HEIDEGGER ON LANGUAGE
& LANGUAGE ORIGIN A DISCUSSION WITH RICHARD
SANSOM
Copyright © 2009 Gary
C. Moore. Permission granted to distribute
in any medium, commercial
or non - commercial, provided author
attribution and copyright notices remain
intact.
A problem I have been dealing with in Heidegger
is that In BEING AND TIME, Heidegger takes
a very radical view of dasein's authentic
appropriation of tradition which, by necessity,
completely takes it apart and puts it back
together again as dasein actually knows it
instead of the 'everyday' passive acceptance
of a vague theme of what tradition is that
never examines it rationally in detail or
judge even if it fits together coherently.
May 2004.
Richard Sansom:
I am pleased to see you put "primitive"
in quotes. In connection with languages among
those so-called "primitives," it
is well established that they contain every
bit as much and in some cases more in the
way of complexity, nuance and sufficiency
to deal with their world (which is also our
world) as the languages of so-called "civilized"
languages. "Primitive human situations"
demand the same kinds of thinking and speaking
tools as those of the PhD in his microbiology
lab, and the reason for this is that the
set of macro-situations one deals with in
life are universal, and it is bound to be
those situations that have formed the way
we think and speak. We think and speak the
way we do because we need to. As for the
oldest texts, they offer few hints as to
the origins of language and such origins
must remain speculative. But I see nothing
wrong with speculation if it is plausible,
logical, reasonable and perhaps interesting.
I find nothing in current texts on language
that suggests language was born full blown
in its variety and complexity - therefore
I must assume that much like the increasing
complexity of evolving organisms, language
and thought at one time was less complex
and rich. (Pinker's "mentalese"
merely confuses the issue!)
Gary. C. Moore: Dear Jud, Richard, Jon, and
the philosophical community at large-- This
is my fault. One of the points I was trying
to make was that it is literally impossible
to know anything whatsoever about the 'origins'
of the 'birth' of language. Nothing. And
we never will. We can see plenty of clues
some kind of communication was always present-at-hand.
Complex communication does not at all have
to be by words. Worse still, one does not
even have to be fully conscious of it. Swarm
mentality can adapt to complex situations
-- after all, it has only two choices: adapt
or die, and the dying has been plentiful
over the ages, inclusive of all animals including
human beings. Swarm mentality is composed
of swarms within swarms. Communication is
constantly going on in the body, something
that has not been seriously treated yet because
it is 'scientifically' not respectable. However,
the issue has become so pressing because
of technology itself, scientists are being
forced to address it because the lack of
understanding of it is causing numerous problems
else, in places completely unexpected. Environment
is not all just 'outside', it is inside also.
It is one of those questions blazingly obvious
yet terribly inconvenient to deal with. But
'convenience' and 'respectibility' have no
place in science. This has actually become
a major problem that is totally unanticipated.
19th century science had so many things to
learn, it didn't feel the need to investigate
every nook and cranny. But now we have got
to the point of having to figure out the
most important question of all-- How do all
these systems, micro and macro, work together?
Afterall, once again, it is blazingly obvious
they are working together because they are,
in reality, together. It is Werner Heisenburg's
theory taken to its extreme implications--
That not only does the observer 'interfere'
with the results of the observation, but
that is the way reality is and always has
been. There never has been a state of 'pure'
science. It has always been formed by the
purpose of the observer. Now, scientists
realize they no longer can ignore this as
'magical' thinking but must actually problem-solve
it. Far too many major problems have arisen
in science that, being socially unacceptable
in the scientific community--which means
such research gets no money, that the very
notion of science as a UNIVERSAL problem-solving
behavior has become thoroughly corrupted
even more so than it always has been. The
notion that everything is tied together because
it always already is tied together, is very
frustrating because there is no secure viewpoint
from which to easily conceive all its implications.
However, in creating more and more intelligent
computers it has become an overwhelming problem
that has to be addressed.
It is also one of the primary reasons why
I have raised the question of the existence
of the self. There is absolutely no doubt
that Jud is right about the self is a priori,
always already 'there' operating before we
begin, and exactly the same applies to language.
