Metaman wrote:We identified water originally by its characteristic feel, appearance and perhaps taste." And that "If there were a substance, even actually, which had a completely different atomic structure from that of water, but resembled water in these respects, would we say that some water wasn't H20?

A good subject on which we can test this concept is sugar. Recently, advances in chemistry have allowed us to create sugar molecules which are the inverse of regular molecules. They taste more-or-less like sugar, but the body doesn't recognize them as sugar, and so doens't obtain nutrition from them. Do we call this alternative molecular formula [sugar] or do we call it something else, like [sugar substitute].

I think the most important thing to understand (for this discussion) is that WORDS are generally context sensitive. When a house wife tells her kid to get a drink of water, she may well be talking about something different from the scientist who is discussiong the properties of water/H₂O. In common, everyday speech, the definition of water includes the notion that it usually has some impurities in it. So the fact that [water] is not identical to H₂O is accounted for by the definition that is appropriate for the given context.

That's why when you go to the store, and buy less tained H₂O it's not called water--it's called purified water or distilled water. We have to distinguish pure H₂O from tap water, but it is the tap water that retains the most fundamental name WATER.

Given this, we can reexamine the contents of a [cup of tea]. The definition of tea is a flavoring substance that is steeped in hot water. So the fact that Tea contains water is accounted for by the definition of TEA. If we're expecting a cup of tea, then it makes no sense to discribe it as tained (or impure) water. On the other hand, if we're expecting water and we're handed a cup of tea, then it would make perfect sense to say something like, "This water is bad."

Because we are defining our drink in the context of water, it makes sense to describe the drink in terms of the taint (or impurity) that is in the water.

For the first example you gave, "Water is life" ... what's going on here is that we are using a sense of [is] that does not indicate equivalence. We are not saying that water is the same thing as live. We are saying that water is one of the characteristics (or requirements) of life. Thus, it is not accurate to suggest that this "water" doesn't contain H₂O as surely as example (2) and (3). It's just that we are using the word in a different way.

Thus, I would argue that none of your examples are referential failures. This, however, doesn't mean I think Kripke is right, at least not as you've explained his view.

Metaman wrote:I agree with 2. But I don't think social context has much relevance, because I don't think social language has any truth.

I'm not quite sure what this is supposed to mean.

First, isn't all language social? I assume your intent is to distinguish between common speech and technical jargon, but even technical language (say that used by mathematicians when dealing with a formal laguage) is essentially social because the mean of the terms are held in common by a given community--and people outside that community are unlikely to guess what the terms mean.

Second, if social language has no truth... then what meaning can "truth" possibly have? Given this assessment, it seems to me that "truth" can have absolutely no practical purpose in any language--formal or otherwise.

The first social context is to understand which language is being used. Quite often terms are given a different meaning in common language than in technical language. For example, in geometry, a "point' is defined differently than it is outside of geometry, even when they both (more-or-less) refer to a [dot]. If we don't know the context of which language we are using, then the result is that we are obviously referring to two very different things.

The next social context is how the word is being used. If I point to a page with a dot on it and refer to a "point", I know that what I am referring to is the dot. And if I'm doing geometry, I know that dot refers to a "geometric point" instead of the actual physical smudge on the page. And If my friend listens to what I have to say and comments, "You have a point there," he is referring to yet another meaning for the term. Thus, I have demonstrated at least 4 different ways the term "point" can be used. How else would we know which meaning is implied but to observe the context of how it is being used.

Metaman wrote: this means that there are as many languages as there are people, and so I don't see what relevance social context has in determining meaning between two different I-Languages.

in all languages there are terms that have vague or multiple meanings. Most languages give us a lot of leeway in how we can use certain terms. For instance, if I said, "He had a snowy personality." Very few people would have much difficulty getting a pretty good sense of what was meant. "Snowy personality" is a somewhat unique phrase, but we have other terms like [icy], [cold], [frosty] which are commonly used to describe personalities, and we can compare snowy to these other terms and thus conclude that a "snowy personality" is not that different from a "frosty personality".

My point is that few words in common speech have a singular meaning. And we can take poetic liscence to push the boundaries of how words can be used. And in both cases, I think it's very clear that we MUST use context to determing the appropriate meaning for the word being used.

In fact, I think you have it backwards. The more "social" a language is the more heavily it relies on contexts.

Metaman wrote: When studying the eye we don't take into account the social context of different eyes, whatever that could possibly mean. We study the eye internally, regardless of the social surroundings.

This comment doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, to me. On the one hand, it's just wrong. When I look at my eye in the mirror, I distinguish what I see from my friends eye. An intern who is helping a doctor who is operating on an eye that has been impaled with a nail, will use the context of the injury to help decide which eye the doctor is referring to when he says, "Cut the cornea of the eye with the scalpel." If it weren't for the context of the injury, the intern would not know which eye to cut.

On the other hand, If a child looks at an eye, they may only know the terms [eye], [eyeball] and [eyelids]. A typical adult may know more, such as: [pupil], [cornea], [iris] and so forth. An eye specialist will know more, such as: [ganglion cells], [pigment epitelium], [amacrine cells], [bipolar neurons], etc. Now, if the child is listening to the doctor talk about the eye, the child will understand very little if any of what is said, because the child does not have a grasp on the the social context that would give the terms meaning.

The point is that (in the second sense) social context does not involve the differences between two different eyes, but the differences that are understood by the eyes of two different observers.

Metaman wrote:I agree that formal languages (i.e. arithmetic) are "essentially social." But it doesn't follow from that that "all language" is social.

This doesn't make any sense. formal languages (like arithmetic) are far less social than common speech. So I seems to me that if you agree that formal language is social you are necessarily conceeding that common speech is social.

Metaman wrote: (Also, my intent is not "to distinguish between common speech and technical jargon.")

lol. Okay, so what exactly was your intent?

Metaman wrote: The conditional "If social language has no truth, then 'truth' has no meaning" isn't sound

It wasn't a logical argument... so saying it "isn't sound" has no meaning in the formal sense. And in the informal sense it is nothing more than an unsubstantiated opinion--and one which I suspect most people would disagree with. If social language has no truth, then what is it we're talking about when we speak of "truth". How can truth not be truth? What could it possibly mean to say there is no truth, but yet there's truth?

These are things that you do virtually nothing to explain.

Metaman wrote: I don't disagree with that. If we are using a formal language, then we need to know that fact otherwise we won't understand what the vocabulary of that language refers to.

If you cede this point then (as far as I'm concerned) you necessarily also cede the point that language is based on context... because this is an example of context being employed.

Metaman wrote:However, your conclusion that meaning is determined socially doesn't follow from your point about points. It could be that meaning is determined by use, and so by syntax - something society has nothing to do with.

No, this is totally and utterly impossible.

Consider the statement,
(R) ..."It is raining."
Is this a true or a false statement?
The only way we can make that determination is by placing it in context. If Tom comes into a dry room and utters (R) it is clearly not true that it is raining inside the room. But if it is raining outside the building, we allow that the statement is true, because the definition of the word rain implies that it is not something that occurs inside buildings. This illuminates two types of context. One is the fact that we have to look out the window to know whether (R) is true. The other involves using our common sense about the definition, and so knowing when it makes sense to assume we MUST be being rained on for (R) to be true. Context tells us that because we are inside a building, we cannot simply assume (R) is false just because we are dry.

Another type of context involves personal perspective. For instance, suppose your in a car, and the air is so full of moisture that although it is not raining (for those people outside of the car) beads of water collect on the windshield as the car moves along. Now, if you're looking out the front window, context tells you that it is raining. But if you look out the side window, context tells you that it is not raining. In one case, you look and observe that the conditions that define raining are being meet, while in the other you observe that those conditions are not being meet.

In none of these cases did the syntax of (R) change. And since the syntax did not change, the variations in our understanding of (R) CANNOT possibly be due to syntax. It's just not logically possible.

Metaman wrote: There are two ways to approach the study of language. Either of these ways will be informed by the way you view language; whether language is a social object, or something else. I think it is pretty obvious that language is not a social object. This is because language is a faculty of the mind/brain. And the language faculty is an expression of our genes.

I'm not really sure what a [social object] is supposed to mean.

Normal children raised together but with little or no interaction with speaking adults human beings (i.e. the children of mute parents who live in an issolate location) have been found to create a relatively complex language that is unique to the children. So yes, there is something to be said for the notion that language is an inherent human trait.

This, however, does not imply that language is not a highly social trait. A child raised alone, (say by wolves, or mute parents) will not develop a similar language. The purpose of language is to communicate, and communicating is necessarily a social trait.

Metaman wrote: the two ways to study language are: the E-Language, and the I-Language (for: External language, and Internal language) (see Chomsky 1986) The E-Language is the way you would approach language as if it were a social object, or in some way external from the mind. The I-Language is the way you would approach language as if it were innate, which it is.

Yes, of course language has an internal aspect. It also has an external aspect. Having one does not mutually exclude having the other.

