| > If two humans (who experience similar things) can communicate,
they'll figure out how to express themselves. An important point of agreement. Human experience absolutely
transcends language (late Wittgenstein language games). Ninety
percent of interaction being non-verbal has been a pet issue of mine
throughout the post-pandemic descent into remote work, and a videoconf
culture. > I don't think a Japanese human is so different from a (say) English
human. Of course not. It's not the tangible differences that are of interest
so much as why geographically separated groupings that are ostensibly
the same beings, select and amplify certain features of human
experience, and downplay others. That cultural development is complex
and intricate. It encodes bits of history like old power relations,
common achivements or sufferings. That information gets handed down by
language as much as epigenetics. The reason I am focusing a lot on language is that we're in an "age of
language models". The dominant ones are English. But English is a
particular way of structuring ideas about the world. This is
something we should be paying close attention to, and almost any time
people mention "AI" these days the topic is really about language. BTW I am neither Japanese nor overly interested in their culture,
except in a mildly curious and positive geeky way. It's probably
coincidental that the last two topics I commented on here, which were
"disappeared", involved Japanese culture. Probably. I'm sorry if what
I said came across wrong, but it really gave me pause for thought
about latent racist undertones here on HN. Probably best to forget
about it now, but I'll be keeping an eye on that. |