Ask HN: Way to build AI voice agents

The thoughts of a conscious mind are greatly influenced and framed by the language in which they are conjured. Thought is never anything but concepts. Do you think this postulate is true?

Comments (4)

WalterGR · 5h ago

That’s usually referred to as the Sapir-Whorf or Whorf-Sapir hypothesis. See “Linguistic relativity” on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguistic_relativity . Try the search bar located (non-obviously) at the bottom of HN pages to see what people here think about it.

Edit: Actually, there aren’t many submissions about the subject and I forgot that you can only view search results for comments in Date order and not Popularity order. (For the obvious reason that you can’t see the score of comments.) Googling gives results that may be satisfying:

  site:news.ycombinator.com Sapir whorf hypothesis

aristofun · 1h ago

Yes. Telling from personal experience of living in different cultures. Language you speak and think in not only contributes a lot to the way you think, but also to your personality itself, to character. People who spent few years+ living in different language often even sound differently, having different voice.

theGeatZhopa · 27m ago

may be it's the personal evolvement, that leads to that? One who have or is living abroad for a few years also develops himself in certain ways. Just like with the students who did study abroad. They show, they gain the competence of self-care-taking-in-a-foreign-environment and problem-solving-skills, more than the ones who studied and lived comfortable (often at parent's home).

I speak five languages myself. Being born and grown up in one country, went to highschool in second country, studied in a third country. But it's not the languages, but rather what i've learned and the discussions I had, that shaped the today's me. If I didn't study or argue with others, I would less utilize my thinking-as-an-engineer -> clear & aim-oriented, logically structured problem solving.

I notice the use of logical thinking in my daily life (if -> then -> but why? -> conclusion) even more after I started programming in spare time. Yes, it's a new language: strict, well defined, clear expression and problem-modeling. The new language did not change my thinking, but rather the way it solved my problems, and the new knowledge of e.g. data structures, did. So, for me, language is a tool for unlocking the knowledge and the knowledge shapes me.

another examples that supports my thinking "its the knowledge that shapes us": - when the war in Ukraine started, a lot of people said "We have. Give them long-range missles. Give them now.". But after learning that for some long-range missles it's neccessary to continiously monitor & control the missle with propriatary technology. This technology is secure and difficult to operate and rather shouldn't fall into the hands of enemies - the thinking about "give them" changed. But not the language.

- Trump's imposed tariffs: Quite a lot of US thinks the tariffs are paid by the producers. After learning, its paid by the importer, they change their thinking too. Language didn't change. But their thinking.

so, I'm opposed to the theory that language alone shapes our thinking. It's the knowledge we gain and the links and conclusions we make. Language is static, while knowledge is dynamic.

theGeatZhopa · 4h ago

I would postulate a counterthesis that its not the language we speak that affects the way we think, but rather how much of that language we use and how much the (single) language is capable to express AND how much of different topics we read/hear (in that language). Just think of kids not so profound in their language - they think, they reason, but they can't argue about "to be or not to be...". But when they grow up, they more and more use and read other topics that utilize higher parts of the language, difficult sentences, etc.. -> so they LEARN and start to think differently on topics.

so, my postulation is:

the knowledge we gain shapes our thinking. Language itself is the transportation medium for the knowledge. Is the medium is small, so the knowledge described with the medium is also "small" or "not destinctive enough". We can use a "second" language then to make the knowledge more exact and mor destinct/tdefined.

But the knowledge can also be gained with other means - learning by doing, as exmaple. So, a language is not necessary to gain knowledge (numb and deaf and blind people also think, but are somehow limited in their expression ...)

so based on that, I postulate, it's a coincidence when a language shapes our thinking, but the cause and the "affecting part" is the real "knowledge-transfer" by the language. No matter if its sign language, pointing towards .. speaking piraha or russian or finnish-english.