Can language describe reality? with Nick Enfield

This episode is with Nick Enfield. He is a Professor of Linguistics at the University of Sydney. Nick's research on language, culture, cognition and social life is based on long term field work in mainland Southeast Asia, especially Laos. His books include Natural Causes of Language, Distributed Agency, and How We Talk. His latest book is 'Language vs Reality: Why language is good for lawyers and bad for scientists' In this conversation we talk about evolution of language and How well it can describe reality?, Can language nudge our thoughts?, Maths as a language, evolution of human reason and rationality.  Guest info: Website: http://nickenfield.org/ Google scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ZZ6woWgAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra Twitter: https://twitter.com/njenfield?s=20&t=rt6kyVo-IRUsdRu1Q4_W7g Episode links:   Website:  https://www.reasonwithscience.com/home/can-language-describe-reality-with-nick-enfield  Youtube: https://youtu.be/lWzE55QeVDc  Spotify:  https://open.spotify.com/episode/2Hc9rPQQKHeboy2TINF0ik?si=ifgkA1KxSoCGM4qS0U4iqQ  Apple podcast:  https://podcastsconnect.apple.com/my-podcasts/show/reason-with-science/407cd478-4271-4319-8318-fc378d4e7ccb/episode/can-language-describe-reality-with-nick-enfield/dc89efc0-0bf4-4e35-85c2-f740fae73591  Google podcast:   https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9iMjMyNDZlOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw/episode/M2YyNTFjOTktNzZjMy00Y2Q3LWFhOTAtYzNhOGIzZmI0NDg2?sa=X&ved=0CAUQkfYCahcKEwj4w-iF0L76AhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAQ Follow Reason with Science:   Website: https://www.reasonwithscience.com/   Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/reasonwithscience   Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5qFLGsPWjL4GAGidmF2nKh   Apple podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/reason-with-science/id1641776894   Google podcast: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9hbmNob3IuZm0vcy9iMjMyNDZlOC9wb2RjYXN0L3Jzcw Timestamps:  00:00:00 Introduction  00:01:07 What is language?   00:04:01 When does a communication system becomes a language?  00:08:02 How language got started?   00:13:31 Do sapiens have an advantage which helped us to start a language?  00:17:30 Language is too blunt for scientists and good for lawyers   00:23:40 We simplify the complexity of the world  00:28:23 Why language was evolved?  00:30:52 On Donald Hoffman's work  00:35:36 Brute reality and social reality  00:36:59 Yuval Harrari's imagined reality   00:40:38 Power of all the languages  00:44:29 Language in an AI society  00:47:25 Complexity of a language  00:56:18 Can complexity of a language affect psychology?    01:00:08 Sapira-Whorf hypothesis  01:04:07 Co-evolution and evolution of languages   01:08:05 Desmond Morris' work on neoteny  01:10:54 Purpose of a language  01:16:04 Rationality, reasoning and language   01:22:35 Truth and rationality  01:27:45 Fighting misinformation 01:30:19 Confirmation bias  01:31:55 Should we care if a language is dying?  01:38:06 Is mathematics a language?  01:44:26 Thank you!   #reasonwithscience #languages #evolution