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Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

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Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I definitely have an inner monologue im some situations, reading is a good example. I can speed read in which case I don't really have a perception of the sounds, but if I'm closely reasing something then I do have a sense of the sounds if words as I'm reading. The idea of thinking independtly like that though seems unbearably slow to me (although lots of very clever people report doing it, so obviously it isn't for…

That is thinking slow for you?? How do you reach conclusions or how do you know the reasons why you reached the conclusion?

Linguistic thinker: I reach conclusions by feel, pretty much jumping to them, and then sniffing out the "warp trail" from that jump and putting that into words. It doesn't feel like inventing post facto rationalizations, but rather retracing the reasoning that happened in the background. And I do need to do that step - the conclusion doesn't seem "stable" unless I trace it back like this.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#112

There are many concepts in our thought stream without a 'word' or even a simple 'phrase' to label them. A word or a common phrase is coined when a concept is sufficiently common and important enough such that someone comes up with a label to communicate the idea succinctly and the label catches on. We, humanity, have words or common phrases to label the vast majority of significant concepts. However, not every concep…

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Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#113
post #110

I think cetaceans use sound to broadcast visual and emotional holographs to each other, and as humans we could do good by being stewards of the differing specie and steer their linguistics together somehow. Conservation through cognitive neuroscience and linguistics. Can dolphins communicate with sperm whales? What if they could?

I've seen this idea before, that cetaceans might basically project ideas holographically.

Is there any evidence for this ? Or is the idea simply rooted in the possibilities of sound ?

Genuinely curious here.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#114
post #93
post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actual human natural language is meaningfully recursive, because any grade school student understands the recursive properties of certain toy sentence examples in that they could "go on forever" as a set of arbitrarily larger complex sentences. The commonality of mathematical grammars (as mathematical objects in their own right) and natural language is that both have computational properties such as recursive structu…

You're confusing the object language (human natural language) and the meta-language (formal grammars - ala Chomsky). Formal grammar theory relies on recursive formulae to define what is a a language (formally set of sentences), natural language itself does not use/require recursion as understood in the same way. Some natural languages support grammatical features like sub-clauses but that's only "recursive" in the se…

I'd definitely say all language use must rely on recursion, you're just highlighting our tendency to halt the pronunciation of it early at arbitrary points due to linguistic norms. Like, AFAIU this was Chomsky's whole impetus, and I really don't think anyone has answered better than he: how can a finite system compute linguistic meaning in finite time, otherwise? I'd guess the "natural language" answer would be along the lines of "it just comes naturally who knows", in which case I'm staying I'm on my side of the battle lines ;)

Either way, I think you'd win a Nobel for proving that complex recursive processes aren't going on inside the head of someone speaking in natural language. We can discuss the likely situation all day, but directly measuring this in the moment seems well beyond our technical capabilities

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#115

There are many concepts in our thought stream without a 'word' or even a simple 'phrase' to label them. A word or a common phrase is coined when a concept is sufficiently common and important enough such that someone comes up with a label to communicate the idea succinctly and the label catches on. We, humanity, have words or common phrases to label the vast majority of significant concepts. However, not every concep…

I find this unconvincing. Words described those terms just fine as you just proved.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#117
A counterargument to the claim that language is not sufficient for thought could be that while individuals with intact language abilities may exhibit impairments in reasoning and problem-solving due to brain damage or disorders like schizophrenia, these impairments might not be a direct result of language function itself. Instead, they could be caused by damage to other cognitive systems that interact with language, or by the disorder's broader impact on cognitive function.

For instance, schizophrenia is a complex disorder affecting various cognitive domains, including attention, memory, and executive functions, which are crucial for reasoning and problem-solving. Therefore, the observed impairments might stem from these broader cognitive deficits rather than a lack of language proficiency.

Brain damage can affect multiple brain regions and their connections, leading to a wide range of cognitive impairments. It is possible that the observed deficits in reasoning and problem-solving are due to damage to specific brain regions responsible for these functions, rather than a disruption of language processing itself.

While the presence of intact language abilities does not guarantee intact thinking abilities, it is necessary to consider the potential confounding factors, such as broader cognitive deficits or damage to other brain regions, before concluding that language is not sufficient for thought. Further research is needed to disentangle the complex relationship between language and thought and to determine the specific contributions of language to various cognitive processes.

