E-Prime

[ararat]

have you heard about this? I read about it the other day, it basically is english that does not use "to be" in any form. I'm a tad too lazy to explain it in detail, there are way better explanations like an article on wikipedia or by robert anton wilson.


let's try to have this thread only written in this language. it seems hard at the beginning, and still does so to me :P but I experienced it as an interesting endeavor.

I like its implications, because it seems to remove this "objective" thing, that things ARE this way and instead set it into the perspective of the person or instrument experiencing or measuring it.

Here are some examples I copied from RAW's article, in which standard english and e-prime alternate:

lA. The electron is a wave.
lB. The electron appears as a wave when measured with instrument-l.
2A. The electron is a particle.
2B. The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument-2.
3A. John is lethargic and unhappy.
3B. John appears lethargic and unhappy in the office.
4A. John is bright and cheerful.
4B. John appears bright and cheerful on holiday at the beach.
5A. This is the knife the first man used to stab the second man.
5B. The first man appeared to stab the second man with what looked like a knife to me.
6A. The car involved in the hit-and-run accident was a blue Ford.
6B. In memory, I think I recall the car involved in the hit-and-run accident as a blue Ford.
7A. This is a fascist idea.
7B. This seems like a fascist idea to me.
8A. Beethoven is better than Mozart.
8B. In my present mixed state of musical education and ignorance, Beethoven seems better to me than Mozart.
9A. That is a sexist movie.
9B. That seems like a sexist movie to me.
10A. The fetus is a person.
10B. In my system of metaphysics, I classify the fetus as a person.

 

[IJesusChrist]

I use "I feel like..."

rather than I am.

"I feel like this person is mad."

"I feel like you may be wrong."

It feels much easier to me, and seems to have an addicting quality, didn't even know I was doing it after a while. The idea seems quite interesting to my taste!

I've also tried to take out the use of "I, me, mine" as much as possible (ode to the beatles).

[By the way, I had to edit this twice to stay in topic]

 

[peach]

I tend to always refer to you as opposed to I

E.g. "You'd love it. It's great." as opposed to "I loved it. I thought it was great."

I believe the Beatles are incorrect to suggest I am doing something wrong by wanting to use the word I more. I know for a fact that it becomes detrimental over long periods to displace my identity. And that Paul McCartney currently has around $1 billion in his own back account and wasn't entirely honest about that when getting divorced, so I feel he can shut the fuck up with regards to downplaying the word mine.

A number of those examples appear to be a scientific way of communicating, in that they seem none certain. I suspect it is arguable how applicable this method of speaking is to everyday life. It is likely, in my opinion, that not many people will enjoy speaking with me if I apply such spurious, unsure terminology to what I say. I enjoy the idea of using the word I and speaking personally more so. To my mind, some of the previous examples contrast the examples in the wiki and even themselves, in that they may blur my opinion when observed by others.

E.g. "That seems like a sexist movie to me." I would rather say as, "I think that's a sexist movie.".

E-prime interests me, I like the way I can play with words to change the way I think or appear to others. I am reasonably sure I have managed to manipulate my own way of thinking rather severely by forcing certain patterns upon my thought processes. When I was younger, I used to have serious problems with OCD (I would end up stood still repeating things), which I managed to overcome by forcing my brain to think in other ways, without the help of any outside intervention. Controllable OCD, I find, is a necessity of science. I have not been so successful with controlling other facets of my mind, yet. I am worried that paying such attention to details could lead to encouraging negative OCD behaviors if care is not taken, at least until it becomes habit. :P

But I am confident there are positives to thinking about the specific wording of something before speaking, provided I do not remain outside of a conversation forever as a result of thinking; that I have done.

There are times, for me, when this kind of wording isn't suitable or logical.

E.g. "The electron appears as a particle when measured with instrument-2,"

is inappropriate for people with low levels of knowledge regarding science, who will never encounter electrons behaving as waves and only need know that they behave as particles. Indeed, a more full explanation seems overly confusing to those who are simply wiring plugs and could lead to more harm than good.

 

[IJesusChrist]

Those who imagine they do, but most likely do not understand why the misleading observations of the uncertainty principle lead to wave-particle duality are, in my opinion, sloths.

 

[BrainEater]

11A. life is the relativity of time.
11B. to me it seems, that life may or may not be be the relativity of time, depending on the viability of a possible observer.

 

[????????]

guise we are supposed to not use "is" or "are", you have all ignored the fun

 

[BrainEater]

11C. ait forgive me my stupidity, i thought i had forgotten, have i.

 

[IJesusChrist]

This e-prime seems to me very difficult to do indeed. I do like it, but I am wondering if I can do it in conversation easily enough to speak?!

 

[????????]

RAW claimed he could... according to him it seemed to affect his thinking process positively

 

[BrainEater]

it's about being aware what you say, what you express by that and how others might interpret it.

