Curiosity Over Pride (FYI: To comment, send an e-mail to scifidink@gmail.com)

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

On the essential function of exclusion

Exclusion is a no-no word, isn't it ?
It is NOT politically correct these days, is it ?
I get down on it all the time, right ?

I occasionally throw out the question "is it possible to create ANY kind of identity WITHOUT resorting to exclusion" ?
This is not a purely theoretical, hypothetical question. And it ties right into what Thai and I have been discussing on zero sums.

To introduce this problem, I am going to go way back to one of the very best presentations of it : the Genesis creation story, part 2, in the garden (as seen through rabbinic eyes...)
The FIRST commandment reads : "Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat (some rabbis say that this should read, thou shalt eat, not thou mayest eat...) : But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it : for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." And the Lord God said, it is not good that the man should be alone ; I will make him an help meet for him. Genesis 2,17-18, King James Version

The commandment is "Eat of every tree of the garden EXCEPT, and it is formulated with a negation, NOT, which is the SECOND negation which appears in the creation story, the first being in Genesis 2,5, and which reads : "And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew : for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground."

The two negations are quite different : our first negation "there was not a man" does not take the form of an exclusion, the way the commandment does.

And while the commandment introduces the SECOND negation in the creation story, it introduces the first THOU.
In other words, the first time that God directly addresses man, and speaks to HIM personally, it is in the form of this commandment which presents, first a positive imperative (commandment), then a negative one. "Thou" comes into existence at the same time, simultaneously. BECAUSE God addresses man in the THOU form, he... brings him into existence in language, and while delivering the commandment(s) : eat/not eat.

THOU shalt eat/THOU shalt NOT eat.
Negation. Exclusion.
So... the exclusion has something to do with the THOU, then, doesn't it ? And the EVERY ?
And God says... the day that THOU eatest what is excluded/set apart, THOU shalt die.
So... for Judaism, there HAVE to be excluded things in order for THOU (a symbol of the interpersonal relation) to exist.
Otherwise, confusion reigns. And we get.... filthy lucre the measure of ALL things, for example ?

Freud will restate all this much later, in his own words...

(Actually, looking back on this post, I am not happy with it. The two negations are not all that different. Two words which repeat in both negations : EVERY, and... NOT.
EVERY seems to go with NOT from a formal logical viewpoint.
Like the French say... tout OU rien ?)

62 comments:

Dink said...

Well now this seems to tie back into the whole language conversation. To define what something is, you are also defining what it is not.

But one of Thai's links piqued my interest. The author (Pinker) was discussing language structure, but he went on to mention direct vs. indirect communication. When discussing language, we have to bring hidden context to light in terms of the relationship between speaker and listener. Example:
"Hand me that hammer",
"Would you mind handing me that hammer?, and "It would be great if someone could help me out and hand me that hammer" have similar overt language, but there are differences.

Some language variations may stem from intentional manipulation of the listener, but I would guess that a fair number of people aren't even aware of the emotional content when they choose their words. By default they treat others as subordinates or prey and then seemed surprised when the listener is displeased by them. If we could make language more precise we could make thinking more precise.

Of course people have to be aware of their own intentions before they can accurately state them to others.

Thai said...

Dink re: "If we could make language more precise we could make thinking more precise."

Amen, alas I think ti is near impossible though heaven knows we are trying.

I am not sure you read this statement on the zero-sum thread so I will bring it over here:

"In the book on linguistics I mentioned- Pinker's The Stuff of Thought (which I am now almost finished with), there is a wonderful passage where he comments that the English language has almost 300,000 word for what are called "shape" words (like a cone or cylinder or ball, etc...) but only about 100 "position" words.

Think about about where/how most miscommunication arises between people.

The "shape" of the idea (or manifold or information structure, etc...) of what they are talking about may be relatively well agreed upon by two parties, but the position of that idea (or manifold or information structure, etc...) relative to other ideas may be very differently perceived by two different parties."

Cheers

Ideas (or words) are linked to each other in our mind in a kind of vast scale free network.

The problem is that the way I have linked my ideas (words) may not at all be the way you have linked the same word.

The words "country" or "patriotism" may mean very different things to me than to you, even though we at first blush think we are using the same word.

As Deb wisely said:

"Generations of Lacanian psychoanalysts shake their heads wisely at each other in groups, and think that just because they are using the same words.... they share a common experience, or agree.
Nothing could be farther from the truth in my book."

Debra said...

Dink : LOL, people have to be aware of their own intentions before they start speaking...
Psychoanalysis is ALL about this.
In Thai's terms, we could say that we are not unified characters at all, and we carry within ourselves different places from which we speak, each with its own particular POINT OF VIEW.
So... what you are saying is that it would be nice if a UNIFIED WE were CONSCIOUS AT ALL TIMES of what we are saying.
Such a person would not be human, but... a GOD ?
We are animals, remember ?

Thai said...

And by the way Deb re: "In Thai's terms, we could say that we are not unified characters at all, and we carry within ourselves different places from which we speak, each with its own particular POINT OF VIEW."

YES!!!!!

That is exactly how Thai would put it if I were as articulate as you. I like it a lot.

