Science and language.

kuvasz wrote:

away two months from a2k and I stumble again across Gurdjieff?

fresco, my dear laddie, what am I going to do with you?

lets get to the real point of all this...... is consciousness derived from language or the other way around?

the first act of consciousness is ...I.

now how did that happen? as soon as consciousness occurs, I leaps in and starts differentiating and naming things....not I.... a bit Aristotelian perhaps, nontheless its how we do it.

so where did I come from?

christ, even my mom don't know

If 'I' is the first thought, it can't be 'my' first thought, so who's thoughts are you talking about?

0 Replies

John Jones wrote:

kuvasz wrote:
away two months from a2k and I stumble again across Gurdjieff?

fresco, my dear laddie, what am I going to do with you?

lets get to the real point of all this...... is consciousness derived from language or the other way around?

the first act of consciousness is ...I.

now how did that happen? as soon as consciousness occurs, I leaps in and starts differentiating and naming things....not I.... a bit Aristotelian perhaps, nontheless its how we do it.

so where did I come from?

christ, even my mom don't know

If 'I' is the first thought, it can't be 'my' first thought, so who's thoughts are you talking about?

I-hrie mon, it is a puzzle...like the sound of one hand clapping.

0 Replies

How about first comes any "word"...some grunt which becomes standardized as an action co-ordinator like "rock"...then maybe an action word like "lift"....then specific actor words like "me" or "you"....all of which become internalized in "thinking" as a scenario is played out in the brain. Note that some psychologists have defined "intelligence" as "the capacity to delay an external response"....internalized "sound echoes" would replace an external reponse by an internal one.

The philosophical issue here is that if words are (merely) action co-ordinators, then shared language is (merely) shared action. Thus "scientific knowledge" (= shared prediction) is species specific and even culture specific (Kuhns zeitgeisst/paradigm)

0 Replies

Re: Science and language.
fresco

Leaving for now the problem of the "I" - that, in my opinion can only be understandable in the context of the phenomenology - your initial statement seems to imply that the "laws of the nature" are not - as Plato or the modern materialists believe - external to us, I mean, do not exist as such but only within the structure of a language. And this structure is a function of the physiology and neural circuitry of the "homo sapiens".

But, other friends here, have pointed two problems and I think you didn't answer them.
First, if "laws of nature" are a function of a given language system, how can it be, that their predictions result in the external world? How is it possible that Newton law of gravity and planetary orbits, allows us to put a man in the moon?
Second, why leave the formal language system in order to make it related (a product?) to the physiology of man? This physiology has "laws of nature" itself.

Sorry to ask you an answer to this points, but I would like to understand better your position, since I think that my own perspective is perhaps not far from yours.

0 Replies

Val,

The problem of why predictions are "successful" is key issue. You rightly say that I do not address that, but instead question the concept of "prediction" itself.

i.e If we take on board that "time" is a psychological construct and "control" is a species specific trait (or vice), then what we call "scientific knowledge"as an aid to "control" is only a subset of all possible behavioural interaction webs that might be visualized within a universe. The artificial persistence of"words" mislead us into visualizing the universe as being segmented in a particular way independently of the social contexts in which such words first arose, but whether a "meta-language" can exist within which we can couch a transcendent epistemology will depend on the willingness of participants to "awaken" from the "control opiate".

The "success" of short term control could be epistemological short-sightedness.

0 Replies

(later edit)

We might note that Newtons laws were themselves shown by Einstein to be delimited in applicability by scale ...such scale being ultimately a function of man's "physiological range" for want of a better term. Surely this supports the main point.

0 Replies

fresco wrote:

(later edit)

We might note that Newtons laws were themselves shown by Einstein to be delimited in applicability by scale ...such scale being ultimately a function of man's "physiological range" for want of a better term. Surely this supports the main point.

Again, if the world is language driven, how can we make an exception for physiology?

0 Replies

JJ-

Couldn't we say it is driven by a combination?

I think the materialists say that language is physiology driven.

It's no go the yogi man

It's no go Blavatsky

All we want is a bank balance

And a bit of skirt in a taxi.

That's physiology driven isn't it?

0 Replies

spendius wrote:

JJ-

Couldn't we say it is driven by a combination?

I think the materialists say that language is physiology driven.

It's no go the yogi man

It's no go Blavatsky

All we want is a bank balance

And a bit of skirt in a taxi.

That's physiology driven isn't it?

What distinguishes physiology from the world? It can't be matter, so what else is it? Nothing. That's the answer.

0 Replies

Could it be the interaction between the different forms of matter and that has movement and that can't be pinned down philosophically.

0 Replies

JJ-

Maybe your basic assumption is wrong.

0 Replies

spendius wrote:

JJ-

Maybe your basic assumption is wrong.