Metaman wrote: So the appropriate way to approach language is through the I-Language. The I-Language is essentially the internal, individualistic state of mind/brain that is the language faculty. Because each individual has his/her own language faculty, or I-Language, it follows that there are as many I-Languages as there are people.

I would say the appropriate way to approach language is to understand that there are two reciprocal aspects which interrelated and interconnected--just as are [concepts] and [physical objects].

Certainly, just as we can separate [semantics] from [syntax], and study them separately, we can separate the I and E aspects of language and study them separately. But it makes no sense to me to suppose that one and only one of these aspects should be considered valid. They are not mutually exclusive... in fact, they are mutually interdependant.

Metaman wrote: And so the idea that there is a social object called English, or German, is nonsense.

This is exactly analogous to saying that you think there are individual animals that [purr, have four legs, whiskers, fur, flexible spines, etc]. but there aren't any "socal objects" called "cats".

There are no "cats", just individual animals of unknowable and unnamable nature. But then that implies that there also are no "animals". There is nothing called "individual" there is nothing called "unknowable" and so on. such a conjecture makes a mockery of the notion of an I-language.

Yes, each individual has an I-language that is unique to their own mind (at an given momen... it changes from one instant to the next, as new sights are seen and thoughts are had which modify the language constantly). But just as a dozen people can follow a recipie for soup and each version of the soup will be a little different, because of minute differences in how much of an ingredient is used or perhaps because margarine is substituted for butter, etc. SO TOO, each individual I-language is unique, and yet they collectively define the E-language, just as the recipe defines all of the soups collectively.

And just as a recipie card can be changed a little, when a "better" variation is discovered, so to E-languages can evolve and change, in a similar but different way than how I-Languages change from one moment to the next.

Metaman wrote: the I-Language is not determined by society, other than that a child's I-Language's (which is growing and developing) parameters are set by any available data

This statement makes no sense. In essence you're saying that the I-Language is not determined by society... except in those ways in which it is determined by society. That is the literal interpretation of what you just said.

The available data parameters are the contextual situations in which the I-Language is learned. If a child lives in a mansion with his rich parents, he will learn a slightly different meaning for the word "house" than a child who lives in a one-room shack with his poor parents. This is most definitely social. If a boy is the smallest person in a family who are all over 6'3" tall, he will have a different notion of what it means to be small, than the smallest person in a family that maxes out at 5'3". Again, that's a meaning with is learned by the social context in which the child is raised.

Subsequent exposure to other people will modify the meanings of their terms--making the meaning of [small] more and more similar as they encounter more people--but individual differences in their I-language arose from the differences in the social context in which they learned.

Metaman wrote: the only role society plays is in setting the I-Language's parameters. The brain/mind does the rest - that is, it picks the syntax and semantics that the child will use.

I think this is clearly and obviously false. We learn what things mean by interacting with society. Without society, there is no significant language use. Children raised in issolation agree upon the meaning of their made up words by mutual social interactions. In essence they agree that certain words should have certain meanings. Collectively, societies as a whole do much the same thing, except that many words already have an agreed upon meaning--but new word/meaning combinations can be agreed to at any time. That's how new words are "coined" and enter the lexicon.

The human mind is obviously such that this sort of "searching for language" is an innate trait. But it is social interaction that pollinates it and brings it to fruition.

Metaman wrote: You might wonder how, since there is no social object called English, we can communicate. This is where my analogue to the human eye comes in. Like a person's I-Language, which is genetically determined, a person's eyes are also genetically determined. And so, society plays no role in the growth and use of eyesight. But do you then ask: How do we see the same things, if there is no social object called Eyesight?

While I see what you're trying to do with this analogy now, I'm still not sure it works all that well.

If a person's eye's produce poor eyesight, they go and get a pair of glasses, and social interaction plays a role in helping them to see better. Depending on how bad the person's eyes are, there may not be any recognizable entity called [eyesight], if it weren't for the non-genetic element called [glasses]. If one eye is weak, wearing the right glasses can prevent the weak eye from going blind.

Similarly, a camera can have "eyesight" of a sort... without any genetic material at all. It is a purely social creation that mimics the eye and can actually do it one better by preserving what the eye would have seen in a public format--allowing others to see it as well.

Although it's a poor analogy (but no worse thay your eye analogy was) we might compare the eye to an I-Language, and the "same" image that is captured by the camera (instead of the eye) would be compared to the E-Language.

Metaman wrote:... the way to look at language is as a biological/psychological object, unique to each individual; like memory, for which there is no social object called Memory that we all share. Language (or, our I-Language) is an expression of our genes.

I agree with this much. There is no E-Language that resides in a mind or brain. But by the same tokein, there is no I-language that resides in a society somewhere.

E and I languages are reciprocal in nature--and where they reside is only one of the ways in which they are different.

Metaman wrote:I hope that helps clear my position up.

Clearer, yes. lol. But I still mostly disagree.

Metaman wrote:I completely disagree here. I would say that formal languages are far more social than natural language.

It appears we're still using differen definitions of "social". So let me distinguish between my definition as social interaction and yours as a communal entity.

Metaman wrote:You're right, I didn't use "sound" correctly. I meant "true." But I still think the conditional is false. I don't think it is the case that if language is not socially determined, then the word "truth" has no meaning. I think this because "truth" could take a private meaning, as a part of a private language. So, obviously, the conditional then fails if you agree with that.

Fair enough, and given your 'technical definition' of [socially determined] this statement is probably true. If you totally disregard the E-language as a valid entity, and perception isn't an issue... then the I-language doesn't involve a lot of social interaction. You still have to learn it through social interaction, but we don't have to rely on social context to think about ideas that we already know. That's becasue in the I-language each word is a differnt word, even if in the E-language it is the same.

For example, love is a single word in the E-language. But in the I-language this singular E-language term becomes several distinct terms... for example, 1) a strong feeling. 2) a zero score in tennis. 3) sexual intercourse. Even within the (1) definition, there are many gradients... for example, there is a) love between man and wife. b) love between siblings. c) love between friends. d) love for a child. e) love for a pet. f) love for my new shoes. g) love for pizza. Each of these TYPES of love are distinctly different.

Each person is unique. One person may experience (love 1a) as crazy, hollywood, floating on the clouds love, while another may experience it as strong commitment, and the desire to be with the person. Each experience of love is unique. But the person who is thinking about love knows which type of love they are thinking about. They don't require social interaction to determine this, because it is already pre-determined in their mind. Each unique type of love is a distinctly different mental idea--and when they refer to love mentally, they know exactly which one they are referring to.

But the thing about language is that its most fundamental purpose is to communicate. We use the I-language to communicate with ourselves (so to speak). But the E-language is used to communicate with other people--who do not share our mind. They have no way of knowing which I-language meaning the person has in mind or how exactly that person defines their I-language meaning. Thus, the listener must use social interaction (context) to determine which meaning is intended.

Is this something we can agree on... or do you still claim to disagree with me?

Metaman wrote: It only has relevance to formal languages, since we were talking about: "If we are using a formal language, then we need to know that fact otherwise we won't understand what the vocabulary of that language refers to." So, since I think there is a definite distinction between formal and natural languages, it doesn't tell you anything about what I think about natural languages. It only says that I agreed with you on formal languages.

Wrong. I just as easily could have said, "If we're using a natural language, then we need to know that fact otherwise we won't understand what the vocabulary of that language refers to." And it would have been equally true. If I'm thinking [geometric point] because I'm stuck in a formal language and you refer to a regular point, that's going to cause confusion. It doesn't matter which perspective we're in... only that there are more than one and we need to know which way of thinking to adopt.

Metaman wrote: I disagree with that. We might use "rain" as in: The sprinklers are raining on us. In which case, it is raining inside the building.

That's why I specified that Tom comes into a DRY room... because I was actually thinking of using this example to further prove my point. (I didn't because my posts are too long already).

This example, clearly shows how context plays a role. It supports my position--not yours. For Tom knows that [rain] can be used in such a way, but if the room is water free, Tom knows (from the context of a dry room) that that is not how it is being used in this case. Whereas if it is raining, he will probably conclude (from the context of falling water) that the statement refers to what is happening inside the room. It may also be raining outside, and then it is appropriate to both interpretations. But either case IS an interpretation--which means that it relies on context to provide the clues that tell Tom which perspective is the most appropriate one to adopt.

Metaman wrote: We are talking about what determines meaning. In these examples, we already have meaning for "rain" and "raining," so I don't see what relevance they have.

I disagree... we do not have a single, specific and invariable meaning for rain. What we have is a collection of very different but potential meanings. The context in which the statement is used tells us which meaning is most probably the one intended.

Again, in the strict I-language sense, we already know which sense we intend--so we don't have to interpret our own intentions.

Metaman wrote: What I was trying to get across.... was that language is not a shared, social, thing, that we might call English, and that we all speak. So, when someone says, "all English speakers speak an identical language," the "identical language" is taken as a shared thing. (Whatever that is.)

Obviously, the collective E-language, English, is not an absolutely specific and singular thing; that would be absurd. But neither is the I-language, as it is constantly changing too, as we learn more and encounter new physical examples that modify our previous definitions.

