Language; the Human Condition (Full Version)

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charmdpetKeira -> Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 7:26:47 AM)

One of the biggest changes in my life has come from recognizing language triggered, emotional responses; words and phrases that set people off. From my observations, I have deduced, the situation happens when a person reacts to something someone else says, according to their own perceived experiences, instead of an unbiased assasment of the facts, of the situation at hand.
 
Then there is the idea that words can hurt you. I do not argue the point, as much as I do the insinuation that other peoples intent in choosing their words is what hurts.
 
On top of that, a friend of mine posed a question to me, if I remember correctly, something like, “If it takes language to have a thought, how much are we limited by it?”
 
This idea has been stuck in my head since; undecided on how much language matters; or perhaps better said, in what context.
 
So, in an attempt to further my thinking, I ask for thoughts on whether or not language is limiting. If so, how, and what are ways to overcome said limitations?
 
Thank you in advanced.
 
Sincerely,
 
k



pahunkboy -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 7:44:52 AM)

 The key is to age with grace, elegance and dignity...and lack of bitterness. I dislike the bitter part of me.



charmdpetKeira -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 7:51:59 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: pahunkboy

The key is to age with grace, elegance and dignity...and lack of bitterness. I dislike the bitter part of me.


Hello, PaHB
 
Interesting response; may I ask what part of my post inspired the highlighted portion of yours? Perhaps the “words can hurt” section?
 
k



LadyEllen -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 8:07:59 AM)

Yes, language is limiting - its clear that if one lacks a sufficient vocabulary to express exactly what one means, then this will be a limiting factor in conveying one's thoughts.

And its equally clear that if one's correspondent lacks knowledge of the vocabulary one is using, the opportunity for communication is also limited.

But even if one has knowledge and use of the entire vocabulary of English, one can still be limited in expression if there are no words for that which one wishes to convey - the question is, can one have a thought which is of such a nature that it cannot be expressed in words, if one's thoughts are formulated in words in the first place?

This is where we move into the realm of what art is perhaps?

E



justdavid -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 8:39:44 AM)

It is the pleasure and curse of the human condition and I enjoyed the title to the thread.

It is what it is often in life and if words hurt someone then they in fact hurt. A lot of time and energy is wasted in life by getting up on soap boxes trying to get other human beings to behave in ways that one is in agreement with.

I think language is limiting but not as much as the language itself but how people use and interpret it. We do not take time to think what we write and will often color it with aggressive and absolute type words and phrases. When talking we will use gestures to emphasize or deflate the seriousness of the words out of our mouths.

I am studying Buddhism and they have a big concept called attachment. Which is, and I am summarizing and butchering this, assigning false qualities and attributes to things. This is what we often see when people personalize what another has said or written. So someone saying they dislike crude humor a person hearing that who uses crude humor gets hurt and thinks the other person does not like them. That is attachment. The fact is probably the person just does not laugh at crude humor but has not judged anyone who does at all.

In the end the problem and solution starts and ends with the individual. Too many look outward at others to change, know inherently their issues or behave to their standards that are based on personal experiences. This is wrong and we have to look inward and treat people with logic, reason and effort in how we would like to be given the same. So language is limiting because we do not put the effort of thought behind it often and expect the receivers of our language to just get it and vice versa.



Termyn8or -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 9:48:07 AM)

Some of youse people seem to be as smart as me. Dammit, I was just getting to enjoy being the guru.

I would have to say that ideas do not require language. The history of the world tells me that. When Og or whoever invented the wheel they had no word for it. In fact it had not been concieved.

But then define language. When dogs bark at each other is that language ?

I'll throw an analogy out there that may serve to illustrate the point. Math without numbers.

This means more than just algebraic equations using letters, because those letters do represent numbers. In fact algebra and calculus can be considered the language of mathematics. They are representations of concepts. We learn that language so as to learn the concepts.

But the understanding can be there without it.

Ohm's law, thought of as a human invention by many in the electronics field, is not. It is simply a representation of the laws of physics. One volt applied to one ohm will pass a current of one amp. Where those variables appear in the formula tell you the relationship. But that is not the concept, it is merely a representation of the concept.

If I look into a largescreen TV and find a 100,000 ohm 1 watt resistor burnt up I know it took alot of voltage to do it. I do not need to figure it out on a calculator just how much. It would take 100,000 volts to make one amp flow, but then that would result in 100,000 watts being disipated.

