Language and the limits of reason

From computer science prof Noson S. Yanofsky at Nautilus:

Rather than jumping headfirst into the limitations of reason, let us start by just getting our toes wet and examining the limitations of language. Language is a tool used to describe the world in which we live. However, don’t confuse the map with the territory! There is one major difference between the world we live in and language: Whereas the real world is free of contradictions, the man-made linguistic descriptions of that world can have contradictions. More.

And yet, despite the paradoxes, language has enabled us to make sense of the world, more or less.

See also: Can we talk? Language as the business end of consciousness

and

Evolution bred a sense of reality out of us (no)

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