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#118
post #4

The entry in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has a good summary of the Language of Thought Hypothesis. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/language-thought/ Jerry Fodor, who advocated an internal mental language, was seen as an old crank when I studied Linguistics in late 90s; I just looked him up and, god, he died recently in 2017. Here’s a New Yorker article from that time: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/post…

This is related but not really the same thing. The Language of Thought may or may not be closely related to human language. (Some animals may also have concepts and compositional mental representations.)

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#119

Most of the time we are communicating (internal monologue) with ourselves which I’m sure shapes our thoughts. I’d guess a large percentage of that is through a language. In fact languages codify a community’s culture, values, a way of life all of which go way beyond communication.

Imo the internal monologue is often about summarizing or sorting out something, while I’ve already figured it out non-verbally. Like a verbal confirmation. Though sometimes the internal monologue is about processing something and figuring stuff out.

Agreed. I used to think (haha) that I was thinking the thoughts I as thought them verbally, but as of late, I've come to realise that I've already had the thought as a sort of a series of perceptual flashes or traces, and when I think I'm thinking, I'm merely verbalising what I've already internally "perceived".

Re: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought [pdf]

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I often work with animals who show signs of thought: presented with a novel situation, they pause, reflect, and select the prudent option. I sometimes work with people who show no signs of thought: external stimuli are perceived, converted into a stream of language, and conveyed, with no apparent effort at audience-based compression (selection of an appropriate message from a wide variety of potential messages), or e…

That's great insight. How do you think animals store or communicate those thoughts? From your own experience.

Storage I have no idea. (for that matter, I have little idea how we store non-linguistic thoughts)

Communication is primarily via posture, secondarily via sound. No "grammar" is involved, intensification is via intensification of signal, not addition of symbols. (that said, much human-animal communication is by means of arbitrary symbols, just that each symbol is serving as a sign because combinations of symbols and even their ordering doesn't really matter)

Animals certainly get order: they'll easily learn sequences of actions, but if you're getting different behaviour from AB than BA, I currently believe that's because the animal has learnt, and is perceiving, those as two different gestalts.

Imperative and Vocative are the basic cases. (and to what extent the latter belongs to the former I can't really say: when the stock greets in the morning, are they saying "good morning, 0823", as we'd like to believe, or are they really saying "Hey, you, thumb-monkey, feed us!"?)

Interrogative exists, but barely: "where is everyone?" "fren?" (or, if wondering about more* than friendship: "gotta light?")

An example of linear use of order in equines: a young equid has what my wife calls "filly rights" and generally gets to do what it wants. As it gets either older, or too obnoxious, though, the other members of the herd will start to socialise it. This usually occurs via an ascending scale of pressure, from the subtle (eye contact - "are you sure that's an acceptable behaviour?") through the clear (coming up alongside — "all right, what's all this then?") to behaviours reserved for outlaws (full-power kick with both hinds — "what we've got here is failure to communicate").

[the biggest problem I see novice humans have is they attempt to bargain with animals; offer-consideration-acceptance is, for me, far too human-abstract a framework. That's not to say you can't come to consensus on a modus vivendi, but you're not going to get there through a contract approach, calibrated to the capabilities of two-legged mammals.]

My stock all know index finger up is a non-linguistic way humans ask "are you sure?" (and their name may be a linguistic escalation), but I have no clue if they understand it as a sign of potential aggression (being generally produced as a sharp movement), or as a symbol of potential displeasure?

Cattle (both mobs and individuals) can be steered by use of their fight-or-flight in response to posture. You don't directly tell them "go left" ("haw" for a carriage horse) or "go right" ("gee" for a carriage horse) but instead either confirm the pressure (if they're already pointed the right direction) or change the pressure (reduce-intensify if you wish them to flip towards you, intensify-reduce if you wish them to flip away from you) to get them going in the desired direction.

[as you all can tell, feudalism (or IR) is basically what you get when you think politics should be entirely based on this level of communication; however even in democracies use of the bovine principle to manufacture consensus in an electorate occurs, for my sensitivities, way too often]

If anyone can think of experiments that would clarify some of these situations, I'm all ears!

* I understand these days you all mediate all your flirting via text, which seems like a very difficult thing to calibrate; in my day we had analogue signals that (to me alone?) are much easier to dial up or down:

  We laugh just a little too loud
  Stand just a little too close
  We stare just a little too long
WTF are kids doing these days? "we put just a little too many 'e's in our heeeeys?"
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