Lots of things are vague: [cloud], [heap], [love]... these are just some of the terms that are highly vague. When we refer to a cloud, we are not referring to a single, specific thing... because the definition of what a cloud is includes the fact that it is necessarily vague. (i.e. the Problem of the Many) In much the same way,

I-language is temproally vage because it changes over time. Clearly, my I-language as an infant was very different than my I-language as a philosophizing adult. But at any given time it is what it is, because it involves only one person--and so (for the most part) it is isolated to one "place", so to speak.
E-language is also temproally vage and changes over time. But it is also spread out over many minds, and so it is also vague in the way that a cloud is--having vague boundaries at any given moment. Which is one reason why we need social context to help us decide which meaning is intended during a given social interaction.

Metaman wrote: We might use language socially, like on social occasions. I am not denying that, only a solipsist would. I am concerned here with how meaning is determined.

Depends on what you mean by 'determined".

We learn (determine) what a word means by having someone tell us what [physical objects] (and so forth) go with what [terms]. This learning process is a social interaction. As is the subsequent learning that we engage in as our I-language changes. But at any given moment, we determine what we mean (internally) by what we mean (internally).

As I see it, the problem is that this doesn't really tell us anything useful about how language is used. It's like [x=x]... it's obviously true, but it doesn't tell us anything useful about the [nature of x].

Metaman wrote: Whether I agree with this depends on what you mean by "external aspect."

Fair enough.

I say that we learn Internal meaning (the I-language) by observing external things and having them paired with external terms (the E-language). A child's mother points to a dog and says, "Oh, look at the pretty dog." So the child learns to associate the term "dog" with his own internal meaning of the animal he saw.

An infant who has learned to use the word "dog" to refer to the family pet, may point to the neighbor's [cat] and say "dog". The child hasn't learned what it is that distinguishes "cat" from "dog". Their I-language does not yet match the E-language of the community that they belong to. Their I-language is highly vague and poorly defined. But the mother says, "No, sweety, that's not a cat, that's a dog." And the child begins to mentally group [physical objects] into those things that are [dog] and those that are [not dog]--constantly refining their I-language, so that it more closely approximates the E-language. The more examples of things that are [dog] the more capable he will be of accurately identifying physical objects that are E-language [dogs].

Similarly, I as an adult have developed my ideas on philosophy in new and unique ways. Many of the terms I use in my own I-language differ dramatically from the E-language. For example, I define an set as {that which has elements}, which means that (in terms of an enumeration set) the empty set is an oxymoron that has no meaning--since it is literally the [thing with elements that has no elements].

My point is that my I-language has become more complex... and veered off onto a uniquely different path from the E-language. And when it comes to discussing these sorts of differences... it becomes very difficult when you arbitrarily discount the E-language as being non-existent, (or without value and not worth considering).

If, on the other hand we mean the static sense of determined... then yes, Tom's meaning for X is determined internally--or inside of Tom. But again, this tells us nothing meaningful. Where else would we find what Tom means but inside Tom?

Metaman wrote: The E-Language tells us nothing about language though, since language is internal and so determined before it comes anywhere near the level of an E-Language.

I suppose it depends on what you want to know about language. If you want to know how we apply social context to determine how the environment were in changes how we interpret what someone says, then I think it is clearly more appropriate to study the E-language. If you want to study how we transform a sentence so that it means the same thing even though we may be using different words or the same words in a differnt order, then perhaps I-language may be appropriate... But even in this second case, where do we get the raw data for our actual study? We get it largely from the E-language... as we collect sample sentences and the feelings of various people as to which sentences mean the same thing and which do not.

For example, if you asked me a question about an [empty set] I may well provide a different answer than someone else would. So I can't simply base my research into language on my own I-language. Else, my results will be inaccurate and inappropriate for everyone else who defines [empty set] differently than I do.

It's a bit paradoxical, in a number of ways. Yes, we are never closer to pure LANGUAGE than the I-language. But the I-language is hidden inside of us and is not easily examined. This means that it takes very poorly to being studied. I have a unique definition of [cat] but I can't easily explain how my I-language definition of cat differs from yours. E-language, on the other hand, is public and thus easily observed--and this means that it takes to being studied relatively well.

Metaman wrote:Ok, so there is a concept cat. But if we want to study cats, we don't study the concept cat. We study individual cats. The same is true of language. That is, if we want to talk about the language of an individual, then studying the concept language, or coincidentally the E-Language, will tell us nothing about the language of that individual. Again, the concept language does not determined the actual I-Language (as concepts are conceptual, and have no impact on physical processes).

First, I go back to my earlier statement about how I-language is private and thus not so easily observed. Often, we don't even fully understand how we define things in our own I-langugage, since much of our language facility is subconsciously processed.

Secondly, When we study [actual individual cats], we don't just study a [single individual cat] and assume our studies are finished. We study different types of cats. A Siameese cat is different from a Persial. Both are different from a Lion. And all three are different from a [statue of a cat], which is also a "type of cat". When we study more than one cat, we are no longer studing an individual cat... we are studing cats in general. We are studying the [concept cat]... because that's what a concept is, basically... it is the amalgamation of all the actual things which we call by the name of that concept. So when we study many I-languages, we are IN FACT studying the E-language... because that's what the E-language is... the vague nature of all the I-languages taken as a collective whole.

And just as we do not have to study [all physical cats] to get a detailed and accurate [concept of cat] so to we do not need to study all I-languages to gain a detailed and accurate understanding of the E-language. In both cases, the reason is because although each cat is different, there are statistical norms. Once you've seen a fair number of cats, you will have seen the majority of what is possible for cats to express physically-- and most of the rest can be assertained by logical deduction. For example, we don't have to see a 3-legged cat to know that such a thing is possible--or to recognize such a cat when we see it--because we have seen humans with missing limbs, and we can creatively superimpose one concept onto the other.

Metaman wrote: The analogue doesn't work, as it has things backwards. In making soup, you start with the (social) recipe - which then determines the actual individual soup. But this is not analogues to language, and so useless.

It is analogous... We learn what a [cat] is by other people pointing out [cats] and telling us that they are "cats". The other person's pre-existing knowledge about what a [cat] is, is analogous to the recipie (or E-language). We follow the recipe, when we adopt there words. The E-language, of course, is the language of the whole collective community, and we get input from many people/sources telling us what a [cat] is. Pictures in learn-to-read books. Neighbors. Movies. Siblings. And so forth. So we aren't just learning a single other person's I-language... we are learning the recipe, and adopting our ideas of the best from many different I-languages (i.e. the E-language). When we are young (following the recipe for the first time) we are uncertain and have to refer back to the recipie (E-language) frequently. But as we get older (and more sure of our selves and our abilties to cook) we begin to bend the rules and create our own I-language micro recipes.

Metaman wrote: But the E-Language has no place in language development, and so language meaning. That falls to the I-Language. ...

Of course it does! We don't learn what a cat is from ourselves. We learn from others.

If we were raised by wolves, we would still form an internal I-language that had a meaning for [cat]... but it would not be the SAME I-language.

In a way, I think these two language sets are analogous to sculpter carving an image in a block of wood.
The I-language is like the block of wood. The E-language is like the carving tools. And the meaning is like the final image that we end up with. The [meaning/images] is not exclusively in either the [I-language/wood] or the [E-language/tools], but collectively in the union of both. If we have limited [E-language/tools] because we were raised by wolves (only have a butter knife instead of a sharp blade) then our final images (the sophistication of our language) will be crude. Conversely, if we have a good block of wood (a sharp, word oriented mind) then the tools that we use will also produce a
finer final product.

The secret is both working together. And just as we must study both the nature of the wood and the nature of the tools (and the carving techniques, etc) in order to understand how the whole process of carving--so too we must study both the I-language and the E-language to fully understand how language (in all its glory) works.

Belinda wrote:A useful analogy, which reminds me of Chomskyan deep structure (l-language plus e-language). I agree with the wolf language example to illustrate the sociolinguistic process. However I think that e-language is indistinguishable from l-language, unless Antone is referring to langue(l-language) and parole(e-language).

Actually, I-language and E-language are Metaman's terms, which I have adoped here to make our discussion easier.

I-language is the internal language that a single person has inside their own mind.
E-language is the external language that a community holds collectively.

BTW, I am familiar with Chomsky's idea of deep structure... and I believe it is probably a valid model. I did a college paper on how the word "there" can be used to transform a sentence, and I considered using some sort of example like that in my response to metaman, but didn't want to take the time to research an example. lol. Lazy me.

Belinda wrote:Langue (French, meaning "language") and parole (meaning "speech") are linguistic terms used by Ferdinand de Saussure. Langue describes the social, impersonal phenomenon of language as a system of signs, while parole describes the individual, personal phenomenon of language as a series of speech acts made by a linguistic subject.

There are many ways to break down the topic of lanuage, so that we are studying specific aspects of the whole of what language is. One such field is semiotics (the study of signs). I'm somewhat familiar with Saussure, and he did a lot of work on signs--so what you're talking about probably has to do with semiotics.

