Language is not reality.

Reality is the truth..

It follows: No one ever tells the truth if that is true……. Don‘t it ?

Are the premises true? Is that conclusion logical?

Since we have experts in logic here can one of you kind gents explain that to me?

I have been thinking on it since I heard a fella say “Language is not reality!”

Language is a tool with which we

Build our model of reality - which is a story BTW
Communicate our stories to others
Explore how sounds and symbols affect our perceptions and realities.

Tick tock, whiz, whir, bang, zoom, whoosh, BOOM, crash, clatter, crunch, clunk, wah wah wah, fizzle.

That's real because I say it is.

This reminds me a bit of a Nietzsche idea that all language is lies. The gist of it is, to make sense of the world, we categorize, but in categorizing, we oversimplify. It's a necessary evil, because there are just too many things/concepts/etc. out there, and we can't deal with each of them as a particularized experience. So we say that this is a tree, and that over there is also a tree, and now we have an idea of what a "tree" is. But in calling them both "tree" we suggest that they're the same, and in many ways, they're different. Over the top, certainly, but I think there's still some truth to it and a point to be appreciated.

Truth is an idea - not a sensation.

sensation and its recall are experience.

language is a method to encode a reflection of experience.

as Lobo pointed out, the smart folks already explored how we encode by generalizing somethings, deleting some things and distorting some things.

Have you found and read that Greg Egan story "TAP" yet?

Patrick, your reality is an episode of West-era Batman?

It a catastrophic thing happened that wiped out all mankind then what would be the truth?

The only good language is a dead language.

My reality is onomatopoeia.

Real things make us think I think and what we think we say but what we think is not real nor what we say, its just a reflection of reality and the truth.

Is language that is not verbalized (body language) reality?

Stepping on an ant is pretty darn real to the ant.

The Satir categories of posture/behavior seem to work nicely so I'd vote "yes" on that notion of "body language" as language.

I’m not the gods. I just tell them what to do.

"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick

Check out Wikipedia's entry on Linguistic Determinism.

Maybe language creates reality.

By calling funny colored bits of paper "legal tender" we magically create value.

By labeling a group of people "the enemy" we create hatred.

Also, language is the repository for all knowledge up to this point. It is what allows us to "stand on the shoulders of giants".

I don't have much to add, really. But it might interest some of you that when I wear my philosopher's hat I NEVER even use the word "reality". What is it supposed to mean? Everything we can possibly think of is "real" in a certain sense, because thoughts themselves are real.

Now, when I wear my cowboy hat and I'm playing music in a bar or I'm playing around with playing cards, I talk about "reality" all the time. But I don't mean anything by it.

(If I do, I just mean something like "real-life" as opposed to comic books or Hollywood movies.)

I know this isn't furthering the discussion any, but there you have it.

Jeff

Everything in the world that we name and know and understand is part of a shared socially "constructed" reality of language and symbols.

The Reality that exists with or without us is unknown and largely unknowable--it is that which exists and is not yet named or brought into consciousness.

We apply different instruments and methodologies to try to extend the success of our dealings with our bodies and our worlds through manipulating things according to the map that we have constructed over centuries with the help of the others, and that we continually re-construct, amend, study and learn.

Magicians are sort of error-checkers for the map-makers and students.