Philosophy Now Forum

Language is a powerful instrument.

It is used in many different ways and constitutes one of the principal forces controlling and forming human behaviour.

Besides its most familiar and normally most discussed use, communication, language is important through its use in one's private thought, in science and in oratory, in poetry, in philosophy - and perhaps in techniques of hypnosis.

How can language succeed generally in each of these roles?

ask both wittgensteins...

-Imp

I think and think that we evolved with language as being our main system which perceptual connotation is tied to new ideas within the mind. We can think about things analytically and help enhance our perceptions using words.
A good example is if you want to remember a list of numbers:

The first is just a basic number without extra sensory perception added.
92348

The second is a set with words added which if we imagine:
an Orange fish with 82365 on it
Our mind creates lots more neurons which can enhance the significance and recall power of the otherwise arbitrary numbers.
If i imagine or even read the image of an orange fish with 92345 on it, i will probably remember it more than if i read the same number 6-7 times.

Remember our mind has 7 basic chunks of memory so if I clear my mind with meditation and I imagine something like:
n Green colored goat with 89573 in yellow letters with a light green outline on it singing 89573, It will be remembered ten fold.

Words were the catalysts to the perceptions our subconscious minds generated that created our minds memory of the event.
Words like Seeing, Hearing, and Feeling create powerful perceptual grids which can enhance perceptions even greater.

Also be specific with perceptions, generalizations can cause dementias.

Well the task of language is to create an image, metaphorically speaking, an image like a complete transfer of meaning, meaning in turn being what was intended to be understood by the recipient.

I don't think thought has to have anything to do with words. Of course we can speak to ourselves, but I think thoughts are like information which we don't "sense", but if we were to say that information, transfer it, we'd need something sensible, and so we use words. When we speak to ourselves, we do it for practice, self-study and entertaining ourselves. We don't actually "think" words, though it is possible to have echoes of words and sounds etc. in your head, that becomes different, that's not proper thought, that's either due to some "catch", like a tune "you just can't get out of your head" even if that tune is annoying, or serving a function of aiding thought, like practice, self-study and entertainment.

How do you excel in each one? You excel when your intention of using words proves successful. If you write, you may want to bring out emotions in people, and then your writing style becomes an art of guiding your reader through an emotionally gripping path. Like making your character seem very lovable or have some quality people desire a lot and would fall soft for, not to mention making your reader comfortable enough with your writing to open their hearts to the story.

In philosophy, such things as "clarity" and "righteous belief", are typical aims for achievement. The first a measure of how well the idea you are transferring is integrated with the recipients mind not facing resistance, the later a measure of how well you can convince somebody that what you believe in is what they should believe in too, like an ideology or some world-view.

In music it's all about making people of a certain kind of mood, music genres themselves usually representing a typical mood, be open to getting emotionally pulled by the music. Whether it's sad music, angry music, happy music, romantic music, glorious music etc. With people like Bob Marley for instance, I would say he writes sad music that at the same time makes people happy, or at least less sad, because it's "lightening the mood" with comfortable sounds, soothing texts and a child's playfulness, while acknowledging that bad things happen, and to people where that kind of attitude is appreciated, he will find a heart to reach.

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..................................is trumped by THE POWER OF IMAGES.








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