Languages and Thought

dduck,

I've not read the whole thread, I left because watching rufio aggravate others was not fun.

I addressed rufio's contention that languages do not affect thought. You have also revised rufio's position.

Nowhere was I discussing with rufio whether language created the mind or not.

Here is rufio's verbatim quote:



Now I am willing to consider that comments about rufio's evasions are better vociferated through other mediums, my initial reaction is no, since I avoid a great many threads because of the tedium of what fresco described as a game of "enfant terrible" and "having the last word".

Other persons I respect and would like to read have been off put by this. Many suggest that rufio does not "listen".

A part of me agrees and would much rather stick to the topic. But rufio's tactics are such that any discussion in which she is in degenerates into what I can only describe as talking to an AI bot.

Now I am perfectly willing to consider that I have misunderstood rufio. But I won't do so based upon the revision of her arguments that you have done.

I could not agree more with your notion that "language did not invent the mind". This is self-evident. I hope you can understand that since rufio's contention was that language does not affect the mind , as opposed to not creating the mind, you have revised rufio's position into a tenable one. Now I'm sure rufio will say this was her position all along. Before she started the "actually all my arguments were agreements and this is all a misunderstanding" role I predicted it.

She has, all along, contended that language does not affect the way the mind works, that it does not affect thinking. This is not an issue of speaking clearly, it's an issue of speaking about two different things.

What you suggest herein is, to my mind, like suggesting that someone who says "1+1=27" has a problem communicating.

Throughout this entire thread you will not find me arguing once with rufio about whether language created the mind. Frankly yours is the first mention I've seen of such a topic.

You will, however, find me arguing with rufio about whether language has an effect on thought. Something she contended was false till recently.

This is not a matter of not communicating clearly. And revising rufio's arguments after-the-fact will not change what she was arguing very clearly.

I too suggested something along the lines of rufio's revised position. That thinking and the mind both can function without language is something I wholeheartedly agreed with rufio about. I took very specific issue with her use of this axiom to defend the brainfart we were discussing (that language does not change thought).



There I was saying something similar to your revision of rufio's position. The mind indeed functions without language. Just as man can travel without automobiles. This doesn't mean that neither language nor the advent of the automobile have changed either thinking or travel.

The difference between the revision of rufio's post and what she was actually arguing was the entire point of contention. I brought it up several times and the response was more evasion, seizing on the examples and rhetorical flourish to nitpick on (see the rambling about the automobile example) and continue to maintain the "no change" position.

So if you feel I've misunderstood rufio's stated position that "Language doesn't affect the way our mind works" please let me know. Because I agree with you that your revision of her position (which you express nicely, using the chicken/egg to great effect) is tenable. What wasn't was her stated "no change" position.

I'd offered the same out, pointing out the leap between saying language does not enable thought and that language does not affect thought. She did not take it and continued to insist that language does not change thought.

I would like for you to note that she states that "...learning things doesn't affect your potential to learn other things. "

This is not a matter of not communicating clearly, it is not a matter of whether the mind created language or the language the mind.

She was very clearly arguing that language does not change thinking, and that learning does not improve the potential to learn. Both of those positions are demonstratably false, the revision of her position is demonstratably true. This is a revision that changes, and does not merely elucidate the meaning of rufio's arguments.

I am a language teacher by profession; a large part of this job is trying to coax out students' ideas into words, especially when they still developing their language skills. I often need to read between the lines to see what the meaning is, rather than what the words say.

As I see it, it's evident that detailed discussions, of abstract ideas, are fraught with difficulty even for native speakers. Often it's more useful to clarify meaning first, before assuming that one has understood the speaker's intent.

Iain

dduck,

So do you assert that when rufio stated that "Language doesn't affect the way our mind works" she might have actually meant that languages do indeed change the way we think?

And when she said "...learning things doesn't affect your potential to learn other things" she might have also actually meant the opposite?

These are notions that she not only stated clearly but proceeded to argue. I can't imagine any scenario in which her statements could be reconciled to a position that is diametrically opposed (as mine were).

I'm all for reading between the lines, I'm all for clarification of meaning. I too taught languages.

But I think you are conflating your more defensible take of the issue with rufio's pre-revision position.

And her position was asserted multiple times and was quite clear. Yes she had some nuances in her position that were defensible but she continued to defend the above two notions obdurately.

