White horses and orphan colts
Thursday, June 21st, 2001 05:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
robinturnerOn the recent discussion of radial categories (see replies to Oops, I did it again), what do the linguists/philosophers out there make of these statements attributed to Huizi (a leading member of the "School of Names"):
"A white horse is not a horse."
"An orphan colt has never had a mother."
Oops, that wasn't Huizi, it was Gong-sun Long (the other main person in that particular school). Huizi (also known as Hui Shi) was the guy who said things like "The heavens are as low as the earth; mountains are on the same level as marshes."
"A white horse is not a horse."
"An orphan colt has never had a mother."
Correction (28/6/01)
Oops, that wasn't Huizi, it was Gong-sun Long (the other main person in that particular school). Huizi (also known as Hui Shi) was the guy who said things like "The heavens are as low as the earth; mountains are on the same level as marshes."
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Re: oh my god. it's cog sci 101 all over again.
Date: 2001-06-27 01:07 am (UTC)Um. Both?
I say it is hogwash because I and I am sure many many other people are entirely capable of thought and thinking without thinking 'in' a language.
But what about someone raised by the proverbial wolves? Or, to use a more realistic example, someone stuck in a closet her whole life? Someone who neither speaks nor comprehends any language at all. Can that person really have thoughts and ideas that are even SLIGHTLY as deep as those of a normally intelligent speaker of a language?
I don't think so! I would wager that they can only think about issues pertaining to survival and such ... but not deep philosophical theories or whatever. Like, they can notice correlations between injesting certain items and physical states that follow shortly thereafter (like, "Don't eat that, or you'll get sick"). But can they think about the angst and the ennui of the post-Industrial man? Ahaha.
If the mind is embodied then how can a language restrict how that physical construct can work?
It doesn't restrict it at all. It enhances it. And language is also embodied, in that it doesn't "exist" out there in abstract reality, or something.
Argh! I should REALLY be transcribing 100 minutes worth of taped interviews! Feel free to post some more. I need the distraction!
Re: oh my god. it's cog sci 101 all over again.
Date: 2001-06-27 04:09 am (UTC)Cog Sci 101 final
Analyse the implicit metaphors and/or image schemata of the following statement:
Re: oh my god. it's cog sci 101 all over again.
Date: 2001-06-28 01:46 am (UTC)cog sci is one of the reasons i -left- my first uni course.
Date: 2001-06-27 05:55 am (UTC)you impose limits on that which you do not know but assume you do.
Re: cog sci is one of the reasons i -left- my first uni course.
Date: 2001-06-27 05:02 pm (UTC)I like that, I really do! Despite being more-or-less part of the cognitive linguistics camp, I feel that cogling has got to the point which generative linguistics reached around 1970 - that moment where you take a theory which explains certain things pretty well, and inflate it into some kind of dogmatic theory of everything. A little humility is called for, I think.
Tibetan Buddhists have identified around five stages between the first germination of a potential thought and its eventual mental expression. It's not surprising that they don't take Western psychology terribly seriously.
Re: cog sci is one of the reasons i -left- my first uni course.
Date: 2001-06-27 07:07 pm (UTC)Re: cog sci is one of the reasons i -left- my first uni course.
Date: 2001-06-27 07:12 pm (UTC)Re: oh my god. it's cog sci 101 all over again.
Date: 2001-06-28 01:09 am (UTC)I really can't say what they would think. Or even how. Being stuck in a cupboard means you are without ANY sensory input, more or less. Which of course would be reflected in ones ability to think about "deep" things. But it is not the same as someone who lives in a world of sensory errr stuff.
Deep thinking is only confused by the language one uses! How many times have I used that expression? Many. How much more is understood to me when I think of a tree than when I say to someone "a tree".
Consider the profound insight and clarity one experiences in mediation and other such practices, when one intentionally removes language and stuff from the mind!