Almost everyone can concieve that if you put the fulcrum of a lever closer to the load you gain more mechanical advantage, and that you trade off range of motion for that. If you are out on the job and you use a lever, you might never calculate the exact mechanical advantage of the lever, all you need to know is that is was enough.

I have said before, possibly not on this forum, but definitely somewhere, that language is a tool. This was actually telling someone to improve, but I did not want to insult.

Language is a tool for expressing ideas. Like any tool it works best if used properly. I try, with varying degrees of success, to do so. But I am also cognizant of the fact the English is not the de facto standard across the globe.

I doubt many people are aware that English became the official language of the US by one vote. The other choice was German. The teensy little bit of German I know tells me that it is a very rich language. It is more concise and precise than English. They can convey in one word what would take us two sentences. They have a forty three letter word that means "tri-cellular combustion chamber". Yes I realize that it's only twenty seven letters in English, but what got lost in the translation ?

If I had it to do all over again I would learn as many languages as possible. Americans are pitifully disadvantaged when it comes to language. In some cases even our own. But I am not going to go off on that at this time.

If I had a kid I would impel them to learn at least three languages. English of course, and whatever hopefully German so they can teach me, and at least one that uses a pictorial alphabet (alphabet might not be quite the right word here) like Chinese. In Chinese one character is a concept, in a way a word.

In English most people have a phonetic interpretation of what they read, that may be different in Chinese. I do not do it, but alot of people do. This is not quite moving their lips when they read, but close.

I have seen the Arabic version of Windows 98. The start button is on the right, and the little _, [] and X are at the upper left.

What was that movie ? Dammit ! In it a guy from Earth gets stranded on a planet, there he meets someone who is a slave. I think he took to calling him Friday I think, who had cuffs on his wrists that would attract and stick to each other when the spaceship came. They also apparently acted like a homing device. The cuffs were permanent but only restrained when the masters flipped the switch. Our guy eventually made something with which to cut those cuffs off of Friday and they lived as friends for a time. The beings in the spaceship could no longer find their lost slave, I suppose they just called their insurance company.

While those permanent cuffs are intriguing to a bondage freak like me, that was not the most interesting thing about the movie. What got my attention was watching the trials and tribulations of them trying to understand one another. And being the geocentric people that we are (if that) of course the other guy has to learn some English.

But then that does make some sense. English is one of the easiest languages to learn. It is actually possible that we use it because we are lazy, those of us who do anyway.

I will go now, this is long enough. I'll be back unless tomorrow I find there are 13,576 replies.

Oh wait, I'll have to check anyway in case someone knows the name of the movie. I'd like to buy or download it. It was not very interesting for most of my crowd back then, in our twenties, but the language aspect of it intrigued me, but that's me.

Anybody got a clue what the movie was ? I would actually pay money for it, DVD or tape. It would be nice to see it again.

T



CuriousLord -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 9:56:36 AM)

The idea that language defines thought has been long discredited (by people studying cross-cultures), though I'm unsure as to how scientific this sort of investigation was.



charmdpetKeira -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 10:14:23 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

Yes, language is limiting - its clear that if one lacks a sufficient vocabulary to express exactly what one means, then this will be a limiting factor in conveying one's thoughts.

And its equally clear that if one's correspondent lacks knowledge of the vocabulary one is using, the opportunity for communication is also limited.


I agree, and admit I am limited in this very way. I also think a lack of social experience can cause limitations, because of the way the meaning of words change to suit the times.

My interests are particularly strong in how people respond to other people’s seemingly “venomous words”, due to their perception of their perceived experiences. It seems as though, at such times, vocabulary itself becomes near obsolete in the interpretation of the message.

quote:

the question is, can one have a thought which is of such a nature that it cannot be expressed in words, if one's thoughts are formulated in words in the first place?


I’m under the impression, if words are expressed thoughts, without words, there is no thought; only experience.

quote:

This is where we move into the realm of what art is perhaps?


especially how it started; seems reasonable.
 
k



seeksfemslave -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 10:28:48 AM)

I think the question should be does language limit conceptual thought and I believe the answer is Yes.
I bet there wasnt much change in the human condition until language had developed.

Thus as a primitive I just get the idea to search around the mountain for food with no mental linguistics.
If I wanted to blow the mountain up then I think much verbal/linguistic mental activity would be required
.
Thats the first post I've ever made where I wasnt sure I was right lol

In the threat scenario language is not required It is more the physical posturing coupled with verbal aggression that enables the the transmitted message to be received.
Why feelings are hurt is a conundrum for Evolutonists 'cos it clearly gives no survival advantage. I'm sure that wont worry 'em.