I could be wrong, but I think metaman is saying that semiotics is not a valid way to study language. Or, if some of it is worth studying, then (at the very least) there are vast areas of it that are NOT.

BTW, another who is influential in this field of semiotics is Charles Sanders Peirce.

My own views are a bit different from either of theirs. But I've done a fair amount of thinking about the topic in general.

Metaman wrote:The E-Language is “a pairing of sentences and meanings…where the language is ‘used by a population’ when certain regularities ‘in action or belief’ hold among the population with reference to the language.” And, “in a sense that the construct is understood independently of the properties of the mind/brain.”

The problem is that I don't think you can create a pairing of sentences and meanings that is devoid of context. The sentence,
I listened to the sound
has at least two possible meanings. In one, sound is a type of noise. In another, a sound is a wide channel linking two large bodies of water. Or as a minor variation, it could be a long inlet or arm of the sea. A sound can also be the swim blader of certain fish, so if a zooologist had a stethoscope (or some other instrument) he could be listenting to this bladder.

I see two possible interpretations: 1) there is no such pairing, or 2) many (if not most) sentences can be associated with a number of different possible meanings. If we allow for the first meaning then it seems there is no such E-language. And if we allow for the second meaning then it seems obvious that this pairing of sentence and meaning cannot be understood without reference to the context in which the sentence is being used--which means that the meaning is mind dependent. For the speaker, this is so because he knows which of the meanings he has IN MIND. And for the listener, it is mind dependent because he has to infer the appropriate meaning using the social context and the deductive powers of his mind.

Thus, as a definition, I would suggest that one could argue that Chomsky's E-language does not actually refer to anything--at least not as expressed. Intuitively, I think I understand what Chomsky is attempting to refer to when he says, E-language, but because his definition is flawed and innaccurate (to the entity I have in mind) it makes discussing the E-language in a meaningful way a bit difficult.

I'm not saying we can't divide our thinking into I-language and E-language... but I think language is the fusion of both. It is overly restricting to talk about one without the other--just as it is to try to talk about [concepts] or [physical objects] as if one and only one has any implication in philosophy.

Metaman wrote: Speaking precisely, I don’t think we learn language. I think the proper way to describe what happens is that the language faculty grows. Our mind/brain starts at a state 0, then grows into state 1, then state 2, and so on until it reaches the state at which we might say “this persons knows this language.”

I find this to be such a bizzarely irrational statement that I'm not sure how to address it without sounding insulting. lol.

If we don't "learn" langauage, then why not say that we don't learn MATH or PHILOSOPHY. Our brain simply grows to a more advance (or complicated) state... and the math is magically there. Only problem is, if you don't "study" math you don't pick it up. And the same is true of language. If a child is not exposed to an E-language, he doesn't learn it. That's why I can't speak Russian, Japanese, French... and a whole host of other languages. If our brain simply developed the ability to speak (without learning) we would all be able to speak all of these languages--or more likely there would only be one language.

Don't get me wrong, I'm NOT saying that we don't have a natural faculty for language, or that people who grow up without an E-lanaguage won't spontaneously create one of their own. But even in that case the people who speak that made-up E-language must "learn" what they've agreed that the words will mean.

Metaman wrote:

Antone wrote:We use the I-language to communicate with ourselves (so to speak). ...

Given the above definitions of I-Language I’m not sure what it could mean to say that we use the I-Language to communicate with ourselves. I mean if the I-Language is an internal state of mind/brain, then I don’t quite understand that.

There are many different ways to use our mind. Much of it is subconscious. When I get excited, my brain communicates with my heart to make it beat faster. I am not consciously aware of this, so clearly my conscious mind is not causing this physilogical effect. But my perceptions, (of which I am conscous) help determine when I do get excited, so clearly my conscious mind is "communicating" with my subconscious mind to tell it what to do.

Similarly, there is [left] and [right] brain activity which is very different. One processes more rational types of thinking like speech and logic. The other processes more irrational types of thinking like spatical orientation, etc. When doctors cut a Patient's corpus callosum (the connection between left and right brain) they sometimes find that one of their hands tends to act independently. Their right hand may be trying to button up their shirt while their left is trying to unbutton it. When the patients speeks aloud, and tells the "offending" hand what needs to be done, the hand is much more likely to do what it is supposed to do. Clearly then, during normal brain opperation, the two hemispheres are "communicating" with one another. In a way, I believe this unconscious communication should be considered a part of the I-language.

Most people tend to think in words--at least part of the time. When I look at a lamp, I don't need to think "lamp" to know what it is that I'm looking at. When I need to express what I'm seeing, the word "lamp" is there waiting. This is demonstrative of the of the left and right brain interacting. The part of the brain that recognizes what is and is not a tree (lets call it conceputal language) isn't all that good with (written/spoken) language--but it has a connection to the part of the brain that is good with these learned terms.
(BTW, I believe conceptual language is also something that animals possess.)
As I understand it, the I-language is the correspondence (or learned association) between this [conceptual language] and the [terms that are used by an E-language]. The [conceptual language] is something that we pick up naturally--we would be able to recognize a lamp, even if we didn't have a name for it--but the the E-language aspect of the I-language is something that we must learn...because knowing the term "lamp" is not innate to all people.

What this means is that we use the I-language to communicate with ourselves: left to right brain... rational to irrational... conscioius to subconscious... and so forth. Also, I don't know about other people, but I sometimes find that I don't "know" something until I've though about it in words. Obviously the idea originated inside my own mind, but on these occasions there can still be a "Yeah, you're right." sort of response when I think about the words I've just thought. I consider this to be a form of internal communication--we our informing ourselves about what it is that we think. Or more accurately, we are informing one half as to what the other half thinks.

Metaman wrote: I’m OK with selecting our meaning socially; I just don’t see how the meaning of natural language can be determined socially.

Okay, on this it appears we may be saying the same thing in two different ways.

Metaman wrote: Formal language seems to me an example of an E-Language. And as a result, there can be different axioms and rules of inference that yield the same formal language.

I don't think so. The axioms and rules are part of the language. There are only 5 parts of a formal system: 1) the alphabet (or symbols). 2) The rules of formation, which determine which strings of symbols are valid and which aren't. 3) Axioms, or a list of the valid strings that we are allowed to start with. 4) The Rules of Construction, which determine how we can take an axiom (or theorem) and modify it to create a new (and valid) theorem. Some rules of construction, can also create new theorem without using a pre-existing axiom or theorem. 5) Theorems, or a list of all the strings that have been (or can be) created using the rules.

That's all there is to a formal system. There is no assignment of meaning, that's called an interpretation, and it is a veneer that is appled from outside of the formal language itself.... And even the Metalanguage is not (strictly speaking) a part of the formal language. It is a language that allows us to talk about the formal language.

This is my understanding... and given it, I don't see how it is possible to derive the same "formal language" from different axioms and rules of inference.

Metaman wrote: Which set of axioms and rules are the right ones?

One way to determine if a set of axioms and rules are right is if they accurately model whatever it is you're trying to model. If a formal system accurately models mathematics, then it is correct. Different formal languages can reasonably effective in modeling the same thing. Although Godel's Incompleteness Theorem essentially suggests that it is impossible for a formal system to be both consistent and complete.

I believe Gocel's proof is flawed on this... and I believe the reason is because he does not distinguish between the innate difference in a [name] and the [thing being named]. Thus, he takes what is basically an infinite idea, names it, and then treats that name as a finite idea. This is an invalid leap of logic, and so invalidates his proof.

As per my earlier discussion, I believe the same distinction can be found in the I-languages... the [thing being named] is the [conceputal language] and name is the [E-language aspect of the I-language] or, in other words, it is the unique and "imprefect" internalization of the E-language.

Metaman wrote: Well, there isn’t a question of rightness regarding E-Languages. But, if we take the I-Language, then there is a question of rightness. And because natural language is innate, there is a right set of rules that we can discover.

This doesn't compute. Dictionary and grammar books are examples of guidelines for what is and isn't right in an E-language. On the other hand, my I-language is whatever I've developed it to be. I take one or more E-language, adopt those parts I like and reject those parts I do not... and that's the [non-conceptual part of my I-language]. For instance, I reject the traditional definition of an "empty set" as previously explained. In my I-language, an empty set MUST be an abstraction set... which means that it must contain [1 element]. That element is the [idea of nothing], which we write as {x:x is nothing}. The set has one elmenet, [x]. If can try to write this as an enumeration set as {...}, but a set is defined as [that which contains elements]... so {...} isn't a set because it contains no elements.

This whole logical structure, and the terms that I use to [name] these ideas are an innate part of my I-language. But I can speak to other people, because I also understand how my I-language differs from the E-language. Thus, when I'm talking to other people, instead of communicating with myself, I have to take into account these logical "flaws" in the E-language.

Metaman wrote: We, from our social settings, select our words; but our words already have meaning, before we enter that social setting.

Our words have multiple meanings... often diametrically opposed to one another.

Metaman wrote: I don’t understand how the E-Language can be “spread out over many minds.” The E-Language is independent from mind.

