Wes: L.I.T.E.R.A.L.L.Y. The easterns are notorious for their simplistic ideologies and one has only to look at the simplicity of its language- instances where we Westerns think up new words for everything (television, radio), languages like Chinese use words already there (picture box, sound box). Its got this modest purity to it that's almost chaste. And its speakers reflect this very same trait inherent in its language.Hispanics have linguistic diminuitives that endear almost everthing and these people are known for their sensuality. You can narrow a whole people by ranging the whole scope of thought the only way possible: language. Remember George Orwell? A philologist named Syme in his book put it beautifully: "We will make things literally impossible because there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be needed will be expressed by exactly one word....every year fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller. A revolution will be perfectly complete when its language is perfect" Big Blue Head: Enlightening post, bigbluhabadus. Propositional Logic. Only one question: Don't those cultural specializations reflect their lack to conceptualize? This is what Wes is saying. Indeed. As in 'leben'- the German jack-of-all-trades. "Lebensweld", Hitler's crappy "Lebensborn"......lebenthis, lebenthat, everywhere a leben. Wes: I don't think our blue friend knows you're talking about him.
ahh i feel the old spook itching to burst free but no! i must be strong anyway blue isnt sanskrit kinda mathematical and stuff? it is touted as a possible language due to its "logical " structure. know anything about that? http://www.audarya-fellowship.com/showflat/cat/hinduism/1341/0/collapsed/5/o/1 http://www.amritapuri.org/education/sanskrit/artintell.htm http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/indices/a-tree/b/Briggs:Rick.html
Spookz: Most of my Logic/Phil of Language study was in English and I've applied it to a few other languages that I have a vague knowledge of, but if you think of English as being "right up my alley", then Sanskrit is "somewhere in a different country". I know NOTHING about it, so I really can't comment. I've heard similar claims about other languages, some logical and others numerological (not long ago I saw that movie Pi, which I thought was less than good). Usually the point of failure is that natural languages adopt a lot of content implicitly from context, which tends to make them ambiguous. PL and QL were attempts to specify the implicit context, but PL had serious problems and sometimes even QL's back is broken by English, as in the previous example. Gendanken: Whether cultural specialization represents a lack of ability to conceptualize depends upon one major factor - whether or not, once the single collective term has developed, its component terms fall out of use. If I am an author, I can invent a new word. Let's say I am describing a scenario where humans have come to live underwater with enough regularity that underwater circumstances have become part of the linguistic background. With underwater mining being the main reason for going into the ocean (in this story), mining tools are in common use everywhere. As a result, a certain form of injury and death unknown on land becomes well known underwater, that is, death from hydrostatic shock from an underwater explosion. Let's say that I call death from hydrostatic shock a "wavekill", given that it's the shock wave moving through the incompressible fluid that causes death. The phrase "death through hydrostatic shock" will fall out of favour somewhat, but the individual terms will remain part of our language as much as they ever had. Only in the case where they are assembled in this order will the slang term habitually replace them. Hydrostatic shock will still be an important factor in other phenomena, and people will still die from other causes. A profusion of slang terms can change a language over time, but for the most part we have not yet encountered the linguistic equivalent of that great language-destroyer, "smurf", which can be used to replace any word or phrase. A failure to conceptualize from generalization could be a bigger problem... when it comes to snow, we only have two words for it and a couple of associated composite terms - snow, ice, powder snow, packing snow - and so the snow experts with fifty words for specific textures and compositions are way ahead of us in that department. It could be said that, since we look at twenty-five of their kinds of snow and say "snow", and the other twenty-five and say "ice", that our woefully imprecise treatment of snow composition reflects a lack of ability to conceptualize on our part in this department. To illustrate this problem, look at colours. Often enough, one can find a colour that some people will call "orange" and others will call "red". Orange juice, for instance, is really more yellow than orange - the frozen concentrated stuff is the same colour as egg yolk, which is traditionally called "yellow". Similarly, there are shades of blue that people will call green, and vice versa. Some people say eggplants are black and some say they are purple. Part of this colour break between people has to do with their actual perception of colour, I think, because there is no way that an eggplant looks black to me... it's purple, dark, but still purple. On the other hand, with some blue/green colours it's a toss-up whether it's actually blue or green, it depends on who you ask, but everyone sees the same colour with their eyes (I think). People will adopt a traditionalist stance as to what colour a thing is, if it falls between two colours, and this may also reflect a problem of conceptualization. Perhaps we do not have enough words for colour either. Cyperium: Yes, if you say a word enough times it starts to sound meaningless to you... I have no evidence to support this claim, but I am partial to the idea that when you experience the same thing over and over again your brain starts to look for smaller patterns within the more obvious units, and subdivides the word (as you said) into meaningless sections in an attempt at deeper analysis for meaning that turns out not to be there.