CuriousLord -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 10:48:10 AM)

I wouldn't say "limit" so much as "focuses" thought.  By focusing it in particular areas, it does tend to ignore others for people.

Many people simply can't capable (or do not display the capacity for) of free thought.  As such, they rely on concepts forced on them- often by language- as basis for thought.  For someone who only uses concepts and thought processes forced on them and taught ot them by language, one may see the limits of the language as limits for the individual's thought.

However, I can readily tell you that I have a vast amount of knowledge that I'm not even sure how to put into words; as such, I can assure others that language has not limited me from such knowledge, even if it hasn't led me to it.  If I have relied on lingustic thought, it's likely I may've never come to most of such knowledge.  I've observed such thought in others, too, typically concerning emotions such as love.  Emotions are another thing people often think about, and they don't need language to force themselves on people.

So I believe that the capacity for free thought is there in people, although many perfer not to use much of the time; thoughts are then limited to what is forced on the person, such as thoughts needed for communication and emotions.  As communication is a big part, and often overlaps with emotions, this can give the appearence of language limiting emotion.

---

This said, Math is a fine language.  There are thoughts and ideas expressed in Mathematical syntax and structure that no other language could so finely express.



Aswad -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 10:51:19 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: LadyEllen

But even if one has knowledge and use of the entire vocabulary of English, one can still be limited in expression if there are no words for that which one wishes to convey - the question is, can one have a thought which is of such a nature that it cannot be expressed in words, if one's thoughts are formulated in words in the first place?


The highlighted portion is the clue. I formulate some thoughts in words, out of habit. But some of my thoughts can't even be touched on by words, while the majority of the interesting ones are possible to make passes at, at least, and the trivial ones are easily put into words. Most people do subvocalize the bulk of their structured thoughts, if memory serves. As long as one is able to seperate words and thought, though, the Safir-Worf hypothesis falls out the window, to some extent. Which is not to say we should throw the baby out witth the bathwater, either. Clearly, words exert some influence on our thoughts, and vice versa. But the trouble with scientists is that a lot of them have tunnel-vision, only seeing their one theory, and seeing it all in black and white.

A certain tribal community serves as a good example. They spent months trying to learn to count and to add numbers. Nobody could get past 10 with regard to counting. None could learn to add two plus two. When counting the items on a table, they'd average about five, which is the number used for testing. But the individual guesses at the number of items on the table were rarely correct, just the averages. Can't recall the exact set of tests used, but you get the idea.

Health,
al-Aswad.



TethersEnd -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 10:56:57 AM)

I have found language limiting due to perspective. 
We say something from our perspective and it's heard by the other in theirs. 
No matter how clear we are our words are only our words. 
(see my quote)  [:)]


`well hell, my quote isnt here!`
it should say.....  The problem with communication ... is the illusion that it has been accomplished.
~George Bernard Shaw



Aswad -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 11:14:06 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousLord

The idea that language defines thought has been long discredited (by people studying cross-cultures), though I'm unsure as to how scientific this sort of investigation was.


Quick breakdown of what I seem to recall being the basics of it all:

Phonemes enter a rapid-fading buffer, and are parsed to morphemes that enter the working set. The working set has a defined size of about 7±2 elements. Items are aggregated quickly into higher-order sememes, but the stack depth can never exceed this. Sememe aggregation uses passive data from a central part of the brain, and combinators from a frontal part. There is a distinct difficulty involved in dealing with nested negation, and people who do not seperate connnotative data from denotative data, or who do not have an inventory of small, coherent and orthogonal units to build from, will thus be severely limited in the precision of the expressable semantics, due to the necessity of complex set operations in extracting parts of units (these need stack space, as they are not yet learned and thus don't have cognitive "symbols" to act as references, etc.). Finished semantics can be passed through the HSM algorithms in the neocortical columns. What they do from there, if anything, is anyone's guess.

Now, there are certain key bottlenecks in this process.

If you can get it to the HSM stage, it's a matter of how fast we can deal with it, but actually getting it that far depends on the ability to compile the input. If the stack depth is overrun, you lose. If there are no combinators that can collapse elements on the stack, its size is effectively limited. Negation is taxing for most, particularly when nested. A mind that has much passive data, but few combinators, will be more limited than one that has less passive data, but more combinators. Multiplicative power difference, not additive.

