This phenomenon is treated as an example of phonology in the process of emergence in a very young language.
A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
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Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#12Ramblings of non-linguist:
The problem with the human body is that is extremely hard to share information. We can absorb gigabytes of information through our eyes and other sensory organs, but we can only emit a few bits of information. When we communicate, we are essentially trying to share our thoughts through a very narrow straw that limits the flow of information. The result of this bottleneck is language. Language requires lots of context, common understanding, and being able to view the world from the other person's perspective to make sense of the tiny amount of information that one person is sharing with another
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#13Ramblings of non-linguist: The problem with the human body is that is extremely hard to share information. We can absorb gigabytes of information through our eyes and other sensory organs, but we can only emit a few bits of information. When we communicate, we are essentially trying to share our thoughts through a very narrow straw that limits the flow of information. The result of this bottleneck is language. Langua…
Nit: we don't absorb gigabits of information. Perhaps there is that much bombarding our senses St any given moment but the amount that actually makes it into our brain is far less, probably on the order of a hundreds of bits/sec max
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#14Ramblings of non-linguist: The problem with the human body is that is extremely hard to share information. We can absorb gigabytes of information through our eyes and other sensory organs, but we can only emit a few bits of information. When we communicate, we are essentially trying to share our thoughts through a very narrow straw that limits the flow of information. The result of this bottleneck is language. Langua…
Note that the average speed of communication in different languages is the same, even though they differ in verbosity and expressiveness. This is why Spanish speakers seem to speak so fast - Spanish has more syllables on average.
So the bottleneck would appear to be, not the physical limitations of communication, but the rate at which we can structure information to be consumed by another mind.
Rather like how the limiting factor in coding productivity is speed of thought, not speed of typing.
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#15Ramblings of non-linguist: The problem with the human body is that is extremely hard to share information. We can absorb gigabytes of information through our eyes and other sensory organs, but we can only emit a few bits of information. When we communicate, we are essentially trying to share our thoughts through a very narrow straw that limits the flow of information. The result of this bottleneck is language. Langua…
Nit: we don't absorb gigabits of information. Perhaps there is that much bombarding our senses St any given moment but the amount that actually makes it into our brain is far less, probably on the order of a hundreds of bits/sec max
We definitely absorb huge amounts of information -- but only a fraction of that information reaches the conscious level.
Just google search "unconscious visual processing"
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#16Ramblings of non-linguist: The problem with the human body is that is extremely hard to share information. We can absorb gigabytes of information through our eyes and other sensory organs, but we can only emit a few bits of information. When we communicate, we are essentially trying to share our thoughts through a very narrow straw that limits the flow of information. The result of this bottleneck is language. Langua…
Nit: we don't absorb gigabits of information. Perhaps there is that much bombarding our senses St any given moment but the amount that actually makes it into our brain is far less, probably on the order of a hundreds of bits/sec max
So your visual cortex isn't in your brain? Would you care to point out which region(s) of the brain only receive hundreds of bits/sec?
Somebody should tell the lossy video compression folks.
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't you confusing language with understanding? In computer terms (which I'm more familiar with) this is the difference between expressing a program in some language vs evaluating that program.
A program that can be evaluated only by the coder who wrote it is kinda useless.
Unless you think of programs as having a general structure with specific parts to be filled in by the coder before or during evaluation.
This is how we can design a language for communicating general solutions to people's individual internal issues. Like self-help mad libs.
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#18Ramblings of non-linguist: The problem with the human body is that is extremely hard to share information. We can absorb gigabytes of information through our eyes and other sensory organs, but we can only emit a few bits of information. When we communicate, we are essentially trying to share our thoughts through a very narrow straw that limits the flow of information. The result of this bottleneck is language. Langua…
That's why a picture is worth a thousand words :)
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#19Ramblings of non-linguist: The problem with the human body is that is extremely hard to share information. We can absorb gigabytes of information through our eyes and other sensory organs, but we can only emit a few bits of information. When we communicate, we are essentially trying to share our thoughts through a very narrow straw that limits the flow of information. The result of this bottleneck is language. Langua…
Nit: we don't absorb gigabits of information. Perhaps there is that much bombarding our senses St any given moment but the amount that actually makes it into our brain is far less, probably on the order of a hundreds of bits/sec max
This is incorrect. Even the spinal nerve bundle processes orders of magnitude more information just in keeping you balanced on your feet or chair.
Perhaps you meant we only commit a few hundred bits of information to long term memory per second under uninteresting conditions?
*Sorry for piling on! I didn't see the other two replies and went to get coffee before finishing my reply.
Re: A Language That Linguists Thought Couldn’t Exist
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Nit: we don't absorb gigabits of information. Perhaps there is that much bombarding our senses St any given moment but the amount that actually makes it into our brain is far less, probably on the order of a hundreds of bits/sec max
So your visual cortex isn't in your brain? Would you care to point out which region(s) of the brain only receive hundreds of bits/sec? Somebody should tell the lossy video compression folks.
Yes, it is in your brain. But if you think that your visual cortex receives anything akin to a high fidelity "picture", then you are mistaken. Regarding lossy image compression, you're free to look at something briefly and try to redraw it from scratch. Even if your drawing skills are perfect, you will find that your picture will be filled with confabulations and stereotypes.
> Because of a limited number of axons in the optic nerves (approximately 1 million axons in each) only ~6x10^6 bits/sec leave the retina and only 10^4 make it to layer IV of V1 [22,23]. These data clearly leave the impression that visual cortex receives an impoverished representation of the world, a subject of more than passing interest to those interested in the processing of visual information [24]. Parenthetically, it should be noted that estimates of the bandwidth of conscious awareness itself (i.e. what we ‘see’) are in the range of 100 bits/sec or less [22,23]
Estimates of quantified human sensory system throughput. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Estimates_of_quantified_hu... [accessed Jun 20, 2017].