Always. It has always been there is some
sense. In a real sense, communication per
se, using verbal and all other means, has
been around for millions of years. So any
notion of 'origin' or 'birth' either becomes
extremely 'relative' or outright unnecessary,
a 'Which came first? The chicken or the egg?'
question. But with a computer, we are in
a real sense 'before the Creation' and do
not know how to get 'there' from 'here'.
One reason this is so is that we have no
real idea how complex a 'simple' animal's
'mind' is. We approach the situation with
an already imposed but completely un-problem-
solved moral standard that there are more
and less complex animal 'minds' and that
the more demonstrablt complex 'minds' are
-- 'better' -- by a purely self-congratulatory
standard. Not only, though, can I raise the
problem that certain forms of life have survived
much longer than human beings on this earth,
an objective standard, but also I raise the
problem we have no really clear idea at all
how this was done. The more scientists learn
about massive extinctions, fortunately for
subduing our overweening egotism, the less
they realize they really know anything about
evolution as such. This is now in evolutionary
theory far more unsolved problems than there
is any theoretical certainty at all. And
this is the way, for once correctly, it SHOULD
be. One SHOULD know there are problems that
need solving. Problem-solving behavior is
a necessity to live. Language is primordially
problem-solving behavior. Having a self is
somehow necessary in this process. But it
is not at all clear what a 'self' is or what
'language' is or what 'evolution' is because
all these problems have been set aside for
-- more important immediate purposes. However.
as those purposes are more or less resolved,
then the context in which those purposes
arose in the first place becomes more and
more . . . 'clear' . . . sort of. The primary
fact we understand about that context is
that we do not understand it. That we have
great difficulty even formulating it as an
intelligible problem. But that IS the problem
that is now at-hand. It has even become one
of politics and economics, therefore 'someone'
is going to try to solve it 'somehow' without
really understanding what the problem is.
Or, in other less gentle words, the problem
is being moved from the shoulders of those
qualified to solve it (and this is a complex
twoway problem in itself) to the shoulders
of those least qualified to solve it. Do
you agree or disagree with this conclusion?
Richard Sansom: I agree that it is very complex.
But today, as you say, what to some are obscure
texts because they lack understanding of
the context and lexicon, are, upon detailed
analysis (if one is so inclined and most
are not) are found to be sets of basic propositions,
statements, opinions, speculations, etc.
that are fundamentally simple. However, I
have come across many such (non-scientific)
texts that are unnecessarily burdened by
language that is gratuitously rich in circuitous
and needless verbosity, apparently to sound
more scholarly. (One can choose to write
that way, or not.)
Gary. C. Moore: You are talking about systems
of writing. I am talking about systems that
must be memorized. The second completely
encompasses the first since systems of writing
are always already within systems of memorized
language. And it is much earlier and has
lasted much longer. That is where systems
of writing get their motivation in the first
place. In the earliest memorized texts like
the Rig Veda, the Zend Avesta, the Iliad,
the cuniform tablets of the Tigris-Euphrates
Valley, the tortoise shells of the Yellow
River Valley, etc., that round-aboutness
A) had a practical immediate necessity to
the actual writer concerned which will never
accord to our purposes, and B) was necessary
for the process of memorization. They memorized
these very long texts by formulas. They were
ALL originally intended to be memorized.
Even the cuniform tablets were just originally
intermediate and purposedly temporary process
between memorizations because they were written
on wet clay NEVER INTENDED TO BE BAKED AND
MADE PERMANENT. They became baked and stone-hard
totally through historical 'accident'. We
still do not speak as we write, so we are
still in the same situation. Nothing has
changed. We are still primarily in a memorized
mode of language in which written texts are
mere help-mates. The clues for this situation
are abundant. However, we have been taught
that, morally, the written text has priority
over memorized and spoken text. Even a mathematical
text, though, finds its entire use and justification
through memorized and spoken words.
Richard Sansom: This does not hold in serious
texts on mathematics or science, since the
axiomatic bases for these disciplines are
many layers buried beneath the surface. While
I got a degree in mathematics, I would be
hard pressed to comprehend a current book
on pure math.
Gary. C. Moore: Not nearly as far as memorized
text, the vast majority of which one is not
even conscious of.