If physiology is not of the material world then what else do we mean by it? You want to say that physiology as matter is connected to mind, and that this distinguishes physiology from the material world. But you also say that physiology as matter creates the material world of language. So the connection of physiology with mind does not differentiate physiology from the matter that does not connect with mind. In that case, if matter is language driven, why isn't physiology?

0 Replies

This has to be bootstrap stuff whixh transcends traditional dichotomies such as mind/matter.

If we replace"physiology" with "order of life" (after Capra, Maturana et al) then we move away from language as the "a priori" factor. Indeed "cognition" and "life" are equivalent according to these writers with "language" as a species specific by-product. (The Santiago theory of cognition)

The essence of the "why the exception" question follows a classic Godel pattern ...namely all systems have to start with at least one assumed axiom. But the Santiago hypothesis (life=cognition) involves a systems within systems approach thereby seeking to avoid attempts at axiomatic closure. ( It may be helpful for some to visualise this point by analogy with a fractals model)

0 Replies

Thank fresco.

OOw'd a thowt it?I would be lost without your clear and concise explanations.

0 Replies

JJ-
No.

Physiology is mind.A bunch of cellular reflex actions running on random accidents down what some call "preferred pathways" like rabbit runs.That's why you like tits.The earlier the random accidents took place etc etc.

Leek soup is lower down the hierarchy because the pathway is fairly new.

Your mistake is to think philosophy has any answers.

0 Replies

fresco wrote:

This has to be bootstrap stuff whixh transcends traditional dichotomies such as mind/matter.

If we replace"physiology" with "order of life" (after Capra, Maturana et al) then we move away from language as the "a priori" factor. Indeed "cognition" and "life" are equivalent according to these writers with "language" as a species specific by-product. (The Santiago theory of cognition)

The essence of the "why the exception" question follows a classic Godel pattern ...namely all systems have to start with at least one assumed axiom. But the Santiago hypothesis (life=cognition) involves a systems within systems approach thereby seeking to avoid attempts at axiomatic closure. ( It may be helpful for some to visualise this point by analogy with a fractals model)

apply this to theories of AI, where the rise of intelligence must follow from language or logic symbolism.

the implication is that human, bio-sentient intelligent self awareness arises from a different source than artificial intelligence.

0 Replies

fresco wrote:

How about first comes any "word"...some grunt which becomes standardized as an action co-ordinator like "rock"...then maybe an action word like "lift"....then specific actor words like "me" or "you"....all of which become internalized in "thinking" as a scenario is played out in the brain. Note that some psychologists have defined "intelligence" as "the capacity to delay an external response"....internalized "sound echoes" would replace an external reponse by an internal one.

The philosophical issue here is that if words are (merely) action co-ordinators, then shared language is (merely) shared action. Thus "scientific knowledge" (= shared prediction) is species specific and even culture specific (Kuhns zeitgeisst/paradigm)

let us examine cases of feral children.

do they gain "consciouseness"?

when?

http://www.feralchildren.com/en/children.php?tp=0

its why i agree with what you said, a form of language.....communication in a social setting predicates language and must set something off that is inate or is capable of arising due to an advanced awareness of the environment.

at its most basic feature, even a cell has this capacity........

so a "society" or "association" forces communication, this communication produces language, that produces sentience.

back to Flatland, and emergent theory where a multidimensional system produces something new, unpredicted by its lesser parts.

0 Replies

kuvasz,

Yes ...I've thought about feral children and deaf mutes etc...and indeed the cellular level is a good a base model to investigate "communication"and alternative concepts to "information".

0 Replies

fresco

If we assume that time is a psychological construct - and why not space then? - then all experience is only possible within that construct. Motion, changes, becoming our own way, as specie, to perceive things and interact with them.
This is not far from Kant's "Critique of the Pure Reason".
With a difference: you speak of psychological construct, not physiologic condition. It seems to me that, in your perspective, knowledge becomes social, what I think to be obvious. In the absence of the metalanguage, all specific languages impose different conceptual perspectives to experience.
But then, why speak of time as psychological construct? If this is the nature of time - and here we are assuming that metalanguage we deny - then we are establishing an initial condition of all experience that is not social but psychologic. Without objective time - or time as physiologic condition of all perception as in Kant - there is no motion, plurality, relations: that means, there is no science.
Again, I don't see how you can relate your conception of time as psychological construct, to experience as social construct - "via" language.

0 Replies

fresco wrote:

".

You are saying that:
"Physiology determines the world we live in by constructing our thoughts in a particular way."
Yet physiology is itself a thought. If it is not a thought it is material. If it is material then by your definition, it is a thought.

What is the key point you want to establish? If you make a distinction between thought and the material world, you must say in which of these you place physiology. It does not have a foot in both camps.

0 Replies

Science and language.

Related Topics

Quick Links

My Account

able2know