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# What Do You Believe That You Cannot Prove?
- URL: https://katecarruthers.com/what-do-you-believe-that-you-cannot-prove/
- Published: 2005-08-19T22:00:18.000Z
- Updated: 2026-07-08T22:06:57.000Z
- Author: Kate Carruthers
- Tags: ideas, life, society, #Migrated-1775015344493, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-04-01 14:49

There is some really thought provoking stuff over at esr.ibiblio.org - Armed & Dangerous - (esr.ibiblio.org/index.php?p=184 full story here), an excerpt follows below:

> "I believe, but don?’t know how to prove, a much stronger version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis than is currently fashionable. That is, I believe the way humans think is shaped in important ways by the linguistic categories they have available; thinking outside those categories is possible but more difficult, has higher friction costs. Accordingly, I believe that some derivation of Alfred Korzybski?’s discipline of General Semantics will eventually emerge as an essential tool of the first mature human civilizations."