streaming consciousness…

Tagged: thought Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

• 

  hardie karges 3:45 am on November 10, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: language ( 145 ), thought   

  Much has also been made of the inherent propensities for language 

  which seem to be specific only to humans, without ever stating exactly what these properties are, much less how they are transmitted. I’d probably estimate that language is more of an invention that an inheritance, but that something is likely inherited that underlies language, probably the logic or causality of it. In Asian languages ‘here’ and ‘now’ are frequently variations of the same word, sound, morpheme, phoneme, whatever, as are ‘then’ and ‘there’, so maybe that sort of equivalence and general space-time coordination is inherent. Maybe the sentence structure of subject-verb-object is the ‘innate idea’ of language that’s inherited, regardless of how long it’s taken some languages to make that explicit. The central idea of an ‘I’ acting on ‘them’ is easily intuited, but the idea of a ‘they’ acting on ‘them’, rather than a ‘them’ somehow attracting the attentions of another, may be equally inherent, at least in this expansive phase of the Big Bang universe. During the Big Squeeze, if everything we experience happens all over again except in reverse order, then logic may indeed be similarly reversed, and guns may indeed suck the bullets out of bodies, with no apparent violation of causality. Nevertheless, all this may very well be the first thing a child learns in this world, even before speech, but not inherited. Language is an invention. Though perhaps bound to happen, hominids were nevertheless without it for most of their history, as they proceeded to tame fire, use tools, and bury their dead.

   

  Reply Cancel reply

  Required fields are marked *

  Name *

  Email *

  Website

  Notify me of new comments via email.

  Notify me of new posts via email.

  Δ

• 

  hardie karges 7:55 am on November 9, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: EVOLUTION ( 20 ), language ( 145 ), thought   

  The history of language is a family tree that maybe began with a single stalk. 

  They say that 5% of any two languages will show similarities, as if that proves the insignificance of any similarities when in fact it may show just the opposite. They may well have all derived from just a very few, maybe just one. Don’t be surprised if that evolution parallels the evolution of homo sapiens sapiens themselves, if not directly, then by analogy. Whether there is any direct connection between language and DNA or not, they seem to function similarly in how they evolve over time. Much is made of the fact that homos are the only species that can speak, then going into elaborate explanations of the human vocal chords having worked their way deep into the throat for proper enunciation of modern languages. All this seems a bit anthropocentric to me, diminishing if not outright ignoring or rejecting the fact that communication can be equally, if not more, effective in other ways. If anything, humans’ own writing systems are more articulate than the speech they represent, but which may never actually be vocalized, particularly in the case of mathematical equations. Beyond the human sphere, other animals convey rather complex information, which, while it cannot be properly regarded as speech, is certainly a form of communication, i.e. transfer of information.
   
• 

  hardie karges 5:28 am on November 6, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: language ( 145 ), thought   

  The ‘mentalese’ the Chomskyans are looking for, is likely thought itself. 

  That’s not language properly speaking, and applies to lower animals, as well. Once we have language, we proceed to think in it, but that doesn’t mean that we couldn’t think without it. The idea that, since all languages are so similar, and since all children learn them so easily, then there must be an underlying ‘mental language’, makes a few non-provable conclusions based on a few non-provable assumptions, though it may fall short of outright begging the question. For one thing, though I love kids, their linguistic prowess is not impressive to me. Think what you might do if you had one-on-one instruction every day for four or five years with literally nothing else to occupy your mind and everything to gain for your efforts. Secondly, since when are all languages so similar? They may indeed all be coming closer together whether because of international English or the simple logic and proven effectiveness of S-V-O word order, but that is recent and tentative. There is a much longer history of languages categorized as synthetic/analytical, inflected, or agglutinative. There may be an even earlier period when languages were more similar. Nevertheless, if languages are indeed similar, there may be an even better reason for the phenomenon. They may all derive ultimately from the same parent language before they literally went separate ways.

   
• 

  hardie karges 4:00 am on November 5, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: language ( 145 ), thought   

  The only thing universal to all languages 

  are symbols corresponding to things and actions, nouns and verbs utilizing consonants and vowels, whether explicit or implicit, in some prescribed order based on internal rules of logic. The only thing universal to all thought, human or not, linguistic or not, would seem to be things and actions ordered by chronology, and therefore tentative causality, Pavlovian stimulus-response-reward mechanisms. The act of perception itself must proceed through many phases from inception through its subsequent development, depending on the complexity of the organism being discussed, analogous to the capabilities of a nerve ending itself: pain, pressure, hot, and cold at the local level. In complex multi-celled organisms, this quickly expands into sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch, a whole world of perception. When this swirl becomes categorized into actions and things, we cross over into thought, replete with chronology and causality. Once we abstract that thought with symbols, we have language. So mankind proceeds, from infant to sage, from past to present, from perception to thought to language.

   
• 

  hardie karges 5:41 am on November 4, 2008 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: language ( 145 ), thought   

  Causality seems to be intrinsic to human thought and by extension, language. 

  
  This would follow directly from chronology, the ordering of events by order of their appearance. The ‘mentalese’ language that underlies all formal language that Chomsky and his disciples are looking for is probably mathematical, as in logic, inference, the basic assumption that if one event precedes another directly and seamlessly, then it is likely the cause. While this may not be language in the strict sense, nor even always accurate, it may nevertheless underlie it at any level beyond the simple naming of objects. S-V-O word order may derive from this at the earliest stages of consciousness, empty minds hungry to be fed, form looking for content beyond the mother’s breast. But I doubt it. That ‘s merely our arrogance, assuming we’ve always been the rational animal, full of logic and reckoning. To assume that an object was acted upon by unknown actors with unclear antecedents for unknown causes would be to live in a world of magic and superstition, religion and showmanship. Bingo. Welcome to America, bastion of science and modern technology. Even more so the rest of the world, where the passive reflexivity heretofore described is intrinsic to much spoken language, especially in the Spanish of Latin America. Go figure. When combined with subjunctive moods and conditional aspects, you might even forget your own primacy in the equation, which is what a sentence is. In many countries the subject of a sentence can even be understood or assumed, not indicated or reiterated, and therefore weakened, a verb and object sufficing for comprehension.