This, in turn, has an effect on the acquisition of further data.

In the end, languages are critical in acquisition of certain forms of data, and are rather formative in this regard. Not just in terms of the verbally expressible range of concepts, but also in terms of culture and morals, as these are input and learned through the exact same pathways, and processed and analysed by the same systems. Aversive conditioning and saliency pass through a different circuit, but higher order morals go through this one. Empathy and motional input is connected, but has alternate routes as well, so doesn't depend as much on it.

That was probably not clear to all, but a cognitive linguist can prolly improve on it, hence I didn't PM it.

Health,
al-Aswad.



Aswad -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 11:22:51 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousLord

I wouldn't say "limit" so much as "focuses" thought.


Quite so. Also, I'd note that language allows us to construct a framework.

We just have to be willing to take down the scaffolding when the wall is done.

quote:

There are thoughts and ideas expressed in Mathematical syntax and structure that no other language could so finely express.


Not that anyone will pick it up, but I am trying to extract the most important combinators (i.e. operators) from mathematics for my little conlang project (another hobby of mine). Also trying to bring over a few ideas from the failed Ladaan conlang to deal better with the differences in expression between men and women (convergent expression; i.e. human language, as opposed to male or female), and generally nailing functionally useable orthogonality into it. Might be of interest to you. I'd sure like your input on fundamentals.

Minor digression, though. [:D]

Health,
al-Aswad.



Aswad -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 11:37:29 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: TethersEnd

I have found language limiting due to perspective.  We say something from our perspective and it's heard by the other in theirs. 


This is first and foremost for two reasons, I think:

(a) When most people communicate, it is result-oriented. The payload is a desired reaction or response. What a certain autist coined the Response-Predictor model of communication. This is what is colloquially known as manipulation, which is really a term that deals with a negative response to communication of this sort, often brought on by malicious communication or undesired outcomes. Contrast it to the Simple model, where the payload is just information. Aspies and autists tend more toward that mode. With the people I prefer to communicate with, I use it. We just sync up or put our brains together to process a problem. The miscommunication is a fraction of the normal rate.

(b) When most people communicate, they primarily use words for their connotations, rather than their denotations. It follows from the former point, as denotations are the tip of the iceberg. Connotations get the job done: they elicit the response. The problem being that connotations are also a lot more variable than denotations, and so the error rate is much higher.

In short::
...when the goal isn't primarily to communicate...
...and words are primarily used for something other than their meaning...
...well... how can one expect anything but errors in communication?

It's surprising it works as well as it does.

Health,
al-Aswad.



CuriousLord -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 12:00:01 PM)

I have to tell you, it's amazing how you remember these things.  All my memories of these sorts of things are vague notions; even the vocabulary feels alien, yet you're so able to use it!

If I recall, the 5:9 elements of memory were pointers, in some respect?  I've often wondered if the pointers could simply contain analytical data to be tried against a larger function.. that the handling of even relatively large thoughts could be handled by performing operations (such as the linear set) on thoughts as appropriate.  This seems to speak to me largely in the way people handle things, as the constant and linear assumptions seem to be strongly dominant in human thought.  Diminishing/accelerating returns seems to be applied vaguely to linear thoughts to approximately handle non-linear nature.

I'd agree that words and language are means for thought.  I feel that those bits are pointers to concepts and information, and much of that information that they could point to would have been already catilogged for the sake of language use; that it makes for a convinient database for thought to refer to.

For the sake of this topic, it's my feeling that words can be used as targets for these pointers, and that language can be seen as limitting in the instances in which individuals' mental libraries are largely composed of only lingustic and emotional concepts, as I feel is the approximate case for many.  However, I do feel it's entirely possible to have unusual and non-lingustically based functions, definitions, and perhaps even types of pointers.   ('types of pointers' referring to different methods of pointers being used, such as between pointers to numbers and to pictures, the types of things that they can hold, etc.)

All of this said, I feel you're far more studied on the subject, so I'd have to ask you to point out any bits where science or established assumption seem to contradict my assupmtions.  And no worries about here as opposed to PM's; I'm typically a fan of more public discussion.  :)



charmdpetKeira -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 12:36:41 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: justdavid

It is the pleasure and curse of the human condition and I enjoyed the title to the thread.


Thank you. Just kind of came to me. :)
 
I agree largely, if not completely with what you are saying. I have to ask; are we in agreement that the words of another can only hurt us, if we make them personal to us?
 
