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InvisibleYellow Pants
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Re: Language [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26359083 - 12/03/19 01:13 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I believe language is fundamentally for communication purposes.  At some point some dude pointed to the fire and made a specific vocalization that was mimicked by his friend.  Now language has developed radically along with our social and cultural development.  The map is definitely not the territory.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: laughingdog]
    #26359106 - 12/03/19 01:28 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

laughingdog said:
DividedQuantum here's a rather "radical" view on the matter. Listened to a lot but not all. Let me know what you think of it.

Seems best to watch from the beginning to understand the foundation. Starts to tie in thought and language about 6 minutes in.

Darryl Bailey, Challenging the Fantasies Part 1 of 3



http://www.darrylbailey.net/





I didn't watch the whole thing, but I watched a fair amount and I think I know where this guy is coming from. Let me just address a few of the salient themes of his talk: 

One of his primary themes seems to be that language represents meaningless sounds attached to forms that don't even exist. There is some truth in this. The individual phonemes we attach to words with agreed upon meanings are not, in themselves, meaningful (other than as aesthetically beautiful expressions, i.e. in poetry). But, though I acknowledge that form is impermanent and transitory, I would not go so far as to say that form itself doesn't exist -- merely that it is not absolutely static in any way. This all ties into the suggestion that language is basically arbitrary and temporary, which, though true, does not invalidate anything for me about its utility and its ability to profit us greatly.

I agree with his nondual perspective, and naturally, language is dual, but on the other hand, if we have to make distinctions for the purposes of communication, then this is a necessary thing to do. Communication is one of the deepest themes of nature.

He also states that we have no tool for explaining or even satisfactorily dealing with existence and experience, and that all we can really do is "let existence happen." I feel this is a bit dismissive. As I said in a previous post, while language cannot communicate what a psychedelic feels like, it can excite recognition and understanding in others who have tried it. And I feel this is a perfectly wonderful thing. So, to a degree I feel we can approach communication of experience through language.

I agree that thought is not fundamental, and I suggest that the level of thought humans occupy most of the time is really an evolutionary system for dealing with survival. So we must not look to thought for any answers. Perhaps, though, there are some subtler forms of thought that are more fundamental. Perhaps language is useful even in communicating some of these subtler states.

I agree with him that we cannot understand reality through language, but then on the other hand, I don't think we can understand reality through any avenue. So to single out language as faulty in this area is, to me, a bit disingenuous.

All in all it's a very interesting talk, but I feel language is richer and broader than Mr. Bailey seems to, though I feel his approach is not without merit.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Language [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26359225 - 12/03/19 02:24 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

DQ, Thank you for your insights.

...I agree that the point about other languages, and the different words for the same thing, reveals some arbitrariness. But I think he over does it.
...Humans wouldn’t have all the marvelous technologies they do, if words didn’t have real meanings at a certain level, and furthermore meanings that pretty well agreed upon. Other wise translation wouldn’t work.
He avoids this point, repeats himself again & again almost verbatim, and the audience seems oblivious. But it bothers me.
So I agree with you about “its ability to profit us greatly.”

Also as you say: “So, to a degree I feel we can approach communication of experience through language.”  And this is an aspect of ‘reality’, and an essential one for us.

...His dismissal of the fact that advanced meditators
deal with pain in a fundamentally different way seems to have only 2 possible causes — being uninformed, or being purposely misleading. In either case a little strange. I mean this is no secret:
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=buddhist+self+immolation&iax=images&ia=images
But again the audience seems oblivious.

....As you say: “I agree with him that we cannot understand reality through language”. & I agree with you, but again this is not new, which he acknowledges as going back to Buddha & Taoism.
But he adds nothing new and shows no sense of humor in regards to the fact that he is using words to make his points.
....Both Korzybski; & Bandler and John Grinder  with their attempt to analyze Erickson’s methods, using transformational Grammar; and Albert Ellis & other  cognitive psychologists, did make headway in understanding how many specific aspects of language mislead, and in which ways.

....To dismiss all of physics with one quote from a historical meeting long ago, post the A & H -bombs, and GPS in satellites, and other predictions made by Einstein, that have been proven, for example, again seems as you say: “a bit disingenuous”.

...I’ve listened to some of all the videos. I enjoy the deflating of the seriousness with which some philosophizers take themselves, but am disappointed in the repetitiveness, which perhaps serves as an excuse to NOT go into detail, or bring up & confront objections.