Richard Sansom: Your remarks beg a definition
of "human being."
Gary. C. Moore: Yes, it does. But are we
to arbitrarily to impose one or to search
for one, knowing we do not know, in a problem-solving
manner? Of course, just as with the a priori
self, we always already have one in hand
and must proceed from it. But we have a choice-Either
we can proceed from it as an answers, and
therefore there is no problem, or we can
proceed from it knowing the whole context
is thoroughly in question. Which would you
prefer?
Richard Sansom: While it may be reasonable
to assume that homo sapien sapien have always
been the same (same in what way?) . . .
Gary. C. Moore: Hungry.
Richard Sansom: . . . to me this means they
have always had to deal with the macro-world
(TWTWI) in more of less the same ways. However,
it is not reasonable to assume their progenitors
were "the same."
Gary. C. Moore: Solving the problem of hunger
was not their primary and over-riding concern?
It becomes exactly the same way for us, now,
if we are denied easy access to food. Therefore
primordially we are fundamentally the same
in our fundamental purpose which has always
been and always will be the primary motivation
for problem-solving. Merely because food
is abundant now and very easy to obtain does
not at all mean the problem has receded into
the background and become somehow unreal
compared to more important things (How could
anything be more important than food?). Hunger
is still the primary motivation for everything
else and into which everything will fit in
a positive or negative way when the problem
of hunger revives as a fundamental problem.
Richard Sansom: I doubt very much that they
were. I agree that "modern man"
perhaps originating some 200 thousand years
ago, probably is "the same" not
only in his general morphology, but in his
thinking and possibly in much of his language.
I don't believe we can separate the three
things: MODERN MAN, THINKING, and LANGUAGE.
(Incidentally, I agree with Jud that the
addition of "being" to "human"
is not necessary.)
Richard: I respectfully disagree with Sartre's
simplistic focus only on hunger. All organisms
have the requirements of, to greater and
lesser degrees, sustenance, shelter, procreation
and defense.
Gary. C. Moore: Without 'sustenance' one
leaves one's shelter. Without 'sustenance'
one does without and probably cannot procreate.
Without 'sustenance' one has nothing to defend
because one is dead.
Richard Sansom: Sustenance is only one requirement,
and the others play large parts, depending
on the organism. The maintenance of life
is not one dimensional.
Gary. C. Moore: Why not? What your situation
is at present is not the explanation of all
possible situations. Being one dimensional
obeys Ockham's rule that the simplest explanation
amongst a number of more complex one is most
likely the right one. Being one dimensional
does not multiply unnecessary explanations.
Being one dimensional as hungry can be scientifically
tested by taking away all of your food, putting
you in the center of an uninhabited place,
and leaving you. You may set up shelter first
and make weapons, but, if no food was readily
available, that would be because they would
be next in rank of necessities. However,
if food remains inaccessible, you will leave
the shelter and take only the weapons you
can carry. As you become more hungry and
more weak, you will discard the heaviest
weapon until you have no weapons at all.
Hunger will be the last thought you have.
Richard Sansom: As for the relation of language
to thinking, I see no reason to attempt to
pry open an organic separation between these.
Gary. C. Moore: That I certainly never wished
to do. I apologize if I gave you that impression.
Richard Sansom: We have given names/concepts
to both, but we are hard pressed to see them
very far apart. I don't mean that one requires
language to think - global aphasics have
been shown to think, and other animals who
have no language (that we can discern) certainly
think, make discernments, plan ahead, make
choices, engage in deception, etc. However
it is my belief that human thought, as we
understand it (barely) and human language
grew up together, so to speak.
Gary. C. Moore: I would make it more simple:
Using language is thinking. There is absolutely
no room at all for difference. I would also
say causality is language: You, in effect,
'read' from cause to effect. This would also
be why someone like Hume can come in and
say causality is not a logical necessity.
It is only a linguistic necessity. And I
agree with everything else in this section.
