[proteal]

I think a succinct way to describe my thoughts on linear algebra/language is that language has high dimensionality (ie many different basis vectors that may not necessarily be orthogonal) and that individual languages use a unique coordinate system to express thought. Each language is a lossy approximation of all conceivable thought and some languages can more efficiently represent the “all thoughts” vector space because they have basis vectors that point in more uncommon directions (like the go to japan example). So while you can more or less point to any thought in any language, some thoughts are easier to express in certain languages, which the post (and me) agree to be untranslatable words.

I tried to find the really interesting article about language and color that describes how some cultures use different naming schemes for colors but couldn’t find it. It talked about how back in the day we don’t know orange as a color, we just thought it was red-yellow and only after the fruit was distributed did the word for the color catch on. Here’s the best article I can find that talks about this phenomena https://burnaway.org/magazine/blue-language-visual-perceptio...

[AlotOfReading]

    Each language is a lossy approximation of all conceivable thought...

This ultimately boils down to the private language discussion started by Wittgenstein. If you admit public language is a lossy approximation of meaning, you're taking a position on the existence of private languages.

[MangoToupe]

> Each language is a lossy approximation of all conceivable thought

I'm not quite sure I understand this—I do have mental sensations/processes sans language, but I would not characterize them as "thoughts". To me, a thought is inherently linguistic, even if they relate to non-linguistic mental processes. So to me, learning a new language is very literally learning how to think differently.

[proteal]

I think we’re in agreement, but I’m afraid I don’t have the philosophical language to precisely pin my mental model into words (what a meta conundrum lol). I’ll try my best here, but I may come back in a few days with an edit if I can more coherently write my ideas.

I take a slightly more narrow definition of “thoughts” that may be more akin to “expressions” - ideas that can be communicated, so excluding non-linguistic mental processes. I think that may be where we disconnect. A lot of my idea about thoughts comes from the Borges story, Funes the memorius (short story about a dude who could not forget - interesting read and really clarifies my feelings on my definition of “all possible thought”). In the story he talks about tree leaves, but instead imagine needing a unique linguistic scheme for every single unique snowflake you ever see. It would be a linguistic nightmare! Therefore language must generalize otherwise it becomes noncommunicable and that generalization to me induces the “lossy approximation” I attribute to language in my prior comment.

So, in my head Funes’s mind represent the abstract space of all possible thoughts. When we use language, we are stacking words/sentences/paragraphs/etc together almost like vector addition trying to reach a particular point in the thought vector space. Some languages have really clean ways of getting to certain thoughts while others take a mouthful and still don’t get you exactly there (物の哀れ example from link).

I agree with your statement on new languages being different thinking. As you follow that vector addition process to get to the “thought,” different languages will take you on different paths to get to your destination thought because languages encode those vectors differently, even if the destination thought is the same. In my mental model, the act of thinking is putting those language vectors together and tracing their path to get to your thought.

And if my comment still makes no sense - I might have to incubate this thought a bit more :) but I do recommend the story- it’s a quick, thought provoking read.

[opello]

> I take a slightly more narrow definition of “thoughts” that may be more akin to “expressions” - ideas that can be communicated, so excluding non-linguistic mental processes.

I was glad to read this because it seemed too neat and tidy for "thought" to necessarily be able to be encoded into language, especially in the presence of frequent miscommunication between people that share language, culture, and context.

On language and thinking, I agree that new languages promote thinking differently. But it seems that the difference has to fall short of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of informing perception or experience. Which would then limit the extent to which thought, as informed by language, would influence the way one would compose a linguistic representation of some thought/idea/"blob of meaning to be communicated." All to suggest that there is a broader landscape of "thinking-like activities" than those which would be able to be encoded linguistically.

Maybe it's simpler to say that I think of language as more lossy than thought.

[BDPW]

I would argue that you can consider those thoughts. But this is the difficult bit, I've had the experience before of thoughts/feelings whatever ypu want to call them where words fall short. Knowing multiple languages helps a bit but it still falls short sometimes (very rarely).

Language is very effective at this, but I don't think thought is inherently linguistic.

To me language is just a way to label, group or organise these things. So when you learn a new one you learn a new 'labeling system/taxonomy' does that sound familiar?