Oddbean new post about login | logout Words are just things people make up.
No. Words are smarter than you. Smarter than me. Smarter than us. There's wisdom in language.
What many people don't understand is that words like "understand" aren't arbitrary. Once the construct in your mind is stable enough, you "understand" it, meaning you can "stand under" it without it crumbling and killing you. All words are like that.
It's probably more obvious to German speakers because we're used to compounding and decompounding words.
Same in Dutch. Have had this thought many times as well while speaking with the French around me. They use language less like puzzle pieces, but play with in completely different ways that are crazy confusing to me.
Now that I think about it, Chinese is kind of the same, especially the way characters are constructed from multiple smaller radicals.
Same for Japanese. It's beautiful. https://image.nostr.build/4a3267f61ab9d451d2a0921ff9ab616befe1f62fbe62cbe0e1b94abaffe9b1d6.jpg
🤪😂
I don't even know if it's true or not but I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE IT 😂😂😂
Ich habe meine Übersetzer darauf gehetzt und erwarte kurzfristig eine Antwort 😅
Hahaha 😹 too funny to not be a stable construct in my head after 2 seconds
Oder zum Beispiel "sich aufregen" ;-)
I tried to "stand under" my fear of heights, but I just couldn’t get over it. I guess I just don't understand
Thinking words are arbitrary is like thinking money is arbitrary, like we could just create a language via fiat and if people agreed it would work. Maybe that’s the fundamental bankruptcy of wokeness.
The constructed language Esperanto is an interesting example of this.
Made up != arbitrary
True, Even with the word "motivation" : What is your motive for something. Sometimes our language has already all the cues needed to build different outcomes in our lives.
No. They are words. What's important is the connections the words imply. It's all in the matrix, man!
Amazing! 🧡
Not all words.
Depends on how you use them. Words are developed by people that knew less than what an average person knows now, so how could they be smarter without own consciousness?! Even if the same words are used, the wisdom expressed in them is for who reads, understands, lives and reflects it. We learn by example if we don’t have time in life to live the experience, so we are often fascinated by the wisdom reflected in the words of others. Best words are the words of God in the Quran by the way as well as best wisdom. Anyways, there are many ways to communicate not only words.
Why though?
I tried to make up words for things that I didn’t think had names when I was a kid. I learned they did already have words/names and no-one was interested in mine
Nothing that survives and provides value can be arbitrary. To create anything is difficult and always serves a purpose. It’s reality itself that casts the final judgment about its usefulness over time.
"made up" doesn't mean arbitrary.
Words are made up but not the meaning behind them. Once a general understanding of the words meaning is made between people in a population, the word and the meaning is hard to break. When you say words are "just made up" its not giving enough credit to the usefulness of that connection between words and their meaning.
Words can certainly be used in witchcraft