I don't think so. If that were the case, then it seems to me that natural language would never change. But it does change. The Romance languages are all from the same branch; they all evolved from the same origins... but over time each language went its own way. How does that happen if the E-language is independent from the I-language of many minds?

No, it happens BECAUSE there are many I-languages, each with the ability to adopt it's own variations of the E-language recipe. When enough people think the old E-language conventions are old and outdated and have developed the same I-language alternatives... then the E-language changes, and conforms to their I-language expectations. In a literal sense, then, 1 E-language = multiple I-languages.

Metaman wrote: Well, I understood most of the sentence except the word “erstwhile.” But from the role it was playing in the sentence I had an intuition that it meant something like: previous, prior, old. I then checked my dictionary, which told me that it meant: former. So I was right (or at least, on the right lines). But no one pointed out to me what “erstwhile” meant.

First, a child doesn't learn to walk by sitting down and memorizing something... and yet we still say that the child has learned to walk. So clearly, we don't have to learn in a typical, formal schooling type of setting. Second, you "picked up" this meaning because you were able to deduce it from the [context] of the sentence. So I would argue that context plays a vital role both in [learning] and in [deducing meaning after we've learned]. In addition, you yourself admitted that the dictionary pointed out what 'erstwhile" meant. It confirmed your intuitive understanding. If you had not looked it up, you would still have gotten that sense... and the next time you saw it used you could compare the sense of meaning that you got this next time with the sense that you got the first time... and each time you the meanings appeared to match up you would gain a greater certainty that your internal definition was the correct one.

I on the other hand, looked at that sentence and thought that erstwhile probably meant something like "diligent, vigilant, persistent and adamant". This meaning is also not a totally inappropriate deduction... given the meaning of ernest, and the context of the sentence. So if neither of us looked up the actual definition, and we both learned instead by deducing the meaning from context... we would both learn (or develop) very different I-language meanings for this term. If enough people sided with me, the E-language would eventually change. For example, puruse means to read something carefully... but most people use this term in a way that means to just glance at something; or read it casually. So many people use this term inappropriately that it is now probably more likely to have the second intended meaning than the first. And in another few decades or so is is likely that the E-language will officially make this switch.

Metaman wrote: Also, there are only a few words that you can actually point out and say look: “this is an X!” ... With the dog example. How does the child know that “dog” refers to the whole animal, and not its leg...

We just finished discussing how context plays a role in our language learning... and the same is true here. Suppose a child's father say, "It looks like the dog's leg is hurt." If the child knows all the words in this statement but [leg] and [hurt], he can intuitively get a sense of what the statement means by observing that the dog is limping. This is very similar to the way you deduced what "erstwhile" meant. The dog is limping... so he intuits that its leg is hurt. In his [conceptual language] the child understands the situation. Using other social clues, he understands that his father is referring to this same intuitive understanding that he has. So all that is necessary is to sort out the relationship between "leg" and "hurt". If the child doesn't understand at first, the father may gently take the dogs paw and say, "See its got a sliver in its paw."
From this--espeically when combined with other different situations which further reinforce our intuitions--we deduce that a "sliver" is a thing that can cause "hurt" and a "paw" is a thing at the end of a "leg" ... and so forth.

If we deduce wrongly during one learning encounter, we will find that our deductions do not fit another encounter--and we will deduce that either 1) our first notions were wrong, or 2) there are more than one meaning for the term being used.

Metaman wrote:Or take a word that isn’t a noun. For instance, the word “and.” How does a child learn when to use the word “and”? Not from someone pointing out and saying: this is when you use “and.” I think this is further evidence that the E-Language plays no role in language.

No there isn't a physical object that is an "and"... but we learn what "and" means by the way the term is used. Always, there are two objects or ideas. x and y. If the father says, "Go get x and y." And the child returns with only [x] the father will say, "You forgot to get y." And intuitively, it's pretty clear what "and" means.

The thing to understand is that we don't learn language from a single encounter. When the father refers to the color of a [black dog], the child distinguishes between [black] and [dog] becasue the next time the father sees a [white dog] he refers to dog, but not to black. Thus, the child knows that dog is what was the same in both instances... while [white and black] refer to things that are not the same. Thus, over time, the child learns what is [black] and what is [not black] just as he learns what is [dog] and what is [not dog].

The point is that not all the things we learn about are [physical objects] but for the young child, all the terms he learns about are closely related to [physical objects]. We know what between is because we observe three objects, [x, y, z] and in our [conceputal language] we understand the meaning of this... so when someone says, [y] is between [x and z] we know through deduction what "between" means.

More complex, abstract thoughts are composites of the simpler concrete thoughts. We learn what "love" is by observing how adults act, and what they do when they're talking about love. We intuit what they mean by listening to the descriptions in books and comparing those descriptions to our own feelings in various situations. That's why "being in love" often takes a person by surprise. "Oh my God, I'm in love!" is not all that uncommon a reaction to such an observation.

It doesn't matter how abstract an idea is... we learn what it means through a process of comparing two different things. One of those things is our intuitive/conceptual I-language and the other is the E-language. And by comparing those two things, we develop (learn) how to name increasingly complex ideas in what I have been calling the [E-language aspect of our I-language].

Metaman wrote: Studying numerous I-Languages wouldn’t lead us to the study of the E-Language, rather, by your analogue of cat, the study of the concept of I-Language, which is distinct from the E-Language; as the E-Language is independent from mind, whereas the I-Language is not.

To be more precise, the E-language is the area of overlap that is shared my many I-languages. Despite the uniqueness of each I-language, we can communicate with others becasue we share enough similarities in our I-language that the differences usually do not cause problems... Often this is because we can deduce, from [social interaction] or [sentence context] what the person means, even though we might not have the same identical meaning in our personal I-language. So the collective understanding which is so shared is the E-language. This can be formalized in dictionaries and grammar books... but it doesn't have to be. It's still an E-language, even if no one writes down the lexicon and rules.

As for the studying aspect... When we studying numerous I-languages (in order to understand the E-language, what we are doing is to observe and take note of statistical similarities. We see how many people [think one way] and how many [think the other way]. Regardless of how we (the scientist) think, the E-language is the statistical norm that dominates over the whole culture. The only way to determine what that NORM actually is is to study a large number of individual I-languages.

The E-Language is “a pairing of sentences and meanings…where the language is ‘used by a population’ when certain regularities ‘in action or belief’ hold among the population with reference to the language.” And, “in a sense that the construct is understood independently of the properties of the mind/brain.”

Metaman wrote: the idea of an E-Language doesn’t make much sense

Yes I am willing to concede that an idea that doesn't make any sense and could not Possibly exist is one that does not make sense and isn't worth studying. As such, I will have to think up a new term for E-language, if I want to keep posting on this thread, because nothing I have said has anything to do with the "mind independent" E-language that Chomsky has defined. Maybe mE-language, for my E-language, lol.

A mountain is mind independent... But our efforts to [express that mountain] in any way, is mind dependant and DEMANDS social interaction. Your definition of an E-language disallows the first... and your definition of an I-language seems to disallow the second. If so, then it is an equally senseless and impossible idea, and also needs to be discarded, as far as I'm concerned.

I would probably define an I-language as that language that is private and internal to a given individual.
And and E-language is the set which is formed by overlapping all the I-languages and discarding those elements that are not held by the majority of the I-languages.

Metaman wrote:I think it characterises the debate in philosophy about internalist and externalist theories of meaning. As you probably know Kripke and Putnam are externalists; they believe that meaning is not in the head (or Putnam’s “meaning ain’t in the head,” or whatever it was). Chomsky, on the other hand, is an internalist.

I'm not very familiar with the terms internalist and externalist... but I would say that I'm a biernaist (yes, I just coined that term, lol) which is to say that I belive meaning is in both the internal AND the external. In many cases, meaning is a correspondence between that which is external and that which is internal. Again, it's a fusion of the two that makes things work.

Metaman wrote:The reason is that maths and philosophy are not innate. ... the I-Language is a biological module/organ. We don’t say that we learn to develop our arms; we say that our arms grow. We don’t say that we learn to develop eyes; we say that our eyes grow. The same is true of the I-Language. We don’t learn it—it is innate—and so it grows, like all other bodily organs.

I acknowledge that there are differnt types of learning. Learning my ABCs is not identical to learning to walk. Learning to be a sociopath (so you can beat a lie detector test) is not the same as learning that you've arrived late for work. Learning to talk is not the same thing as learning to think logically. Learning to play the piano is not the same as learning to recognize colors. And so forth... each type of learning is unique... and unique in each person, as well. But they are all types of learning.

Our arms grow, but we also must learn to use them. When I was young I learned to throw a baseball overhand, but as I got older I began to have shoulder troubles, so I practiced throwing (fastball) with an underhand delivery. At first I "threw like a girl" but eventually I learned to throw a fast ball with relative accuracy. Think about it. They wouldn't say "throw like a girl" if your arm JUST developed and did what it did because that's what developing arms do. NO! You learn to use your arm by using your arm--which is something that children do--but it is still learning.

