Research Questions
Language
What words let you think, and what they hide.
Opening your questions…
Research Questions
Language
What words let you think, and what they hide.
9 questions
Where to begin
Can you think without words?Wittgenstein wrote that the limits of his language meant the limits of his world. Yet everyone has felt something they had no word for.Pick one of 3
- Have you ever made up a word because no real one fit?Families and friends keep words nobody else knows. Wittgenstein doubted a word could mean anything if only one person could check it.
- Is the sentence 'This sentence is false' true or false?If it's true, then it's false. If it's false, then it's true. The puzzle is more than two thousand years old.
- Should AIs be allowed to talk to each other in a language we can't read?A shared language can create a private world that outsiders cannot enter.
- The word you don't knowA word you don't know, halfway down the page. What do you actually do?Pick one of 4
- What does a name change?When you give something a name — a pet, a car, a machine — what changes: the thing, what you owe it, or you?
- When you say 'I'm fine', are you lying?A story improved in the telling, a confident guess, an 'I'm fine' at the dinner table: plenty of what we say isn't trying to inform anyone.
- Words you inheritedWhich of your words did you go out and get, and which were simply in the house you grew up in? Name one of each.
- Your favourite wordWhat is your favourite word — and do you actually use it, or do you just like owning it?
