How language has helped us think

So on Friday I had dinner with RY and we talked about what he learned from his ILW classes. Mckinsey & gave a list of methods of persuasion, like 'by way of authority', 'alliance building' etc. I found it helpful when analyzing the experience I had before (and of course giving better illustrations to the interviewers).

Then we talked about why, although we had already been using those skills involuntarily, we felt a better grasp of them when they were explicitly spoken out, structured and made into a list. It is the power of language. Without a proper language, the instrument of abstract thinking, everything is vague and intangible, and you stay this way, call it natural or 'in a mess'. Intuitions without concepts are blind.

Drivels: Then I thought of density matrix in QM: basically every mixed state is a reduced state of a pure state. Or I say, everything you found hard to express is something clear with a broader language. Yep, all you lack is the language, "the basis set". Creating and extending the concepts thus the proper language, a process analytic a priori, is sometimes more important than any work that would follow.

I've been watching too much lately

I finally resisted the temptation of upgrading my Netflix membership. I do not want to become Tom in The Glass Menagerie. :P And life sucks when I saw stupid Mencia every time I turned on TV to see Eric Cartman (on this matter of taste I am with feir).

Let me say this to myself: once I turned the endo project to publish, I am going to award myself a new GAMING DESKTOP. Make it happen very soon.