We are fractal creatures indeed ;-)

Thai said...

And I don't know about you but the computer I am typing into is not always the most unified creature either, and its a Mac!

Sometimes different parts of the darn thing don't seem to want to cooperate all that well with other parts ;-)

Dink said...

"only about 100 "position" words."

Might I request clarification? I assume position word means "toward", "near/far", etc., but I'm not sure if that is the intent.

"Ideas (or words) are linked to each other in our mind in a kind of vast scale free network. The problem is that the way I have linked my ideas (words) may not at all be the way you have linked the same word."

and

"So... what you are saying is that it would be nice if a UNIFIED WE were CONSCIOUS AT ALL TIMES of what we are saying."

Impossible! Hopeless, bleak despair engulfs. Curl into ball and consider heroin.

Nope. Rise from the ashes, brush self off, and try to be brave.

Okay. We have different genetics which will effect neural formation. We have different experiences and different sequences of experiences (I'll discuss later) which effect the neural formation which is already genetically different. So our perceptions are inherently different to reconcile with each other. And then to communicate these issues to each other we use direct and indirect language which in which we may or may not have conscious and/or unconscious intentions interfering.

Inhale. Exhale. Stay calm. Be courageous. Its worth the danger. Keep going further and further down the rabbit hole ;)

Thai said...

Indeed ANY direction you go: "rabbit hole". ;-)

And upon each of these rabbit holes, we have sensory systems which filter information (eyes and ears and tactile systems, etc...), and this then sends information through another filter (our emotional filter), which then again sends information to all these little substructures which need to do their thing (such as move our left arm to steer the bike or contract the diaphragm to expand our lungs or remember to write on our calendar that we have to be at our child's PTA meeting tomorrow night, etc...)

AND all these structures need to cooperate in order to create a unified behavior (e.g. our behavior) in order to ask the appropriate question of our work supervisor (or Hell) so that we live successful lives and successfully procreate.

All in an environment of infinite risk.

Rabbit holes indeed ;-)

Debra said...

We can go into the position words a little more, if you like, dink.
They are the words that RELATE YOU to the world around you by positioning YOU in relation to the world around : in front of/behind/etc etc, all of this depends on YOUR POINT OF VIEW, or the point of view that you have when you are speaking, shall we say.
Localisation is one of the most important "functions" of language.
We HAVE to localize. Ourselves, and others.
As for UNIFIED behavior, one of the most interesting aspects of Freudian thought is Freud's perception that our actions (when they are symtomatic ones...) realize a compromise between the different non-unified parts of us.
The primary processes are "happy" AND the secondary ones too EVEN IF OUR SYMPTOMS tend to make us very very uncomfortable. (That's why it's so hard to get rid of psychological symptoms. Remember, WE CAN ALWAYS FIND REASONS to justify our actions that SOUND logical and rational, right ?

Debra said...

Where's SS ?
You-hoo !!! (Frantic waving of arms and hands...)

Dink said...

Yes, where is SS? Has he gone on a vision quest without alerting us?

"The primary processes are "happy" AND the secondary ones too EVEN IF OUR SYMPTOMS tend to make us very very uncomfortable. (That's why it's so hard to get rid of psychological symptoms)."

I got the part about our actions being the compromise of are non-unified bits, but I'm confused and intrigued by the quote above. Expound?

"All in an environment of infinite risk."

One final stomp to really mash in the terror :)

"and this then sends information through another filter (our emotional filter)"

This apparatus here seems to be the one that distorts and needs to be investigated. It seems if we could clearly state its evolutionary purpose, mechanism of action, and some metrics we could get this planet organized.

Thai said...

So if I understand Pinker's book correctly, he states there are three main alternatives to the theory of conceptual semantics:

1. Extreme nativism- e.g. we are born with a large innate inventory of "ready made" words and that word meanings cannot be decomposed into more basic or atomic concepts.

2. Radical pragmatics: e.g. "polysemy" or the idea that permanently existing conceptual structure underlying the meaning of a word does not exist.

3. Linguistic determinism: Our native language IS the stuff of thought and therefore actually determines the thoughts we can think.


AND if I understand you correctly, you are in the linguistic determinism camp? e.g.you think our native language is the stuff of thought and therefore determines the actual thoughts we can think.


Pinker goes on to describe what the significant problems are with each of these competing theories.

But most significantly he describe the experiments that have allowed distinguishing between conceptual semantics and the alternative theories (most significantly linguistic determinism).

Or am I totally misunderstanding you and this subject?

Again, I know NOTHING about this stuff- indeed did not know it even existed until you first started talking about linguistics.

Thai said...

Dink, re: "AND the secondary ones too EVEN IF OUR SYMPTOMS tend to make us very very uncomfortable."

Remember not only does Dink as a whole need fulfillment but so do all the sub parts of Dink also require fulfillment.

And "That's why it's so hard to get rid of psychological symptoms"

As these psychological symptoms lead to things like this.

Remember "over" aggressive personality types are one form of "psychological symptoms".

And the environment an over aggressive personality type would do better in would naturally draw the aggressive personality type (as they would be more successful) than the environment in which the aggressive personality type would do worse.

Dink said...