Wes: I have a feeling that what you are referring to has partly to do with a concern I've had about language recently relating to (what for lack of a better term I have been forced to call) symbolic templates. This is a pretty complicated subject and may be difficult for me to express in a short post, but I will make an attempt. Humans communicate with what is effectively a series of symbols. Regardless of context and implicit content, there is a measurable communication between people that can be characterized this way. It is more complicated than just the phonemes or the words that pass between us... For instance, there are two full sentences, "I don't know." and "What?" that can be expressed entirely with intonation, without the need to open your mouth. "What?" is pretty simple... Will Smith used to do this on the Fresh Prince of Bel Air... but "I don't know." is a pretty complicated sentence... still, it's used often enough that we recognize the sentence just from the intonation that attends upon it, without needing the words. Other languages than English probably have other sentences that are as easily expressed, but I am not an expert in other languages... in Japanese, the "Neh?" question is much the same. (edit) To see extended use of intonation to communicate meaning, watch Scooby Doo. Normally we would be inclined to say that intonation is a symbol modifier, but since in certain situations it can actually substitute for words, we have to consider it to be a kind of concurrent symbol that goes along with spoken words. Natural language, as communicated by speech, would then seem to have two or several colinear channels of communication - but this does not break the symbol analogy.
(continued) As we grow, we adopt a library of symbols. They may be simple, like sounds or words, "Uh... yeah, uh huh," or they may be composites of words, "No way, shut yer hole!" They're often pretty strongly stereotyped and are said the same way and in the same order, even when they're pretty long - something like, "You know what really burns my ass?" or "In my humble opinion, X," or "Well if that don't beat everything." These are single symbols of human symbolic communication, since they become so well used in our idiomatic expression that more than one word from one of these can imply the entire symbol to someone who has heard it as much as you have. This dissipates momentarily when you talk to someone who is not in your social group and doesn't share the set of highly complex stereotyped symbols that you and your friends all recognize and use, but we can very quickly adopt the stereotyped symbols of another person and use them pretty effectively. We don't communicate exclusively with these highly stereotyped complex symbols because that would restrict our communication pretty seriously, but it is possible to have (and you have probably heard and participated in) a conversation consisting only of these sorts of symbols. Let's say Wes and his pal Jed are having a conversation. Wes and Jed have known each other for years on a casual, nearly FOAF basis and generally do not have a lot to talk about. Wes: "Jed my man! How you doin'?" Jed: "Can't complain, can't complain." Wes: "How's the wife?" Jed: "Fine, fine. Some weather we been havin', eh?" Wes: "Yes sir. Rainin' to beat the band." Jed: "Anyway, I gotta place to be." Wes: "Catch ya later!" In this conversation, a relatively small number of symbols were exchanged, which means that in truth, almost no information was to be had from either side. By contrast, one sentence: Wes: "If you take a mortage at six percent at a term of fifteen years with a ten percent down payment you'll end up paying one hundred and sixty percent of what the house is worth - on the other hand, if you take a six percent mortgage at a term of five years with a five percent down payment you'll end up paying one hundred and seventy-five percent." This sentence contains a larger number of symbols than the entire conversation above, which is necessary to provide the informational content therein.
Great stuff BBH. It is these symbols that I'm questioning really... in their relations to themselves. One of the silly things I'm trying to figure out is if some fallacies are incurred purely due to the ways symbols relate to other symbols in language. I don't really know how you'd avoid it, but for instance the term "illlusion" when applied to the context of "my reality" is moot. At that fundamental level one cannot distinguish between reality and illusion, to the point that my examination of it yields that there is simply no relationship "reality" and "illusion" in that context. The symbols melt at that level. Pardon the obscure example, I'm running on too little sleep here. So is it possible to build language with this type of consideration built in? I guess yiddish is supposed to be that way in terms of being jewish. So I guess I'm wondering if language and philosophy are inherently tied together, since the language seems to be philosophy's construct. So that makes me ponder if there is a language representative of buddism for instance, or if one is properly pursuing a philosophy, do you have to eventually come up with your own language? LOL. I'd guess Gendy would prolly agree that I've sort of bastardized english into my own thing.. representative of my philosophy - but are we all doing that right now? I suppose we are. Now we end up discussing the evolution of language? *snore* Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It's just the lack of sleep. I'll try more later.