Richard Sansom: Here is a section from my
paper on TWTWI that relates to this matteRichard
Sansom:
"My youngest daughter, who went from
the bottle to the pacifier, hearing us use
the word pacifier as we fetched it, acquired
one of her first words: pa-fooh, and used
it when she wanted the device. Not only was
she associating the pacifier with the name
or sound, she used the name (her name --
pa-fooh) to utter a command or express a
need. By getting it, she instantiated the
fact that her words had an effect -- they
were intentionally chosen and the cause-effect
relation of the utterance to getting the
pacifier was further instilled. I say "further
instilled" since I believe that causality,
like language, had a preconditioning wiring
resulting from millions of years of evolving
within the milieu of TWTWI. This whole process,
association of an uttered sound with an object,
witness of the causality, and perhaps equally
important, her awareness of a connection
with other sound-making objects (my wife
and I), was one that was the beginning of
her thought-language abilities. I see this
development in her as containing the following
more or less simultaneously occurring things
in the mind:
1. Awareness of association of word (utterance)
to thing,
2. Acquisition of the causal request-response
knowledge
3. Connection with other language users.
4. Awareness of expressibility -- thus, individuality
5. An inculcated sense of self as separate
from, but integrated with others
Her incomplete speaking skills was witness
to her immature vocalized mimicking ability,
but the other things I mentioned were sufficiently
mature to take hold in her very young brain."
I maintain that the above five interconnected
things occurring in her mind were the formation
of thoughts, aided by the giving and taking
of words.
This does not argue for the theory that seemingly
embryonic behavior signals a relationship
to early species performance of something
- like the gills on human embryos pointing
to our sea-going progenitors of the Paleozoic
era, but it does suggest that my daughter's
ability to begin the process of verbal communication
was instinctual - Locke notwithstanding.
Gary. C. Moore: Believe it or not, I actually
have no disagreements. All of this one can
literally see for oneself. It is self-evident
THAT it is. What it is and means is another
thing all-together. But you are not addressing
that here. You are saying what is, that is,
what is present before us. And I would certainly
say that language was instinctual. But that
word is so vague it is meaningless if not
restricted to hard core facts. Why is it
instinctual? Is there an immediate and simple
explanation? Yes. All animals have it to
the degree their morphology can use it. The
more usable extremities, the more use of
language. Why do they need it? The first
need is sustenance. The second need is shelter.
The third need is procreation. The fourth
need is defense. All of these can be moved
around in priority. (If this was all you
meant originally. I apologize. But I did
not get that notion clearly.) If you are
being attacked, you stop eating and defend
yourself, etc. But, still, hunger takes overall
priority over the other three, that is, overall
they are 'for' hunger, hunger is not 'for'
them. One can do without shelter and procreation
for periods of time, but without a realistic
availability of food, all the other modes
must either give way completely or, in the
case of defense, adapt itself to the priority
of hunger. One does not defend one's life
for the sake of defending it. One defends
one's life for the sake of staying alive.
Defending one's life provides the opportunity
for getting food. However, I can also see
your point that having food provides for
the ability for defense. I can see their
POSSIBLE equivalency. I will think on it.
However, shelter and sex in this context
definitely become RELATIVE. Did you know
that the Australian aboriginines did not
-supposedly: this is hearsay only - know
the connection of sex and procreation? Also,
there is this to consideRichard Sansom: Helpless
dependants are a liability and certainly
not a necessity. Now, different cultures
do approach this differently. However, the
presence of an extreme case scenario lasting
over hundreds, maybe thousands of years,
should give one pause. The Phoenician culture,
the next door and closely related culture
to the Jews, had MASSIVE infant sacrifice
in times of emergency. This is not only witnessed
in historical texts, but in Carthage there
are thousands of clay containers of little
practical use for containing anything one
is going to re-use such as food or water.
These are also historically testified to
be containers for sacrificial infants. So,
the importance of 'procreation' is purely
a relative thing. Also, in times of stress,
many animal parents eat their young. Male
bears do it as a matter of course even if
they are their own procreations all the time.
That cuts down the four to three. Animals
only use shelter when it is available and
they need it. The same applies to human being.
So, though less relative, it is still relative
to hunger and defense. In fact, two of the
purposes of shelter is for defense and to
store food. So, now, we are down to two natural
necessities. Food and defense. I can leave
it at that. Except that if one is by oneself
- and this can be quite deliberate, there
are a number of animals who seek complete
solitude, and men - one does not need defense.