I hope I don't appear to be arguing that language is useless or anything like that!
mmm ... sleep deprivation
Date: 2001-06-28 01:43 am (UTC)I've never meditated, but I don't believe it when it's said that "ALL" things are removed from the mind. The mind cannot be totally blank. And yes, they have done brain scans on people in deep meditation. There is brain activity aplenty! Unless they're, like, DEAD!
However, I do appreciate what you're saying about language confusing one's thinking. I am greatly disturbed by the way language can lead people astray. Like the whole damn sexuality thing. I'd be rich if I had a nickel for every girl who was depressed and confused because she was a "lesbian" yet had a "crush" on a boy. If there was no language with which to describe sexuality, I bet there wouldn't be people with "issues" and "problems" about their sexuality!
Maybe someone with no language wouldn't NEED to think deep thoughts, because language wouldn't be there confusing/provoking her in the first place!!!
I think you ARE arguing that language is useless! I think the two of us should just shut up and take it outside! Kapow! Hah.
meditation
Date: 2001-06-28 01:53 am (UTC)The only nonlinguistic thought that I have some kind of an experience with is when I'm trying to express something in words but can't do it. You know, that frustrating feeling when you have something on the tip of your tongue, but can't articulate it. Usually my thoughts don't get CLEAR until I put them in language. Though there have been a few times when these nonlinguistic thoughts seemed incredibly clear, and I felt imbued with an enormous sense of understanding. It went away very quickly, though. Without language to trap it, this understanding was fleeting.
And don't bug me about the metaphors in the previous sentence. ;)
Re: meditation
Date: 2001-06-29 01:54 am (UTC)Maybe I am entirely ignorant, but doesn't language convey meanings/thoughts, even if that language as the medium produces noise/ misinterpretation in the message etc etc.
I wouldn't attempt to deny that linguistic structures influence meaning and how meaning is reproduce, but I consider that OUTSIDE of the 'thought'.
As for clarity of thought. I understand what you mean by thoughts not being 'clear' until put into language. The nonlinguistic thoughts I experience are as entirely "Clear" in that they convey a "sense" of knowing, more of a bodily feeling than a solid structured thought. But no less an understanding and knowledge. Perhaps it is a cultural bias to need to organise the thoughts into (often written) language.
Brain activity during mediation is entire expected. We are clearing out CONSCIOUS minds, not our entire minds, which are no less ours. I would hazard a guess however, that the activity noted is not that which one would expect during conscious manipulation/use of linguistics.
I apologise to both of you for my vague and poor replies! rushing+ignorance!
I'm confusing myself.
Date: 2001-06-29 02:20 am (UTC)But I think there ARE biases picked up from language -- my whole "sexuality" thing spoke directly to this issue. Even if someone managed to banish language from his head during deep meditation (which I'm not convinced is possible anyway), a contemporary speaker of English might still think of sexuality as being divided into three general categories -- homosexual, bisexual, heterosexual. This person still might conceive of himself as fitting into one of these categories, especially if one of them was a central part of his identity. So this person might still differentiate himself from other people based on these linguistic concepts.
Cultures that didn't distinguish sexuality in this way probably had no conceptions of these distinctions! Why should they? (And yeah, while this is speculation on my part, I WOULD love to research it. I guess I would begin by looking at pre-whitey Polynesian languages. [I understand those societies had virtually no sexual taboos.] How would I do that? Where do I look? Are they even recorded?)
I realize I may have something backwards. Bah. I will keep thinking about it. But why did English (and other languages) formulate these categories for sexuality in the first place? The words are probably some reflection of a thought process, but now these entrenched words influence the thought process. Where does it begin? What is the extent of it all?
I'm too tired and rushed right now to respond to the rest of your post for now, alas.
Re: I'm confusing myself.
Date: 2001-06-29 02:49 am (UTC)homosexuality, passive vs. active
Date: 2001-06-29 02:56 am (UTC)