In revising her position for her I believe thatyou have made improvements that were not present in her pridian position. In fact I think they are directly contradicted by clear statements and the subsequent attempt to support them.

I guess what I'm saying is that I think rufio's arguments were clear and that she solidified her position by trying to support them.

That language does not enable thought is something I had read and addressed. That contention is true. But she used it to support her statements that language makes "no change". Which is a world of a difference.

Do you suggest that there is another way to interpret her "no change" position in a way that would contradict itself and cede change?

Craven,

I don't know where you get the energy from !

We've all tried, but silence or murder seem to be the only options!

Regards fresco.

I don't usually have the energy. I chose silence as the option for your very interesting philosophy of self thread. A pity some others were driven off as well because I was enjoying reading them.

I've no clue, how to murder by internet :wink:

It's easy, just go to your windows directory and delete all the files you see.

Disclaimer: it's a joke. Please "don't nobody" delete all your windows files.

Oooops ....... should have taken my glasses on before following your advice

Craven, I followed your post about faciliy and potential with this, to help clarify what I meant by the words:

"I try to be consistant when I use this word, but I miss a few cases sometimes. There are two types. For instance, if you have a runner, his potential(1) speed changes as he practices more and gets stronger. However, he only has the potential(2) to run. He doesn't have the potential(2) to fly, and never will, no matter how much he trains or how strong he gets. And even though different runners might use different techniques and possibly even exercise muscles that the first runner doesn't use at all, none of them will have the potential(2) to fly. That's what I meant when I'm saying that you can't change potential. There are probably things that human beings just can't know, and no human will ever know them. Similarly, all people have the potential(2) to know anything that is knowable, to some degree."

Perhaps you should have read it closer.

In way of answering your first point, rufio has already conceded that language does change, that is facilitate, the way we think. I think you should acknowledge this victory and move on. Flog and dead horse spring to mind.

However, rufio was referring to our inherent ability to think - someone commented on how babies can 'predict' before they acquire language. If we consider thinking to be an inbuilt system it is seems illogical to imagine that langauage intrinsically affects it. The system is there already and waiting to be used. I think you're perception of rufios words was quite different and not unreasonable, as rufio had not been explicit in his/her description.

In the second point about learning, again we can imagine an inherent system that all animals use to survive. Before humans can learn our first words we need to have an ability, a system if you like, to process raw data into something useful. Learning, in another sense, the accumulation of information doesn't intrinsically affect the system - which is debatable, but it's essentially rufio's point as I see it. Your argument doesn't appear to acknowledge that 'learning' is a system.

Iain

The problem, dduck, is that craven wants to argue, not agree. So he fantasizes that I am saying something contrary to him and then accuses me of changing my tactics when the fantasy and the reality don't match.

Not true, frankly I avoid you like the plague most of the time. I am only engaging you now because your childish games are making others who I like to read avoid thread on which I'd like to see them participate.

Your insipid games are off putting to just about everyone and when I see them I will comment on them.

Your revisionist position here is quite frankly, a lie. And as long as you press the issue I will be here to point that out.

Revising a brainfart should not be done in such obvious a manner.

She did. And she then revised her previous arguments to pretend that was her position all along.

I am now arguing against the revisionist position of both herself and you.

Your contention that rufio was simply misunderstood is a revisionist position that I do not appreciate. You are deliberately distorting the argument after the fact.

I'm not flogging a dead horse. I am responding to you and rufio posting falsehoods in an attempt to distort what happened. The horse is very much alive, and it's trying to misconstrue and revise the argument after the fact.

As long as you and her practice revisionism I will continue to point out how absurd the revisionism is.

I read it close enough. It was more blathering nonsense and after your arguments were carped you and Iain are just trying to revise your position to make it more palatable.

It's a tedious game of yours and I will not accept the blatant revisionism.

If you can tell me what I mean to say in any of my posts, craven, I can tell you what you're thinking too. Agreed? If you choose to write off my posts as nonesense before you even read them, I'm not surprised you don't understand them. I read your posts well enough, you can damn well read mine. If you really don't want me here, why don't you just kick me off?

rufio,

The answer to your question to Craven.

It is with the risk of having to "suffer fools" that Craven and others have established open forums such as this. However, ignoring the biblical directive we don't have to "suffer fools gladly".

Certainly. But based upon our exchanges I do not think there is a great probability of you getting it right. But you are right that you can try to "tell".

