Posted on 05/23/2003 3:59:51 PM PDT by unspun
FOFL!! (unspun, I did graduate college, Summa Cum Laude, in English.....that's not my problem....it's called TIME and AVAILABILITY. They must work together, not against each other, for me to READ, lol! : )
Hmm.... Think about it?
But please don't worry about applying language, unless it suits you.
If it was written down it must be true.
Setting aside sarcasm, I doubt if such a paper would convince many skeptics. Noam Chomsky would probably buy it.
I know that.....(just giving you a hard time back!! : )
If the writer's primary point is that thinking can occur w/o language, then that's pretty self-evident, of course it does. But abstract thinking, as I've always referred to such action, in very short order requires those thoughts to be "translated" into language. Most especially the more complex the nature of those thoughts happen to be.
If the writer's point is that no language is ever required for thinking then I would disagree. Thoughts w/o the substance of language cannot be reliably manipulated, nor weighed. Its all very well to state that thought has its genesis in a pre-lingual consiousness, but the actual awareness of that thought's import requires language, even if that language is a "Gregg's Shorthand" type script.
And I think this is where the author misses the ball; by habit and practice we develop over time internal cliches that are in fact express expressions of a group of complex thoughts, much as the word "automobile" represents a very complicated machine whose accurate description could fill volumes. The internal language that each of us develop incorporates mutiple automobiles to get to a cogent thought. It is only necessary for us to go back and de-assemble, that is translate, our thought process into language when we are required to share that thought w/ another individual or when we need to explain it more clearly to ourselves.
Ultimately then, I think this paper is misleading and not particuarly significant.
Because you weren't bright enough to read through a scholarly discussion and comprehend at least some of it? You ought to be crying, and not laughing.
Ohh,? You don't need metaphoric symbology for that? The 'intention' to 'do' something isn't a metaphoric construct from past experience that a given 'cause' resulted in a given 'effect' and that 'metaphorically' such cause and effect will be implied, by metaphor, to the next 'intention'?
The very concept of 'intention' requires metaphor. Only by analogy can such intention be considered valid, 'it worked before, THEREFORE it will work again.'
If A then B
A Therefore B
Depends upon what you mean by 'consider.' If you mean "recollect" "recall" "remember" "conceptualize" "recept" "think about" "examine" "contemplate" or any host of other regurgitations, then no, you cannot do this without symbols.
The human mind can not be demonstrated to operate without symbols, metaphors, concepts, maps. One cannot prove such, without resorting to them, thus proving the Fallacy of the Stolen Concept.
I will grant you the narrow meaning. But think for a moment of deaf people (of which I have no meager experience.) They communicate by a physical expression that is not 'tongue.'
The movie "The Miracle Worker" about Helen Keller makes this so very clear. It is the metaphoric hand movement, W-A-T-E-R -- that is a symbol for the actual experience that makes Helen a "human being" and not an animal. It began, and required, a single symbol.
And what of mathematics? That represents sub-atomic realities that cannot be described in words? Yet are symbolically represented in mathematical symbols.
But dance, music, architecture, drama in itself, are art and not articulate forms of expression but aesthetic forms.
And this is not correct. Every movement in Hula corresponds to a spoken word. This is true of many other dances, they are, in the true sense, 'languages.'
To say that architecture is not an "articulate form" when it is responsible for the building you sit in at this very moment is to completely miss the power of the art.
Think of all the words required to carry out the directions of this 'art' and you might understand your error here.
Architecture, like so many things, is a high level abstraction, thus it seems divorced from language, symbology, metaphor and conceptual development, but it is not.
It is a language, as is dance, as is some art, as is martial arts, as is so many non-verbal practices.
This is the real problem. The ability to understand the relationship to the underlying concepts subsumed by higher level abstractions. Sometimes abstractions are many times removed from their basic conceptual roots.
I was watching one of those "America's Funniest Videos" because my wife loves to watch them. There was this little kid. His first fruit must have been an apple.
Kid: Apple
Dad: Banana
Kid: Apple
Dad: Banana
Kid: Apple
Dad: Banana
Kid: Apple
Dad: Banana
Kid: Apple
Dad: Banana
Kid: Apple
Dad: Banana
Kid: Apple
Dad: Banana
and this went on and on. I remember my sister, for months, everything that had 4 legs was a 'dog.'
We forget the endless repetition that was required to get us to understand the simplest concepts, the simplest symbols.
How much harder is it to understand a second or third or fourth level abstract like 'drama?' That isn't separate from language - dude! It is utterly dependent upon it. An aesthetic form is no less a language than the spoken word, because it is utterly dependent upon it.
Noam Chomsky couldn't understand the concept of logic it requires.
If it was written down it must be true.
You know, I try to just talk about stuff, and I get so tired of smart asses. Like those that accuse me of being arrogant FIRST and then complain when I call them clowns.
I never initiate insults. This was uncalled for. All kinds of people say all kinds of stuff here, it is for mutual enlightenment.
Actually, I have long believed that logic is imposed by reality. I was just heartened to see someone else express the idea. It is a fact that cannot be refuted without resorting to it in the refutation, thus proving it true.
Setting aside sarcasm
little late for that.
Does language have anything to do with logic? At this point I would say language uses logic as drama uses painted backdrops--it's incidental to the main presentation.
A-ha, I knew it!
A-ha, I knew it!
As citizens we are required to be reasonable. This is a distinction from being rational. Reasonable and rational are now divided and are not totally synonymical. We must always be reasonable; sometimes we could be rational and unreasonable but should not be so in the interests of agreeable society.
I hate to be found agreeing with an empiricist, but amen to this. I couldn't read past the first paragraph.
Stuff happens. And once again, old threads never die.
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