Hunger, however, is still ever-present. Could
we call it, possibly, an ontology of hunger?
Gary ORIGINAL:
Gary. C. Moore: Now, it is natural to impose
the imagined form of your life history upon
the history of language. This is how one
makes strange things familiar and quickly
learns to get around in them. I, on the other
hand, am deliberately raising obscure, incontinent,
and irritating trivialities. What is the
history of language I can literally account
for? Accounts of others. Can I trust them?
Only so far as there is self-consistency
in the evidence, which means if one discovers
a flaw in the very type of evidence itself,
the whole scheme becomes invalid. Literally,
but trivially and interfering with getting
on with the matter, it is uncertainty based
on uncertainty. So, there are two ways (and
I am sure there are others just as valid)
to approach the history of language: A) The
oldest texts, and B) the most present-at-hand
known 'primitive' human situation.
Richard Sansom: I am pleased to see you put
"primitive" in quotes. In connection
with languages among those so-called "primitives,"
it is well established that they contain
every bit as much and in some cases more
in the way of complexity, nuance and sufficiency
to deal with their world (which is also our
world) as the languages of so-called "civilized"
languages. "Primitive human situations"
demand the same kinds of thinking and speaking
tools as those of the PhD in his microbiology
lab, and the reason for this is that the
set of macro-situations one deals with in
life are universal, and it is bound to be
those situations that have formed the way
we think and speak. We think and speak the
way we do because we need to. As for the
oldest texts, they offer few hints as to
the origins of language and such origins
must remain speculative. But I see nothing
wrong with speculation if it is plausible,
logical, reasonable and perhaps interesting.
I find nothing in current texts on language
that suggests language was born full blown
in its variety and complexity - therefore
I must assume that much like the increasing
complexity of evolving organisms, language
and thought at one time was less complex
and rich. (Pinker's "mentalese"
merely confuses the issue!)
Gary. C. Moore: The oldest texts, when we
understand them, seem simple. But they are
public announcements for the average reading
mind. Exactly the same applies today. When
we do not understand a text, we say it is
obscure as if it were defective in some way.
But if you actually look at it, it is not
a public announcement. It is for a select
group of people who know the context within
which it is addressed in more detail. In
other words, it is complex. We do not need
to consider its worth now. and the great
effort needed to undecifer it that will probably
result in something trivial, but we just
need to realize it was important then. It
is conveying a great deal of information
to those in the know of an already at-hand
complex situation, i. e., religious rites,
details of sacrifice, the way to approach
divine images, etc. It is trivial to us.
But it is very complex.
Richard Sansom: I agree that it is very complex.
But today, as you say, what to some are obscure
texts because they lack understanding of
the context and lexicon, are, upon detailed
analysis (if one is so inclined and most
are not) are found to be sets of basic propositions,
statements, opinions, speculations, etc.
that are fundamentally simple. However, I
have come across many such (non-scientific)
texts that are unnecessarily burdened by
language that is gratuitously rich in circuitous
and needless verbosity, apparently to sound
more scholarly. (One can choose to write
that way, or not.) This does not hold in
serious texts on mathematics or science,
since the axiomatic bases for these disciplines
are many layers buried beneath the surface.
While I got a degree in mathematics, I would
be hard pressed to comprehend a current book
on pure math.
Gary. C. Moore: With the most primitive more
or less present day observed societies (and
that is an almost overwhelming problem in
itself), languages are presupposed beforehand
to be simple because these people are presupposed
to be simple. But, to take something from
Hume that also can serve as a corollary to
Jud's principle that your self is always
a priori in every situation of knowledge,
human beings have always been the same. I
pretend I hear sputtering and 'But . . .
but . . . but . . . but . . what about this
and what about that? Human beings have never
really been the same.'
Richard Sansom: I promise not to sputter
a lot of "buts." BUT, your remarks
beg a definition of "human being."
While it may be reasonable to assume that
homo sapien sapien have always been the same
(same in what way?) to me this means they
have always had to deal with the macro-world
(TWTWI) in more of less the same ways. However,
it is not reasonable to assume their progenitors
were "the same." I doubt very much
that they were. I agree that "modern
man" perhaps originating some 200 thousand
years ago, probably is "the same"
not only in his general morphology, but in
his thinking and possibly in much of his
language. I don't believe we can separate
the three things: MODERN MAN, THINKING, LANGUAGE.
