Language and response
August 10th 2007 02:38
A dog communicates, without any intention, by nestling into your arm.
If my whistling makes you write the Critique of Pure Reason, then it's not communication, but cause and effect.
But what if it makes everyone do a critique of pure reason?
What's the difference between "cause and effect", and "communicate"?
Understanding and successful communication are to a large extent about desire satisfaction.
Even when I'm imparting information to you -- even in this case is there no desire present?
Couldn't any of the normal effects of your hearing the sentence, and processing it, fall within the range of my wants?
Frans de Waal, Amy Pollick, Michael Corballis have been doing work on the "gestural hypothesis of how language evolved". Corballis comments: "Speech itself is best considered a gestural rather than an acoustic system. It’s just that the 'gestures' are made by the tongue, larynx and lips."
Claims a friend, EW, words are artifacts like spoons. Only when children learn what kind of thing a spoon is do they learn what kinds of things words are.
And both words and spoons, EW goes on to assert, derive their meaning from a history of practice.
When listening to one another we search always for the why, the reason for speaking. We always think about the motivation for asking or saying, and we respond in light of our interpretation. -- What will our answer be used for? What's relevant for us to do?
Very few people are consciously aware, when they speak, of the ways in which they encode or signal motivation, and the ways this has to connect with the listener's grasp of necessity and norms and human behaviour in order to make sense.
The framing problem of artificial intelligence...
But some people are more unconsciously aware than others.
"The point of Dewey's analogy between language and morality is that there was no decisive moment at which language stopped being a series of reactions to the stimuli provided by the behaviour of other humans and started to be an instrument for expressing beliefs. Similarly, there was no point at which practical reasoning stopped being prudential and became specifically moral, no point at which it stopped being merely useful and started being authoritative." -- Richard Rorty, Philosophy and social hope, 1999
On a response view, there are no truths out there that we grab and translate into language. Rather, there is only language, which grips the world and doesn't mirror it.
In a response system, how can there literally be such a thing as describing an emotion or an inner state?
In what sense does birdsong represent?
It's not so strange that when you've woken, you have the answer -- because when you're awake and fully conscious you equally inexplicably have the answer.
Every time you speak you inexplicably have the words.
After you've been around them for a while, you discover the patterns of their thinking and how they're likely to approach an idea or a problem, and you discover all sorts of response idiosyncracies -- noises, facial expressions, phrases -- that they use automatically to handle situations.
You'll basically be able to predict the reaction.
It's in these sorts of cases where it's most obvious that people have linguistic reflexes.
Where it's most obvious they don't mean anything.
Kasulis makes the following bizarre claim: "[W]hat happens when a poet writes a classical Japanese poem about, say, the mist on the mountains? If the poet's responsiveness is genuine... the poet's kokoro [heart and mind] resonates with the kokoro of the actual mountain mist and the kokoro of the Japanese words. Through the interpenetration and common responsiveness of these kokoro the poem is produced. From this perspective, the poet alone does not write a poem about the mountain mist. More precisely, the mountain mist, the Japanese words, and the poet write the poem together."
There's an episode of the Simpsons where Homer daydreams about living in the woods and keeping a journal of his thoughts -- "Day 52. I miss TV. Dear God how I miss TV."
And then, bizarrely, having imagined this scenario, he still finds it attractive. So it's an absurdist joke, it's a joke about Homeric stupidity, about delusions of literary grandeur, about misguided desires...
But also: (1) why should there be anything interesting to write about, unless you're engaged in life? and (2) it's only life, and particular experiences, that provoke the words out of you, that cause the verbal reactions.
Assume, for a moment, that tarot works. Well, even in this case, why assume that its symbols form messages?
And if there can be said to be signs in dreams, why regard such signs as "your unconscious communicating with you"? -- Why not treat them, rather, as cause and effect - like footprints signifying animals, like smoke signifying fire.
***
If my whistling makes you write the Critique of Pure Reason, then it's not communication, but cause and effect.
But what if it makes everyone do a critique of pure reason?
What's the difference between "cause and effect", and "communicate"?
***
Understanding and successful communication are to a large extent about desire satisfaction.
Even when I'm imparting information to you -- even in this case is there no desire present?
Couldn't any of the normal effects of your hearing the sentence, and processing it, fall within the range of my wants?
***
Frans de Waal, Amy Pollick, Michael Corballis have been doing work on the "gestural hypothesis of how language evolved". Corballis comments: "Speech itself is best considered a gestural rather than an acoustic system. It’s just that the 'gestures' are made by the tongue, larynx and lips."