The Linguistic Determinism is emotionally upsetting, yet appeals to logic. We don't want to live in The Matrix where our perceptions are manipulated and beyond our free will. But how else is a creature going to download all this information besides learning it from others who have formatted the data in the way they see best?

I suppose you have to download as presented until self-devised analytical tools are able to be created and then go back and scour everything previously learned. Is there some info so primal that it can't be questioned? Disturbing.

Has Pinker ever talked about creation of a "perfect language"?

Dink said...

"And the environment an over aggressive personality type would do better in would naturally draw the aggressive personality type (as they would be more successful) than the environment in which the aggressive personality type would do worse."

Aggression seems to create a positive feedback loop. Its amazing humans managed to create any sort of civility. Viva group selection, I suppose.

"Remember not only does Dink as a whole need fulfillment but so do all the sub parts of Dink also require fulfillment."

So our action-decided minds actually work by committee. It would be fun and/or enlightening to try to identify each committee member and the processes they control. Would there be one committee member who ran ego and had to do accounting for pride credits and shame debits to come up with an end number? Or would pride and shame be two different members? I'd like to think that desire and reason were two loud and constantly opposing members of the board.

D:"OG WANT TURKEY"
Rest of committee: "We've been over this. We've decided to be vegetarian. Over seven years ago."
D:"OG CALLS FOR REVIEW OF PREVIOUS DECISION. TURKEY HAS PROTEIN (obvious attempt to sway Reason to his camp)."
R: "We've been over this"
D: "SISTER-IN-LAW WORK HARD TO BAKE TURKEY (obvious attempt to sway Shame to his camp).
S: "We've been over this".

Anyhoo, you kind of get the drift. Lets have a post where we try to sort out all the players in this game.

Thai said...

"Lets have a post where we try to sort out all the players in this game."

Interesting exercise- actually, it is the same one I wanted to originally do in my investing game (though we do not have to apply it to investing at all)

I have this theory based on nothing other than personal observation that all successful teams have a certain self similarity based on the following model of sub specialization and cooperation.
e.g. team-members sharing a project to reach a common goal.

I use the cell as my model:

* Cell Membrane - forms the outer boundary of the cell and allows only certain materials to move into or out of the cell

* Cytoplasm - a gel-like material inside the cell; it contains water and nutrients for the cell

* Nucleus - directs the activity of a cell; it contains chromosomes with the DNA

* Nuclear Membrane - separates the nucleus from the cytoplasm

* Endoplasmic Reticulum - moves materials around in the cell

* Ribosomes - make protein for the cell

* Golgi Bodies - are used for packaging and secreting of energy

* Mitochondria - break down food and release energy to the cell

* Lysosomes - are chemicals used to digest waste

* Vacuoles - are storage areas for the cell

I suspect you will see these key elements in any team that successfully cooperates


Now look at the characters in team in any successful novel and tell me there roles and I suspect we can place them into these same structures.

Just an experiment

Thai said...

And I don't know about Pinker referring to any "perfect language".

... But I will say this, your question kind of reminds me of a close friend I work with (he runs the IT support for my medical group) and he was one of those child protegee who entered college (studied physics) at a very young age.

He has always had this lifelong intense interest in AI (artificial intelligence) and used to work on a branch of the SETI project for a while out of an astrophysics lab in Texas.

Anyway I never thought about it before but he always tells me there is an near infinite number of ways you can solve AI issues; I have heard him make similar statement for computer languages- it is always one of those "what are you working with and what are you trying to achieve" things.

OT but interestingly I told him about the Pinker book the other day and I know he is reading it.


Anyway, related to my last comment: if you look at the people who teach business team theory, some have developed theories about the following "team roles" completely on their own:

1. Plant
2. Resource Investigator
3. Coordinator
4. Shaper
5. Monitor Evaluator
6. Team worker
7. Implementer
8. Completer Finisher
9. Specialist

How much do they look like the elements of a cell above?

Fractal world indeed

Dink said...

"it is the same one I wanted to originally do"

Agreed. We wondered off for a few months and then found it again from a different path. It being the Mysterious Construct.

"there is an near infinite number of ways you can solve AI issues"

Hmmmm. But some are utter kluges, yes? An interesting comment. Something tells me we'll find it again as we wander about.

Your post had good links. Thinking, acting, and socializing. Engaging stream-of-consciousness:

So the body has sensors. The sensors relay the transmission and the pattern is recognized as language. It is filtered for content, overt and subtext. The analysis shows the mostly likely "intents" of the message. One of the intents is decided to be the actual. A response must be generated. Options are generated; reason weighs in and emotion weighs in. An option is chosen. Words plugged in to relay the response and fired out the body.

So the team members/cellular structures that comprise the conscious.... (man, a flow chart seems easiest, but lets try this):

1)Confirm input received. If yes, then
2)Confirm input was message by another human intended for you. If yes, then
3)Translate words. Create primary model explaining meaning. Analyze intent, especially for potential of harm or benefit. Compare to previous experiences that are similar. Modify model if necessary. Decide you have the correct intent of the message.
4)Now that (you believe) you have the intent of what the other human said, a reaction happens very quickly. Emotion renders it's verdict.
4a)Maybe the verdict is that the statement was neutral and you can move ahead to crafting a response. 4b)Maybe the verdict is that something Primitively Important is happening.
5)If 4b, flip out. Tumble through a cascade of feelings. You're not driving anymore, you're riding. An imperitive decision on what "is" is has been made for you. Determine your intent for the other human while adrenal glands spit out steroids.

