[~ot] why is programming so fun?

[Yigal Chripun]

Chris Wright wrote:
> Yigal Chripun wrote:
>> PS - you should read about the Sapir conjecture in wikipedia to see how
>> culture and language influence the way we think.
> 
> Sapir-Whorf is not well thought of these days. People invent terms for
> things as necessary, and grammar is generally too primitive to convey
> significant biases. (Which is fine; grammar is supposed to be primitive.)
> 
> It's possible that our brains have advanced beyond the capacity of our
> current languages and that they are restricting us somehow, but if so,
> it's almost certainly an issue common to all humans and all languages.
> But given that languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
> time a group of humans got together without an existing language, I'm
> strongly inclined to say that any limitations we experience are due to
> our brains rather than our languages.

as I replied to BCS, experimental evidence shows otherwise.
when Columbus wanted to go to India by sailing west it was common
knowledge that he's stupid and that he'll fall of the earth. he was
considered crazy at the time.
What matters is facts and experimental evidence and that shows that
those ideas are not without merit, and nowadays the emphasis in research
is about /how/ this affects cultures and languages rather than trying to
show that the idea is false altogether.

two things:
a) indeed "languages have emerged spontaneously just about every
time a group of humans got together" but those languages /are/
different. compare Chinese with Hebrew.
b) you say: "current languages are restricting us somehow", if that's
true why do you assume that all languages restrict us in the same way?
in fact if they are restricting us in different way than you get the
Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis in some way.