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em-beetoday at 12:46 AM1 replyview on HN

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.


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snayantoday at 8:59 AM

How can you know that we have language to describe everything in the finest detail? That suggests that we are omnipotent.

There's lots out there we don't know. And it seems to me that the further afield we go from the known, the more likely we are to enter territory where we simply do not have the words.

Can't speak to it personally, but I have heard from a number of people and read countless descriptions of psychedelic experiences being ineffable. Lol, actually, as I type, the mere fact that the word ineffable exists makes a very strong case for there being experience beyond words.

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