(Incidentally, I agree with Jud that the
addition of "being" to "human"
is not necessary.)
Gary. C. Moore: ... Sartre begins the whole
dialectical historical evolution of the human
mind with one concept: hunger. All living
entities hunger. This literalness causes
a number of fundamental problems with other
people. They want to say things about the
animal's mind that distinguishes it from
human beings. I say it is exactly the same.
Why complicate the matter with unnecessary
concepts? They say, But an animal cannot
do this and an animal cannot do that. I say,
That is because of the form of their bodies.
That says nothing whatsoever about their
minds. How is a human mind supposedly, and
I do mean supposedly, constructed. Everyone
says: BY language. And if you do not have
language, will you think in language. They
say, But language is thinking! I say, No.
Thinking is like the concept of the building
of bricks. The bricks of thinking are only,
solely, and absolutely sensation. The facts
of 'simple' perception itself, no matter
whose, involve choices and judgments. What
are these choices and judgments motivated
by? Hunger.
Richard Sansom: I respectfully disagree with
Sartre's simplistic focus only on hunger.
All organisms have the requirements of, to
greater and lesser degrees, sustenance, shelter,
procreation and defense. Sustenance is only
one requirement, and the others play large
parts, depending on the organism. The maintenance
of life is not one dimensional.
As for the relation of language to thinking,
I see no reason to attempt to pry open an
organic separation between these. We have
given names/concepts to both, but we are
hard pressed to see them very far apart.
I don't mean that one requires language to
think - global aphasics have been shown to
think, and other animals who have no language
(that we can discern) certainly think, make
discernments, plan ahead, make choices, engage
in deception, etc. However it is my belief
that human thought, as we understand it (barely)
and human language grew up together, so to
speak. Here is a section from my paper on
TWTWI that relates to this matteRichard Sansom:
"My youngest daughter, who went from
the bottle to the pacifier, hearing us use
the word pacifier as we fetched it, acquired
one of her first words: pa-fooh, and used
it when she wanted the device. Not only was
she associating the pacifier with the name
or sound, she used the name (her name --
pa-fooh) to utter a command or express a
need. By getting it, she instantiated the
fact that her words had an effect -- they
were intentionally chosen and the cause-effect
relation of the utterance to getting the
pacifier was further instilled. I say "further
instilled" since I believe that causality,
like language, had a preconditioning wiring
resulting from millions of years of evolving
within the milieu of TWTWI. This whole process,
association of an uttered sound with an object,
witness of the causality, and perhaps equally
important, her awareness of a connection
with other sound-making objects (my wife
and I), was one that was the beginning of
her thought-language abilities. I see this
development in her as containing the following
more or less simultaneously occurring things
in the mind:
1. Awareness of association of word (utterance)
to thing,
2. Acquisition of the causal request-response
knowledge
3. Connection with other language users.
4. Awareness of expressibility -- thus, individuality
5. An inculcated sense of self as separate
from, but integrated with others
Her incomplete speaking skills was witness
to her immature vocalized mimicking ability,
but the other things I mentioned were sufficiently
mature to take hold in her very young brain."
I maintain that the above five interconnected
things occurring in her mind were the formation
of thoughts, aided by the giving and taking
of words.
This does not argue for the theory that seemingly
embryonic behavior signals a relationship
to early species performance of something
- like the gills on human embryos pointing
to our sea-going progenitors of the Paleozoic
era, but it does suggest that my daughter's
ability to begin the process of verbal communication
was instinctual - Locke notwithstanding.
Gary. C. Moore:
.. The 'primitive' hunter-gatherer finds
something that looks like a bean. They ask,
Is this a bean? What kind of bean is it possibly?
What are the appropriate signs that this
is truly a bean? Are there signs that it
is poisonous? Do other animals eat it? What
stage of development is it in? What are its
possible signs of ripeness or unripeness?