I'll think I'll finish this tomorrow. I'm thinking about that Moral Minds book that debated whether reason precedes emotion or vice versa. The sequence really does make a difference...

Thai said...

LOL!!!

I am a firm believer that emotion precedes reason.

But I do think there is a feedback loop that allows reason to temper emotion and even override it at time, but even this feedback loops itself has an emotional filter on it.

In fact even "reason" itself has emotion built into it- it is just the original emotional filter probably does not always communicate well with ALL parts of the brain while the "reason" feedback filter does and so it makes competing emotional decisions looking at all these different sub and super structures levels in the brain and tries to decide it "reason" means another should take primacy over the one the original emotional filter judged to be important.

So your brain is saying which of the following takes priority:
1. My hunger
2. My desire to be rich
3. My desire to included in the kin boundary of the person I am talking to
4. My desire to be included in the kin boundary of a group that is not here but is very interested in my current conversation
5. My desire to be thin
6. My desire to be popular
7. My desire to be funny
8. My desire to be respected (and by whom, etc...)
9. My desire to procreate
10. etc...

Even reason has an emotional filter, it is just that the links that filter has are to different information structures. (remember- fractal?)

At all levels there is still emotion filtering

And emotional filters on top of the emotional filters, etc...

Like languages on top of languages

Of course different people's main day to day thinking reside in these different information structure manifolds.

So people spends most of their day thinking about different information manifolds (as if they are the most important manifold) and you get people with minds like this:

It is all about sex: Roissy in DC. He is rather humorous (if a bit much) I must admit.

It is all about money: choose the internet site which fits this

It is all about patriotism: choose the internet site which matches this

It is all about compassion: choose the internet site which matches this

It is all about politics: choose the internet site which matches this

It is all about genetics: choose the internet site which matches this

etc...


Or sites for people like us ;-)

... Indeed this is one of the reasons I love the internet so much. It is so easy to travel between places where people cluster together around "hubs" that hold their emotional filters and I can learn about filters I never even knew existed.

I am sure you have seen some of these fractal internet maps where the internet is mapped according to whatever variable you want to solve for? Say by political affiliation, etc....

By the way, OT but searching for these maps brought me the following: imagine how unexpected issues like this would effect the internet. And if you think of the internet as like the brain and this "internet pipe" is a part of an emotional filter for either a small or large sub-structure or superstructure, etc... what would happen to the person's brain?

Might make a difference to you and me. Might not.

This is by the way why we don't notice many strokes in people. Some of the systems they take out are quite small and it can be very difficult to ascertain the effects to a person's total personality or cognition when small likes have been removed.

Thai said...

And one more point regarding whether the "reason" filter (with its emotional filter) should take control of the primal emotional filter and weigh decisions against all other decisions to see which is "most reasonable".

I am sure you are aware of the concept "it is good enough"?

In the world of economics and psychology, "good enough" is referred to as satisficing.

The basic idea is that at a certain point, the cost of weighing all decisions to come up with the very best decision (with the massive computing power that would be required) is much greater than the the cost of weighing only a few decisions and choosing the one that "is good enough". We trade the lower cost of deciding with the greater cost of the possibility of making a worse choice- again the recurring theme of an engineer's balancing act within a boundary of choices.

People satisfice all the time; the net result is we often make bad decisions in the interest of expediency.

Debra said...

I just got back from a weekend with my spy friends who get together to read the Old Testament from a rabbinic viewpoint.
I abruptly pulled out of this group two years ago, in the realization that... Protestantism is a restatement of Judaism, and... it amounts to fetichisation of the written word (to state things in a sweeping generalization). Since I am in a total minority now, I spend my time playing the piano while they tear apart the Bible upstairs. That suits me just fine.
On language determinism. I hold to a point of view which combines theory two and three.
Metaphor is a form of liberation from determination. It makes use of polysemy. Every good poet knows and does this.
Bilingualism, or knowing several languages, permits people to perceive the prejudices and assumptions of their own mother tongue. And translation is the absolute best way to get a taste of this.
I'll have to hunt to find examples of your question, dink. I'm lazy, too.
But, for your little dialogue, Freud already wrote it : substitute the (unfortunate) English words of id, superego, ego, for example, and you will see interesting parallels.
Thai, your last example/problem is one that Shakespeare tries to get a grip on in Hamlet...

Thai said...

I think I would rather put my hand in a blender ;-)

So you do not buy the result of the experiments that Pinker describes which try to tease out the separate issue that the brain has its own language?

I am sure Pinker can be wrong. He was the chair of linguistics at MIT and I am not sure what his title is at Harvard now but this is only important to people like me who know nothing about this stuff and so use his credentials as a way of benchmarking his opinions.

Having learned about medicine, I can definitely say there are lots and lots of issues in medicine that I disagree with some of the big brand name academics on.