 

[ararat]

yesterday, as I lay in bed after having smoked some crazy hash, I started thinking about e-prime and aligned my thoughts to the principles of this idea, and it totally changed my perception. how do I explain this. with normal language I lived in the outside world, with the modified version I started living (more than before) in the inside world, which appeared way more reasonable than the first option. the inside world felt a lot more relaxed as well :lol:
of course, many ways lead to rome. psychedelics show you to live in the inside as well, albeit a lot more radically. (do you sense aristotalean logic here as well? this whole thing doesn't only restrict to the word "is" as it seems.)
to live in the inside in the sense that you acknowledge that what you see takes place more so in your head than in a place deemed "outside" of you. as the zen saying goes, "who is the great magician who makes the grass green?".

it always kind of bugged me that I forget all this way too fast. it feels almost as if a force pulls me down again, into old perceptions, into unconsciousness, so to say.
or would this classify as a game? a game with rules that say that it (HA!) is hard to live in the now, to have an aware mind. a game that consists of trying to stay here and now, but getting carried away by thoughts and emotions.

 

[IJesusChrist]

The human mind takes a great deal of stimuli, observation, and possibly even trauma to change philosophical perspectives... I'd say that most we learn on psychodelics, we actually already knew, just never had to think about it for 2 hours + in depth. I think psychodelics bring our subconscious upwards; we think we are seeing 'new' ideas, but we are actually only examining ourselves.

We rarely change from who we thought we were, but it most certainly...is... possible.

I often have that trouble too though banana. I find myself a month later back in the same repetition I swore to get myself out.

 

[BrainEater]

without the "required" self-discipline you can't defeat the power of your subconscious mind(s). you have to want to make it in order to make it...whatever it is that you want to have made or achieved with the help of your subconscious mind. it is the most powerful computer and program that you can use. so you have to get it to cooperate with you in the way you want and not in the way it wants. it has a mind or many of its own, obviously. don't be slave to your own programs and others' programs in ways you maybe wouldn't like to be..
so become aware and be conscious. you yourself, be the master and the slave of your programming, but try to retain a relatively easy and comfortable way of changing the "programs" you set up for yourself. you might call "programming" your mind also "conditioning" it if that's better for you...i think it's ok to treat your subconscious like a dog, and as you know dogs have to behave and be nice to their masters. alright.. be good to yourself!! :lol:

peace :weedman:

 

[IJesusChrist]

without the "required" self-discipline you can't defeat the power of your subconscious mind(s). you have to want to make it in order to make it...whatever it is that you want to have made or achieved with the help of your subconscious mind. it is the most powerful computer and program that you can use. so you have to get it to cooperate with you in the way you want and not in the way it wants. it has a mind or many of its own, obviously. don't be slave to your own programs and others' programs in ways you maybe wouldn't like to be..
so become aware and be conscious. you yourself, be the master and the slave of your programming, but try to retain a relatively easy and comfortable way of changing the "programs" you set up for yourself. you might call "programming" your mind also "conditioning" it if that's better for you...i think it's ok to treat your subconscious like a dog, and as you know dogs have to behave and be nice to their masters. alright.. be good to yourself!! :lol:

peace :weedman:

:P

 

[Shadowlord]

Some interesting ideas in E-Prime and in the posts this thread has generated.
Even if I did have to re-read it a few times. :lol:

 

[ophiuchus]

i've been doing this on and off for a while, without knowing it was called something at all. all it states, is trying to NOT be objective in your speech. we've already listed some easier ways to do it than the textbook version.
i try to do it in instances involving the appearance of dualities, especially while explaining the nature of such, because when you speak that way, your message simply makes more sense, and then you dont get the jackass posting behind you going, "no it only appears as a point" and you're thinking, "duh, you fuck, that's not even the point of my message, and now you cant get past that sentence to see the meaning as a whole because you are too caught up on the word i used."

all that this states to me: being mindful to NOT state your opinion as a fact. we should all be doing this already, and i've been telling everyone here this for a good little while now. i will admit that even so, i become unaware of myself from time to time and will slip up and do it too. but the point IS, :lol: the more you do it, the easier it becomes. at least, in my experience :wink:

i was thinking about this the other day. the english language appears to not be built for this (or perhaps it's the way we think of the language or the idea), but it can be done with a slight shift of thinking

 

[ophiuchus]

"General semantics cuts the link between the two (e-prime & regular english) through the practice of silence on the objective levels, adopting a self-reflexive attitude, e.g., "as I see it" "it seems to me" etc, and by the use of quotation marks - without using E-Prime."
- 'criticisms', wiki

e-prime can be done without even using e-prime

 

[ophiuchus]

sorry, i thought this was hilarious.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_semantics

from the overview:
"Many General Semantics practitioners view the associated techniques as a kind of self-defense kit against manipulative semantic distortions routinely promulgated by advertising, politics, and religion, as well as those found in self-deception."

that's all for now

 

[ararat]

can you help me translating this into E-prime? I begin to doubt that it even works.

"Who or what am I?"

 

[ophiuchus]

hehe, e-prime seems to make the relevant more noticeable via muting what's seems not.

= "what color is a mirror?"

:lol: