Don't have much comment on gaming systems for this, but your philosophy is interesting.
Tristissima said:
For example, when we run queer theory into the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistics (language creates/affects perception), we start to wonder if language itself is oppressive in that it, by necessity, categorizes things. Then we have to figure out what to do about that.
Could it be that neither of those theories in their entirety actually has to exist in reality, and as such, the paradox is purely an intellectual one? Sapir-Whorf is problematic for people who
actually look at the brain on many levels, not least of which is the direction and magnitude of the relationships between perception and language. Personally, I find it more compelling that language, being an emergent property of our ungainly and inefficient brains, has been shaped by the sensory qualities and limitations of human beings than that it has systematically altered across cultures a system of perception that evolved in the absence of language to solve entirely other problems.
But then, many academics forget that language is not a goal of cognition or evolution, and is unlikely to be "built in" to the system. "We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages" as Whorf said, is completely backwards. Rather, we create language to describe the phenomena we encounter in nature through the lens of our perceptual systems. Of course, phenomena in each other are actually more relevant to language than other elements of our environment. Speaking at a rock doesn't get it to do anything in the real world, after all, but it does alter Mom's behavior drastically, and is initially salient for that reason.
But in any case, I can make a "language as a gilded cage" argument with the best of them, but isn't it hypocritical to use language so astutely to prove the limitations of language?
Personally, I'll take language over telepathy any day. I don't want to know other people's thoughts any more than they want to know mine. And if individuality is an illusion, then it is a rather happy one for me. But I'm a dirty Western pragmatist, anyway.
...we can't easily communicate, survive, love, and do a lot of other fun things like that without either language or separate identities...
Nonsense. You're being far too humanocentric. All manner of communication and survival are independent of either language or identity. And there's a lot of wriggle-room in whether or not my dog has identity, but he certainly does not have language, and he loves people and things just fine. Love, of course, being defined as either an ineffable happy feeling or an excess of dopamine, depending on your preference and point of view.
