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Old 10-17-2009, 05:07 PM   #1 (permalink)
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Words as a force of nature?

Talking from the root of psychological attachment to words that can happen in obsessive people. I wonder if words can be used in such a way that the power of their meaning can seriously influence people and events around the user.


Example:

Take the word "perfection"
in the internal sentence, "I use the resources at hand to steer towards situational perfection"

juxtaposed with "decision"

in the same sentence, "using bold application of my decisions, I try to do the best I can with any given situation"

These can both be powerful sentences depending on the degree to which they are believed. The person who formed the sentence, whether keeping it to themselves, writing it or speaking it, forms the meaning of the sentence overall through the use of a few key words. I only pointed out one word for each sentence as an example, but there are other words that could be the sticking points for the given psyche. A person can attach a lot more meaning to "the best I can" than to the simple "perfection".

But you get what I mean?

It's about an individual's spiritual literature.
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Old 10-25-2009, 12:37 PM   #2 (permalink)
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If I understood you well, you were talking about using powerful words to influence one's mind? Well, slogans and famous quotes are all about that. Or you can explain that a little better if that's not what you were trying to say?
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Old 11-22-2009, 09:33 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Semantics , Pragmatics and Semiology... well, pretty much all of Linguistics.
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Old 11-22-2009, 11:15 AM   #4 (permalink)
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Duh..This thread has gone nowhere
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Old 11-24-2009, 08:29 PM   #5 (permalink)
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Indeed not! This topic should be of interest to lots more people than it has attracted.

In the form of a question, does your word choice become more effective (or impactful) the more the idea means to you?

If you build it up, will they come 'round?
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Old 11-27-2009, 01:14 AM   #6 (permalink)
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You know, at first I thought you were talking about something like magic. I was thinking "really??" LOL

Words can do anything from changing your mood to convincing you to do things you wouldn't otherwise do, and then have no memory of it. That being the case, sure they can have an affect.

Although the way you put it sounds more like one of those cheesy business meetings where they try to raise morale or bring out that "can-do" attitude.
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Old 11-27-2009, 01:18 PM   #7 (permalink)
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Ok, this in me + Alcohol...

But I'll stand by what I put up there... There are probably more than one or two folks who've studied linguistics here.

Pragmatics is the study of language and context (including subjectivity and intra-subjectivity). The psychology of a producer or receiver of any given message is, by definition, part of the context of that message. Any message's meaning is heavily dependant upon that context.

What you're talking about is an ENORMOUS field of research and knowledge. I think people who know about this will be put off of replying by the amount of avenues that it's possible to go down from your speculations above and people who don't know anything about it will be put off because it seems wild.

I know you may think you've been specific, but I really think you might have hit a completely unsweet spot between two groups.

I could, of course, just be drunk.

---------- Post added at 09:18 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:15 PM ----------

There's an issue of reflexivity that you raise as well, which is CONTROVERSIALLY covered by ethnolinguistics and linguististi relativity.

you might like the papers on this lady's site:

Lera Boroditsky
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Old 11-30-2009, 08:23 PM   #8 (permalink)
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I'm just gonna call this a metapsycho-pragmatic problem within xenology...

---------- Post added at 08:23 PM ---------- Previous post was at 08:20 PM ----------

Oh, and after I asked the question of "how much meaning can you put into a word before it changes minds" brought up the topic of magic under the "meaning" card in my internal rolodex.
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Old 12-01-2009, 09:52 AM   #9 (permalink)
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What xenology studies? Lol it even appears as a mistaken word ^^
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Old 12-01-2009, 11:26 AM   #10 (permalink)
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I'm pretty sure he meant that as a joke.
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Old 12-01-2009, 11:47 AM   #11 (permalink)
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By mistaken word I meant that it was underlined with red dots like there was a grammar mistake, that's how uncommon it is.
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Old 12-01-2009, 11:53 AM   #12 (permalink)
 
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there's alot that could be said about the basic idea behind the op, but i hesitate to lay things out as i see them because it'd derail the thread i suspect. i'm not really interested in abstract questions of rhetoric (degree of "belief" in what you're saying & questions of persuading others devolve onto classical matters of rhetoric: belief drops away, replaced by voice, which is what would communicate belief as the latter is an inward state which admits of no particular access for others. trick is that an adequately developed voice can be made that would convey a convincing illusion of belief...which is one reason plato for example was so pissy about the sophists...but that's another matter.)

i'm more interested in the assumptions that link categories to their putative referents in the world, particularly more experience-distant ones (why is there a universe and not many? most likely because of the effects of the word universe, yes?)
there's lots of directions this sort of thing can head toward, from cognitive geography through philosophy of science through ontology of the social world--but it's all kinda technical and i'm not sure that the thread was set up with anything like that in mind.

but why do we assume there is a single entity called the universe? why do we assume there is a single entity called nature?
if words mediate our relation to our environments and if we are imbricated in those environments and so act on them in ways shaped fundamentally by the effects of this mediation, then how could language possibly not be a force in nature?
unless you think human creations somehow hover over nature, so that it is like a park you go visit---nature is where there's alot of trees or grass for example & stops where the parking lots begin.
but who thinks that way?
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Old 12-01-2009, 05:20 PM   #13 (permalink)
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But I'm talking practical uses of this sort of phenomena. I guess it's more like psychic projection through both the internal and external esthetic intensity of a word.


It also think that the site caught my incomplete phrasing of the new word psychometapragmatic.
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Old 12-02-2009, 10:38 AM   #14 (permalink)
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Yeah we want practical uses! Anyone said hypnosis?
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Old 12-02-2009, 01:15 PM   #15 (permalink)
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I implied it.
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Old 12-03-2009, 01:43 AM   #16 (permalink)
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Anyways it would be shame for a topic like this to stay empty
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Old 12-03-2009, 05:42 PM   #17 (permalink)
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I implied hypnosis, I suppose. More like subconscious suggestion, or spellbinding.

---------- Post added at 05:41 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:38 PM ----------

But now I've lost faith in this thread, because I know that all it takes is a thorough belief and the determination to translate it outwards.

---------- Post added at 05:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 05:41 PM ----------

This can also turn into a musical thread, you know.
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