Metaman wrote: What I mean is this: given a syntax (your 1 and 2 above) S, we can have two different proof theories (your 3, 4, and 5) P1 and P2, which will both give us S. Let me prove this:

Okay, I misunderstood what you were trying to say.

Metaman wrote:Which proof theory is the true one for S? Well, the question of truth does not enter the picture.

As I said, formal systems do not have meaning... and for something to be [true] it MUST have meaning. Theorems are either valid or invalid... and both theorems (in a case like that) are valid.

Metaman wrote: This is the same for an E-Language. The question of truth does not enter the picture. Whereas it does for an I-Language

mE-language assigns meaning, the same as mI-language does... and so we can study it meaningfully. I know what the mE-language means when I see "It is raining," And I can study the various social situations in which it is "True" to use that phrase. This is one aspect of studying the mE-language. I define truth as a correspondence between an individual's I-language and the physical reality individual is considering... so if an expression correspond possitively with regard to these two things then the expression is true.

So, for instance, "snow is white" is a true statement if we internally define the terms [snow] and [white] so that they match the physical objects that we are referring to when we use the terms "snow" and "white". Otherwise, the expression is false. No other consideration plays a role in determining if something is true or false--unless you're referring to [absolute truth] which is something that cannot be accurately expressed, and therefore can play little practical role in our assessment of truth.

Metaman wrote: I don’t understand what you are trying to say here. Even earlier on you noted that the one could argue that the “E-language does not actually refer to anything.

No, Chomsky's definition of an E-language does not refer to anything. My defintion (what I'm not trying to call an mE-language, but probably wont remember in subsequent posts) is a type of "thing" in the same way that [apple]--as opposed to [an apple] or [the apple]--is a type of thing. That is, [one physical apple] is not the same as [another physical apple]... but they are all examples of the singular and invariable (although vague) concept apple. The mE-language is like the concept [apple]. It is not a single instance of an mI-language... but all mI-languages (collectively) are instances of the mE-language. (I'm using instance here in the sense of meaning an element of a set.)

Metaman wrote:as things in nature change ever so slightly so does the I-Language. In fact, it is worth noting that the I-Language is subject to natural selection, as it is a part of nature.

How does this mysterious transformation magically take place? What you are suggesting is equivalent to saying that [natural selection] takes place inherently/spontaneously without any external environmental pressures. Analogously, mE-language activity can be seen as the external pressure that creates change in the mI-language.

Metaman wrote:... if I never saw the word “erstwhile” again, I would take “erstwhile” to mean something like: previous, prior, old. ... would I be right? ... My answer is that it is correct, for my I-Language. Although, for someone else’s I-Language it might not be. The convention of a dictionary is to help us communicate, I think, not to get the meaning right as it is already correct (for our I-Language).

Interesting point. And I mostly agree.

I'll take my side, since it leads to a more pertinent argument.... I thought "erstwhile" basically meant ernest. And as long as I define it that way, then within the perspective of my own personal mI-language, that definition is "correct" ... it has to be because that's the way I've defined it. It is not correct, according to the mE-language. Or according to the majority of other mI-languages. So when I encounter the word again, I am likely to see that my mI-language is not in unison with the mE-language (as observed by other social encounters), and so I will proably change my mI-language definition. This is the envivronmental pressure that causes the evolutionary change that I mentioned in the evolution analogy.

Metaman wrote:I don’t think they are using it incorrectly. If that is the meaning of the word in their I-Language, then they are using it correctly.

All I have to say to that is, "Zergum yullous dumbisus tiquat." And by your own logic, you cannot possibly deny it... Because I know what I mean, I defined it, and you have stated that I am right. lol.

Let's put aside the obvious (which is this argument is absurd) and stick to the fact that this does not make for a valid topic of study. You can't make any assertions about the topic of study, because as soon as you do you have gone outside of the topic of study. And yet somehow this unstudiable subject is the only language subject worth studying?

Metaman wrote:This only works if we already know the meaning of the other words in the sentence, and the role they play. If you know no Japanese, then no matter how much you look at the context of the sentence you will be lost (as you will have no idea how the words function together, and so on).

It will be harder to pick up the appropriate meanings... just as it is for an infant learning to speak. Why do you think it takes them so many months to figure out how to say "mama". Once they've figured out the idea that [words] can be associated with [physical objects] however, they start learning words relatively fast. And the more words they learn the faster the learning process tends to go becasue they know more words and so can use them to make sense of the other words they do not yet know. This increase in learning rate continues until they've leaned all the common words, then the learning gradually slows... as only the more and more rarely used words are left to learn.

Metaman wrote:This only works if the child knows what x and y means. Going back to the above point.

Not necessarily. Suppose the chile knows the words "mama" and "get" and the father says, "Go to mama and get x and y." The child will toddle over to mama who will hand the child [x] and [y]. If the child starts to leave before being given [y] the "moma" will say, "Hold up you forgot y," and then give them [y]. In this way, the child not only learn what [and] is but they learn to distinguish between [x] and [y].

Metaman wrote: in studying language itself, in studying how people acquire language and language meaning, we need to study the I-Language.

I'm not saying we shouldn't study the mI-language, only that it isn't the only topic with meaning or that is worthy of study.

Belinda wrote:It's like when I said to my dog " take your bone into the kitchen" the dog did so not because he understood syntax or had a large vocabulary but because he understood that some immediate action was required of him, and he understood "bone" .

True in part.
The child acts without entirely understanding... just as the dog does, but how do you think we learn? How did the dog learn the word bone? It didn't just pick up that meaning by osmosis. The dog learns to associate certain words with certain things... and it infers a lot from that. Smarter dogs learn more words and are able to infer more.

But dogs do not have a high level of language faculty the way humans do. So humans, being smarter learn more words and are able to infer more.

Belinda wrote:The dog learned the word bone by stimulus and response.

First, stimulus and response (as you call it) is a type of learning. A very low-level type of learning, but learning none-the-less. Second, not all learning that the dog does is of this type. In fact, unless you are giving your dog speical "obediance" training, very little of what the dog learns is due to Pavlovian conditioning. Even when it comes to training the dog with treats, it's not all that Pavlovian (stimulus and response). It's just a question of learning that certain actions tend to get certain responses, which the dog desires to get. Children often learn in much the same way. From a parent a smile, encouraging words (and the increased attention that comes with them) are strong reinforcing stimuli, which the child will seek to repeat by engaging in the appropriate behavior. Certainly, it's less Pavlovian than the dog... But the dog is not all Pavlovian leaning and the child is not entirely free of Pavlovian learning. For instance, that's where Phobias come from.

Belinda wrote:The child progresses through maturational stages within which there is an optimum period for language learning. The older dog can be taught new words almost as easily as the puppy, as long as the older dog is in good health.

Humans have a natural affinity for language, which is generally believed to fade at a certain age--which is why humans raised by wolves can supposedly learn to speak (but only) if they are found while they are still young enough(or if they learned to speak before being lost... and only forgot how to speak, and so can relearn it). This makes a human child's learning different from a dog's--just as a child playing basketball is a very different activity from a professional ball player--even though they are the same basic game.

New language learning techniques are said to be able to teach adults to speek new languages with remarkable ease... as if they were children again, learning naturally. I suspect the reason these techniques work is because they utilize the learning strategies that babies use. So maybe it isn't so much that the language learning ability maturates, but rather that as we grow older, we abandon the learning strategies that we used as children... because we have already learned the majority of the words that can effectively be learned that way. And our lives have become different. They no longer encourage that style of learning.

Similarly, there's the old saying, "You can't teach an old dog a new trick." And that comes from somewhere, so I'm not sure you are correct about the ease of teaching older dogs--or about it being all that different from human learning.

Metaman wrote: We can take the set of all I-Languages; I don’t disagree. But it is a useless set. For shortness sake, imagine there are just three people in the world—you, Hans, and me. So you take my I-Language, then you take your I-Language, then you take Han’s I-Language. What do you have? Well, you have the set of all I-Languages, and so by your definition a mE-Language. Using standard usage of the term “language” we might say you have: the set of English and German. (For the real world apply this to all the “languages.”) But in studying language that set is useless.

Metaman wrote: Also, I don’t see why you would exclude “those elements that are not held by the majority of the I-Languages.” Are those elements not apart of language?

Of course they are part of the mI-language that holds them... and that is part of language. For example, I'm a horrible speller, I used to spell the word "tongue" as "tounge"... so in my mI-language the word "tounge" was the flesh muscle in the mouth that we use to speek, and the word "tongue" was non-existent. I recognized it when reading (much as I recognize the word apartmentos when I'm reading Spanish, even though I don't know Spanish) but it was not a part of my mI-languatge (Just as apartmentos is not).

According to your thinking, "tounge" would have to be part of the mE-language--which is absurd and rediculous. In addition, there would be no reason to exclude any word in Spanish, Russian, Swedish, German, piconeesian or any other language--or variation of a language--because they are all parts of someone's mI-lanuage somewhere. All would have to be Part of the mE-language... Which is again absurd and rediculous.