See, I'm not divining any of your meanings. I am saying that your revision of your clearly posted arguments is a blatant lie.

You are now claiming to have meant something different the whole time. And again, I claim that this is a blatant lie.

If further pressed on the issue I will support this contention in detail.



I agree, but the thing is, I write them (some to most) off as nonsense after I read them.

And I understand them quite well, as I also understand the convenience of revising arguments after the fact in order to distance oneself from vigorously argued positions that were shown to be absurd.



I do read your posts. You are upset because I think they are non-sensical, not because you really believe I don't read them. Since they are frequently demonstratably false and frequently nonsensical blather they are often carped. And once carped you revise your position and claim that what we have here is a failure to communicate.

You will find very few people who agree on that because your tactic is transparent if perhaps not deliberate.



You have not done anything to merit being kicked off. My wishes have nothing to do with people being "kicked off". Frankly I don't mind if you stay or not. I would be a basket-case if I allowed myself to have an emotional investment in everyone I encounter here.

Now just because I don;t want you to leave doesn't mean I agree with you, or think your arguments make sense. And it certainly doesn't mean I will let post-argument revisionism go uncommented on.

Why are you arguing against revisionist positions? Are people not allowed to change their minds? Is this not the nature of discussion?

Iain

Iain - what is being objected to is not Rufio's changing (her?) mind - this is, indeed, a great benefit of a good discussion.

It is her changing her mind while declaring that she has not done so - that this is what she always meant - that is being objected to.

I'd be happy to respond to it. I did not address it because the flogging a dead horse comment made me think you wanted to let it go.



Yes, rufio was referring to our inherent ability to think. I said as much in my exchange with her. I will quote a few segments from my exchange with her as it relates to this axiom.



Here I am telling her that her tight grip on "language does not enable thought" is correct. Saying that language facilitates thought does not mean it enables it. This much is true.



Here I pointedly address my very specific qualm with rufio's argument. Namely that she has extrapolated the notion that language does not enable thought and is applying it to her argument that language has no effect on thought.

You have added a qualifier to all of rufio's arguments. Where she is arguing that language makes no change in thought you have qualified this statement with a more defensible (but still debatable should you wish to pursue it) makes no intrinsic change.

That is a qualification of the argument that would change it very much. To illustrate how small revisions of an argument make a decided difference I posit the following:

• "There are no gods."
  
• "There is no definitive proof that any god exists."
  

Small revisions make a difference. And if rufio was, indeed, simply trying to state that language is a product of collective thought and as such does not play so important a role as to be the very thing that enables thought she would have taken the many times I made said distinction and clarified her position.

I have argued exclusively that her contention that language does not affect though is wrong.

Throughout the argument I delineate the difference between asserting that language makes no change and that language does not enable.



I'll tentatively take up this argument in passing while commenting on pridian exchanges. First of all, you have a very subjective word in there. Depending on what the individual considers an intrinsic effect your statement ranges from rock solid to arguable. Either way it's a far more defensible position that the absolute "no change" position we've moved away from.



I spoke too soon. I guess we are not yet ready to move away from the question of whether rufio is practicing post-debunking revisionism. I'd promised to support my contention in detail so I shall. Again, this may well be "flogging a horse" but as long as you are asserting that rufio is misunderstood it is very much a "live" one.

You say that rufio was not explicit. I am afraid that with the utmost respect I will have to call bullshit on that.



This is an explicit statement. This contains an absolute. This does not contain a qualifier.

Now giving you the benefit of the doubt I will allow the assumption that this is merely a miscommunication on rufio's part. I will allow that somehow the qualifiers were lost and through a lapse in communication her nuanced position is harsh, absolute and most importantly, indefensible.

It's only fair to allow for a misunderstanding here as you have again submitted a much nicer argument in this post-argument argument than rufio. Where she holds that I simply do not read her posts and conjure up phantoms you at least give me the benefit of the doubt and ascribe some of the cause of the alleged miscommunication to the communicating party.

So, we assume that this is simply a statement given without proportionate thought, and that this represents a lapse in communication.

Now the tricky thing is that rufio has found another pretty solid argument to cling to. It is, indeed, true that I can't read her mind. And so after the argument she has motive to assert that I can't reasonably state that I know what she meant more so that she. And that argument, if isolated, is a powerful one. And I would not tackle such a strong argument without proportioned thought.

So I request defense of this position in an admittedly abrasive way.



