Table- a wooden thing with four wooden legs

  Language is vague. We might want to say in Spanish that we love someone we say te quiero we also mean I choose you. Many other examples of ambiguity of language may be risen form different languages which prove that every language is vague. One world can mean two different things and it can cause discord between people. As we know, language is based on generalisations. We know how the table should look like so we name nearly any wooden object with four legs a table. 

Generalisations make our lives easier, so we do not need to say that we see a wooden thing with four wooden legs, we simply assume that it is a table. Thus on the one hand generalisations facilitates humans' communication but on the other hand it can make it more difficult and cause discord. From this assumption the question may arise: To what extend generalisations are helpful and when they are simply obstacles? Obviously, we would not be able to function in every-day life with simple generalisations of objects and many phenomenons. If we assume that walking in the rain makes our clothes wet and we can get cold after such walk, thinking that maybe this time rain is different and may instead of making us soaked with water will heal our illnesses, firstly is not useful and secondly it is just a simple lie. However when it comes to for example judging people based on their appearance using our own generalisations it is in most cases we might be wrong. Take an example this young man.  Take a quick look at him:

He wears some dirty, oversized clothes and his room does not look like a friendly place. At that moment we use our generalisations. Maybe we know or knew someone look alike and we know from our experience that is was not a friendly or successful person, so we mistakenly judge a stranger based on the people we know. But in fact this messy boy we would say, is now one of the most successful twenty-year-olds -Mark Zuckerberg the founder of Facebook!

There is no denial that generalisations are important and even necessary in our lives, but when it comes to more complicated and valid judgements like judging a person or stating a scientific law it is crucial to at least try to put our prejudices and generalisations down (because we cannot look at the reality without our past experiences- it is nearly impossible to be 100% objective).

I'll see you next week,

Alicia