#language and perception

[theenglishnook]

Linguistic Relativity: Does Language Shape Our Reality?

The Hypothesis The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, also known as linguistic relativity, presents a captivating proposition: the structure and vocabulary of a language influence the way its speakers perceive and interact with the world. As we embark on an exploration of this intriguing concept, we delve into the depths of linguistic relativity, questioning the extent to which language serves as a…

[josephkravis]

Welcome The Day: Sunrise of New Perspectives

Welcome the day Welcome the Day (Or Don’t, I’m Not Your Mom) Rolling out of bed with a scowl is my default, but hey, I’m working on flashing a pearly white grin to the sun. Maybe by the time I’m ninety. Meanwhile, I’ll be practicing my high jump over the ever-growing swamp of negativity and ignorance—without splashing. No promises though. This Spectacle of a Week Here in the good ol’ U.S. of…

[littleogreboii]

i see a lot of people talk about edward being disabled in fma, but it's less often talked about how alphonse is also disabled. i think it's partially because alphonse doesn't experience physical pain like edward so for a majority of the series, he's not having any of those kind of symptoms, but he is still disabled. also because alphonse's experiences are unique. like you don't see ant walking, talking suits of armour in real life (unless they're piloted by a human being physically inside them) and in world, there are about 3 others like alphonse).

alphonse is dependent on edward's survival to function. after fighting scar for the first time, alphonse is literally in pieces. he can't walk or anything until edward is in a position to fix him. similarly his body is dependent on nutrients from edward's body. like there's the point towards the end where edward gets impaled and alphonse collapses. furthermore, these periods where alphonse collapses start to become debilitating towards the end of the series and massively alter his daily living.

also, alphonse constantly talks about how upsetting it is for him to not feel any physical sensations. yeah, he's not feeling physical pain, but he's also not feeling the warmth of a fire, the sun on his face, or the fluffiness of the cats he keeps petting. he talks a lot about not being able to eat or sleep, and how there's a lot of foods he wants to try.

there's another thing that highlighted by edward at one point. alphonse's body doesn't regenerate at all. the parts scar destroys are gone forever; edward stretches out the metal that alphonse has left to repair his body. and obviously human beings don't regrow limbs, but imagine if your skin didn't ever heal over a cut. how long would your body last?

also alphonse gets told several times that his body is great throughout the series, and he literally argues against it every time, because to him it is shit. like he is missing some of his senses just for some supposedly immortal body that isn't even immortal.

even once alphonse gets his own body back, the amount of physical therapy the boy has to go through. his body has essentially been doing nothing and only receiving what nutrients it can get from edward for years. by the end of the series, he's still using a cane as a walking aid. it's unknown whether he requires that cane for the years to come, but for at least a period of time he requires a mobility aid. I don't know enough to say what effect muscle decay from inactivity and severe malnourishment during a major portion of his teenage years would have long term.

[whirlpool-blogs]

(small child starting to meltdown) “Hey, hey. *snapping* We’ll play later, okay?”

[aroaceleovaldez]

Hiii! I hope this ask doesn’t come off as rude or pushy but I just have some questions about your opinion on Rick Riordan since I’m new the space of author critiquing.

I guess I’ll add I’m pretty young and a bit sensitive when it comes to things I like, so I automatically assumed since you post so much PJO content you liked his writing. But based on some of your posts, was I wrong? Again, I don’t want to sound pushy, I’m just new to being critical and honest when it comes to authors I like and would like to know your opinion on Rick Riordan specifically. Is he a bad writer? I just got wrath of the triple goddess and I’m not sure if I want to read it based on some of your posts.

Entirely focusing on writing itself and not the content within: I like Rick's old writing. His style when writing first series is dramatically different from his newer material, which I feel has significantly dropped in quality. A lot of the newer stuff feels very unpolished and gratuitous (towards the audience for marketing purposes, not his own interests) and he has a serious bathos problem that stunts the majority of the humor and sincerity that once existed in the franchise - and often severely gets in the way of a lot of attempts at inclusion and representation, to its detriment. Not to mention how condescending it feels towards the reader/presumed audience. It's also very clear he's trying to riff off of his previous success, including directly lifting previous sections and minorly rewriting them to try and achieve the same effect (not in a call-back manner, but just copying his own work).

I won't say his old writing is like, my 100% favorite or the end-all-be-all of literature. I have plenty of authors whose writing is more something that I think is structurally admirable. But Rick's original series writing is good! It became a pop culture staple for a reason! But the quality has dipped so severely as the series progress that it's hard to ignore and it's becoming increasingly difficult to enjoy the books for me because of this. Particularly very recent books like TSATS to me are so excessively full of simple structural errors and similar that it's baffling to me how it even got published or how we got here.

