Laws of Nature

[untermensche]

I gotta tell you that I've spent a lot of time, almost 50 years, attempting to divine rules of evolution, one cell detect, two cells move, etc. Very early on it became apparent to me that communication was a prime feature in evolution. If one solution resulted in better communication relative to whatever aspect was being driven it survived. Now I go pretty far with communication I admit. But it is one of those well defined regularities we've been talking about.

You drift into abstraction immediately.

Sure, one can label the excretion of serotonin by one cell and the uptake of that serotonin by another as "communication". We can abstract.

But it will tell us nothing about language.

 

[Juma]

I gotta tell you that I've spent a lot of time, almost 50 years, attempting to divine rules of evolution, one cell detect, two cells move, etc. Very early on it became apparent to me that communication was a prime feature in evolution. If one solution resulted in better communication relative to whatever aspect was being driven it survived. Now I go pretty far with communication I admit. But it is one of those well defined regularities we've been talking about.

You drift into abstraction immediately.

Sure, one can label the excretion of serotonin by one cell and the uptake of that serotonin by another as "communication". We can abstract.

But it will tell us nothing about language.

Language is a means of communication. Period. There is no need for language if there is no communication going on.

 

[fromderinside]

You drift into abstraction immediately.

Sure, one can label the excretion of serotonin by one cell and the uptake of that serotonin by another as "communication". We can abstract.

But it will tell us nothing about language.

Language is a means of communication. Period. There is no need for language if there is no communication going on.

language needs to satisfy two demands if it is to serve communication in humans. It must permit, facilitate, learning of sending and receiving information and it must then permit using that information to transact success proving and reproduction proving activity. Just being a systems guy here.

 

[untermensche]

You drift into abstraction immediately.

Sure, one can label the excretion of serotonin by one cell and the uptake of that serotonin by another as "communication". We can abstract.

But it will tell us nothing about language.

Language is a means of communication. Period. There is no need for language if there is no communication going on.

Language can be used for communication.

But the vast majority of the use of language has nothing to do with communication.

Communication is a minor part of language. The greatest part is "self talk".

Which is why the logical hypothesis is that language arose as a means of thought, not as a means of communication.

 

[untermensche]

Language is a means of communication. Period. There is no need for language if there is no communication going on.

language needs to satisfy two demands if it is to serve communication in humans. It must permit, facilitate, learning of sending and receiving information and it must then permit using that information to transact success proving and reproduction proving activity. Just being a systems guy here.

Nobody is claiming that language can't be used for crude communications that are all the time misunderstood.

The claim is that communication is a secondary feature of language. It's biggest use is in "self talk" and spoken language is an attempt to translate thought into sound.

 

[fromderinside]

I wonder how one talks to self? Oh yeah, one communicates.

I believe what you are trying to say is badly communicated. (couldn't resist)

I believe you are trying to get down into Chomsky - Gould thinking here. As I understand Chomsky he tries to identify something like Dawkins Meme approach to thought. We now know, and Dawkins accepts, that memes are not transmitted nor put together like genes so poof to that idea. Invention of some internally derived, some human unique, construction of what some consider our most important attribute, language, is doomed to failure. Yeah, I've read and worked with Sperry too. Same kind of claptrap.

 

[untermensche]

I wonder how one talks to self? Oh yeah, one communicates.

It is who talking to who?

It is really just something that happens. Beyond any will.

And these are most definitely ideas of Chomsky. I don't have the slightest idea what Gould thought about this.

Chomsky stands apart from most modern linguists who just take it for granted, without evidence, that language arose as a means of communication.

There are many good arguments to demonstrate it most likely did not. It's inefficiencies and limitations as a means of communication to begin with.

 

[Juma]

It is who talking to who?
.

Yes. That is a good question. Since something is listening and something is speaking there something in our brain that talks in one direktion.

I would guess that some parts of the brain, that hasnt a good connections in both directions uses the speaking and hearing centers to connect back and thus create a feedback loop.

 

[untermensche]

It is who talking to who?

Yes. That is a good question. Since something is listening and something is speaking there something in our brain that talks in one direktion.

I would guess that some parts of the brain, that hasnt a good connections in both directions uses the speaking and hearing centers to connect back and thus create a feedback loop.

If you try to examine this "self talk" it is using language, but not how language is used to communicate. Unless it is rehearsal, which also does occur.

Because thinking does not have to occur in a linear fashion, like spoken words.

Thinking can occur in many directions at the same time and there is no need to worry about things like word order and "learned grammar".

 

[Juma]

Yes. That is a good question. Since something is listening and something is speaking there something in our brain that talks in one direktion.

I would guess that some parts of the brain, that hasnt a good connections in both directions uses the speaking and hearing centers to connect back and thus create a feedback loop.

If you try to examine this "self talk" it is using language, but not how language is used to communicate. Unless it is rehearsal, which also does occur.

Because thinking does not have to occur in a linear fashion, like spoken words.

Thinking can occur in many directions at the same time and there is no need to worry about things like word order and "learned grammar".

What has that to do with anything? That is just a symptom of closeness. The same is true of the lsnguage between me an my spouse. We know each other so well so we dont need every feature of grammar etc.

