@slop slinger i have a philosophy question for you

[Altruist]

specifically, it is the development of language that has led to the illusion of consciousness. words allow for a belief in a continuous 'self', and can provide 'rational explanations' for behavior that had its origins entirely in the subconscious 

it's ironic (given the thread's title) that much of philosophy is founded on the belief that language offers 'objective insight into reality'. thankfully, modern philosophy has drifted in the other direction.

correct.

we are taking words for granted and assume the meaning we assigned to them automatically perfectly translates to some "value" or "property" of reality. that's obviously wrong, because language is a useful approximation at best. that's why i cringe at the religious "god has to exist because we couldn't have come from nothing" nonsense - "nothing" means jack shit in nature, even humans know it at this point of development