I think out of his post-first series writing, his works I've enjoyed the most are MCGA and Demigods of Olympus - particularly leaning towards the latter. It's simple but very enjoyable to me. TKC to me is mostly fine and enjoyable, and HoO is Just Okay. TOA is tolerable. TSATS and the marketing trilogy though are kind of unbearable for me.

I do love the franchise as a whole and it means a lot to me, which is exactly why I feel so strongly about the drop-off in quality recently. It feels like an insult to something I love and know can be better and has been better in the past - not from a personal perspective, but from as much of an unbiased perspective I can give as someone who has studied writing. So if he's a "bad writer" in general is kind of up to discretion i suppose.

[canisalbus]

I have to ask what drew vasco into falling in love with machete?

His snivelling runt ways were just that irresistable.

[lambmotifz]

i gave him what he needed. and it wasn’t some bitch in a g-string. it was you. a little brother that looked up to him, that he could trust. and now he loves me.

is that why you’re slutting all over town?

i get bored, like we all do. and i wanna fall in love again.

they really wrote the siren clocking dean as a brotherfucker (not that it wasn’t obvious) i love my wincest show ♡

[royalarchivist]

[A sad violin song plays over an image of a sad hamster]

Pac: This doesn't have anything to do with me – I wear a blue sweatshirt, you're crazy, this mouse doesn't even have a sweatshirt, this hamster! [Reading chat] Am I a depressed hamster?

[ Transcript continued ↓ ]*

–

Pac: Actually– that's fine! I embrace that idea – of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy? [He hits his desk, then starts counting off people on his fingers] Fit is gone, Richarlyson is gone, Ramon is gone, Bagi and Empanada who were always there when we were there are also gone, I haven't seen them! It's just me and Tubbo, and sometimes Philza shows up.

Pac: I lost Chume Labs, I lost the Favela, I lost Murder Mystery, I lost Ilha Chume Labs, it's crazy! Look at how much I've lost, and I've gained nothing! Of course I'm going to be depressed, are you crazy?! How am I supposed to be happy?!

Pac: [Reading chat] "You have us Pac," that's true, thank you. No, that's true, sorry.

* NOTE: Please note that this is an incomplete transcript, as I was primarily relying on Aypierre's translation mod at the time and if I am not confident of the translation, I do not include it. As always, please feel free to add on translations or message me corrections.

[yinyuedijun]

whenever I play this game I really am always just on the lookout for monsters I can fuck sorry

[thirdity]

The interiorization of the technology of the phonetic alphabet translates man from the magical world of the ear to the neutral visual world.

Marshall McLuhan, The Gutenberg Galaxy

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

DAVID HOCKNEY

* * * * *

“Each place its own psyche. Each sky its own blue.” ― David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World

[nitewrighter]

Just for fun, a conversation between Starfire and catwoman

Catwoman: Can you, uh... turn it down, a little?

Starfire: I don't understand.

Catwoman: The flamey hair. The glowy eyes. The fact that you're raising the temperature of a 15-foot radius by 6 degrees. It's... cutting in pretty hard on my whole... sneaky-night-mission-thing.

Starfire: It's unconscious. It only gets 'turned down' if I'm extremely depressed. Or de-powered altogether.

Catwoman: ...Don't you have, like, space trauma?

Starfire: 'Space Trauma?'

Catwoman: I dunno, I don't know your deal. I don't keep super hardcore track on things outside of Gotham. I just know Birdboy's smitten, and you look like a goddess and yet you're putting up with all of his Batman-isms, which means there's probably several screws loose up there.

Starfire: *snort* I believe you famously put up with a lot of 'batman-isms.'

Catwoman: *stretches* Eh. Pots. Kettles.

Starfire: I am now going to make this conversation way more tedious by asking you to explain that idiom.

Catwoman: *snrk* I don't mind. You know, the space 'I don't get idioms' thing is probably a good way of making people realize when they're being assholes.

Starfire: *smiles*

Catwoman: ...ah.

[in-asterism]

wheee

[serpentface]

Do you have any information on the root scholars that you can share? They’ve always been a cool cult/organization to me

Ok it’s a facet of the Eterhimhamdli religion, which is The most widespread single belief system east of the inner seaway (which isn't saying much in terms of scale but it's still pretty significant) and also one I've barely introduced so I'll go over it a bit here.

