[Taraz]

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PTB -

Lol, don't bother replying to this. I wrote it in an extraordinarily perverse mood, and don't intend to read it again myself.

Taraz -

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I disagree with the claim that our reality doesn't include things that we can't describe with language. Describe the love you feel for your dog, the love you feel for your mom, the love you feel for a girlfriend, etc. It is really difficult to describe emotion and "feelings". This does not mean that they don't exist or that they aren't real. I believe that by holding this view you are driving people toward religion by denying their experiences.

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There are two counterarguments I see to this, the first informal and the second more rigorous.

(1) Language's expressiveness should be judged in light of the masterworks, not our wretched hacks. It would be a rare person who could honestly claim a depth and precision of emotion not found somewhere in Proust, heh.

(2) In arguing that language's domain is bounded, you are using language to point across its purported bounds---to some shadowy place haunted with the inexpressible. This is contradictory. "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one MUST remain silent."

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1. I have yet to read any words that accurately describe most human emotions. We have loose placeholders, but nothing that captures the feeling and the intricacy.

2. That saying is pretty retarded. We invent new words all the time. There must have been something "real" for which we needed a word. And just because we can talk about something doesn't mean that our words capture all that there is.

Are you seriously trying to argue that you've never had an inexpressible experience? If so I feel sorry for you.