Thai said...

I know Pinker studied under Chomsky if that helps you put their ideas into context if you are unfamiliar with him.

Dink said...

"But I do think there is a feedback loop that allows reason to temper emotion and even override it at time, but even this feedback loops itself has an emotional filter on it."

Have you ever had the experience where you are talking with a fairly new acquaintance and have the uncomfortable realization that you have completing misinterpreted the intent of their last comment? Perhaps you assumed it was a simple (emotionally neutral) question and reason starts into its process. Then suddenly it dawns on you that they were being sarcastic or flirting. Then the biochemical cascade hits. Luckily you've developed an autopilot that can stablilize you before you speak. Reason starts its process again to create a response, but not as smoothly as it did before.

It seems in the above sequence, reason had to work to dissect intent before emotion set in. Hmmm. There seem to be layers of hand-offs between reason and emotion before an agreement is made between the two (both on analysis of others intent and creation of self's intent in response). Perhaps "maturity" or "impulse control" is just the number of cycles (filters) in place.

Filters that can actually filter themselves; now thats tricky. In your lists of desires and internet hubs, the filter that dares ask "Why am I drawn to this?" can send you into existential crisis. Very uncomfortable and you can see why many avoid it. But taking the fractal path less used can make all the difference (apologies to those that actually know poetry).

"This is by the way why we don't notice many strokes in people."

Is it unethical that this statement made me laugh? Truth, tragedy, and amusement rolled into one.


"the cost of weighing all decisions to come up with the very best decision (with the massive computing power that would be required) is much greater than the the cost of weighing only a few decisions and choosing the one that "is good enough""

Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer gets that business intern from NYU? Maybe I can get a grad student to do some thinking for me. I mean, thinking is time-consuming and there is A LOT of it to be done (Truth, tragedy, and amusement rolled into one...).

"I just got back from a weekend with my spy friends who get together to read the Old Testament from a rabbinic viewpoint."

Now that is just flat-out strange!

Debra said...

Along the lines of language determining thought, look at how you guys are framing this conversation, and the vocabulary you are using.
The dominant ideology is that of the computer.
You describe living human beings using vocabulary which is related to machines.
The passive voice dominates.
"It" replaces "he" "she", and, most importantly "I".
Not much has been said about the IDEOLOGICAL significance of previous "scientific" pretensions to eliminate SUBJECTIVITY (that means... I, while we're at it).
Thai, SCIENTISTS may have abandoned "objectivity" theories, but... they structure and organize our EVERYDAY vocabulary.
I vaguely remember reading Chomsky's generative grammar theories about 25 years ago.
I'm not sure that I would defend them now, even if they are particularly seductive. I can't remember, and I don't feel like rereading him. Life is too short for such a... STERILE endeavor.

Thai said...

Deb physicians are engineers. We see the human body as a machine, even psychiatrists/psychologists.

It is "fix-it, replace-it, make it better, etc..."

That is what people ask us to do for them.

Debra said...

Spy is short for "psy", dink.
Does it get clearer, by any chance ?
This group is the OPPOSITE camp from my loony friends.
But... we all know what OPPOSITE means, don't we ?
;-)

Thai said...

"It seems in the above sequence, reason had to work to dissect intent before emotion set in. Hmmm."

Hmmm indeed.

I hadn't thought of this at all and it is true and it does make a difference.

Back to the drawing board :-(

Thai said...

And Dink re: "Then suddenly it dawns on you that they were being sarcastic or flirting."

You have lost me on this one.

And re: "SCIENTISTS may have abandoned "objectivity" theories, but... they structure and organize our EVERYDAY vocabulary."

Agreed.

If I read Pinker correctly, I don't think he is saying there is no truth in linguistic determinism as one would have to be blind to miss this. The language one uses clearly does influence thoughts, etc...

Isn't this the same as the NPR broadcast on a rose by any other name does not smell as sweet?

I think he is just saying the can clearly see the brain has a separate language beneath this.

That does not mean that English would not influence thoughts that are themselves carried out in "brain language".

Why would this not be the case in your opinion?

Dink said...

"Life is too short for such a... STERILE endeavor."

But if its the key to the Mysterious Construct.... Or at least a piece of the puzzle. Could be a game-changer.

"You have lost me on this one."

Well, sit-coms tend to have the "oblivious" guy. I can occasionally be "oblivious" guy. Freaking indirect communication! An example could be a coworker observing "You and X seem to get along well". And I just assume its a friendly observation to break the silence or whatever. So I mindlessly banter about having seen the same show last week. Then it clicks in that they're insinuating something inappropriate (if X is in authority, suck-up; if X is opposite gender, whatever). So then the whole situation, including my response, has to be reassessed. With emotion taking a much more active role.

"Spy is short for "psy", dink.
Does it get clearer, by any chance ?"

Apparently it does ;)

"I think he is just saying they can clearly see the brain has a separate language beneath this."

Yep, yep. And I want the translation book.

Thai said...

btw- I love the term "spy" for "psy"

And re: the experiments

I will look them up and try to post them. But please have patience with me on this as I am flipping though a book I only partially understand to present a logic sequence to you who are familiar with this stuff when I am taking baby steps.

