to ensure that I actually know what I'm saying when I say them is useful.