The concern I have with the symbols is that people HEAR them differently from how you SAY them sometimes. A physicist will hear your lecture about hockey and think of it in terms of the principles of physics... a hockey player will hear your lecture about physics and think of it in terms of hockey. The degree to which we are able to communicate our ideas is highly variable... there's nothing like saying something to a "philosopher" and having them reply, "Well, that smacks of Hegelian spiritualism." If you do not come from their intellectual background, this sentence means NOTHING to you. Moreover, whatever you were trying to communicate became "Hegelian spiritualism" to that person, which is not what you were trying to say. At this point you are reduced to wrestling with them for hours to try to get them to see what you're trying to say, or just giving up and walking away. With respect to the fallacies you mentioned, this is not at all strange... natural language can encode logical impossibilities just as much or more than logical languages can; to be able to describe things which are not or cannot be the case is a helpful property in a robust descriptive system.
Wes Great topic, and I agree with what you've said. Language is confusion, just as you say. Tower of Babel and all that. I really, really don't want to become a totally predictable bore about non-dual philosophy, but you've hit on the precise reason here why Buddhist writing is so carefully self-contradictory. I'd say that some are better than others, but that they all fail in the end. BBH said: "Mathematics is a dialect of the more basic language called Set Theory; set theory is not 100% perfect because of the self-referential set problem." This hits the nail on the head imo, and it is also the problem of ordinary language. All terms in a dictionary are defined relative to each other. To get the process rolling therefore requires starting with undefined terms, reference to something that is not in the dictionary. That's where the process goes wrong, right at the beginning. It shows up later in infinities and paradoxes like Russell's set problem or Goedel's undecidable questions. The problem shows up in metaphysics more than anywhere else since it deals with what is real, as opposed to relative phenomena, as I think you showed by using 'reality' and 'illusion' as your examples. I don't know but I think Spookz may be right about Sanskrit. People who know it claim it is the best language for metaphysics. Canute
A common form of Bertrand Russell's self-referential set paradox: The barber shaves everyone who does not shave themselves. Does the barber shave himself? (If yes, then no. If no, then yes.)
As the barber is a human, he might be lying! I bet he won't get ahold of ME to shave. HA! Okay but now there is an important distinction to be made here. Let us consider the distinction between the abstract and the physical: There is no contradiction when abstract is paradoxical, since there is nothing to really be contradictory. The physical realm won't let you contradict it. So where is the actual contradiction except in your mind?
That'ssss why language can depict hypothetical situationssss, tricksy Wessss... Where would Wes be without fiction? In a pretty hole then, he'd be, wouldn't he? Couldn't describe anything but how things already are! Poor humanses. Barber is hypothetical... shaving yourself is your only defense, but don't worry, you only have to shave yourself hypothetically.
