The Sapir Whorf hypothesis (language defines what we can perceive and think) is mostly wrong for natural language, but true for programming. Computer languages don't differ in what they can do but in how they let us think.
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Replying to @Plinz
why is it mostly wrong for natural languages? perhaps wrong for qualitative concepts but not quantitative? for example the ability to discern colors increasing with language's resolution of color names.
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Replying to @plantimals @Plinz
https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Sapir-Whorf_hypothesis … strong form claims too much, is more or less disproven. weak form is an interesting observation about relative cultural importance of various things as they appear as language features.
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Replying to @danlistensto @plantimals
Isn't "rationalwiki" like conservapedia, i.e. a deliberately biased wiki that thinks wikipedia is not ideological enough for their audience? :) I think that the strong form of Sapir Whorf is true for some areas of programming. Learning Lisp and Haskell changes the way we think.
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it has more biases than wikipedia. I thought that particular article was alright though. mostly linked to it for clarity, the wiki article has a lot of history and biography and less discussion of strong vs. weak versions. agree with you re: functional programming
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