The problem I am experiencing in having this knowledge; it appears to have made it that much more difficult for me to communicate with others.
 
K



justdavid -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 1:57:49 PM)


quote:

ORIGINAL: charmdpetKeira

quote:

ORIGINAL: justdavid

It is the pleasure and curse of the human condition and I enjoyed the title to the thread.


Thank you. Just kind of came to me. :)
 
I agree largely, if not completely with what you are saying. I have to ask; are we in agreement that the words of another can only hurt us, if we make them personal to us?
 
The problem I am experiencing in having this knowledge; it appears to have made it that much more difficult for me to communicate with others.
 
K


We agree. Our emotions are not based on a logic program in our computer so if we get emotional about something it is simply because we do. The discussion most have is not that but clouded in irrelevant judgment of if the person was right or wrong to get emotional and if the person that caused them to is judged right or wrong if they should have communicated what caused it.

The truth is most of the time we do not want to hurt anyone’s feelings especially when we have no idea what we wrote or said would cause such reaction. But we cannot control another’s emotional or non emotional response to most things that cause the reactions that we are referring to and it is not our responsibility. This is the basis of political correctness in terms of doing something based on the worst case scenario. But there is no such thing as what causes a worse case scenario because humans are all different and emotional beings.

In my opinion the best we can do is communicate in a manner that if we were writing ourselves we would not get upset by. Even then that is hard to do because often our true selves and perceived selves can be quite different. In the end our actions can only be judged by our true intention and the ability to not judge others. The results are just too impossible to control and selfish in our mind set to expect to control them. If we can do that then is to also understand that everyone in the end is responsible for their own actions and emotional outbursts are actions.




Aswad -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 2:11:15 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: CuriousLord

I have to tell you, it's amazing how you remember these things.


Thanks, but my memory is currently impaired to the point where I remember the names of 2 out of 4 grandparents. We're close.

quote:

All my memories of these sorts of things are vague notions; even the vocabulary feels alien, yet you're so able to use it!


Probably because I do use it. All too often. Pushes stuff over into the memories that are less heavily affected. And it's still vague. [:D]

quote:

If I recall, the 5:9 elements of memory were pointers, in some respect?


Objects, more like.
Properly, I think you could say they are contexts.
Combinators let you collapse two or more contexts into one complex context.
There does not seem to be an upper bound on the complexity or scope of a context, as far as I know.

quote:

I've often wondered if the pointers could simply contain analytical data to be tried against a larger function..


Revisit lambda calculus. Then frame it as a way to express the application of combinators to contexts.
How these contexts correspond to qualia and information, I couldn't hope to say for sure.
My best bet is ERC/HC representation, HSM representation, or both.

quote:

the handling of even relatively large thoughts could be handled by performing operations (such as the linear set) on thoughts as appropriate.


Thought experiment. Consider a cross between a democracy and a plutocracy. You've now applied a simple combinator to two huge datasets, and your mind can resolve myriad permutations to any level of detail supported by the source data. Lazy evaluation seems to occur, but that's understandable, as the alternative would probably be impaired reaction time. It should be apparent why it is that one can benefit significantly from serializing the context onto a whiteboard or into a paper, as well as why interacting with someone else is beneficial for pretty much everything except for individual atomic operations.

quote:

This seems to speak to me largely in the way people handle things, as the constant and linear assumptions seem to be strongly dominant in human thought.


Have a look at Lisp. Not McCarthy's original work, but the more modern stuff. Look at macros. Toy with the idea. It's not what the language can do that limits us, but how we use it. In computer programming, the Safir-Worf hypothesis is almost redundant. Every good programmer knows from empirical evidence two important facts: (a) a good programmer expresses thoughts in programming languages, rather than thinking in those languages, and (b) the languages used will have a significant impact on how a programmer is able to think about the problems to be solved. Or, as one hacker put it: even if you never write another line of Lisp code, you will be a better programmer for having learned it.

Simply put, the patterns we apply "instincively" are the ones we are used to applying. When we practice, we can expand that set. If we do not, the set stays the same. This determines what will appear self-evident, intuitive or reasonable, just as the commonly accessed data will appear to be common sense, familiar or consonant. Assumptions and patterns to our behaviour can be said to come down to a sort of "working set" of active data and combinators that we use constantly. Results that are not dissonant will not prompt further inspection, for the most part (out of adversity, strength). Much of this is at least somewhat speculative on my part, of course.