The thing to understand is that each community has it's own mE-language. This means that each language... and each dialect is a different mE-language with a unique inclusion set ... AND a given person's idiolect (or mI-language) is an mE-language with an inclusion set of ONE PERSON.

Metaman wrote: Except that no one is saying that playing sport is innate...

Playing a specific "sport" is not innate--but neither is speaking a specific language. However, playing is an innate activity that all normal children engage in. When I was young I lived on a farm--not much to do--with parents who didn't believe in buying lots of toys... so we made up our own games. Playing is every bit as innate in children as talking is. In addition, just as with our faculty with language, our sense of play is something that tends to mature (and then disappear) as we get older.

Not only that, but this sense of play is extremely wide spread among many types of animals, particularly mammals. Lion cubs and many other wild animals love to rough and tumble with one another. Similarly, any dog owner knows how rambunctious a pup tends to be. And the phrase, "Frisky as a colt," comes from this same tendency to play. Not only that, but those animals (including humans) who are deprived of this [play time] tend not to develop the natural abilities of their kind to interact in socially appropriate ways.

Metaman wrote: When I say that language grows I am talking about the language faculty itself...

The sense of play that drives young animals has a purpose. If a neanderthal child played at throwing a stone, it developed its arm, and then, when it was older, it was able to hurl a SPEAR to kill an animal to eat it. Once the needs of the child have been adequately meet, its drive to learn tends to wan... it doesn't matter if it is language or the play that teaches us how to use our arms and legs effectively. I see little significant difference in terms of our discussion.

Metaman wrote: But you’re forgetting that we are talking about this formal language in the meta-language.

The point being?

Metaman wrote: If an mE- (and/or mI-)Language assign meaning, then what is the point in the I-Language? And if the I-Language does not assign meaning, then how can you have correspondence between the I-Language and “reality” outside? Could you explain what you mean by the mI- and mE-Languages, as I’m not quite sure what they mean?

Skin is a protective layer. So what is the point of wearing clothes? Are the clothes not also protective? And if the clothes are not protective, then how can they protect us from the outside world? I'm only being mildly facetious here, because your question makes about as much sense to me.

Obviously both types o language assign meaning... the difference is that the mI-langauge is the meaning that has been given by an individual, while the mE-language is the meaning that has been adopted by a given community, which, of course, is made up of individuals. This means that the meaning for the two will be different, just as one indivdual's language is different from another... Do you have a problem with one mI-language being different from another? So why is there a problem with the I and E languages being different?

The mE-language assigns the meaning that is adopted by the community as a whole--as defined by what the majority of those individuals in the community hold with their mI-languages. All of English is one mE-language. American English is a smaller subset of that, which is it's own mE-language. The dialect spoken in the Northern Kentucky, where I live, is yet another, and the language spoken in my home is another. It differs slightly from the language I speak at work, because at work I use terms that I don't use at home. Another mE-language is unique to the bar I go to and another is unique to the church I go to, etc.

In its own way, mE-languages are as unique and varied as mI-languages... but they capture a different aspect of language use--one that is not addressed by simply studying the mI-language. And vice versa, the mI-language cannot be adequately addressed by simply studying the collective mE languages.

Metaman wrote: ...The language faculty is an expression of our genes, and so more properly, those genes are subject to natural selection. And so, any change to them causes a change to the language faculty.

Not quite sure what you're trying to say here. It sounds like you're suggesting that language changes because of changes in our "genes". Which is, of course, completely ludicrous.

Putting aside the argument that that's not even how natural selection works in the first place--for instance, the Peppered Moths exhibit both light and dark variations. When the conditions (natural pressures) are such that the light variation has a harder time surviving, the dark moths become more dominant in the community. But as soon as the conditions change so that the dark moths suffer, the light moths come back in full force and dominate...

But putting that aside, there's absolutely no reason to believe that changes in languages over time are in any way even remotely tied to the genes of the people who live in that community. If that were true then a person who moved into that community from another would be UNABLE to learn the language because their genes would not be the right ones.

Surely that is not what you meant?

Metaman wrote: If you take the set of all I-Languages, then you have a useless set for studying language. The only way you can exclude speakers like Hans is if you already have a notion of language; and hence, can exclude languages like German.

It just occurred to me that you are probasbly thinking that all I-languages means ALL I-languages, instead of all I-languages in the communal set. That was such an obvious assumption to me that it didn't occur to me that you could possibly misunderstand. But if that's the problem then I can see how it would confuse you.

There are plenty of things that we study statistically as opposed to individual cases. We don't study individual cases of cancer, for instance. We study the statistical trends. Studying one issolated case tells us very little, because one person might live another fifty years while another dies in 6 weeks. Similarly, just as we might study one mE-language, like German, to learn certain things about German... and then study another mE-language like French... so too we will study different types of cancer by studying different groups of people who have that type of cancer. But so too can we study both groups to see what characteristics they have in common--and there will be universal (or nearly universal) trends. All natural languages, for example, have verbs and nouns. But not all natural languages have articles. Some languages include the article as part of the noun. So, for instance, the Swedish word luft [air] becomes luften [the air]. There are all sorts of ways that one languages differs in usage when compared to another. And by observing which features vary and which are universal, we can probe questions about which language features (if any) are innate and which are social veneers. And these are things that we can't learn by studying individual mI-languages, without any concern for the mE-language aspect.

Metaman wrote: The problem with this is: children experience a poverty of stimulus. They cannot learn language the way you say they do because they do not have enough data to learn it.

Metaman wrote: I don’t know if you have learnt a foreign language as an adult. But, even for an adult, it is an incredible hard and time-consuming thing to do. And even at the “end,” the adult has only learnt the language partially. But children learn language in a relatively very short period of time. They don’t go through all the words and then mentally associate something with them.

Even for an adult? You've got to be kidding, right? This is just wrong on every single possible level... lol.

First, how easily we learn something is directly tied to how much interest we have in the subject. If you like a subject, learning tends to be easy. If you dislike the subject (or find it boring) learning tends to be very, very difficult. NOW... how much incentive do you suppose a child has to learn the language they hear adults using all the time so that they can communicate the way they do? My guess is that it would be pretty damned high.

Second, you've got it exactly backwards. Learning a language is much harder when you try to do it the way that an adult usually does. When a person needs to learn to speak a new language quickly and fluently, the best way is to immerse yourself in it--much the way a child does. Learning to associate visual objects with words... NOT learning to associate one word with another word. As I said earlier, many of the more effectitive languagte learning programs mimic the way a child learns a language.

Yes, the child is starting from scratch. But the child has the innate ability to do what it is being asked to do--which is to learn to associate physical objects (and concepts) with words... That's what the natural language faculty is all about. It's not exclusive to humans. But we do it more easily (and in larger quantity) than any other animal.

Metaman wrote: Why would the child not take “to” or “go,” instead of “and,” to mean and? Given such a limited amount of environmental data how does the child, in the short time it does actually learn a language, learn the meaning of all those words?

If I wade into a river... and I get wet; and then I spray a garden hose... and it get wet; and then I slop dish water onto myself... and I get wet... Why would I not mistake the concept [river] or [garden hose] or [dish water] for the concept of [getting wet]?

That's what you're asking. Ande if one sentence were the only sentence that a child encountered a word in... then maybe what you say might make some sort of sense. But then, the child would not learn the words anyway--because it would never be used again. The child learns which words mean what because they word that means something is always used in context with that meaning... where as the other words being used are not. They are always used in the context of some OTHER meaning.

-- Updated Mon Mar 26, 2012 11:03 pm to add the following --

Metaman wrote:Babies don't utilize learning strategies in learning language. The learning (growth) of language in a child cannot be down to any learning strategies, because there is a poverty of stimulus. There is not enough social (environmental) data for the child to use to learn the language. Language development is innate.

This is an absurd argument. It's a bit like suggesting that we can't tell when a person is walkin in a movie because there isn't any real motion involved.

Few things in life will ever be as stimuli intensive as being an infant. Every single thing the baby encounters is totally new and amazing. To you, it's old and tired and boring. But to the baby it's fascinating to such an intense degree that nothing will ever be as awe inspiring and splendiferous again. Each new shape is something to learn. Watching a ball roll is something to learn: it teaches us about gravity and bouncing characteristics. When the ball goes behind something and then reappears on the other side, we learn that things have permanence even when we can't see them... and so forth and so on.

As a result, the child's environment is a cornacopia of stimuli that we will never, ever experience again. Add to that an infant's intense curiosity about learning (in general) and communicating (in particular) and you have a recipe for learning that can never be equaled. Suggesting that a child can't learn because he suffers a "poverty of stimuli" is like saying a bum can't get drunk in a bar because there's a poverty of alcohol.

Metaman wrote:When does a member of this community learn this mE-Language? ...

What nonsense is this? Of course, the individual doesn't learn the mE-language, they learn their own mI-language--which is a partial subset of the mE-language. That's like taking the situation where you have many individuals (all with individual beliefs) who all go to a church (which also has a specific belief system), and asking so when does the individual learn the beliefs of the church? It's a question that indicates clearly that you do not understand the reciprocal relationship between the individual and the church.