The chance to clarify that it's a misunderstanding is missed, and rufio responds with another absolutism.



Now her defense isn't miscommunication, it's "that there is no evidence at all to the contrary" and she proceeds to ask "What reason do YOU have for bringing it up for discussion at all?"

I can only make an appeal to your common sense because as rufio states I am in no way able to speak authoritatively on what transpires in her mind. I can only work with its product.

If we consider that rufio were to have simply grossly misstated her position and her repeated use of absolutism without qualifiers was not representative of her position then it would be understandable. After all, in a drive through fast food restaurant I've seen a friend manage to miscommunicate the order even when repeating it several times.

This happens.

Now what makes this argument unconvincing to me is that even though my friend managed to get an order wrong 3 times when received the order she had the presence of mind to realize that she was not holding what she had intended to purchase. And in this analogy my subsequent logorrhea represents the reception of the order. I noted rufio's absolute "no change" position and decided to challenge it.

I made it quite clear, in my repetitive (for this reason your "dead horse" charge is partly justified and I'll try to make this my last post on this subject), pompous and verbose way, that I took specific qualm with the absolutism. That I rejected the absolute "no change in thought" position.

When challenging this position I did not choose to assert that language makes intrinsic changes (I think it does). I worked at small effects that are harder to deny. I made sure to delineate clearly between enabling and changing, I made a very clear statement saying that I agreed that language does not enable thought. This allowed rufio a chance to clarify that her position was not that language makes no change.



I disagree. In fact I introduced the analogy of the computer to illustrate that even if the intrinsic hardware of the system is not changed, addition to the system in the form of language can serve as a means to better utilize the pre-existing system. I noted in passing that if language codifies and condenses that it will change the way the system works.

Rufio's response was, once again, absolute.



Again, she's not clarifying that her position is misstated. She is again asserting an absolute and asking for it to be challenged.

We actually explore the learning system further after that exchange when she adds this gem



I responded to this once again.



So I point out small changes. I mention that if language condenses sensory input and organizes thought that it changes it. I deposited these small changes ad nauseum only to support my position that language does, indeed, make a difference in thought. I illustrate that without language recorded data is hampered and therefore affects our available resources to learn.

I noted clearly that a learning system can affect the potential to learn. For these reasons I strongly disagree with your contention that I did not "acknowledge that 'learning' is a system".

After a fair amount of repetition rufio ceded that language organizes thought (saying something like "I'll give you that").

After further exchanges in which my verbosity and penchant for analogy bogged down the conversation (she decided to explore deficiencies in the analogies, which were mostly rhetorical flourish) rufio finally ceded that language does in fact change thought.



This does not sound like someone has discovered that her position has been miscommunicated. IMO, it sounds like a reluctant or perhaps weary compromise.

So to recap.

• She first states her "no change" position in absolute terms. And does so repeatedly.
  
• When this "no change" position is challenged she responds with arguments that it does not make a specific change (enabling thought).
  
• When it's pointed out that she is, indeed correct that it does not make said change (enabling) but that this does not mean no change is made she still proceeds to argue against it.
  
• After more pixels and bits we arrive at common ground: "it improves".
  
• After a bit more repetition in which I insist that improving indicates change she reluctantly cedes change.
  
• And after the fact, I am asked to believe that the exchange was due to not reading her posts.
  

I'm not arguing against changing the mind. I am all for it and was pleasantly surprised to see rufio do so. It was the first case in which I have seen this occur. What I am arguing against is the notion that the mind was not changed, and that I simply haven't read her posts and am conjuring up her position.

I've seen her do this before and predicted in my posts to her that it would happen again after our exchange.

I trust that you can appreciate the difference between me not wanting minds to change and me not wanting people to change their minds and then insist that they had not, and that I conjured up their previous position.

Anywho, I've discussed this more than anyone is interested in reading and a post-argument argument shouldn't be so long winded. So we'll have to agree to disagree on this.

I think rufio often finds good insights, but I think that she just as often applies them to indefensible assertions. The exchanges are often frustrating for the reasons I describe, the revisionism is not an just an evolution of thought but comes across as evasion. To be fair, it's unjust for me to characterize it as intentional on rufio's part. I do not think it is and when I call this a game I mean that it is a game in effect if not in intent. I think that when others have called debating with her a game they meant the same thing. But I've said many pages more than enough and you probably want to talk about something else now.