Asian and Western thinking

[Boidhre]

That he's considering Westerners and East Asians respectively as single homogeneous groups is enough to make me raise an eyebrow.

Making generalizations is not the same as considering groups of people as homogeneous.

He's arguing from studies that he and his colleagues have done. I'll be generous and assume its not mainly consisting of American based studies but it's highly likely he's generalising across Western and Eastern language groups based on sample from some of the major languages. It is hard to make generalisations on this scale without a fair amount of grouping dissimilar groups together but when arguing the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis you can't really get away with this one (it being very controversial and from what I've read considered to be not considered to have the broad affect that is being argued here by most researchers).

[Boidhre]

To say that language does not play a part in understanding and interpretation is naive. Despite having live in the USA for 35 years I still have a tendency to think "British" instead of "American" when I am tired. I have known my wife for over 25 years. She is American born and bred. We still have occasional misunderstands and we are supposed to be speaking the same language!

I have known enough Asians in my life (CJK, Indian, Middle-eastern) to know that there is a definite difference in thinking, based on language.

Why would you say "language" and not "British culture?"

[Loons]

I googled

Is the idea that thought is shaped by language mainstream

And got this.

http://www.yale.edu/cogdevlab/aarticles ... 20keil.pdf

[DrStraw]

To say that language does not play a part in understanding and interpretation is naive. Despite having live in the USA for 35 years I still have a tendency to think "British" instead of "American" when I am tired. I have known my wife for over 25 years. She is American born and bred. We still have occasional misunderstands and we are supposed to be speaking the same language!

I have known enough Asians in my life (CJK, Indian, Middle-eastern) to know that there is a definite difference in thinking, based on language.

Why would you say "language" and not "British culture?"

Because the problems arise from different interpretations of the words we use and the way we say them.

[Boidhre]

To say that language does not play a part in understanding and interpretation is naive. Despite having live in the USA for 35 years I still have a tendency to think "British" instead of "American" when I am tired. I have known my wife for over 25 years. She is American born and bred. We still have occasional misunderstands and we are supposed to be speaking the same language!

I have known enough Asians in my life (CJK, Indian, Middle-eastern) to know that there is a definite difference in thinking, based on language.

Why would you say "language" and not "British culture?"

Because the problems arise from different interpretations of the words we use and the way we say them.

Ok, but I'm not seeing how you're getting from that to a part in our understanding and interpretation. I mean, my wife and I have similar issues due to a rural vs urban upbringing but just because we use some words differently doesn't mean we actually think differently, we'd just express the thought using different words no? Or am I misinterpreting what you mean?

[moyoaji]

I googled

Is the idea that thought is shaped by language mainstream

And got this.

http://www.yale.edu/cogdevlab/aarticles ... 20keil.pdf

This idea has been looked at by mainstream psychologists and sociologists for decades. This New York Times article relates the thought back to a 1940s article. That article and the popular novel 1984 (published in 1949) are likely the two primary sources of our popular understanding of this phenomenon.

I particularly liked one bit of that article:

Since there is no evidence that any language forbids its speakers to think anything, we must look in an entirely different direction to discover how our mother tongue really does shape our experience of the world. Some 50 years ago, the renowned linguist Roman Jakobson pointed out a crucial fact about differences between languages in a pithy maxim: “Languages differ essentially in what they must convey and not in what they may convey.” This maxim offers us the key to unlocking the real force of the mother tongue: if different languages influence our minds in different ways, this is not because of what our language allows us to think but rather because of what it habitually obliges us to think about.

The example it uses is that in English we don't use masculine/feminine words, but many languages do. So if I say "I met a friend yesterday." I don't have to tell you if they were a male or female friend. In French, however, I would say "J'ai rencontré avec un ami hier." Now you know they were a male friend. When I think about the situation in French I have to consider that when I speak. This does not mean, however, that the French have a stronger sense of gender in relationships. On the contrary, most Americans I know consider the gender of their friends when spending time with them. But they don't have to for them to speak correctly or to think about the situation in English.

