Language and Thought

So, it is pretty well assumed that our experiences and perceptions influence how we create our language, but could the reverse be so as well? Could our language influence the way we think? For example, Luce Irigaray claims that language is inherently sexist, and we think in language, and how we think influences our perceptions of reality. Therefore, we interpret reality with a sexist bent. Language can therefore be an influence on our perceptions, just as our perceptions can influence how we use language.

It seems to me that there is a dialectic occurring between language and perception. They play off of one another and continually alter and change one another. Reality then is filtered through our construction of language, which then changes our language in itself, which alters our perceptions yet again. It is a vicious cycle.

Emotional Constructs

Quick question. Do we construct our own emotions, or do we discover them? This question pops up in a lot of Constructivistic literature, and it got me thinking. We label certain states that we experience with terms and we call some of these emotions. In other words, we use language to describe certain states of being. Language is a constructed phenomenon, and a single word can mean different things to different people. Because of this, one could imagine someone having a sensation that they call happiness than what you call happiness. Is the other person wrong? Is there only one objective state of happiness and some people just have a certain state misleading?

On the other hand, calling something happiness and experiencing it are completely different. So can someone experience happiness differently rather than just mislabeling it? If happiness to me relaxes me and makes me more relaxed, and happiness to you energizes and invigorates you,  are they both happiness? Are they both the same state of being that we experience in a different way because of how we have constructed the emotion?

Personally, I would claim that emotions are partly constructed and partly discovered. There are states produced within us from an external reality, but we all process these states and react to them in different ways. For example, people experience love completely differently, but it still is produced by the same chemicals in the brain.

These are just some thoughts, however. If you disagree with me please do so.

Science and Aesthetics

   So, pardon for the gigantic picture, but I was skimming around the internet and this quote by the famous scientist Richard Feynman popped up. It got me thinking. We often wonder about the relationship between science and ethics, and whether one can influence the other. However, because of this quote I wonder what the relationship between science and aesthetics may be. Can scientific knowledge deepen or change our concept of beauty? Does science 'deaden' our aesthetic sense, or liven it? Can our aesthetic sense influence how we regard scientific knowledge? Does science let us see more of the inherent beauty in an object, or does it just change our perception of the object? Can we call facts such as "A flower is laced with a deeply intricate and complex cellular structure" beautiful? These are just some questions that have popped into my head that deeply tie these two subjects.

    My gut instinct would to say scientific knowledge influences our perception of beauty based on our meta-scientific beliefs, or our beliefs on how we perceive science. For example, if one finds science boring, then science is likely to destroy the sense of beauty one can perceive in an object. If this were the case, then scientific knowledge wouldn't change our aesthetic sense, it would be our beliefs about such knowledge. However, I am unsure about how to go about explaining things in more detail, because I believe there is more to it than that. If anybody would like to expand upon this, please be my guest.

A Pratchett definition of Time

So I know we have passed our discussion of time, but I have been doing some personal reading (which normally doesn't result in good outcomes), and one book I read was Terry Pratchett's book Thief of Time. This fantasy book takes place on the Discworld, which is a world that floats on the back of 4 elephants which rest on the back of a giant turtle. The plot revolves around a few monks and the granddaughter of the anthropomorphic personification of death who try and stop these beings who are trying to stop time in order to make the universe more orderly. The plot was delightfully comic and absurd, and laced with philosophical points, such as the idea that wisdom can be found in any situation, and one should never challenge an seemingly innocent old man to a fight unless you want to risk your life.

However, when they discussed the nature of time, Pratchett created a whole philosophical theory of how time works. Pratchett argues that time the force that makes the smallest of particles move from one position, to the next position. In order to do this, the novel claims that the world is destroyed every exact moment, and then recreated in order to create the next. To try to make this more comprehensible, in order to progress from one instant to the next, the world must be destroyed then recreated with the particles in a different position which reflects the movement. Pratchett displays this idea in a humorous and engaging manner, which makes me want to share this fictional construction of time.

The Re-construction of Religion

So, I have stumbled upon a website titled Open Source Religion. This is a social media website subscribing to the belief that religions are no longer viewed as strict belief systems, where one draws their beliefs solely from that source. Instead, people can take their beliefs from multiple sources and different religions. 

According to the statement of a founder of the site,  Sidian Jones:

"in this day and age there is a massive movement of people who are “modularizing” beliefs. What this means is that religions no longer have a strict homogeneity of beliefs, but rather are being treated as sources from which to draw ones beliefs, even across multiple religions.

Imagine 100 years ago someone saying that they are “Christian with Buddhist leanings.”; practically unheard of. There was strict boxing of what beliefs belong with what group. These days you are only a stones throw from anyone mixing beliefs like “Salvation Through Jesus” and “Karma”.

Having established this philosophy, I wanted to provide a platform for the Open Source Religion community to digitally interact with, and document all these beliefs and their relationships." (Quote found from this source)

I am sympathetic to this belief, for in an era of post-modernism, and relativity, viewing any one religion as completely objective and whole could be considered an outdated concept. However, at the same time, I am unsure of how much I like the idea rifling through various religions and picking and choosing what they want to believe. It seems to go against the very idea of a religion, in the sense that you need to either completely accept it as truth, or not at all. It seems to me to be a kind of religious relativism. I wonder what this will imply for how religion will be treated in the future.

Determinism and ethics

I might have been mislead, but it seems that when we discussed the differences between determinism and free will, we seemed to come out primarily in favor of determinism. We also discussed how determinism impacts ethical theory by completely negating any kind of morality. Morality implies choice, and determinism does not. So how exactly can we discuss morality under any circumstances if we can not get by this first problem? It seems to me that the construction of morality is just that if we can't get past determinism: A construction. If there is no such thing as morality, then it must be an illusion that we construct ourselves. I really do not like this conclusion, but unless I figure something else out, I must stay behind it.

Does 'Is' influence 'ought?'

So, I have been thinking about our class conversations, and I believe that our views on what 'is' can at least influence us to what 'ought' to be. My reasoning behind it is till a bit fuzzy, but I can at least provide a hazy example of how we use what is to influence our ethical decisions and beliefs.
For example, ancient civilizations used to sacrifice humans to the gods in order to live a good life, and to keep the gods appeased and content. Back then, it was a 'fact' that the gods demanded these sacrifices and that they existed. Now, because we know these deities do not exist, we ought not to do that, for it is pointless to do so.
In addition, we know that other people feel pain, and that influences how we treat others, our knowledge of death influences our moral actions and decisions, our belief on whether god exists influences our moral actions as well. There must be some relationship, but I fail to see the exact relationship.