RE: [xml-dev] The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint

["Joshua Allen" <joshuaa@microsoft.com>]

> > In any case, I do not deny that language as a tool can impact
thought
> > proficiency, but as I said I believe that this case has been
*vastly*
> > overstated.  It is by no means the high-order bit.
> 
> Roman numerals. Arabic numerals. Mathematics.

The fact that mathematics can be performed optionally using roman or
Arabic numerals proves my point (a Sapir-Whorf style "proof" would
strive to show that one system makes certain thoughts impossible).  And
my computer calculates faster and more accurately using strings of bit
patterns; no Roman numerals or Arabic numerals at all.  Maybe you are
missing my point -- linguistic determinism says that thought is enabled
and structured by language; I am arguing that the *opposite* is true in
the vast majority of cases that matter.  Language is simply a tool that
humans create to assist us in our communications and cognition, and like
any tool, words are subordinate to their master.  When Michael Jackson
says "bad", he means "good"; but when you say "bad" he is still smart
enough to understand what you mean.  When you learned math, you did not
stop understanding how to engage in dialogue.  Some people have
specialized jargon, while others have to string together the limited
concepts that they have to describe the same thing.  And even small
children will happily invent symbols for things which they have no
satisfying extant symbol.  The fact that we create computer languages
(seemingly every year) geared at specialized processing tasks should put
to rest linguistic determinism.  One can be convinced that the human
mind has certain "built-in" cognitive limits, but as of yet our
languages are not even close to approaching those parameters.  Our world
of communicable symbols will *always* be a very poor substitute for
what's in the head, IMO.