As I was sitting in my chair, I knew the bottom wasn't there, nor legs nor back, but I just sat, ignoring little things like that. Hughes Mearns
Wes Here is a great essay on language and its pitfalls viewed from a non-dual perspective. http://sino-sv3.sino.uni-heidelberg.de/FULLTEXT/JR-JOCP/edward.htm
Dear Wesmorris: You ask a good question. I will repost what my theory is as regarding language. Since it was widely booed and hissed off stage the last time, I am expecting no better reception for it this time. But it does seem to be in line with the parameters of your question as concerns language, shape and sound. I got spanked the first time, but every once in a while my monkey needs to be soundly spanked. It keeps one healthy and balanced. So get your tomatoes ready to throw and here goes: Language in its present form is impossible to reduce since it is no longer based on universal shape forms. Some examples of these shape forms were found in Magdalenian cave sites (12,000-17,000 years before the present time). They include the runes, the cross, the swastika and many religious and magical sigils. Why the need for these symbols? They were based on the notion of entopic forms. Neurophysiology has clearly identified phosphenes, geometric shapes and images embedded in our subconscious. These are lodged within our visual cortex and neural system. When one’s consciousness has been altered, these forms are produced. They are universal in nature so it matters not from what country, educational background or supposed religious elitism one finds themselves believing in. These entopic forms used in meditation are for one thing only. They are the pathways that lead to trance. Thus the hidden use of ancient alphabets that used these shapes to generate their form. They were used to induce trance to help us find our way home. Take away entopic forms as being the progenitor of language and you have random patterns that are not reducible because they have no meaning for all parts of our brain. While the left brain can easily identify an artificial word and shape, try whispering that word to your subconscious. Its meaning is lost and so it needs to be converted into a symbol. The reverse is also true. For the subconscious to speak, it needs to give the conscious mind a set of symbols in which to ponder upon awakening. These dream symbols are language. The only language the other part of our selves speaks. And yet no one seems to include this in the mix. Why? Why is there not a determined effort to give a voice and a language to that part of us that speaks to us eight hours a night? It was once so, so why is there no respect shown to it now? Is unity within the body unimportant? If we cannot communicate inside ourselves then how do we expect to speak with others? The Egyptians had a one sight, one sound system. These pictographs were easily understood by all sides of ourselves, not just the one we deem important. I ask you, “Why do you worship the sun and not the moon?” This is the real question. Present day language demonstrates this point over and over again. If we wish unity within the body and mind, we need to go to another system of symbols and colors and sound to integrate that which has been divided. We could be doing this through language, but it seems we would rather worship the sun. Now in terms of forms we have this involving tattvas: “Creation comes from the five tattvas and is dissolved into them. Greater than the five tattvas is that which is above them, without stain.” Jnanasankalini Tantra If we think about the five tattvas being the five senses it begins to make sense how our entire world is built upon what we perceive. Now is this true, do we have form-constants that would mimic this notion? It seems according to Kulver we do. Henreich Kluver conducted studies of hallucinations at the University of Chicago in the 1920s. He came to discover a pattern for these perceptions he called, “form constants.” There were four types: (1) gratings and honeycombs, (2) cobwebs, (3) tunnels and cones, and (4) spirals. He postulated that these were the “elementary features that the nervous system was hardwired to perceive.” His conclusion? “The analysis…has yielded a number of forms and form elements which must be considered typical for mescal visions. No matter how strong the inter- and intra-individual differences may be, the records are remarkable as to the appearance of the above described forms and configurations. We may call them form-constants, implying that a certain number of them appear in almost all mescal visions and that many “atypical” visions are upon close examination nothing but variations of those form-constants.” However, Lewis-Williams and Dowson state that, at the present stage in their research, it is premature to distinguish between phosphenes and form constants. Thus, they have been grouped together and assigned the generic term of 'entoptic phenomena' or entoptics, by way of classifying these largely geometric visual percept. The term 'entoptic' comes from the Greek to mean 'within vision', and the term 'entoptic phenomena' means visual sensations whose characteristics derive from the structure of the visual system (Tyler 1978:1633). Lewis-Williams and Dowson use the term 'hallucinations' to describe more complex iconic visions (Siegal 1977:134; Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978: 12-13). Tyler also makes the point that: "the nature of entoptic phenomena makes it hard to design highly-controlled, stimulus-bound experiments to specify them. It is therefore appropriate to report them on an observational basis before more indirect outcomes are explored" (Tyler, 1978:1633).” “An example of reduplication is illustrated by Reichel-Dolmatoff (1972:91-92) who noted that when Tukanoans were asked to draw their mental imagery, they tended "to fill the pieces of paper he gave them with rows of formalised and reduplicated geometric motifs comparable with their painting of the same motifs on the walls of their houses. The Tukano identified these reduplicated forms as images derived from what they themselves recognised as the first stage of their trance experiences; there can be little doubt of their entoptic origin" (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1978:12-13).” Now we come to Philip T. Nicholson. He writes