Are there other things that look like this
but are not beans/ Are there signs it is
edible? What kinds of animals eat it? Are
these animals similar to human in what they
eat? What are the different signs of its
different levels of edibility? Is this simple
language? I don't think so. Words with specific
tenses and modes are going to be made or
have already been made to account for every
single difference implied here. Why? Why
not just eat the bean and find out? Because
you could very well get sick and become helpless
and prey to competitors or predators or die.
You are all alone many miles from any one
else you know and will not get any help.
You absolutely have to maintain your self-sufficiency
above all else which means never ever ever
ever being careless. You must pay exhaustive
attention to every detail in your perceptual
field or you will certainly, not probably,
die. Are you going to have a very complex
language to properly account for all these
possibilities? I think so.
Richard Sansom: All this may be true, but
the decisions that are involved were surely
made prior to having a complex language.
Gary. C. Moore: This already is a complex
language.
Richard Sansom: We are the heirs to the hunter-gatherer,
but increasingly distant ones.
Gary. C. Moore: Maybe vertically in valuation,
but not in actual possibility as temporally
or spacially. If the occassion arises, one
has to become a hunter-gatherer. There is
no choice.
Richard Sansom: Our lives deal with a host
of decisions that would be incomprehensible
to our hominid progenitors. And, conversely,
were we, civilized man, dropped naked onto
the African savannah, would be ill equipped
to survive.
Gary. C. Moore: But the 'savannah' is the
fundamental situation from which all other
possible situations derive including every
and any modern one which, in time of hunger,
the situation of the 'savannah' comes back
whether we are ill-equiped or not.
Richard Sansom: By entering a world of technology,
a plethora of possible directions to take
in life, a jumble of possible systems of
belief, histories and institutions (i. e.
Popper's World III) we are faced with entirely
different challenges than those of ancient
hominids. But as complex and diverse as these
challenges are I believe the tools for dealing
with them are exactly the same tools used
100 thousand years ago - at the basic level
of decision making: we do what feels right,
helpful and life-preserving, and avoid doing
what is wrong, harmful and life-threatening.
Gary. C. Moore: I tend to get confused. This
seems to be exactly what I have been saying.
That there is a long string of connections
historically means only and siumply there
is a long string of connections. No qualitative
difference whatsoever. You need to know how
to make a weapon from a stick first. Then
you see adding a sharp stone tied to the
stick helps. You add a 'few' more steps along
the way and you are making a computer. We
have no difference here.
Richard Sansom: As for the role of just language
in all this, I am not sure.
Gary. C. Moore: 'Communication', being much,
much broader, would be preferable. After
all, even spolen language is not just words
but tones and body language also. Written
language is a highly restricted medium.
Richard Sansom: Since I do not separate language
very far from thought (not in the Whorf-Sapir
sense, however) I wonder how much better
off a person is who has a vast vocabulary
and has mastered the art of eloquent speech
than one who is not so endowed?
Gary. C. Moore: There are extremely different
ideas of what eloquence is. Clarity for the
Greek rhetoricians was the primary virtue.
You read a speech by Demonsthanes or Georgias,
they may say a lot of useless things in a
'stage' or 'presentation' speech, but it
is always perfectly clear for the lowest
common denominator in the audience. But if
the context is the court of law -- the rhetorian
gets right down to the nitty gritty of the
matter, the bare nuts and bolts. For the
rhetorician wins the case who makes the most
factually convincing case to the jury. The
facts can be manipulated but the clarity
is indispensible.
Richard Sansom: On a summer job, while in
college, I was a carpenter's helper. The
guy was in his sixties and probably didn't
have much life left since he had painted
and worked on bridges much of his life and
breathed in toxic fumes for years. His conversations
were sparse but very wise in subtle ways
and I learned a lot from him, not just about
carpentry, but about life - the approach
to problems, a kind of gentle fatalism, a
humility without weakness. All this without
complex language skills.