From my understanding there are mixed opinions but I believe most say that, in general, our language does not limit our potential for thought. However, given that culture and language grew up together, our cultural values get imposed on our language. In many cultures it is not proper to use the word "no" directly. It's just rude. In English, however, we are taught to use this word and to be direct "No means no" and other such phrases come to us from our culture. And the thing is: our language attempts to be a reflection of our thoughts. It is our attempt to relay our thoughts to others. If you have ever tried to search for words to explain something then you understand that while language may not impact your ability to think it definitely impacts your ability to tell others what you are thinking.

An article in Scientific American comes to this conclusion:

But how do we know whether differences in language create differences in thought, or the other way around? The answer, it turns out, is both — the way we think influences the way we speak, but the influence also goes the other way... Studies have shown that changing how people talk changes how they think. Teaching people new color words, for instance, changes their ability to discriminate colors. And teaching people a new way of talking about time gives them a new way of thinking about it.

But I would argue that it isn't really the new words themselves that give people these thoughts. It is the thoughts behind the words they are being introduced to and their newfound ability to relay thoughts they may have already had, but were previously unable to speak about, that gives them these seemingly new thoughts. For example, I would never have thought about this color by relating it to kaya wood before I studied go. I would have just called it gold or maybe wheat colored. But learning something new gave me something new to say about that color.

Most evidence presented for or against this idea is anecdotal and until we have an objective way to measure thought patterns inside the human brain we can't say anything objective about how language impacts thought because all we know about another's thoughts comes from their language (be it spoken, written, or body language).

[leichtloeslich]

Let's start just by taking it as a fact that all great go players are Asian.

Ok, but that information is meaningless without the following piece of information:
The majority of go players lives in Asia, and all of the infrastructure to become a "really great" player is located in Asia: Europe/America don't have inseis and we certainly don't have a meaningful pro system yet.

So just going by these numbers, even if Asians were culturally/genetically handicapped at playing Go, you would still expect them to outperform the nations where Go is a niche sport even for hardcore nerds (i.e. the "West").

Before we start arguing about why, let's just say that one possible reason is that Asians think differently about the game than Westerners do.

Nah, I won't agree with that. Go strength is such a specific cognitive skill that I believe how we "think about the game" makes little to no difference.
Reading out complicated fights/judging a position in Go is a mental exercise akin to a physical exercise, yet you surely wouldn't suggest that maybe the best weightlifters/boxers/runners in the world are that good because they "think differently" about their respective sport.

[daal]

I can google as well as the next fellow, but instead of tossing academic studies at each other, let's ask ourselves if it seems plausible or not that the Asian dominance in high level go could be related tendency to think about the game differently than many Westerners.

Just to take things to the extreme for a moment - would anyone argue that all people perceive everything in the same way? Surely not. So may we for a moment draw back from the language-thought connection, and just say that different people think differently. We also know from our own experience that different people (take Robert Jasiek as a prominent example from our community) think about go differently than other people do. The way that comes naturally to me is without a doubt not the best way, and although I am not able to define what the good way entails, I am sure that it comes more naturally to some other people.

Why do some of you find it so implausible that what applies to individuals might also apply to groups of people that have something or other in common?

[Monadology]

I can google as well as the next fellow, but instead of tossing academic studies at each other, let's ask ourselves if it seems plausible or not that the Asian dominance in high level go could be related tendency to think about the game differently than many Westerners.

Just to take things to the extreme for a moment - would anyone argue that all people perceive everything in the same way? Surely not. So may we for a moment draw back from the language-thought connection, and just say that different people think differently. We also know from our own experience that different people (take Robert Jasiek as a prominent example from our community) think about go differently than other people do. The way that comes naturally to me is without a doubt not the best way, and although I am not able to define what the good way entails, I am sure that it comes more naturally to some other people.

