Re: Go, "Western" vs. "Asian" Thinking - Not What I Had In Mind... : (

Milt,

I had to chime in here.

Modern language clearly does not accomplish the same thing, and this
is easy to prove. (At the same time, it is a dramatic understatement
to say that language has simply become less ornate, for the changes
are far more significant than that word would imply.)

Let me start by saying that languages typically rise to a high point,
and subsequently fall until the culture that gave birth to the
language dies (or becomes relatively insignificant). Not
surprisingly, the rise and fall will roughly reflect the rise and fall
of that culture. In ancient Greek culture, for example, we have Attic
Greek, the high point, and with the dieing away of Athenian culture,
so went the language. Roman culture showed much the same pattern. It
is worth pointing out that cultures start going down once they abandon
the ideas that propelled them to greatness in the first place.

As for proving that modern language conveys less information, consider
the following simple example. In (high) Elizabethan English we
distinguished between the third person singular, thou, and the third
person plural, you. It is obvious that eliminating 'thou' conveys
less information. Does it sound insignificant? Well, it is not.
With the sudden change from the King James Bible to modern English
translations, no small amount of confusion has ensued because of this
change. For example, "When thou prayest?" from the KJ Bible verses
"When you pray?" in the modern translations. The first introduced
instruction for you (the individual) on where to pray. The second
introduced instruction for you (as an individual or you a group, which
is it?) on where to pray. The very point is lost in translation, and
can only be recovered by in introduction of periphrasis.

Most ancient languages are very sophisticated instruments when
compared to their modern counterparts. If you don't believe me try
studying one of the following: Classical Greek, classical Sanskrit, or
Old (classical) Chinese. Part of the difficulty that you will find in
studying these languages is that they were clearly the product of
minds that though far more carefully and deeply than we do today. It
is not that these ancient people simply were thinking the same way
that we do, but expressing their thoughts in a different way. The
difficulty arises from the fact that we now think on a much lower
level. (10k perhaps.) This is precisely why it is so impossible to
come up with translations of these ancient thinkers and artists that
are equal (or really even close) to the original.

It may be a shock for many to hear this, but they were in many ways
our betters. No, they did not fly from city to city in sophisticated
jetliners. Nor did they work on computers with blazing fast
processors. But are we always better for such things? Perhaps, just
perhaps, when you live in a world in which that trip takes ten times
as long and puts you very life in peril at the same time, you might
put a bit more thought into the trip, and just a bit more thought into
what you will do and how you do it once you get there.

Personally, I am not an evolutionist, but even if I were the men of
ancient Greece, or ancient China were not so far displaced down the
time line to make a difference in who they were, genetically speaking.
Yet these ancients were far, far more sophisticated than we in the
arena of thought. Modern socialistic philosophy (approve or
disapprove, as you may) found it necessary to trash the classical
heritage of most cultures. This aspect of modern thought might be
summed up as follows: Ummmm, old bad; stupid, yes. Ugggggg, new
good, new smart!

Yes, our long periods of cultural stability have produced a lot of
progress in many areas--especially in technology, but at the same
time, it seems to cause a general regression in other areas. Here in
the US where I grew up, there has been a general coarsening of our
public culture, and it seems that even those who are shocked by the
change offer only half-hearted criticism. (Perhaps this is why I have
chosen to spend the better part of the past ten years living in my
wife's country where things are not so "sophisticated.") I like to
laugh at a popular phrase that young people are throwing about in the
Memphis area these days: "It's all good," they say. "No," I think to
myself, "it's definitely not, but by the time you realize it, it will
be too late to do anything about it."

Sorry for running on so,
Wen


On 16 Aug 2006 07:33:38 -0700, "Milt" <bradleym@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

Jeff:

You obviously didn't intend to support my argument, but you have, in
fact, done so!

The example of language you cite actually demonstrates my point almost
perfectly! How? Because the fact that modern language is *less* ornate
means that we now achieve the same end more efficiently, and that,
unless I miss the point, translates into greater sophistication (= more
advanced technology) as is my premise.

Milt

- "Better To Light One Small Candle Than To Curse The Darkness"
visit my web page @ http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/

Jeff Nowakowski wrote:
Milt wrote:
The "kicker" in this argument is that to do this it's necessary to
acccept the premise that I earlier proposed that "The more advanced
technology drives out the more primitive". In the current context, what
that means is that when a game is transferred from one culture to
another, if any changes occur they are necessarily in the direction of
increasing sophistication/complexity, and not the converse.

This principle is not absolute. Look 200 years ago, and people wrote
very ornately. Wikipedia has an entertaining article on it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_English

Epicycles were replaced by Kepler's Laws.

And more topically, consider Hex. Nash invented this game after his
experience with Go. Using your logic, if you saw the game of Hex and
Go, but didn't know which came first, you would conclude Hex. (As an
aside, yes I know Hex was also independently invented earlier by
somebody else).

-Jeff

.

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