Eterhimhamdli has spread past its initial sphere of old (~500 years BP) southern Lowlands Yuroma kingdoms, has many folk practices, and has schismed a few times, so there's a good deal of cultural variation. But its basic tenants/tendencies are:

-Creator deities are wholly rejected, the universe is an interplay between non-personified dualistic forces of Body(evil)/Mind(good). In one schism, the interplay of these two forces is the Dream, in others dreaming is an aspect of Mind.

-Deities in general are not wholly at odds with Eterhimhamdli, but their importance is de-emphasized and worship is usually discouraged in favor of making them objects of contemplation and/or tutelary figures.

-The Mind of the universe exists as a collective soul from which human souls emanate

-every person has two souls: an egoistic soul that animates the body and an ethereal soul that animates the mind. The latter is conceptualized as a single drop from a greater sea of the collective soul.

-belief that true wisdom is derived through access to this collective soul.

-belief that the trappings of the the ego-soul and the body's demands inhibits access to said collective soul.

-belief in the concept of enlightened beings who gain full experiential knowledge of the collective soul while remaining in a body, thus becoming capable of directly communicating aspects of their wisdom to the masses.

the biggest schism in this religion is over whether enlightenment just means experiencing full knowledge of the collective before you die, or whether it means transcending the limits of the body entirely and functionally becoming an immortal, godlike being.

deities of older/other religions absorbed by Eterhimhamdli are often reframed as enlightened mortals.

-most sects believe that only sophont life (or sometimes Only humans) have a etherial-soul along with the ego-soul, while animals exclusively have the ego-soul. Plants and inanimate objects Usually aren't ascribed souls outsides of heavily syncretic folk practices.

-belief in a fundamental good-evil cosmic dualism, though in a fairly complex way (evil is a necessity for life that is to be tempered and grappled with, rather than outright vanquished from the world entirely). The notion of 'evil' here is most associated with bodily desires (this includes all bodily needs like hunger and thirst, necessary to support life but viewed dangerous in excess, and being the root of conflict and pain).

the evil nature of bodily desire is not About sex, but does translate to non-procreative sex being frowned upon to varying extents.

-belief that life is a state of internal warfare between the evil ego-soul and the good ethereal-soul, with the former being more powerful and influential. To lead a good life is to bring the ego-soul into equilibrium with the ethereal soul. To live a wise and venerable life is to fully tip the balance in the latter's favor (this is not an expectation for lay followers, as it is considered profoundly difficult and requires separation from worldly life).

-lay followers practice forms of temperance to bring these forces into equilibrium, priests practice forms of asceticism to subdue the ego-soul and gain experiential wisdom in the process.

-The way you balance your life has consequences for the afterlife. An evil life causes an eternal death (this is usually posited as an underworld), a life in equilibrium causes one to be reborn into a new human body (a neutral fate), and a good life results in full return to the collective soul (this is a state of complete peace and contentedness and access to infinite wisdom).

-A selection of hallucinogenic plants are central to the monastic/priestly aspects of the religion, being seen as the key method through which the body can be transcended and the ego-soul can be quieted in order to tap into the collective. Lay followers do not participate in this facet on a regular basis.

-Priests also participate in self-flagellation, as the struggle with physical pain is a key microcosm of the broader internal war with the ego-soul, and can be a source of wisdom and contemplation. They are extensively tattooed for partly related purposes. Laymen are not expected to flagellate as a practice but rather to apply teachings to/learn from struggles with everyday pain.

-Very complicated relations with violence as a concept. Some strains of Eterhimhamdli philosophy see violence as an exclusive result of evil to be avoided whenever possible (usually more completely by priesthoods than the wider societies they live in), others see it as a neutral tool in of itself that Can be a force for good when used wisely. (Large scale 'wise usages of violence for the sake of good', shockingly, tend to favor the in-group's position in preexisting ethnic/religious/territorial conflicts).

-Most sects are proselytizing and see conversion as a necessity to create a better world, and have broadly unfavorable views of other religious practices.

This does not extend to seeing all societies that practice Eterhimhamdli or even The Same Schism Of Eterhimhamdli in a positive light (the birthplace of this religion is currently about 60 semi independent city-states organized into leagues that are frequently at war with each other)

-Highly favors education, literacy, rhetoric, debate, and the acquisition of material knowledge along with deeper spiritual wisdom. Knowledge and wisdom are venerable traits and societies should be led by the learned, or at least by people under their guidance.

---

The Scholarly Order of the Root is one order of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli monastics, functioning as a closed cult/mystery religion. They’re based out of Suurota (one of the biggest Yuroma city-states and dominant member of its league). They're at the top of the league's hierarchy of monastics, very wealthy, and have some involvement in governance (being an advisory body to the magistrate).

