I read "Speech! How language made us human" by Simon Prentis, in which he explores some ways in which language affects what kind of animal a person is.
We can dismiss the idea that language is the actual stuff of thought, the thing the brain uses to think: My mum's typical sentence proves it utterly "Where did I put the thingy, you know, the whatsit".
She clearly thinking of a thing without knowing the word for it, so words aren't the base unit for thought.
Yet language is also clearly the thing which gives us such a deep and rich culture, and he is entertaining and enlightening as he goes though what some of that means.
He's really optimistic in the final pages, that our international agreement and commitment to law and human rights - a thing borne by language - can bring about some approximation of world peace.
Course, it was written before the start of world war 3 in 2022. Will we be able to talk ourselves out of it escalating? Or will we talk ourselves into another final catastrophic global meltdown?
That's the thing about language I guess. Could argue either side.
@pre If you're interested in this, I just read a FANTASTIC book about the modern view of the brain's continuous feedback loop and how different cultures, through language,social interaction, and shared concepts, literally wire different brains differently.
It's called "How Emotions are Made, the secret life of the brain" by Lisa Feldman Barrett and it is brilliant, and not limited to the description of emotions. 1/2
@pre
I don't agree with all of her speculations, but her layout of the modern neurocognitive view of the brain as basically following stochastic learning processes (my words, not hers) is absolutely fantastic. 2/2
@GinevraCat Thanks, yes. That one is in the list already.
It'll be a while though probably. The list is long and the thing about not commuting any more is that's like 10 hours a week of reading I don't do.
@appassionato @pre Yes! That's the one. Just brilliant.