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card_zero 15 days ago

Humans can't share ideas directly, they pass through language. Some idea is created at the other end, nominally the same one, but there's no reason to suppose a universal internal format. Even translating between human languages loses details, where words in one language map imperfectly to words in another. Moving ideas directly from one brain to another probably can't happen. So the statement in language doesn't map very well to the idea (whichever person's version of the idea). And at some point before the idea is formed there has to be some sort of proto-idea or potential, with less definite boundaries. So "there is no proper idea" sounds right to me. There's something idiosyncratic, not the formal idea that's frozen when put into words.

antonvs 13 days ago | parent [-]

Sure, you can define "proper" and "idea" to the claim post-facto to change what's being claimed, but the point is we do have ideas without language, and converting into language is not creating the idea.

card_zero 13 days ago | parent [-]

Why not both? Yes, we have ideas without language: and, creating a form of words to express the idea is creating a new and somewhat different version.