tcpkac:
The important caveat is : ‘boundaries around where concentrations of unusually high probability density lie, to the best of our knowledge and belief’ . All the imperfections in categorisation in existing languages come from that limitation.
This strikes me as a rather bold statement, but “to the best of our knowledge and belief” might be fuzzy enough to make it true. Some specific factors that distort our language (and consequently our thinking) might be:
Probability shifts in thingspace invalidating previously useful clusterings. Natural languages need time adapt, and dictionary writers tend to be conservative.
Cognitive biases that distort our perception of thingspace. Very on topic here, I suppose. ^_^
Manipulation (intended and unintended). Humans treat articulations from other humans as evidence. That can go so far that authentic contrary evidence is explained away using confirmation bias.
Other problems in categorisation, [...] do not come from language problems in categorisation, [...] but from different types of cognitive compromise.
Well, lack of consistency in important matters seems to me to be a rather bad sign.
It would also lack words for the surprising but significant improbable phenomenon. Like genius, or albino. Then again, once you get around to saying you will have words for significant low hills of probability, the whole argument blows away.
I don’t think so. Once the most significant hills have been named, we go on and name the next significant hills. We just choose longer names.
tcpkac: The important caveat is : ‘boundaries around where concentrations of unusually high probability density lie, to the best of our knowledge and belief’ . All the imperfections in categorisation in existing languages come from that limitation.
This strikes me as a rather bold statement, but “to the best of our knowledge and belief” might be fuzzy enough to make it true. Some specific factors that distort our language (and consequently our thinking) might be:
Probability shifts in thingspace invalidating previously useful clusterings. Natural languages need time adapt, and dictionary writers tend to be conservative.
Cognitive biases that distort our perception of thingspace. Very on topic here, I suppose. ^_^
Manipulation (intended and unintended). Humans treat articulations from other humans as evidence. That can go so far that authentic contrary evidence is explained away using confirmation bias.
Other problems in categorisation, [...] do not come from language problems in categorisation, [...] but from different types of cognitive compromise.
Well, lack of consistency in important matters seems to me to be a rather bad sign.
It would also lack words for the surprising but significant improbable phenomenon. Like genius, or albino. Then again, once you get around to saying you will have words for significant low hills of probability, the whole argument blows away.
I don’t think so. Once the most significant hills have been named, we go on and name the next significant hills. We just choose longer names.