the following: “The meanings of many metaphors used to describe luminous visions in the RigVeda (RV) remain elusive or ambiguous despite years of expert hermeneutical exegesis. In this series of papers, we classify the metaphors used to describe luminous visions into sets based on certain abstract characteristics (shapes, colors, movements, order of appearance), then show how these metaphor-sets can be matched with remarkable precision, image by image, to a sequence of internally-generated light sensations ('phosphenes') induced by meditation. These meditation-induced phosphenes can also evolve in longer and more elaborate sequences if the subjects practice meditation while in a sleep-deprived condition. A sleep deficit increases the risk of subclinical seizures emerging at sleep onset - and the paroxysmal activity generates further evolution of the phosphene imagery. In the first paper of this three-part series, we document the parallels between the meditation-induced phosphenes and two types of luminous visions described in the RV - the Asvins' radiant, three-wheeled chariot and the flame arrows of Agni. In the second paper, we analyze metaphors used to describe the visions of Soma and Indra and show that there is a close match between these luminous visions and paroxysmal phosphenes. Based on the extensive parallels revealed by our comparison, we conclude that the metaphors for luminous visions in the RV were meant to refer to the same visual content as appears in the meditation-induced visions described by the author, and that, despite years of poetic embellishment, the eulogists' choice of metaphors suggests a much more empirically-oriented attempt to describe visionary experience than has hitherto been suspected. This hypothesis about the meaning of luminous visions in the RV has important implications for several issues debated by Vedic scholars, including: (1) the identity of the original soma plant; (2) the influence of shamanic practices in the creation of the Vedic myths, and (3) the extent of the continuities between the visionary experiences described in the RV and those described in the Upanishads and in the many yoga meditation texts in the Hindu, Tantric, and Tibetan-Buddhist traditions…” “These new research findings about rapid shifts to paroxysmal activity upon activation of sleep rhythm oscillators can be used to explain why a meditator who is attempting to induce phosphene visions might experience the outbreak of a seizure and to explain how this outbreak of paroxysmal activity shapes the further evolution of the original, sleep-onset phosphene images [Nicholson, 1999; 2002a,b]. In this paper we reproduce a series of drawings from the sources just cited to illustrate the shapes, colors, movements, and ordinal progressions of the meditation induced, sleep-onset phosphenes and their further elaboration after the outbreak of paroxysmal brain waves. - Philip T. Nicholson, ELECTRONIC JOURNAL OF VEDIC STUDIES (EJVS), Vol. 8 (2002) issue 3 (March 27) (©) ISSN 1084-7561 But then we have this as concens the difficulty of translating Sanskrit: “Keith [1925] complains about the "chaos of the ideas [Ibid., p. 171]" and the "obscurity in detail [Ibid., p. 167];" MacDonell [1971] writes that the descriptions of Soma are "overlaid with the most varied and chaotic imagery and with mystical fantasies often incapable of certain interpretation [Ibid., p. 104]." In her introduction to a translation of selected hymns from the RV, O'Flaherty [1981] points out that problems of interpretation are complicated by language that is "intrinsically difficult (dense, complex, and esoteric even for the people of its own time), or difficult to people of another time (because of archaisms, hapax legomena, discontinued usages), or difficult because we have lost the thread of the underlying idiom [Ibid., p.14]." Even if experts agree on the literal meaning of the Sanskrit words, they still might not might be able to interpret what those words were intended to mean, not least because the RV "is written out of a mythology that we can only try to reconstruct from the Rig Vedic jumble of paradoxes heaped on paradoxes, tropes heaped on tropes [Ibid., p. 18]." You see how McDonnell, O’Flaherty and Keith all complain about the same thing. The difficulty of translation of a language not like our own. The possible explanation according to O'Flaherty, it is "difficult because we have lost the thread of the underlying idiom." While O’Flaherty complains that Sanskrit is “dense,” I suggest it is the one he was translating it into that lacked depth and richness. It backs up my original point that our present languages are not based on entopic forms and underlying patterns that have RELEVANCE. If something has relevance it has several meanings. Think of Gematria and the underlying themes implicit in finding hidden meanings in language. It would imply that hidden meanings are there, would it not? Do you find many people sitting around and giving a numerical value to English in order to discover the end time? Or the meaning of a Biblical revelation? If you do find such a cluster, please tell them for me they are wasting their time. But why is any of this important? Well we have one intriguing clue for there was a fascinating article that I read. It concerned the changing of DNA through using the spoken word alone. It was discussed in another forum I visited. Since DNA itself follows all the rules of language, should this be surprising? To me it is, but then there was this curious magical system that relied on sound and shape. You said the word while forming your hands into a key position that mimicked this word. Is this part of the unity that has been lost? The underbelly of the Kabbalah is built upon this. The alphabet was to be pronounced while holding your fingers in the position of the letter. Each letter was built upon the ability to shape the letter. There was also a specific tonality and color that went with this movement. And language itself, from whence did it spring? Well, it seems it is encoded into us by means of DNA for it seems it is the progenitor of language. From this website: http://www.ims.nus.edu.sg/Programs/genome/ldna.htm we have: “Previous deciphering efforts have been basic and focused on the immediate meaning of a focal sequence. This is akin to the