Thursday, December 23, 2010

Name It to Tame It


If a language provides a label for a complex concept, that could make it easier to think about the concept, because the mind can handle it as a single package when juggling a set of ideas, rather than having to keep each of its components in the air separately. It can also give a concept an additional label in long-term memory, making it more easily retrivable than ineffable concepts or those with more roundabout verbal descriptions.

- Steven Pinker, The Stuff of Thought
Excellently put by the author what I have always believed.

Also, this underlines the advantage of academic training which provides you with so many terms/concepts that are useful for understanding, remembering and analyzing ideas.

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