Language influences the way we perceive reality

Pro (My conclusion is that singular causality exists, assuming I have understood Newton aright!) Singular causality exists, however this is only the case with issues that don"t involve perception. For example, it is raining today, as evidenced by the raindrops dripping on my head. There may be a perception of the rain, such as how hard or light it"s raining, but not whether it"s actually happening. Only one cause and effect is needed to gain agreement on this point. However, if I say that when it rains it helps people to feel blue, I am now making a point that involves circular causality, because it involves perception. There is a bi-directional relationships that cannot be ignored. Many people assume because they perceive it that it must exists, but this type of dichotomous concrete thinking leads people to debate items that don"t lend themselves well to debate. You may justify this by saying that we seek the truth and only through investigation can we determine what is. You may cite evidence that says, this is what helped people thinking the world was flat. They didn"t have evidence and once they did it was refuted. But perception is slow to change when we only used an evidenced based approach because it doesn"t account for the impact of the stimulus on us, mixed with our impact on the stimulus. Language influences my perception of reality and reality is influenced by my use of language. Only until we can appreciate the duality of this relationship can we move away from proving our rightness, which consequently causes wars, and move towards a more fuller understanding of others. Yes, we need to consider others because debating issues leaves one person wining and one person losing which is a very primitive form of dialogue. In some instances it helps to declare a majority and make a decision but in most cases it leaves one person feeling diminished. Proving points that are evidenced based is needed, but arguing whose perspective is right when there are many dimensions and ways to look at something seems antithetical to the purpose of true negotiation (The Thirteen Greatest American Arguments is a good example of the value of debate as I"m describing). If we can stay in contact with somebody and grow our perspective, then the person who articulates the clearest and uses the most compelling logic doesn"t win, everybody does. Okay, so this is not the purpose of this site I know, but I felt moved to share what got sparked for me. (My next point is that "circularity" leads to impossible conclusions.) I couldn"t agree more. But what is wrong with that. It doesn"t lend itself well to winning and losing, the point of this site, but it does move us away from what dominant culture has taught us about power and control. We take a stand on a particular point and gather as much data as we can, we sell it to the masses and we build a coalition. This is what we are doing in Syria as we speak. It doesn"t matter whether the use of chemical weapons is "right" or "wrong", it matters that we want others to believe what we do because it keeps us feeling safe. Of course it leads to impossible conclusions because the world isn"t built in two dimensions. Why would we want it to be so simple as to say that one causes the other? Because it helps us feel less ambiguous and less distressed. We don"t tolerate uncertainty in this culture so we seek to prove out point and be done with it. And I like your point about revisiting the same issue and our feelings evolving. That is absolutely the way things work. Each time I use pornography my feelings and perspective may change. There are reasons it doesn"t that is a complex issue of a psychological nature. This is how people change through repeated exposure to a certain stimulus which eventually helps us alter our lens or take a different vantage point. This is what happens with language. My wife says, "that"s crazy" after many of her sentences when listening to somebody talk about an upset they have. Until I tell her that I wish she would be more descriptive rather than using a colloquialism because it dilutes her empathy, her perception of reality doesn"t change. Her use of language is now helping alter her perception of reality with the help of outside feedback. In this case, it wasn"t language that changed her perception of reality it was the other way around. With repeated exposure to the same language our perception of reality may not change for years, thus negating a cause and effect relationship. Many variables contribute to the perception of reality, including language. (A limit has to be drawn because circularity can go on for ever.) Why does a limit need to be drawn? Who decides what that limit is? Is it when you are frustrated or I am tired? It goes on forever because our perceptions change over time. We evolve. You say that circularity can"t account for stability if it keeps changing our perception and you are right. We don"t rely on a stable perception for stability in an advanced culture, we rely on instability. We are always changing, one of the few constants in the world. If we can let go of our need to make sense of everything we can tolerate ambiguity better, let go of our need to control and adapt better to change. If you say that you need to have a stable perception that is something I can agree to. I don"t need a stable perception of reality, in fact that bores me and leads to my stagnation. I tolerate as much change of perception as I can before it become overload and then I wait until I can tolerate more. I don"t try to force my perception on others or prove my rightness because I know that my perception is in flux. Today I may disagree, tomorrow I may see it your way. As I evolve, so too does my perspective broaden and deepen. (The fact that we both communicate and that, although time has passed in between, we still understand each other, also suggests that something remains stable. Whereas if your claim is right then we wouldn't be able to do that. There seems to be something wrong with "circular" causation.) Yes, something does remain stable but that is our willingness to expand our perception, not perception itself. If you hold up a baseball and say, do you see that"and I respond that I see a pitcher who never made it to the major leagues and feels like he missed his calling. It remind me of how disappointing life could be. It makes me see that baseball as a weapon because I was assaulted with a ball as a child. I"m introducing new possibilities of what that object is. We both agree it"s a baseball because we can identify the static traits, but that isn"t perception. Perception is what w do with the information once we begin to process it. And to hold a conversation about it requires a willingness to go outside our own perception. Circular causality allows us to come back to a shared understanding without either of us giving up our own experience of reality. I"m going to stop here because I fear I have gone way off the tracks. I sincerely hope I haven"t wasted your time. I know I didn"t go about this the way its intended making it difficult for you to engage. My purpose was not to waste your time but to explore the idea of debate. I own a social networking site called www.ufeud.com and I"m trying to better understand opinion, perspective, the process of debating and exploring different ideas. This was helpful to me. I hope I didn"t frustrate you to much with my approach.