But the data would seem to fit, n'est-çe pas?

quote:

Diminishing/accelerating returns seems to be applied vaguely to linear thoughts to approximately handle non-linear nature.


Best fit works for you and me, although we both slip up. Familiar fit works for most.

"Good enough" applies as much to thinking as to work, and nature is the ultimate "government worker" at times.

quote:

I'd agree that words and language are means for thought.  I feel that those bits are pointers to concepts and information, and much of that information that they could point to would have been already catilogged for the sake of language use; that it makes for a convinient database for thought to refer to.


Thing is... from an evolutionary angle, it makes sense to reuse what is already there. We already had a hippocampal structure with entorhinal cortex. We already had a prefrontal cortex. We already had a neocortical structure. We already had a cingulate. These were already central elements of higher brain function. The entorhinal cortex already had a single, unified format for all sensory input, spatial-temporal state and so forth. Predictions were already being made over the data. Feedback was already in place to augment learning. All we needed was the introduction of a few additional areas in the brain. That originates the basic form of cognition.

Now, as we know, most people don't sit down and ponder their way into insanity, like Nietzsche did. Otherwise, this would be a far more logical world, or a far more insane one; take your pick. Similarly, we can assume that ancestors with cognition (but no language) did not originate such ideas as consciousness and so forth, although some probably did (and were likely frustrated at their peers for it). Some suggest that language started out with signs, then moved on to using our mouth in the same way, then progressed to a concept of phonemic speech, rather than gestural speech. At first, vowels, then vowel-consonant syllables, then VCV, then combinations. A bit of shorthand arose along the way to contract things (which is part of why we don't see oligosynthetic languages, I guess). And so on.

Kids will do this spontaneously, up to a certain age, if there's no external output, apart from the idea that they should communicate. For an interesting point-in-case, the first documented case of de novo natural language synthesis was recent. Nicaraguan sign language arose a few decades ago, when someone came up with the brilliant idea of taking a bunch of deaf kids with just a few rudimentary gestures each, and sticking them in a room together. It didn't take long for the vocabulary to reach hundreds of words and a definite syntax and grammar to emerge. Presumably, similar things could happen for a vocal language, but that requires starting a lot sooner, as they will otherwise have a very limited phonemic inventory (some sources indicate that K and G were held to be the same sound in Sumerian, for instance).

Anyway, develop enough concepts, and you will eventually gain a notion of a generic Other.

Even the old cavemen must have wondered... what is the complement of Other?

Thus a whole new world opens up, and the rest is history.

quote:

For the sake of this topic, it's my feeling that words can be used as targets for these pointers, and that language can be seen as limitting in the instances in which individuals' mental libraries are largely composed of only lingustic and emotional concepts, as I feel is the approximate case for many.  However, I do feel it's entirely possible to have unusual and non-lingustically based functions, definitions, and perhaps even types of pointers.   ('types of pointers' referring to different methods of pointers being used, such as between pointers to numbers and to pictures, the types of things that they can hold, etc.)


Move up a level of abstraction, as mentioned earlier. Combinators and contexts. Lambda calculus and set theory.

quote:

All of this said, I feel you're far more studied on the subject, so I'd have to ask you to point out any bits where science or established assumption seem to contradict my assupmtions.  And no worries about here as opposed to PM's; I'm typically a fan of more public discussion.  :)


I'm out of date on the science. Memory and cognition impairment, again, among other things.

Usually, my approach has been to read the basics of the science, then let it stew, come back to it later when my mind has sorted stuff out, then refresh, ponder it until I have a sort of mental model of things. Then I make predictions and test that against the science and my observations. Sometimes I supplement my idle thinking with a scientifically unsound tool: introspection. But in this area, I think I've speculated far past the point where I could find solid science to back it up, so I've had to rely on observation. Keep in mind, I'm doing this for my entertainment, not for research or whatever. Nobody dies if I'm wrong, unless a zealot hears about it.

Last I heard, there weren't many militant fundamentalist groups in cognitive linguistics, though. [:D]

Health,
al-Aswad.



Zensee -> RE: Language; the Human Condition (2/9/2008 3:57:33 PM)

Language is like the "enabling constraint" of an artistic medium. If the canvas and palette were unlimited I think  communication would be impossible.

More than communication though is its power of abstraction. Language also lets us bring the inside out and combine people, ideas, objects, times, places, feelings and many other disparate things, in ways inconceivable in the material world. Our minds think in language so it shapes our perception of reality but it also lets us shape reality itself.


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