Gary. C. Moore: Strangely enough, Heidegger
has several times made this same point. And
most of the time, to make any sense of him
at all, one has to transpose him into this
mode. Many times this does not work, or maybe
I just do not have the ability. One does
not have to do this with Hume. I value Heidegger
now only in as far as he makes problems evident
in Hume that were missed in the first superficial
reading. HOWEVER, THAT SUPERFICIAL READING
WAS CORRECT THE FIRST TIME AROUND! This is
NEVER EVER true of Heidegger. You get what
is sufficient for the moment with Hume the
first time around. Then one goes back and
reads the language in extreme detail because
the way he says things brings out much more
than what was on the surface BUT UNLIKE HEIDEGGER
DOES NOT EVER CONTRADICT IT. However, Heidegger's
main problem is that he is working in a metaphysical
tradition. England, on the other hand, starting
with Bacon but deeply developed by Hobbes,
Locke, and Berkeley completely revolted against
this tradition and wanted to be able to write
for the common rational literate man, not
a highly 'sophisticated' and 'self-prestigeous'
audience ('self-prestigeous' in the sense
that that prestige only exists in there own
minds -- another MODERN problem in other
field that needs to be resolved now). ALSO--
my talking of 'hunger' is precisely trying
to develope this mode of writing on a very
plain level still WITHIN and applicable to
much more complicated levels when additional
context is added on.
GCM: Dear Jud, Richard, Jon, and the philosophical
community at large--
This is my fault. One of the points I was
trying to make was that it is literally impossible
to know anything whatsoever about the 'origins'
of 'birth' of language. Nothing. And we never
will.
Richard;
Dear Gary, I agree with you, and I agree
that my speculations are pretty useless as
authentic ".. ology" of any variety.
My interest is in the possible mechanisms
that led to the thought and language of modern
man and in the process of thinking about
them it is natural to ponder and speculate
on the various stages involved. From all
that I have read from you, I think there
is more agreement than not - the key harmony
being that modern humans have been the same
in terms of complexity and mental abilities
from the time at which they could be labeled
"modern." (However this, as I am
sure you will agree, is also speculation!)
Gary:
We can see plenty of clues some kind of communication
was always present-at-hand. Complex communication
does not at all have to be by words. Worse
still, one does not even have to be fully
conscious of it. Swarm mentality can adapt
to complex situations -- after all, it has
only two choices: adapt or die, and the dying
has been plentiful over the ages, inclusive
of all animals including human beings. Swarm
mentality is composed of swarms within swarms.
Communication is constantly going on in the
body, something that has not been seriously
treated yet because it is 'scientifically'
not respectable. However, the issue has become
so pressing because of technology itself,
scientists are being forced to address it
because the lack of understanding of it is
causing numerous problems else, in places
completely unexpected. Environment is not
all just 'outside', it is inside also. It
is one of those questions blazingly obvious
yet terribly inconvenient to deal with. But
'convenience' and 'respectibility' have no
place in science. This has actually become
a major problem that is totally unanticipated.
19th century science had so many things to
learn, it didn't feel the need to investigate
every nook and cranny. But now we have got
to the point of having to figure out the
most important question of all-- How do all
these systems, micro and macro, work together?
Afterall, once again, it is blazingly obvious
they are working together because they are,
in reality, together. It is Werner Heisenburg's
theory taken to its extreme implications--
That not only does the observer 'interfere'
with the results of the observation, but
that is the way reality is and always has
been. There never has been a state of 'pure'
science. It has always been formed by the
purpose of the observer.
Richard:
I agree with all you say. It is quixotic
to pursue anything that is either perfect
or pure. The investigator has an agenda,
perhaps even unknown to him. Why did Godel
go after his undecidability idea? I have
always been suspicious that the edifice of
mathematics and therefore all science was
a kind of house of cards that depended on
a very small set of "self evident"
axioms or assumptions, and that real proof
of anything was always contingent - not pure
or final. But I am ill-equipped to formulate
any solid mathematic proof, as did Godel.
Godel's agenda was probably a similar gut
feeling. The same might be said of Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle, or Einstein's relativity
theory, or black holes or the big bang, etc.
We often go after "proofs" that
substantiate what we feel is the case. How
and why these gut agendas arise is interesting,
but I am not one who believes that the "truth"
lurks somewhere in the gray matter, awaiting
discovery. But I will suggest this: Our thinking
has come about through millions of years
of hominids dealing with the way the world
is, on the macro level. That is the thesis
of the TWTWI paper that I am about to mail
to you as soon as I can get it printed.
Regards,
Richard
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