And if I forget to say this- "thanks". I do thank you for the opportunity to put my thoughts on type and have them critiqued by you who understand this stuff. It helps me focus on the relevant issues- as I am sure you are aware, not many people are interested in this kind of stuff. ;-)


Google books allows limited preview of pages but a link to the book is here.

But I liked the following passage from the book pg. 150.

"Word meanings can vary across languages because children fine-tune them from more elementary concepts. They can be precise because the concepts zero in on some aspects of reality and slough off the rest. And they can support our reasoning because they represent lawful aspects of reality-space, time, causality, objects, intentions, and logic- rather than they system of noises that developed in a community to allow them to communicate. Conceptual semantics fits, too, with our commonsense notion that words are not the same as thoughts, and indeed, that much of human wisdom consists of not mistaking one for the other. "Words are wise men's counters," wrote Hobbes; "they do but reckon by them; but they are the money of fools." Centuries later, Siegfried Sassoon invoked a similar association when he wrote:

Words are fools
Who follow blindly, once they get a lead.
But thoughts are Kingfishers that haunt the pools
Of quite; seldom-seen..."


I will find the experiments for you

Thai said...

For Dink to keep up with the conversation:

...But real languages appear to be organized by Kantian abstract categories. We see them in the basic parts of speech: substance in nouns, space in prepositions, causality in verbs, time in verbs and in markers for tense. pg. 159

... It's still safe to refer to ordinary objects and substances with common nouns... At first glance, the conceptual distinction between an object and a substance seems to be captured in the linguistic distinction between a count noun and a mass noun. Count nouns like apple or pebble tend to be used for bounded hunks of matter; mass nouns like applesauce and gravel tend to be used for substances without their own boundaries.

... An important clue to the mental model of matter behind mass nouns is that in some ways they act like the plurals of count nouns. Pg. 167


... The count-mass distinction in our minds is not just unfettered by the object-substance distinction in the world; it is unfettered by the physical world altogether. It is best thought of as a cognitive lens or attitude by which the mind can construe almost anything as a bounded, countable item or as a boundless, continuous medium. We see this in a distinctive kind of mass noun that does what count nouns usually do, namely, refer to bounded lumps of matter like chairs and apples. These are mass hypernyms (super-ordinates) such as furniture, fruit, clothing, mail, toast, and cutlery. Though they don't refer to a substance...


... If the count and mass nouns are cognitive attitudes rather than reflex to the kinds of matter, we should see them applied to entities that are not made of matter at all. Indeed we do... We distinguish discrete opinions (count) from continuous advice (mass), stories from fiction, facts from knowledge, holes from space, songs from music, naps from sleep, falsehoods from bullshit.

Thai said...

Experiment #1:

Is the ability to construe abstract entities the way we construe things and stuff a late achievement of the mature mind, the result of extensive exposure to abstract count and mass nouns? The psychologist Paul Bloom has shown that the answer seems to be no: it comes naturally to children as young as three.

Bloom's published papers (he is a professor at Yale).

Dink said...

"Is the ability to construe abstract entities the way we construe things and stuff..."

(I'll try to catch up, but you two feel free to go at your own pace).

"as I am sure you are aware, not many people are interested in this kind of stuff."

Well aware. It surprises me because I know a lot of smart people, but they're just not curious about these things. Nice to know there are other maniacs out there ;)

Thai said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Debra said...

There's a lot of material here, and I'm not going to respond to all of it.
Re : scientists/doctors are engineers, they fix IT. Freud and Lacan definitely resisted this mechanistic take on our BODIES, essentially perceived as... EXTERIOR to us (that's what OBJECTIVITY does ; it rejects something in the direction of the OUTSIDE, the exterior.) Psychoanalysts are interested in relocalising US IN our bodies, and not favoring the conceptual attitude that WE are looking at our bodies outside of US, and these bodies are made of discreet, separate parts that function in a specialized, isolated manner.

On the subject of language. As a good ethological observer, I have remarked on the way we "use" language in what I call a dog-sniffing manner. (And this is NOT an insult to me, who when I am not a cat, am a dog...)
The initial contact that we often have with people, the "polite" small talk greeting about whatever, often the weather, is to me like dog sniffing. Feeling out empathy, the possibility of risking oneself to say something more important. Gotta get the feel of the land in front to decide if we are going to go further, for example. And sometimes we just sniff, and go our own ways. (Remember Romeo...)
Dinky, as far as insinuation goes, I am convinced that American society is rather paranoid about manipulation, and the reason for this paranoia will become more evident as we pursue this subject, hopefully. We are always saying things that escape our conscience, consciousness, and we don't hear them ourselves, the person who is listening hears them. Haven't you ever noticed how EVIDENT it often is that such and such is screwing up in such and such way (often family..., repeating things, like the guy who gets involved in successive love triangles ?) ? WE can see it perfectly, but.. HE can't see it. (He's looking at it from INSIDE and not outside, right ?) Well, the same thing is true of us, dink. WE can't see it from the inside. AND... trying to localize ourselves, or pretending to localize ourselves on the outside just doesn't solve this eternal problem of the human condition.
On terms of "brain language", I suppose that I can concede that there are essential PROBLEMS that human beings must resolve in speech : i.e. localisation of oneself and the "other", for example, and... DIFFERENCE. Making these distinctions is a basic requirement for thought itself, perhaps.
But... why talk about an organized language ?
Did you guys know that in the 19th century, Freud was a contemporary of the effort to find an Ur-language, and many Europeans made the hypothesis that German itself was a form of ORIGINAL, Ur-language.
The desire to find THE ORIGINAL, THE ORIGINE, is an extremely powerful human motivation.

