From: Phil Osborn (philosborn2001@yahoo.com)
Date: Tue Jul 29 2003 - 20:11:13 MDT
There's also the references used by Arthur Koestler, I
believe in his "The Act of Creation," in which he says
that no one was able to paint realistic clouds until
someone came up with the system of classification that
we essentially still use today - cirrus, cumulus, etc.
- after which all competent artists suddenly were
allegedly able to paint clouds that appeared real.
While simple perception of color may not be greatly
subject to alteration depending upon
conceptualization, on the other end of the spectrum,
recognition of logical fallacy certainly seems to fit
the bill. I've met people who simply did not
understand certain basic logical fallacies, even
though they seemed otherwise normal. I personally was
always fascinated by logic, had the good fortune to
have a really good Euclidian geometry teacher in high
school, and another HS teacher who introduced me to
W.W. Fearnside and W. B. Holther's classic "Fallacy:
The Counterfeit of Argument."
Apparently, some of this got internalized, as I had
perfect scores on every assignment and test when I
took logic on the college level, and was able to
consistently crank out 60-step+ proofs in formal logic
without any changes or backtracking on tests.
Somewhere inbetween is where I suspect the truth lies
about the influence of language on the boundaries of
thought - or, more likely, the ease and precision of
thought in various areas.
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