The Scholars primarily interact with the general public by hosting many of the league's institutions of scholarship and philosophy, and some of the biggest libraries in this part of the world. Their institutions are used by laymen Suurota citizens and members of government for study, and they host monks and priests (uninitiated to the inner cult) in their halls.

Actual membership to the Scholars cult is limited, they neither expect nor want associates to participate in their rituals. Rather, they position themselves as teachers- revealing small aspects of their secret knowledge to laymen and the lesser monastics as a form of guidance, while keeping dangerous knowledge for only the trusted inner circle.

Their baseline belief system aligns with the general schema of Lowlands Eterhimhamdli (one of three major schisms of this belief system), but their closed cult practices revolve around fairly unique interpretations, understood to be the ultimate underlying truths of this worldview.

The Scholars focus on an extention the Mind-Body model of the universe where their synthesis is the Dream (this itself is not unique to this cult, but the depths of their focus is). Under this model, the world is the dream of the collective consciousness, and achieving enlightenment or even temporary lucidity can allow the dream to be shaped to one's will.

One of their most secretive practices is god-building, in which they utilize altered mental states to shape the fabric of the dream into entities they can use as personal teachers of secret knowledge (also as a type of magic in general, they use it to 'build' guardians and curses and the like).

The process involves using mild doses of Ur-Root brew (mostly derived from roots of the clonal Ur-Wood colony, whose bark has notable concentrations of dimethyltryptamine and also hosts milder fungal hallucinogens) while maintaining an object and concept as a focal point of concentration. The altered state provided by the Root allows the user some access to the wisdom of the collective soul, and they will experience secret knowledge and revelations about this object, how it can best be used (this will be supplemented by material knowledge about the subject). This process is repeated until the user experiences a sense of Presence in the object, which must be interacted with, given a name and a face. Through more repetition, the object is believed to be shaped into a sort of thoughtform god which has come into material existence via manipulation of the dream.

This is considered to take immense time and effort to come to completion, god-building projects can last for years and be the combined effort of multiple Scholars. In the end, you have shaped an entity to your will that can operate independently of you.

The Ur-Wood itself is the center of Scholar cult practice, as it is both the purveyor of their most important hallucinogen and believed to have been the first god ever shaped by this form of lucid dreaming (it's a pilgrimage site for Eterhimhamdli where thousands of followers have undergone Ur-Root trips over the past four centuries, using the woods as an object of contemplation). To them the Ur-Tree is the ultimate teacher of their cult, an extremely powerful built-god that has been involved in almost every journey to enlightenment and contains all these journeys within its substance.

They believe that communing with the tree via Ur-Root can grant access to all enlightened mortals- full trips (with a DMT breakthrough type experience) will often involve sensations of encountering entities, which they interpret to be these historical figures. Within their religious framework, they're kind of speedrunning enlightenment. Under most conventional frameworks, the teachings of wise and/or enlightened people are conveyed in writing or speech as things to Contemplate on one's own journey- you might be able to understand them Conceptually but true understanding is Experiential, a process that can take a lifetime. In their framework, they're both receiving these teachings directly AND embodying states in which they can experientially comprehend them.

That summarizes most of their secret practices, and the rest of their practice is pretty standard for devout Lowlands Eterhimhamdlist priests. They live a partly ascetic lifestyle, they bear extensive tattoos as a contemplation of pain and marker of their journeys, they flagellate, they use tutelary hallucinogens, they refine their non-experiential body of knowledge through debate and rhetoric, they work to accumulate both worldly and spiritual knowledge, they work as scribes, etc.

[qoldenskies]

How do you write the psychological aspects in canary continuity so well? I want to write something involving that topic but it’s not nearly as eloquent and impactful as yours. (My personal guess is either you’ve spent hours researching or you’re a psych major.) Any tips/advice for those just starting to write about that sort of topic, as well as just possibly writing better in general? Ty!!

(Also canary continuity it was so good I finished it in a day and a half and stayed up till 3 in the morning bc I was so addicted before I forced myself to stop and go to bed)

i did some research on how to write horror, mostly (very hard to find good sources for it iirc, which sucked and i blame google), while the emotional stuff came from my own experiences (ocd + what i think is pretty severe generalized anxiety) and just me kind of winging it. its very sweet to assume im a psych major because i didnt even graduate highschool 😭😭😭 dropped out in my junior year!

i dont have any really good advice because its been so long (coming up on 7 months?) since i wrote CL in particular, i cant remember a lot of the research i did. i think it's just a matter of finding your muse and trying to put yourself in the moment instead of writing what'll feel like summaries of scenes.

[aliusfrater]

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