 

[untermensche]

If you try to examine this "self talk" it is using language, but not how language is used to communicate. Unless it is rehearsal, which also does occur.

Because thinking does not have to occur in a linear fashion, like spoken words.

Thinking can occur in many directions at the same time and there is no need to worry about things like word order and "learned grammar".

What has that to do with anything? That is just a symptom of closeness. The same is true of the lsnguage between me an my spouse. We know each other so well so we dont need every feature of grammar etc.

It's really an esoteric scientific question.

Did language arise as a means of communication, as hard as that is to imagine since it involves duel evolution working in harmony between speakers and listeners, or did it arise from structures of thought?

 

[Juma]

What has that to do with anything? That is just a symptom of closeness. The same is true of the lsnguage between me an my spouse. We know each other so well so we dont need every feature of grammar etc.

It's really an esoteric scientific question.

Did language arise as a means of communication, as hard as that is to imagine since it involves duel evolution working in harmony between speakers and listeners, or did it arise from structures of thought?

all I am saying is that there is communication going on IN ONE PERSON.

When you think different parts of you are communicating.

 

[untermensche]

It's really an esoteric scientific question.

Did language arise as a means of communication, as hard as that is to imagine since it involves duel evolution working in harmony between speakers and listeners, or did it arise from structures of thought?

all I am saying is that there is communication going on IN ONE PERSON.

When you think different parts of you are communicating.

You can call it communication, but it is something unto itself.

There is no analogy in the outside world to the experience of the mind.

 

[Juma]

all I am saying is that there is communication going on IN ONE PERSON.

When you think different parts of you are communicating.

You can call it communication, but it is something unto itself.

The mind consits of many parts. It is not a "unstructured whole".

language is used to encode something by a sender which is then decoded by the receiver.

 

[untermensche]

You can call it communication, but it is something unto itself.

The mind consits of many parts. It is not a "unstructured whole".

language is used to encode something by a sender which is then decoded by the receiver.

The greatest use of language is sent nowhere.

It just appears and the mind is aware of it.

 

[Juma]

The mind consits of many parts. It is not a "unstructured whole".

language is used to encode something by a sender which is then decoded by the receiver.

The greatest use of language is sent nowhere.

It just appears and the mind is aware of it.

Dont you want to actually argue for yor position?

 

[untermensche]

The greatest use of language is sent nowhere.

It just appears and the mind is aware of it.

Dont you want to actually argue for yor position?

My position is the greatest use of language is in "self talk", in the mind.

The smallest part is the crude expressions people exchange.

So most likely language evolved as it is most used, as a means of thinking, not as a means of communication.

But once language is used for communication, adaptions can slowly occur and rigid diverse vocabulary and "external grammar" can arise.

 

[Juma]

Dont you want to actually argue for yor position?

My position is the greatest use of language is in "self talk", in the mind.

The smallest part is the crude expressions people exchange.

So most likely language evolved as it is most used, as a means of thinking, not as a means of communication.

But once language is used for communication, adaptions can slowly occur and rigid diverse vocabulary and "external grammar" can arise.

How do vocabulary arise? I think social interaction and communication between individuals is necessary for a vocabulary to take shape.

 

[untermensche]

My position is the greatest use of language is in "self talk", in the mind.

The smallest part is the crude expressions people exchange.

So most likely language evolved as it is most used, as a means of thinking, not as a means of communication.

But once language is used for communication, adaptions can slowly occur and rigid diverse vocabulary and "external grammar" can arise.

How do vocabulary arise? I think social interaction and communication between individuals is necessary for a vocabulary to take shape.

For a shared vocabulary, yes.

But an individual idiosyncratic internal vocabulary could exist without communication with language.

 

[fromderinside]

How do vocabulary arise? I think social interaction and communication between individuals is necessary for a vocabulary to take shape.

For a shared vocabulary, yes.

But an individual idiosyncratic internal vocabulary could exist without communication with language.

If it comes down to surviving its going to be connected at some level with the outside world. its nonsensical to identify what is going on in the 'mind'/brain/individual as being anything other than, in some way, connected with surviving. That being said one might have nonsensical elements in 'self communication, talking to or with aspects of aware systems, that fit into whatever it is determining fitness for that feature. That by definition would be related to surviving ergo to fitness, ergo to driven by the pressure to survive, or in other words, linked to language.

One cannot escape into some netherworld to find internal impulse guiding human evolution. It all comes from the world in which humans live. The sooner Chomsky and others see this the sooner they will come back from appearing like Freud, connected to a duelist drive for existence, to being connected to a deterministic existence as are things. We respond, as Cannon said, because we are activated by events. Put anther way living stuff is reactive.

It all comes down to one of my early examples of communication really. Chemicals in the cell wall communicate conditions external to the wall that are relevant to ones metabolic needs which are represented by other communicators that relay back signals to 'go after that which is available' which, in turn, communicate to outer wall receptors to permit those metabolic products to pass the wall. All of these taken independently are different communications while the overall communication that of satisfying one's hunger. Note that none would exist if not both, relevant to, most effective at, meeting survival demands.