Comments on: Language may shape human thought http://www.illusive-mind.com/philosophy/language-may-shape-human-thought/ Trance Music, Philosophy and Politics. The official homepage of philosopher artist: Illusive Mind. Tue, 06 Jan 2009 08:43:09 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.2 By: Anonymous http://www.illusive-mind.com/philosophy/language-may-shape-human-thought/#comment-18 Anonymous Wed, 12 Jan 2005 08:03:00 +0000 http://www.illusive-mind.com/philosophy/language-may-shape-human-thought/#comment-18 If you consider that the visual focal point of the human eye is something like the size of a twenty-cent coin, that is we are only seeing a very small part of the visual field at any one time then it makes sense that we are only dealing with small numbers at any given time. Some might say, you can just shrink a large number of objects to fit into the area of our focus but this is beside the point if we are supposing that what we are talking about is a conceptual limitation one and not a sensual one. I think though that this would strengthen the hypothesis that language is vital in structuring thought. Because if the concepts that enable us to understand larger quantities of numbers a learnt by a process of linguistic association (eg. you point to a cat and say "you call this a "cat"") then a tribe without those concepts formed would be prevented from understanding and communicating larger numbers.  <A></A><A></A>Puported by<A><B> </B></A><a HREF="http://www.blogger.com/r?http%3A%2F%2Fillusivemind.blogspot.com%2F" TITLE="illusive_mind at hotmail dot com" rel="nofollow">Illusive Mind</A> If you consider that the visual focal point of the human eye is something like the size of a twenty-cent coin, that is we are only seeing a very small part of the visual field at any one time then it makes sense that we are only dealing with small numbers at any given time.

Some might say, you can just shrink a large number of objects to fit into the area of our focus but this is beside the point if we are supposing that what we are talking about is a conceptual limitation one and not a sensual one.

I think though that this would strengthen the hypothesis that language is vital in structuring thought. Because if the concepts that enable us to understand larger quantities of numbers a learnt by a process of linguistic association (eg. you point to a cat and say “you call this a “cat”") then a tribe without those concepts formed would be prevented from understanding and communicating larger numbers. 

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]]> By: Anonymous http://www.illusive-mind.com/philosophy/language-may-shape-human-thought/#comment-17 Anonymous Tue, 11 Jan 2005 22:11:00 +0000 http://www.illusive-mind.com/philosophy/language-may-shape-human-thought/#comment-17 I wonder if they tried to get them to arrange 2 lots of 2 ? The begining of SYSTEM of maths? I only wonder since I have heard it said that we, at a basic level ( or perhaps just some of us- like myself) cam only visualize 2 or 3 ( = 1,2, many?) and construct the rest from this, using a system of concepts which we learn .. or something. Guess it's not very important!  <A></A><A></A>Puported by<A><B> </B></A>just a thought I wonder if they tried to get them to arrange 2 lots of 2 ? The begining of SYSTEM of maths?
I only wonder since I have heard it said that we, at a basic level ( or perhaps just some of us- like myself) cam only visualize 2 or 3 ( = 1,2, many?) and construct the rest from this, using a system of concepts which we learn .. or something. Guess it’s not very important! 

Puported by just a thought

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