***
Claims a friend, EW, words are artifacts like spoons. Only when children learn what kind of thing a spoon is do they learn what kinds of things words are.
And both words and spoons, EW goes on to assert, derive their meaning from a history of practice.
***
When listening to one another we search always for the why, the reason for speaking. We always think about the motivation for asking or saying, and we respond in light of our interpretation. -- What will our answer be used for? What's relevant for us to do?
Very few people are consciously aware, when they speak, of the ways in which they encode or signal motivation, and the ways this has to connect with the listener's grasp of necessity and norms and human behaviour in order to make sense.
The framing problem of artificial intelligence...
But some people are more unconsciously aware than others.
***
"The point of Dewey's analogy between language and morality is that there was no decisive moment at which language stopped being a series of reactions to the stimuli provided by the behaviour of other humans and started to be an instrument for expressing beliefs. Similarly, there was no point at which practical reasoning stopped being prudential and became specifically moral, no point at which it stopped being merely useful and started being authoritative." -- Richard Rorty, Philosophy and social hope, 1999
***
On a response view, there are no truths out there that we grab and translate into language. Rather, there is only language, which grips the world and doesn't mirror it.
***
In a response system, how can there literally be such a thing as describing an emotion or an inner state?
In what sense does birdsong represent?
***
It's not so strange that when you've woken, you have the answer -- because when you're awake and fully conscious you equally inexplicably have the answer.
Every time you speak you inexplicably have the words.
***
After you've been around them for a while, you discover the patterns of their thinking and how they're likely to approach an idea or a problem, and you discover all sorts of response idiosyncracies -- noises, facial expressions, phrases -- that they use automatically to handle situations.
You'll basically be able to predict the reaction.
It's in these sorts of cases where it's most obvious that people have linguistic reflexes.
Where it's most obvious they don't mean anything.
***
Kasulis makes the following bizarre claim: "[W]hat happens when a poet writes a classical Japanese poem about, say, the mist on the mountains? If the poet's responsiveness is genuine... the poet's kokoro [heart and mind] resonates with the kokoro of the actual mountain mist and the kokoro of the Japanese words. Through the interpenetration and common responsiveness of these kokoro the poem is produced. From this perspective, the poet alone does not write a poem about the mountain mist. More precisely, the mountain mist, the Japanese words, and the poet write the poem together."
***
There's an episode of the Simpsons where Homer daydreams about living in the woods and keeping a journal of his thoughts -- "Day 52. I miss TV. Dear God how I miss TV."
And then, bizarrely, having imagined this scenario, he still finds it attractive. So it's an absurdist joke, it's a joke about Homeric stupidity, about delusions of literary grandeur, about misguided desires...
But also: (1) why should there be anything interesting to write about, unless you're engaged in life? and (2) it's only life, and particular experiences, that provoke the words out of you, that cause the verbal reactions.
***
Assume, for a moment, that tarot works. Well, even in this case, why assume that its symbols form messages?
And if there can be said to be signs in dreams, why regard such signs as "your unconscious communicating with you"? -- Why not treat them, rather, as cause and effect - like footprints signifying animals, like smoke signifying fire.
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Comment by Damo
you have already completeed the sentence in your head.
Good post Adrian.
The Simpsons must be a big influence upon modern philosophy. Does season end mean death or will there be another movement to follow. Homeric Absurdism is just about over but I digress.
Pink Floyd had a different take in Comfortably Numb.
"Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying..."
I keep wondering if we ever do communicate what we are trying to say or we say stuff and people give it the meaning they want.
Now I've become Comfortably Numb.
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
I don't think anything I rave on about here is representative of modern philosophy, but it's true that there's at least one "The Simpsons and philosophy" book.
You're kidding me! The Simpsons is expiring? I hadn't heard.
Well, if I say "Pass the salt", and you pass me the salt, the odds are that I've communicated my meaning.
Anything more complex than that, I dunno.
But perhaps perfect communication isn't all that important, if there's sufficient commonality...
Comment by Chic Critique
Cheers
CC
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
Comment by Miswanderlust
Killer Beats
Ramble On
Hipnotherapy
Bring on the Obscure! I guess the measure of a civilization is seen through the eyes of a chubby, yellow cartoom character...doh!
Mis
Comment by Adrian
Philosophy Blog
There's an acting exercise called the "boring scene". The idea is to allow yourself to be boring. And the point is to free yourself from caring what the audience thinks. It's then that interesting, truthful, stuff happens.
Anyway, perhaps I should allow myself to be obscure and to bore everyone more often -- until I have no readers left. And then some interesting stuff might happen.