tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post7694114994787947952..comments2024-03-27T13:25:58.065-04:00Comments on Stayin' Alive: Epistemology II: CategoriesCervanteshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11302076828795198187noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-23114805065411518442021-05-14T09:00:48.222-04:002021-05-14T09:00:48.222-04:00Well, the explanation is that modern English is wh...Well, the explanation is that modern English is what's called a Creole language. It's an amalgamation of Germanic English, and French. In 1066 a French guy conquered England and installed French-speaking people as administrators of his realm. They started using English words but didn't know the grammar, and conversely their subjects started using French words but didn't know the inflections. In other words everybody is using Me Tarzan You Jane talk. Actually exchange between English and French continued for a couple of centuries since William's successors ended up with his empire in France. (Viz. Henry V.) So we now have a double vocabulary of Germanic and Latinate words, and a degraded grammar.Cervanteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11302076828795198187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-48227424900024916662021-05-13T10:03:02.818-04:002021-05-13T10:03:02.818-04:00PS Also relevant that you mention Bertrand Russell...PS Also relevant that you mention Bertrand Russell. When I was in high school, I found a thin little volume of his that explained general and specific relativity better than anything I have ever found. That’s genius: the ability to reduce the complex to basic elements. It sounds like that is exactly what Chomsky did with his hierarchy.Don Quixotenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-81320087114331571642021-05-13T09:44:29.516-04:002021-05-13T09:44:29.516-04:00Holy cow … Thank you, CP, for that fascinating pos...Holy cow … Thank you, CP, for that fascinating post. Also, because I am a tutor in English and reading, I really appreciate the comment about the lack of clear grammar in English. I am constantly telling my young students what an irregular language English is. I know that German comes from the same language family, but it seems much more highly structured. I would really like to read up on Chomsky’s history in linguistics, which would be a nice break for a change from politics :-)Don Quixotenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-42390357772640716972021-05-11T18:06:02.340-04:002021-05-11T18:06:02.340-04:00Re: Language creating reality.
When I learned how...Re: Language creating reality.<br /><br />When I learned how to program computers I found it mind blowing that I could create a useful machine by just writing a document in a simple, specialized language. Almost every app you download onto your phone is something that started as a collection of words but which now turns your phone into a machine that can do a number of novel things without changing the phone itself. A mundane example of words creating reality.<br /><br />Incidentally, the person who precisely characterized the traits (kind of grammar) a language needed to have in order to do this efficiently was Noam Chomsky, the modern incarnation of Bertrand Russell. The Chomsky Heirarchy is still fundamental to constructing compilers for computer languages. Incidentally, English won't do, its grammar is too ambiguous.Chucky Peircehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08857518097065717867noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-67955888320546457732021-05-10T15:46:03.190-04:002021-05-10T15:46:03.190-04:00Well then, children should be taught in schools fr...Well then, children should be taught in schools from a very early age the power of words, and how to use them correctly and responsibly. And they’re not. The people who are teaching them generally do not know how to use them, or how much power they have, either. Our whole world needs to learn how to use language responsibly. Because it doesn’t. And that’s why the world we are creating is, by and large, a world of violence. Experts are creating worlds of beauty in their individual disciplines, but we are not learning how to live and play well with others. And that is what will make or break our survival. We need a revolution in the language of relating to the world around us and to ourselves.Don Quixotenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-66746054386042214242021-05-10T14:32:16.149-04:002021-05-10T14:32:16.149-04:00Yes of course, language can create conflict as wel...Yes of course, language can create conflict as well as resolve it. The key insight of speech act theory is that we do things with words, they don't just represent reality, they create it. For better or for worse.Cervanteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11302076828795198187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-24710888488397590342021-05-10T14:25:54.432-04:002021-05-10T14:25:54.432-04:00I'll go a little further out on the limb here ...I'll go a little further out on the limb here to draw your attention.<br /><br />Each time we say to ourselves or another, "I'm (You're) stupid," that is a form of violence. And that is pretty much the least harmful epithet I can think of out of the billions used daily toward ourselves and others, much less the physical violence. Our use of language enables us to commit emotional violence upon one another in a way that chimps can't even dream of. I think, frankly, that the reason there is so much strife in the world is because violence is committed so frequently and endemically by parents, teachers, clergy, coaches, relatives, acquaintances, and others on children. They never grow up emotionally, and so many people lead, in Thoreau's words, "lives of quite desperation," never truly seen, heard, felt, or loved. Or at least they get a lot more of twisted love, and things other than love. And the cycle repeats. Masses of people who don't know and appreciate themselves are prey to demagogues and false ideas.<br /><br />Our violence to one another and to animals and ourselves and the world is infinitely more complicated because of the capabilities of our neocortex, which makes a good servant but a terrible master. And a little knowledge becomes a terribly dangerous thing for most humans, who don't really know what to do with that knowledge or why they even do the things they do--what makes them "tick."<br /><br />I don't believe that our species will survive without a revolution in education and a radical swing away from rejection of self and of life, away from commodification and technological "development" toward the spiritual and natural. Don Quixotenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-63953713758261896942021-05-10T13:18:49.129-04:002021-05-10T13:18:49.129-04:00Well, the amount of interpersonal violence among h...Well, the amount of interpersonal violence among humans varies enormously with the socio-cultural and historical context. Chimpanzee life is more consistent. I don't know if you can really compare them. We can aspire to be non-violent and many people are, at least if they're in the right place at the right time. In other contexts there is enormous violence. Chimps can't make guns or bombs, but on the other hand humans can choose not to use them.Cervanteshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11302076828795198187noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9263167.post-25307794687467400042021-05-10T13:04:25.080-04:002021-05-10T13:04:25.080-04:00My favorite part of this post was the reference to...My favorite part of this post was the reference to “the other apes.” And I agree with that. As my brother-in-law said once, and I agree, we’re just special monkeys. And I don’t think many of these monkeys would be good at understanding Jurgen Habermas’s books, based on my rxperiences as a teaching assistant in public schools over the past decade. I wish that were not the case. I also have my doubts as to whether there is more interpersonal violence between chimpanzees than between human beings. The reason I say this is that, based on the writings of Marshall Rosenberg, and his teachings regarding nonviolent communication, humans create a lot of violence toward themselves and others with words and language, in addition to their almost inconceivable track record of physical violence toward each other.Don Quixotenoreply@blogger.com