Thai said...

Re: "But... why talk about an organized language ?"

I don't think Pinker thinks of it as an organized language per say; I think the notion "language" is more for the newly introduced reader to get a conceptual grasp of what he is talking about.

Dink said...

So I wiki ur-language for the heck of it. A couple of links later there's something about language probably started with physical gestures (signing) and that you can't have language without Theory of Mind. And then somehow it lead to that "I Am A Strange Loop" book. Somewhere in the wiki-link-blizzard there was interesting stuff on autism, something called the Toba extinction, and the claim that the Y-chromosome is only 60k years old.

Thai said...

Interesting

I also found it interesting that Hofstadter was not completely convinced by Pinker's book. In particular he thought it violated certain laws of physics.

I am still trying to understand this

Thai said...

Re: "I am convinced that American society is rather paranoid about manipulation"

I agree. In fact, if you go over my comments on Sudden Debt you will see I endlessly make fun of this theme proposed by a variety of commenters.

Indeed, I seem to remember a certain vaccine discussion?

Are we individuals? Are we a collective? Were does the boundary between the two end?

If others (or the collective) profit from me, should that really bother me?


AND Re: "and the reason for this paranoia will become more evident as we pursue this subject, hopefully."

Can't you just jump to the end of the story?

You honestly have me curious to know your reason why

Thai said...

And Deb, do you have a link you can share that briefly describes Lacan?

Dink said...

"Well, the same thing is true of us, dink. WE can't see it from the inside."

But why? I agree its a recurring theme with humans, but I don't understand why it happens (and why do we dream if we can't remember the dreams afterward?). I mean, most people aren't so "spychologically" fragile that they'll snap if they suddenly became aware of their dysfunctional patterns.

"In particular he thought it violated certain laws of physics."

Well, sure, there's that....

"Can't you just jump to the end of the story?"

Yeah, Deb, is there a conspiracy to make the American public paranoid?!?!!?

Thai said...

Dink, I have been discussing with Deb some of the concepts in quantum mechanics on another post (zero-sum).

Remember the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the famous double slip experiment?

And how the basic issue arises when an observer becomes part of a system (as oppose to just observing it) and therefore changes the system through their simple interaction with the system. People are unable to see their own impact on a system when they become part of it- hence the uncertainty principle and the limits to our knowledge.

We tend to think of this only for small systems- but what if it is true for ALL systems REGARDLESS of size?

Remember, we can't tell the future either.

... Hmmm, I need to talk with my buddy

Thai said...

By the way I think it probably does not work but I just want to think about it a little more

Thai said...

You might think it a wacky application but Mish came to much the same conclusion re: The Fed.

Debra said...

I typed in Ur-language on Google and came up with this link which is absolutely exemplary in my book of several points of discussion : the use of statistics in "scientific" methodology, the use of analysis, the "objectivity" quarrel/point of view which is still very much with us, Thai.
Here is the link. It's epistemological significance is even more important than its content, in my book, and is what interests me in this article.
http://www.santafe.edu/~johnson/articles.nostratic.html

On paranoïa and manipulation, we should start from "manipulation", the hot word these days, and look at etymology first, definition, etc. I will do this later. I have already done it elsewhere, in fact, but don't remember what I found.

Debra said...

My own experience of how we perceive ABSTRACTION is that in order for it to mean something to us, we must first access it as INCARNATED in the physical world. Otherwise abstraction remains outside of us. Love "means" nothing to us unless we experience it by means of human beings or animals, for example.
Understanding a word as it appears in the dictionary, is not the same thing as knowing what it MEANS, for example. And not even being able to use it again in another sentence demonstrates that we know what it MEANS, that we have tied it in to our personal, intimate experience of the world.
What is outside ? It is what happens when we rattle off historical dates for example. What happens when you "say" that every family in France was directly touched by WWI, versus when you REALIZE that what this means is.. a GENERATION of children growing up without fathers, brothers, women raising children alone, women running farms, whole towns with no men of a certain age in them.
This kind of "knowing" involves empathy, imagination, and the capacity to observe and reason. In my book, it is the most sophisticated manner of knowing.
If you open up Mein Kampf, you will read pages of text where the abstract entities of "social democracy", "Austria", "Germany" take on human, personal qualities, as though Hitler were talking about people.
But is this really all that surprising ? Doesn't our emotion color all of our perception of abstraction ?
I don't like Hobbes, Thai. Not at all. I'm rather allergic to him. He passes unequivocal judgment on words in your quote. And it is a negative judgment. Why ? In MY experience, most negative judgment arises out of some kind of fear, or incapacity to believe, or trust.

Thai said...