Edited by laughingdog (12/03/19 02:24 PM)


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: laughingdog]
    #26359569 - 12/03/19 04:49 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Indeed, well said. :thumbup:


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Invisiblepineninja
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Re: Language [Re: DividedQuantum] * 1
    #26359674 - 12/03/19 05:49 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

All the words are available through spelling if needed but most of the words in this sentence wouldnt be spoke.
Quite a few words are a combo of the initial spelling and another quick sign.
Most common words are available with one sign.

Yesterday I went to the shops and bought some flowers, it was a beautiful day too.

Yesterday I shops, flowers, beautiful day.

But with extra meaning through the movement of hand and body language, much like tone and intonation works for speech.

The perspective shift that they have during to one of the senses being altered gives them a unique view on a lot of things.

It makes them aware of the senses and how powerful...or not they actually are.

How much we can take for granted that they are the medium through which we compare and exist for example.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: pineninja] * 1
    #26359849 - 12/03/19 07:30 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Very interesting, thank you.


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InvisibleYellow Pants
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Re: Language [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26362420 - 12/05/19 07:46 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

So is language merely descriptive, that is of a reality separate from it ? 

Or does it represent or embody something more absolute ? 

Sometimes it seems that it is reality that obeys the IQ.


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Invisibleredgreenvines
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Re: Language [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26362554 - 12/05/19 09:14 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

grammar is logic, and it varies with cultures.
vocabulary is encyclopedic and it also varies with cultures.
poetry can be the best use of vocabulary and legal frameworks are the best use of grammar,
language encompasses all of that.


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InvisibleYellow Pants
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Re: Language [Re: redgreenvines]
    #26362709 - 12/05/19 10:24 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

redgreenvines said:
grammar is logic, and it varies with cultures.
vocabulary is encyclopedic and it also varies with cultures.
poetry can be the best use of vocabulary and legal frameworks are the best use of grammar,
language encompasses all of that.




Right.  So does grammar/vocabulary simply exist as an appendage of the physical/evolutionary process, or are the origins of it more detached from this process than we’d typically assume ?  If so, what would that imply?

Something within the brain evolved the ability of relatively advanced thought along with the physical capabilities of speech.  So I guess I would be heading down a design vs. selection path.


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Offlinedodgem
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Re: Language [Re: redgreenvines] * 1
    #26362743 - 12/05/19 10:43 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I remember tripping many years ago and coming to the conclusion that 'Words are Dead'. My process of thought was something along the lines of -
I know the words I know due to how I was brought up and taught those words, and all my experiences
I was brought up differently than others, even my brother next to me, and all my experiences are different
When I think of a word, it becomes what it is due to all my past experiences. 'Love' for me is different than love for anyone else. Thoughts of my parents, of Jesus and his love for xyz, my love for my hamster, etc.
How can we pretend to understand what other people are saying when each word coming out of their mouth means something entirely different compared to what it means to me.

Language to me is our way to try and connect with others, to find some similarity that we can have together. I think of times when I am conversing and either myself or the other exclaims 'Yes! Exactly! That is how I have always thought/felt about that' and in those moments their seems to be a deeper connection. The contentment of knowing that other people think the same thing as you, or see this thing we call reality in a similar way as you. Almost saying "hey, you aren't that different, I think the same way and see the world as you do!". And that feels comforting to us.

I think this can also lead to trouble when you seek that too often, and dismiss others who you think don't have similar outlooks on your reality. I suppose the difficulty can arise when you put too much belief in your views and aren't able to be open to others. In other words, putting the label or right and wrong on your thoughts vs. others.

And to come full circle, even your definition of right and your definition for wrong is going to take a different form than any one else, due to how you define those words due to all your past experiences up to that moment. So, words evolve for each individual as they move through life.

I'm having many thoughts right now, and am having a hard time articulating them all. And this again comes back to the idea that I want to share my ideas with you, with the hopes that someone else will agree and be on the same page as me. As if I want to create that connection with another.

A few quotes I have saved in the past to add for some food for thought.


Joseph Samuel Bois said in his book The Art of Awareness

"in a sense we are always talking about ourselves, no matter what we believe we are talking about"

and also

"Real communication is a joint interplay of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and purposes"

In the book Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul by Giulio Tononi, he states

"Nothing that is made of matter can hope to explain the quality of the mind"


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Offlinedodgem
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Re: Language [Re: dodgem] * 1
    #26362747 - 12/05/19 10:45 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

It also reminds me of something else I thought of long ago after eating mushrooms -

The difference between saying "this is a bird" vs "this is what we can a bird"



Thanks for this post DQ, it has really got me thinking!