Why do some of you find it so implausible that what applies to individuals might also apply to groups of people that have something or other in common?

One reason it's implausible is that if individuals often think differently within the same culture, then this is incompatible with an entire culture thinking differently from another culture but with all constituents thinking the same way. It's certainly in tension with the claim that most of them think in the same way. Another reason it's implausible is that people in this thread are appealing to linguistic differences, but if people think differently while speaking the same language, then it's clearly shown that language underdetermines how we think which greatly undermines its ability to help explain why a particular culture might all think the same way.

A further reason some of us are skeptical is probably because some of us aren't using the so-called "Western" style of thinking: isolating from context, oversimplifying explanations etc... Some of us are thinking of culture as highly complex, contextual and so not easily pinned down according to those generalizations. What exactly is "the East" as a cultural entity? China, Japan and Korea? Let's set aside all the problems with bundling those three nations together as if they had some sort of common fundamental culture (which is nonsense). Do we want to say that Japan is worse than China and Korea because they think more like Westerners now? How would you show that? What are the relevant ways of thinking and have they been shown to be prominent not only in Japanese people in general, but in Japanese Go players? You can't chalk it up to the post-war Westernization, since Japan was still a powerful force in Go for a long time after that. How to you exclude concerns about the popularity of the game and infrastructure as an explanation? If Japan's loss of dominance is not due to thinking about Go in a non-Eastern way, then why would we suppose that must be the explanation in the West?

EDIT: By the way, don't Japanese counter words often group things according to form and function? Isn't this a supposedly Western way of grouping things and aren't counter words going to be pretty fundamental to linguistic practices? I'm not super familiar with Japanese, so someone might be able to correct me.

[Boidhre]

Why do some of you find it so implausible that what applies to individuals might also apply to groups of people that have something or other in common?

Well no, but the point I'd agree with is rather trite. We don't see a mass of Japanese (or Irish) chess grandmasters but then we don't have much a chess culture in either country and no great nexus of chess players of very high strength either. Is it really surprising at all that a handful of Asian countries with the largest concentration of strong amateur players produces all the great professional players? Why do we need to bring up arguments about different thought processes? If you have the vast majority of strong players then it'd be rather odd that you didn't produce the vast majority of professionals no? I mean go is young and not particularly popular in the West, you don't need any differences in how we think to explain why there aren't top professional players. I mean, turning professional in go happens very young and it's not exactly going to appeal as a career option to most Western parents just to start with.

[daal]

Before we start arguing about why, let's just say that one possible reason is that Asians think differently about the game than Westerners do.

Nah, I won't agree with that. Go strength is such a specific cognitive skill that I believe how we "think about the game" makes little to no difference.
Reading out complicated fights/judging a position in Go is a mental exercise akin to a physical exercise, yet you surely wouldn't suggest that maybe the best weightlifters/boxers/runners in the world are that good because they "think differently" about their respective sport.

You won't even agree that it's a possible reason?

What do you mean by "specific cognitive skill?" Go seems to me a rather multi-faceted skill, and if it were only a matter of reading the computers would have left us behind long ago. Don't you think that different people think about the game differently?

As to your comparison with other sports, I don't really understand your point. Thinking isn't the defining skill in the sports you mention.

One reason it's implausible is that if individuals often think differently within the same culture, then this is incompatible with an entire culture thinking differently from another culture but with all constituents thinking the same way. It's certainly in tension with the claim that most of them think in the same way.

Is it? Women think differently from each other, but they do have some ways of thinking in common with each other that are different than the way men think, no?

Another reason it's implausible is that people in this thread are appealing to linguistic differences, but if people think differently while speaking the same language, then it's clearly shown that language underdetermines how we think which greatly undermines its ability to help explain why a particular culture might all think the same way.