Long discussion on Heisenberg today- it doesn't work though size issues with the fundamental limitations to knowledge are not true.

It is scale invariant.

Deb, re: understanding abstraction through incarnation only

To the extent your definition of "understanding" means learning all the contextual nooks and crannies of a particular "shape" that we call abstraction, I suspect you and I agree.

But sometimes "close enough is good enough" is fine with me.

I truly hope that at certain times in my life, I am wise enough to not try and "understand" everything ;-)

Thai said...

And Deb, if you ever happen to hear mathematicians talking about chaotic systems (they are somewhat related to- but different than- complex systems and they came up today in our discussions on Heisenberg), I warmly advise as a friend that you stop and listen for a while.

I strongly suspect you would smile

Dink said...

"People are unable to see their own impact on a system when they become part of it- hence the uncertainty principle and the limits to our knowledge."

Rat bastard electrons! How are we supposed to sleep knowing matter and energy can just blink in and out of whatever state amuses them? I could swear I once saw a quote by Planck stating approximately "I wrote the paper, but I'm not sure I believe it". But I can't google it. It probably blinked out of existance to upset "the observer".

There was a movie in the 80's called "Real Genius". The alpha-genius was a guy named Lazlo Hollyfeld who pretty much went insane. He worked in a secret area underneath his old college that was only accessible through the main character's closet. Anyway, I've decided to imagine Thai's physicist friend as Lazlo. Lazlo was on a different plane ;)

Thai said...

re: my buddy (and my) "insanity"

He is insane in the best possible way. I Definitely want him in my foxhole when the bombs stat dropping.

re: frame of reference (or what others call point of view)

Yes, it is THE central bizarre feature of science (and life).

Everything changes as point of view changes.

And look at all the arguments and disagreements it causes on the discussion boards.

Debra said...

Have either of you read Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy ?
It is kind of fascinating IMAGINING that matter would "want" to live, to accede to consciousness...
And of course, the PRICE to pay for living, and consciousness is... mortality.

Thai said...

Fabulous series

Dink said...

Dream:

So in the recent wiki-link blizzard the concept that consciousness is really the focusing of attention was, um, "brought into my awareness". Somehow this morphed into the classic visual of an orbit appearing to be an ellipse in two-dimensions, but shown to be circular in three-dimensions. Emotional gravity? Logic making linear cause-and-effect patterns/maps that get distorted by the pull of the Mysterious Construct....

Then I was conversing with someone I haven't seen in many, many years. They accused me of not recommending them for a promotion. I fervently swore I did recommend them even though I had no memory of the event they were describing. I justified this to myself with the idea that it must have actually happened (even though I didn't remember it) and this is what I would have wanted to do in that situation. Or likely would have done. Or wanted them to perceive that it what I had done so they wouldn't be mad at me. Hmmm.

I love the internet and I love dreams. They take the mind to new levels ;)

Dink said...

"He is insane in the best possible way"

I absolutely understand.

"Pullman's Dark Materials Trilogy?"

Didn't know it existed until the fundamental Christians tried to warn parents of the dangers of this atheist author. So I fully intend to read the series at some point ;)

Thai said...

It really is a great series, even if it is a children's book. I totally understand why the made a trilogy from it.

My eldest read them a number of years ago so I picked them up after he finished them... Even cried near the end of The Amber Spyglass, which hasn't happened from reading a book in a long long time.

I wouldn't miss them if I were you- honest.

Debra said...

Hmmm...
The Dark Material's trilogy a CHILDREN'S series ???
Well, along those lines I guess you could say that Milton's Paradise Lost is for children too, then couldn't you ???
In France where the distinction between adult and child is so essential for the adults here, they had to market it differently in order to get the adults into it.
It is for... ADOLESCENTS.
The most difficult, challenging, and rewarding audience that any book could every want.

Thai said...

OK Adolescents.

But my kid read it as a kid so that is how I learned about it

Thai said...

Stuff like this just brings me a smile.

It just makes sense

Dink said...

"Even cried near the end of The Amber Spyglass"

I've been watching the Ken Burn's PBS series on National Parks. You wouldn't think that it would induce sniffling, but when John Muir dies....

"Milton's Paradise Lost is for children too"

Soon there will be a video game. Don't fall into the lake of fire!!

"It just makes sense"

That the brain/mind is a complete kluge and its amazing we can even manage to drool? ;)

Thai said...

Oh how is the series? I saw it was out

Dink said...

"Oh how is the series? I saw it was out"

Well, I wanted to really like it. And there are some compelling stories. But to be honest its too slow and full of false drama. Its twelve hours that could have been shaved into four really good hours. Those eight extra hours begin to grate on you.

I saw The Last King Of Scotland last night for the 1st time. Somehow I had thought it was a true story. I couldn't believe anyone could be so foolhardy (foolhearted? What's the word I'm looking for, OEDeb?). But beloved wikipedia quickly let me know it was fictional.

Debra said...

Thai, you should really check out Freud's Interpretation of Dreams.
Freud has a whole section on... displacement...
Dink, I seem to remember that John Muir kept diaries. They are probably more exciting than the National Park Series, that sounds a little watered down for my tastes, from your description.
Hate docudrama.

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