translation of a text on a word-by-word basis. As we advance in this understanding, we start to see higher order meaning through the nuances of gene expression and splice changes. Moreover, the structure and organization of the DNA sequences within and across species provides a clue as to the fundamental rules that governed the creation of life. Linguistics is a branch of science that has long sought to define the architecture and laws of language structure. There is ample evidence to indicate that both the dimensions and units of linguistic structure appear genetically embedded in the human species. Therefore, the analysis of the structure of language has provided a window into the make-up of the Homo Sapien mind, and perhaps a set of useful strategies to unearth similar structures. Experimentally, therefore, both the disciplines of genomics and linguistics seek to uncover order and information from a sea of noise. Genomics, by virtue of its origins in physical and biological sciences, has had the benefit of rigorous computational tools and laboratory validation in its investigations. Unlike genomics, however, the intuitive understanding of language in all of us permitted linguists to convincingly reconstruct rules governing the transmission of higher order meaning, while unlike cryptography, genomics can use experimental strategies to uncover the relation between form and meaning. So perhaps this – “DNA sequences within and across species provides a clue as to the fundamental rules that governed the creation of life” - is why this question of language is of the utmost importance. For wouldn’t understanding the meaning of life give life meaning? Thank you for your very intriguing post. I will now assume a spanking position. NEMESIS
I've been meaning to get to this thread long ago but as usual the morbid ADD fries my priorities. Anyway, someone here has said something and my ears...well, eyeballs...perked up: BigBlue: and Those things in bold....an attempt to find meaning where none is.....speaking of things which are not and cannot......those veritable pot holes in language man fell in. I'll keep this post short and won't dump my language theory in here when there's a 20 paged thread on it with my name on it (Mephura's but.....as everything else, I stole it). It centers around the three properties in language that I feel contributed to man's disintegration into a false sense of ego. Spirt. Homo Duplex: displacement vicariousneness recursion But first, BigBlue...do explain what you meant by those two things I've quoted.
I occurs to me that a lot of people are looking further into this than is necessary. Language is not some mystical ability possessed by enlightened humans or some other deep philosphical entity. it is simply a tool for communication. The reasons that a word looks silly and meaningless when repeated may very well be as you say Blue, but it is also because the word itself has no meaning. It only has meaning when two or more people agree that it means the same thing. Therefore, it is only useful when it has meaning, when it loses that meaning, it looks and is, silly. Repetition is often used as a method of meditation, whose general purpose is to break the mind of rational thought. This is also a likely reason why the word loses its meaning. Furthermore, I don't recall any mystical symbols being found in any Magdaleninan cave sites... do you have a location, time period for these inscriptions? There were some cave writings in the Cantabrian area from this period, but these contained Pre-Roman writings from the native, non-Roman languages. Nothing mystic. Also, the egyptians had what the Chinese had, namely a symbology rather than an alphabet. Even that had begun to shift rather rapidly though into a sort of syllabary. There are no vowels in heiroglyphs, only consonants, so all translations are necessarily amiguous and vague.
Now I know you've said this before and I'm kind of with you on it but I gotta ask: Aren't vicariousness and recursion both aspects of displacement? Kami: You should read this entire thread and see if you feel the same. You see it's language that gives you something worthwhile to think about and allows you to do so somewhat crisply. Contemplate attempting to develop a mind without the tool of language.
I'm a linguist, who studied language and it's precursors for many years. I know what language is and what it is used for. I'm not discounting the effects of language on learning or on the development of extra-lingual ideas, but it is, at its heart, a tool. I am also a practising buddhist and have a deep appreciation for the abilities of language and more specifically, sound, to produce enhanced states of consciousness, but even there, it is simply a tool. Have you ever tried to think about something without using words in your head.. It's quite simple to do and you realize that words are simply labels that we put on the real world around us. The world is real, language is an artificial construct that we use to decribe it. Or, perhaps, even the world is not real and only our minds or souls are existant, but even then language and the world are constructs. Thought without language is very possible and is actually much faster and clearer. Thought with language is always limited by the language and it's inaccuracy and ambiguity. Maybe it's easier to do when you know several languages and learn to think in different languages.. it gives you an insight into concepts without language and lets you switch between "labelling systems" with ease. It is this thought without language that makes me believe that language is only a small part of reality and has no direct bearing on it and is powerless to affect it. That said, it is an extremely powerful tool for transmitting and sharing ideas between individuals, but even then it is not the only tool for this. Art is another extremely powerful tool for conveying emotions and ideas to other people through various media. Try explaining the emotions and ideas of Beethoven's Ninth in words. Or, imagine how many words would be required to describe the same pastoral scenes exemplified in Beethoven's 3rd or the river in Smetana's Moldau. I do not underestimate the power of language, but also, I do not overestimate it or consider it superior to other modes of communication, including art.