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: Yellow Pants] * 1
    #26362757 - 12/05/19 10:52 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

Yellow Pants said:
Quote:

redgreenvines said:
grammar is logic, and it varies with cultures.
vocabulary is encyclopedic and it also varies with cultures.
poetry can be the best use of vocabulary and legal frameworks are the best use of grammar,
language encompasses all of that.




Right.  So does grammar/vocabulary simply exist as an appendage of the physical/evolutionary process, or are the origins of it more detached from this process than we’d typically assume ?  If so, what would that imply?

Something within the brain evolved the ability of relatively advanced thought along with the physical capabilities of speech.  So I guess I would be heading down a design vs. selection path.





These are excellent questions, and given that human speech has to do with specific forms of evolution that occurred hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago, we just don't really know the answers.

Noam Chomsky believes that the capacity for speech is a genetic mutation, an assertion with which many disagree, including myself. We don't need to invoke design, but the confluence of a descended larynx (without which speech is impossible), the nature of our brains and our particular neurology, etc., is a very fortuitous situation. There are so many factors involved that Chomsky's belief seems a little simplistic.

Not only that, but it now appears that non-recursive languages are spoken in some human cultures. This really throws a monkey-wrench into Chomsky's theory, which depends on recursively enumerable combinations of words. (Recursive languages are those that are sets within all possible combinations of the language. In other words, a language is recursive if there is an algorithm that can spit out all the meaningful strings in that language, and those strings only. A language is not recursive when such an algorithm doesn't exist).

So, we can say that selection can produce such a situation, although just how is quite beyond science's purview at this time. Design is not necessary, although no one would call someone crazy if they decided that nature was orderly, and not entirely accidental. However, that is neither here nor there. The origin of language is basically a total mystery.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: dodgem]
    #26362770 - 12/05/19 11:00 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

dodgem said:
I remember tripping many years ago and coming to the conclusion that 'Words are Dead'. My process of thought was something along the lines of -
I know the words I know due to how I was brought up and taught those words, and all my experiences
I was brought up differently than others, even my brother next to me, and all my experiences are different
When I think of a word, it becomes what it is due to all my past experiences. 'Love' for me is different than love for anyone else. Thoughts of my parents, of Jesus and his love for xyz, my love for my hamster, etc.
How can we pretend to understand what other people are saying when each word coming out of their mouth means something entirely different compared to what it means to me.

Language to me is our way to try and connect with others, to find some similarity that we can have together. I think of times when I am conversing and either myself or the other exclaims 'Yes! Exactly! That is how I have always thought/felt about that' and in those moments their seems to be a deeper connection. The contentment of knowing that other people think the same thing as you, or see this thing we call reality in a similar way as you. Almost saying "hey, you aren't that different, I think the same way and see the world as you do!". And that feels comforting to us.

I think this can also lead to trouble when you seek that too often, and dismiss others who you think don't have similar outlooks on your reality. I suppose the difficulty can arise when you put too much belief in your views and aren't able to be open to others. In other words, putting the label or right and wrong on your thoughts vs. others.

And to come full circle, even your definition of right and your definition for wrong is going to take a different form than any one else, due to how you define those words due to all your past experiences up to that moment. So, words evolve for each individual as they move through life.

I'm having many thoughts right now, and am having a hard time articulating them all. And this again comes back to the idea that I want to share my ideas with you, with the hopes that someone else will agree and be on the same page as me. As if I want to create that connection with another.

A few quotes I have saved in the past to add for some food for thought.


Joseph Samuel Bois said in his book The Art of Awareness

"in a sense we are always talking about ourselves, no matter what we believe we are talking about"

and also

"Real communication is a joint interplay of thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and purposes"

In the book Phi: A Voyage from the Brain to the Soul by Giulio Tononi, he states

"Nothing that is made of matter can hope to explain the quality of the mind"





Wonderful post. Yes, there is a subjectivity to language that is undeniable, due largely to the fact that we are largely subjective beings. The whole thing is so complex that to really get a handle on it is quite impossible.

I like your second quote, too. Indeed, human communication is about much more than a combination of words. Just about every time we communicate, sensation, emotion, social dynamic, thought, etc. are factors that enter into it. I think a lot of people, especially academics, try to get away from this, but it's very difficult. Nevertheless, language is rich and wonderful, at least at times.