I'm not sure about this either. When you point out that we of the same culture are thinking "differently" (not agreeing with one another?) then that might still be evidence that we are all just using a similar type of logic to prove differing points, but that we still share the way of making a point.

A further reason some of us are skeptical is probably because some of us aren't using the so-called "Western" style of thinking: isolating from context, oversimplifying explanations etc... Some of us are thinking of culture as highly complex, contextual and so not easily pinned down according to those generalizations.

Fun point!

What exactly is "the East" as a cultural entity? China, Japan and Korea? Let's set aside all the problems with bundling those three nations together as if they had some sort of common fundamental culture (which is nonsense).

Is it? I honestly don't know, but if we accept the premise that Western thought stems from the Greeks, we could at least say that Asian thought doesn't.

Do we want to say that Japan is worse than China and Korea because they think more like Westerners now? How would you show that? What are the relevant ways of thinking and have they been shown to be prominent not only in Japanese people in general, but in Japanese Go players? You can't chalk it up to the post-war Westernization, since Japan was still a powerful force in Go for a long time after that. How to you exclude concerns about the popularity of the game and infrastructure as an explanation? If Japan's loss of dominance is not due to thinking about Go in a non-Eastern way, then why would we suppose that must be the explanation in the West?

The fact that Japan no longer dominates does not indicate to me that they are playing bad go, but rather that the great go that they play has been surpassed by even better go by Koreans and Japanese. I agree with all of you who suggest that it's natural that if a game is a national passtime, that that nation will likely produce better players than another, but don't things become national passtimes because parts of the population excel at them?

We don't see a mass of Japanese (or Irish) chess grandmasters but then we don't have much a chess culture in either country and no great nexus of chess players of very high strength either. Is it really surprising at all that a handful of Asian countries with the largest concentration of strong amateur players produces all the great professional players? Why do we need to bring up arguments about different thought processes?

Because it might hold a key to playing better go.

[leichtloeslich]

As to your comparison with other sports, I don't really understand your point. Thinking isn't the defining skill in the sports you mention.

"Thinking" isn't the defining skill in Go, either. An intellectual who has never played the game will be just as bad as anyone else who has never played.
In fact, the intellectual, by virtue of being an adult, will probably be worse than a child who just started playing.
The defining skill in playing Go is "playing Go".

Go seems to me a rather multi-faceted skill, and if it were only a matter of reading the computers would have left us behind long ago.

I don't see how that statement corresponds to reality, seeing as even the strongest bots currently get completely tactically owned by even the lowest ranked pros (on 19x19 at least).

[Monadology]

One reason it's implausible is that if individuals often think differently within the same culture, then this is incompatible with an entire culture thinking differently from another culture but with all constituents thinking the same way. It's certainly in tension with the claim that most of them think in the same way.

Is it? Women think differently from each other, but they do have some ways of thinking in common with each other that are different than the way men think, no?

I wouldn't accept this claim. It's not my experience. I would accept the claim that women often have similar sorts of experiences due to being grouped under a highly essentialized label and are pushed, culturally, towards thinking about certain things more frequently then others, but I take neither of these to constitute ways of thinking in any deep sense.

Another reason it's implausible is that people in this thread are appealing to linguistic differences, but if people think differently while speaking the same language, then it's clearly shown that language underdetermines how we think which greatly undermines its ability to help explain why a particular culture might all think the same way.

I'm not sure about this either. When you point out that we of the same culture are thinking "differently" (not agreeing with one another?) then that might still be evidence that we are all just using a similar type of logic to prove differing points, but that we still share the way of making a point.

I'm not sure how that counts as evidence for the claim that we're all using the same fundamental logic to come to different conclusions. It is compatible with that hypothesis, though. The difficulty is that the analogy between how individuals think differently and how cultures do no longer holds, because cultures are the bearers of different logics but individuals are merely the bearers of different conclusions (and different logics only to the extent that they belong to a culture or the like). So then you can't appeal to the way individuals think differently to make it plausible that cultures do. In fact, you would now have to show why we shouldn't accept the conclusion that ALL humans think according to the same logic, and cultural differences are just tendencies to make certain points with that logic that other cultures don't.

