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bobson381 10 hours ago

It's such a wonderful thing to be reminded of how silly it is to take language seriously. IMO it's prickles and goo[1] all the way down - and the prickles help us share meaning and exchange information, but there is no project of exactitude to be completed.

The hubris it takes to maintain the view that we can just keep figuring things out if we are rational enough is also sometimes overwhelming to me. It's not that we can't understand things better through analysis, just that it sometimes seems foolish to me to try to get all of it through system-2 type behavior. We will always miss something crucial[2].

[1]:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4vHnM8WPvU

[2]:https://www.ribbonfarm.com/2010/07/26/a-big-little-idea-call...

mkoubaa 9 hours ago | parent [-]

An algorithm written in a well specified language with precise semantics might have bugs. A "logical" argument made with natural language is orders of magnitude less precise

bobson381 9 hours ago | parent [-]

What I've always wondered, though, is whether that lack of precision is what allows for meaning to arise in the first place. In the gap between language and - this - .

mkoubaa 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Read Wittgenstein