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Invisiblelaughingdog
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Re: Language [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26362784 - 12/05/19 11:07 AM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Just a few of the mysteries and facets of language:

Is mathematics a language?
Does it have a grammar?
Why can children learn 2 or more languages between the ages of about 1 to 5 with no formal grammar instruction, yet in adulthood, many struggle to learn a second language?
Why and how does language change, so that we can't really understand Shakespeare after a few hundred years?
Why is "Finnegans Wake" by James Joyce, considered great when almost no one actually reads it, or understands it?
What do you think of the literary  experiments by Jack Kerouac in "On the Road" and William S. Burroughs novel's?
Touchy subject, by why is the speech of people in the USA, markedly different according to skin color? And even touchier, why is it easier for one group to talk like the other, than visa versa?
Why did 'california girl" speech happen? if like you know how totally way cool it is?
Why do people tell jokes?  Do autistic people tell or get or enjoy jokes?
Young animals play, and sneak up on one another, and pretend to fight, but grown animals seem to have no real sense of humor. Like wise math has no sense of humor. Does humor have a biological function?
Various animals communicate to some degree, and generally the biological function is obvious, but whale songs lasting  20 minutes , &  sometimes repeated  over and over again for 3 hours, remain a mystery.
etc.
etc.


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InvisibleYellow Pants
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Re: Language [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26362893 - 12/05/19 12:20 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
Quote:

Yellow Pants said:
Quote:

redgreenvines said:
grammar is logic, and it varies with cultures.
vocabulary is encyclopedic and it also varies with cultures.
poetry can be the best use of vocabulary and legal frameworks are the best use of grammar,
language encompasses all of that.




Right.  So does grammar/vocabulary simply exist as an appendage of the physical/evolutionary process, or are the origins of it more detached from this process than we’d typically assume ?  If so, what would that imply?

Something within the brain evolved the ability of relatively advanced thought along with the physical capabilities of speech.  So I guess I would be heading down a design vs. selection path.





These are excellent questions, and given that human speech has to do with specific forms of evolution that occurred hundreds of thousands to millions of years ago, we just don't really know the answers.

Noam Chomsky believes that the capacity for speech is a genetic mutation, an assertion with which many disagree, including myself. We don't need to invoke design, but the confluence of a descended larynx (without which speech is impossible), the nature of our brains and our particular neurology, etc., is a very fortuitous situation. There are so many factors involved that Chomsky's belief seems a little simplistic.

Not only that, but it now appears that non-recursive languages are spoken in some human cultures. This really throws a monkey-wrench into Chomsky's theory, which depends on recursively enumerable combinations of words. (Recursive languages are those that are sets within all possible combinations of the language. In other words, a language is recursive if there is an algorithm that can spit out all the meaningful strings in that language, and those strings only. A language is not recursive when such an algorithm doesn't exist).

So, we can say that selection can produce such a situation, although just how is quite beyond science's purview at this time. Design is not necessary, although no one would call someone crazy if they decided that nature was orderly, and not entirely accidental. However, that is neither here nor there. The origin of language is basically a total mystery.





I am aware this is not an empirical take but suppose “god” manifests this world.  God being some sort of transcendental force with manifesting powers.  Design would not be an accurate word but instead a kind of meta physical encouragement in combination with the down to earth reality of this world.  Language develops out of body-brain structures and an ever evolving species.  If you can more or less accept that to be accurate ish then language is also a conduit, at least potentially, to “god” for lack of a better term, in the sense that what is manifested ultimately stems from “god” then the language of the manifested can be a portal into this truth. 

Just a thought.  However there is definitely something to the works of great poets and writers.


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26362903 - 12/05/19 12:27 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Following from your premises, that is not illogical.


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InvisibleYellow Pants
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Re: Language [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26362914 - 12/05/19 12:33 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I mean I think Chomsky is right in that speech is a genetic mutation.  It’s just whether or not that’s the be all end all of the matter ?


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: Yellow Pants]
    #26362928 - 12/05/19 12:36 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

I don't think it is at all. Really, I think it's far too complex for modern science to figure out.


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InvisibleYellow Pants
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Re: Language [Re: DividedQuantum]
    #26362943 - 12/05/19 12:44 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Quote:

DividedQuantum said:
I don't think it is at all. Really, I think it's far too complex for modern science to figure out.




How so ?


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InvisibleDividedQuantumM
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Re: Language [Re: Yellow Pants] * 2
    #26363015 - 12/05/19 01:22 PM (4 years, 1 month ago)

Well like I said, evolutionary biology, genetics, ethology, psychology, neurology, linguistics, etc. each have to solve a lot of problems, and then figure out how their solutions tie in with the solutions of all the other fields. It's a totally multidisciplinary problem, and academia these days doesn't do well with that. Moreover, we need more physical evidence than we will ever be able to have to answer some of these questions. So, at least to me, a real answer seems hopeless.


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