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! You're right, but there is more to it than that. It's not "just a tool" in that it contributes directly to what comprises one's mind throughout its development. I think it IS more important than other modes of communication in that aspect. For instance, I wonder if it would be possible to really appreciate art if it had not been for language shaping your mind in a manner that lets you appreciate the term and concept of "art" in the first place ya know? You really should read that thread (or at least skim it). You should have something interesting to say about it I'd imagine. Yes and no, it's a living, breathing too in a sense don't you think? I mean, language kind of has a life of it's own. It's a sort of conceptual repository for human thought.
Gendy... I shall try to illustrate the repeated words business, but this is a sort of difficult subect for me to explain properly, and I tend to make a major appeal to induction which I will announce in advance just so it doesn't look like I'm being intellectually dishonest. BLUE'S APPEAL TO INDUCTION: The operation of a physical sense can be used to gather information about some operation of the brain. When two senses have similar properties in a certain regard it may reflect the way we process information rather than the way we gather it. Minor adjunct - sensory information is not presented to you in a raw form; sight is processed before you see it. END APPEAL TO INDUCTION. When you look at a featureless surface for a long time, you will begin to see patterns. These patterns are not actually there; you can even influence them to some extent and make yourself see things that aren't there, in a limited way. My personal theory is that our perceptual system tries to find patterns in the things that it perceives, and when none are apparent it "fiddles" with them to try to show up subtler patterns. This can be seen in the old concave/convex cube pictures that they used to show you in school when they talked about optical illusions. First they are convex, then concave, and so on, and you can learn to see them one way or the other (although holding the image is difficult). Also, if you stare at a repeating pattern of identical shapes like squares or hexagons, you may find that your perception of the shapes will break them up into groups, and you will see lines of squares, or grouped squares of squares, where there is no actual division depicted in the picture of repeated squares. These are things that your eye will do to try to derive meaning from an apparently meaningless (or meaning-poor) image. Now, as Cyperium mentioned earlier in the thread, you can repeat a word to yourself aloud many times, and it will begin to lose its meaning as a word and fall upon your ears as a blunt sound that has no evocation of ideas. In my opinion, this is the same effect as with the vision of blank walls or repeating sequences of shapes... given that the original shallow meaning of the word has already been well analyzed by your brain, you then go on to analyze the word at a more basic level, the sounds themselves, in an attempt to get something out of it - the same way you try to get something out of the blank wall. With respect to describing things that cannot be: To be able to describe the future we need hypotheticals, which necessarily introduce contradictions into the language unless strict social controls are implemented to stop this. Let us say that Wes is going to turn a certain colour, but we don't know which one, we only know that his colour will change. Perhaps it will be a delicate spring green, perhaps a brash golden colour, or maybe the deep blue at the edge of falling night. Wes might have announced, "I'm going to the skin shop to get a new coat of paint for my body," but he's leaving the colour as a surprise. We can say, "Wes will be entirely green." We can say, "Wes will be entirely blue." We can say, "Wes will be entirely gold." All of these are hypothetical conjectures. At best one of them will be true, at worst they will all be false, if Wes has them paint him silver. Our ability to speak in advance of things (which by definition may or may not happen, since the future, at least, is not predictable by us reliably) necessarily introduces our ability to say things that are not true. Furthermore, we can fall further saying untrue things with skillful contradictions: "Wes will be entirely blue and he will be entirely not-blue." Or by the same token create statements that are tautological: "Wes will be entirely blue or he will not be entirely blue." It is hypothetical conjecture that permits us to lie, and even to describe things that can never happen, like the contradiction above. But, as I said before, removing this capacity from our language would at the same time remove its ability to describe anything that had not already happened.
