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nimoniantoday at 12:10 AM1 replyview on HN

Wittgenstein famously said "The limits of my language mean the limits of my world."

Alan Watts suggests people like Wittgenstein should occasionally try to let go of this way of thinking. Apologies if it is sentimental but I hope you'll give him a chance, it's quite short: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=heksROdDgEk

In reflection of all of this, I think that the quote you're responding to only meant to say that experiencing the world through language means building an abstraction over its richness. (I somewhat agree with you, though, that the quote seems a little dramatic. Maybe that's just my taste.)

One more thought.

I think there's a reason why various forms of meditation teach us to stop thinking. Maybe they are telling us to sometimes stop dealing with our abstractions, powerful though they might be, and experience the real thing once in a while.


Replies

em-beetoday at 12:46 AM

the way i read the quote it felt less like building an abstraction and more like destroying the richness.

but abstractions are mere shortcuts. but everything is an abstraction. to counter wittgenstein, language is not actually limited. we can describe everything to the finest detail. it's just not practical to do so every time.

physics, chemistry, we could describe a table as an amount of atoms arranged in a certain way. but then even atom is an abstraction over electrons, protons and neutrons. and those are abstractions over quarks. it's abstractions all the way down, or up.

language is abstractions. and that fits well with your meditation example. stop thinking -> remove the language -> remove the abstractions.