Federica wrote: ↑Mon Mar 04, 2024 7:50 pmI think the statement in that article is a presupposition (that language shapes perception) and not at all an evidence emerging from the study (by the way, the linked study does not report any of the visual tests given in the article). To state that they don't see the one blue tile among the series of green ones because they don't have a specific word for the color is like saying that a baby doesn't feel any difference between a soft summer breeze and a cold strong wind since it doesn't yet have the words to tell them apart. For the Himba, the other possibility is that - since percepts of colors and percepts in general are never perceived in isolation, their human organization and environment lead them to experience color in frames that are very different to the ones we may be used to . So their ideas that comprise the color concepts are different from the usual Western ones, and their language reflects that, it follows the shape of their visual flow as it combines with their ethnic soul configuration.AshvinP wrote: ↑Sat Mar 02, 2024 8:10 pm Yes, our verbal thinking mediates between the imaginative space and the sensory space. Here I am speaking of the form that sensory experience takes through the physical organism. We could think of the article Cleric recently posted about the Himbas possibly perceiving the color spectrum differently through the mediation of linguistic space. This clearly doesn't' mean the linguistic space solely governs the objective and lawful transformation of sensations in relation to our will activity. Even if I liberate my thinking from the conceptual space and enter the imaginative state, I won't be able to walk through a wall or fall through the floor. It's only that the sensory qualities will be released from their constricted form and will become the ideal background of existence, which still orients all spiritual activity as a standing 'gravity wave' but experienced 'from the same side' as that activity, unlike normal sensory experience (especially colors and sounds) that seem to confront us from the 'other side' of thinking consciousness.
When you speak of the 'language to understand' in this context, do you see how simply reasoning through what we are communicating and seeing if it makes some intuitive sense in light of the facts of living experience you are familiar with already gives some of that language?
Yes, to the extent that both activities (reasoning through what you are saying, and effectively doing the exercise) are executed through thought. When I say "language" in that context, I am using a common "language expression". I could have equally said "medium".
That could be right, but I think it's basically the same thing - the linguistic space is the living idea that structures their ethnic soul configuration. The words of the language are simply a dim reflection of that space. In any case, it is important that we keep sight of how our perceptual experience is mediated through the structure of our language and concepts, which again is not the sole factor for the lawful transformation of that experience, but still an important one.