What exactly is "the East" as a cultural entity? China, Japan and Korea? Let's set aside all the problems with bundling those three nations together as if they had some sort of common fundamental culture (which is nonsense).

Is it? I honestly don't know, but if we accept the premise that Western thought stems from the Greeks, we could at least say that Asian thought doesn't.

Sure, but does Asian thought stem from some sort of common source in a way that justifies thinking anything falls under the general label "Asian thought"? I also think we also have to be careful about claiming, straightforwardly, that Western thought stems from the Greeks. It also has deep roots in the Judeo-Christian religious tradition and, more recently, developments such as the Enlightenment. Neither of these are mere inheritances of Greek thought (not that Greek thought was itself homogeneous).

Do we want to say that Japan is worse than China and Korea because they think more like Westerners now? How would you show that? What are the relevant ways of thinking and have they been shown to be prominent not only in Japanese people in general, but in Japanese Go players? You can't chalk it up to the post-war Westernization, since Japan was still a powerful force in Go for a long time after that. How to you exclude concerns about the popularity of the game and infrastructure as an explanation? If Japan's loss of dominance is not due to thinking about Go in a non-Eastern way, then why would we suppose that must be the explanation in the West?

The fact that Japan no longer dominates does not indicate to me that they are playing bad go, but rather that the great go that they play has been surpassed by even better go by Koreans and Japanese. I agree with all of you who suggest that it's natural that if a game is a national passtime, that that nation will likely produce better players than another, but don't things become national passtimes because parts of the population excel at them?

Well, it's a bit of a chicken-and-egg on the surface, which suggests to me that the answer isn't obvious and probably isn't simple. That is, I think, at least my main problem with many of the suggestions in this thread that evoke East vs West dichotomies: the real story is a lot more complicated than the nice and neat Orientalist narrative being given.

[tchan001]

Try to find the natural way to express the below sentence in English.

하다가 잘 안돼도 언젠간 잘 되겠지 하고 해나가다 보면 잘 될 때도 있을거야 (While doing, not work well, thinking someday work well, keep doing, and see, work-well time may be.)

I am not a native English speaker but let me have a try.

During your life/work/study/etc., things can go bad, but if you keep trying with hope in your mind, someday your time will come.


Look how I used the nouns in bold case to express my thought. In English, I believe nouns do have an important role in sentences. Comparing with the Korean version may clarify.

[edit]
To expand this idea a little. Nouns are about each things itself while verbs are about the relations between such things.
[/edit]

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

or just:
Try, try again.

[Dusk Eagle]

It could be that the reason Canada is so good at hockey and Jamaica not so good is because of the way we think about life. But it's more likely that the main reason Canada is so much better than tropical countries at hockey is because there are a lot more players in Canada and a lot more interest and funding in the sport.

To me, this is the main problem with your argument. You seem to be ignoring all of the obvious and rather indisputable factors that cause China, Japan, and Korea to be better at Go, and are proposing an alternative hypothesis. But your hypothesis doesn't explain anything that is not already explained by existing factors and so far no evidence has been offered to support the hypothesis. It's not enough for something to be possible - it's possible Russell's Orbiting Teapot exists - the hypothesis must either explain something previously unexplained or have evidence backing it up in order for it to have value (and only the latter says anything about its truth value).

As a possible example of evidence that could back your hypothesis up, gather groups of two players, both relatively strong and of about equal strength, one of whom was raised in the East and the other the West. Ask them to evaluate a set of positions and explain their thinking. Then ask a player stronger than both of them which one has a better understanding of the position. If you could show that repeatedly the Eastern player is evaluated to have a better understanding of the position than his Western counterpart, it would lend weight to your argument.