Value of Silence, Language and Mind, Enlightenment Greatness
Three Point Thursday
Happy Three Point Thursday!
This week’s edition features a quote reflecting the value of silence, an explanation of what it is like to learn another language, and a look at the wonderful and important ideas of the Enlightenment.
It has been said that silence is the language of God.
“You know a wise man once said nothin’ at all.”
— Drake
What is it like learning a new language?
Once a new language is coded into your brain, you’re forever changed. There is a saying from China that to learn a language is to have one more window from which to look at the world, and I think that is the best way to describe what it is like. And as the journalist Flora Lewis said, “Learning another language is not only learning different words for the same thing, but learning another way to think about things.” It’s like when you’re playing a video game and parts of the map that were dark before start to light up. New areas of unexplored mental terrain suddenly reveal themselves to you.
More than anything else, the Enlightenment is what makes the West great.
I’m currently reading the book Enlightenment Now: The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker. So far it’s both insightful and inspiring. It is strengthening my conviction that Enlightenment values—more than anything else—are what makes the West great. Specifically the values of free speech, free market capitalism, religious tolerance, humanism, the scientific method, fallibilism, error correction, and the desire to make progress. And most importantly, what David Deutsch refers to as the principle of optimism: the idea that all evils are caused by insufficient knowledge.