The individual never learns to immulate the church's believes exactly, because they have their own beliefs. They accept those beliefs they agree with and reject those they do not believe--making their own beliefs unique. The analogy isn't perfect because one could argue that what the church 'believes' is defined by what the pastor believes and preaches. But suppose that the church didn't have a pastor, or any written records of what its positions were on certain topics. Everyone just got up when they were scheduled to do so and spoke aobut what they personally believed. Now the analogy is much stronger.

The individual learns the beliefs of the church from other church members. What the church "believes" is defined by all the people who go to the church. Each individual has their own specific beliefs, but collectively they can also be said to believe something. Suppose someone gets up and says something controversial. Others who do not share that belief will receive it coldly, with frowns and comments after the speech about how the talk wasn't very good, etc. If the beliefs differ radically enough, the members may get together and approach the speaker and tell they they have to find another church if they want to talk about that sort of thing, because it just isn't what this church believes. That determination is made because enough people disagree strongly enough that they decided to confront the speaker. And the offending individual has two choices, they can find a new church or they can change what they believe (or at least what they talk about publicly).

In the same way, if enough people use the mE-Language in a way that is different from the individual's mI-language, then they will get the negative feedback that causes them to rethink what a word means. If they still disagree with common usage, they can simply maintain a separate definition.

I've developed my own theory of philosophy, which I call Dynamic Sythesism, and in it I define many words in ways that are quite different from traditional philosophy. I maintain my own definitions for those words. In a sense, then, I have "joined my own church" of one. I am, however, also still a member of the mE-language [English], so I still recognize the definitions that others use to define the words that I define differently. And when in a general philosophy debate I can use that mE-language to communicate as well. Even though in my own mI-language, I am knowingly using those words improperly.

Metaman wrote:We are not talking about language use, or performance, but rather about language competence. ...if you are actually interested in studying language itself, then you will have to study the I-Language.

First, there is ALMOST NO DIFFERENCE between [languagte use] and [language competence]. If we use the language in a certain way then we are competent. If not, then we are not. So I'm not sure what kind of distinction you're trying to make. Second, there is no such thing as language itself. That's like saying I want to study [Oak tree itself]. You can study individual Oak trees--which is like studying the mI-languages; or you can study what it is about some trees that make them part of the Oak tree family--which is like studying the mE-language.

You can study AN Oak tree/mI-language... or you can study about Oak trees/mE-language... but you can't study Oak tree/language itself. In the first case, a specific Oak tree is not what it means to be an Oak tree, since each Oak will be unique... and many will barely resemble the others. There are literally 100s of types of Oaks, ranging from scrub brush to majestic towering trees. So you CANNOT learn what it means to be an Oak by studying one of them. And if you study about Oak trees, you are not studying the specifics of a single thing... rather you are studying how [many different things] are related to one another.

Metaman wrote: suppose I make a watch and then use that watch as a tennis ball. You can either study the watch itself, or how I use the watch in a tennis game.

To make this an actual analogy--instead of just meaningless nonsense, you'd have to make it a differfence between studying a specific watch or studying what it is about many different watches that makes them all watches. An ornately detailed pocket watch is very different from a plain, $10 wrist watch, for example. Understanding what shapes are imprinted into the pocket watch... or how the band is constructed for the wrist watch... doesn't tell us what it is about these two things that make them both watches. Studying the individual watches is like studying the mI-languages... while observing what makes both objects watches is like studying the mE-language.

Metaman wrote: I don't see why that is ludicrous. And I don't see what you are talking about when you say "that's not even how natural selection works." What isn't how natural selection works? All I said was that our genes are subject to natural selection, which they are. If the language faculty is an expression of our genes, then it follows that the language faculty will be in some way subject to natural selection.

Okay... at this point my "crazy insane person" alarm has officially gone off... and I'm not going to try to explain evolution and natural selection to you beyond this: according to Darwinism (and almost all other ideas about evolution) our genes are MOST DEFINITELY not "subject" to pressures from natural selection. The pressure is on the living organism... which either lives or dies. If it lives it passes on its genes, so that certain traits become more prevalent in the gene pool. If it dies, that trait becomes less prevalent. At no point is there pressure on an actual gene to change--and so the gene is not SUBJECT to natural selection. The animals that have the gene are, but the gene itself is not.

Metaman wrote: If their genes express a language faculty that is not capable of developing language X, then they will not be able to develop language X. That is essentially a truism. What's your problem with that?

Nothing. What I have a problem with is the notion that if person A can't speak language x because they have the wrong gene that some how "natural selection" will change their genes so that they (or their offspring) can speak the language.

According to Darwinism, the first man who could talk gained an advantage by being able to do so. This caused him to live and pass on his gene that allowed him to do this. As more genes "mutated" or whatever, more complex speech abilities were gained... each passing on additional advantages that were continually passed on. Those who couldn't speak died out because those who could killed them, or because natural disasters took them, or because hard times were harder when they couldn't speak, and they starved to death. No where in this scenario does an individual gene change because of pressures from "natural selection" .

Metaman wrote:Language programs do not "mimic the way a child learns a language."

Not all language training programs do, but some of the most effective ones do. For example, the Mormon church sends missionaries all over the world, and these young men have to learn the language of the people they will be teaching for the next 2 years. To learn this language, they are sent for a few weeks to a training program where they are immersed in the language by using it. As I understand it, they have to use it all the time. They are not allowed to speak their native tongue. They have to speak the language they are learning... and they are surrounded by other people at various stages of development, including plenty of fluent teachers, who speak to them constantly as they do various activities designed to have they use many common everyday objects and do various common everyday activities. The technique is very effective, and almost all of the missionaries learn to speak the language reasonably well in a very short time. The CIA and other government agencies use similar immersive programs. And (I've never used it) but from what I understand the computer software "Rosetta Stone" uses a not too dissimilar technique, using interactive computer graphics and auditory feedback to teach languages. I could be wrong on this last one, but if I'm right, I would say that it is a program that very closely mimics the way a child learns.

Metaman wrote:Secondly, learning a language is not synonymous with learning "to associate physical objects (and concepts) with words." And that is certainly not what "the natural language faculty is all about."

And your point is? Since I never suggested that it was. I said that children tend to learn the names of physical objects first. The first word most children learn is [moma], a physical object. Other words commonly among the first a child learns are things like [ball] or [cat]... physical objejcts. Then we move to words that are relationships between physical objects, and so forth.

Metaman wrote:Thirdly, it is exclusive to humans, as no other animal speaks a language.

Wrong! Various primates have been taugh as many as several hundred words and they have been taught to use these words in a clearly structured language... It's much simpler than human language, but language is clearly NOT exclusive to humans. And this doesn't even include body language... and the possibilites like whale song, which might also be mildly complex languages.

Metaman wrote: Who taught you how to turn a passive sentence into an active one?

We learn which sentence constructions are valid by observing which constructions are used by those around us, so the people who spoke those passive sentences taught me... along with my own ability to recognize the relationship between the passive and active sentences which express essentially the same ideas.

Metaman wrote:Assume your are right. A child learns language from the environmental data. Okay, fine. But then why doesn't a dog, exposed to the same data, not learn the language as well?

Same old boring argument. As I've said many, many times... humans do have a special faculty for learning language. Just as we have a speical faculty for learning to walk. We share the second affinity with many animals, but we share the first with few if any.

That does not imply that it isn't learned.

Metaman wrote: If the environment is enough, then dogs will learn language.

No one ever said environment was enough. What I said was that having an innate ability alone was not enough. You still have to learn the language. The language doesn't just spontaneously inhabit the child's mind. The child's language doesn't just evolve in total isolation; without any learning process being involved.

Metaman wrote: Then there is also the ton of empirical evidence that shows that there is a poverty of stimulus.

experimental evidence shows that adults treat children differently depending on whether they think the baby is a boy or a girl. For example, the adult will coo and make bagy noises to the girl more often. The adult will smile more, and hold the baby more, etc.

My point is that from these very meager, empoverished inputs, the average child learns how to behave like a boy or a girl; including all the complex social interactions that we generally take for granted and never think about. Occasionally, this learning process goes ary and a girl grows up to be a Tomboy or a boy grows up with overtly effeminate mannerisms and so forth. But (generally speaking) the learning process is remarkably effective at creating gender appropriate behavior from a very minimal amount of data input.

Language is a little more complex, but the input isn't so subtle either. My point is that if we can learn gender roles from minimal input, we can also learn language--particularly when we already have a strong affinity for learning language, where presumably there is far less affinity for learning gender roles.

Martian Visitor wrote: But we can only communicate with those who speak a sufficiently similar E-Language.

I agree.

Martian Visitor wrote: we can't know for sure what another person's meaning is. But on the other hand we can (often) make a really good guess. So we understand what another person means because we understand the whole context in which they are speaking, which includes "society" and a whole lot of other things.

I agree. The E-language IS the social conventions which allow us to understand another person--by guessing--even though we don't fully understand what they mean.

Martian Visitor wrote: So if we can communicate it is because our I-Languages are similar, but they are similar partly because they developed in a particular society with a particular E-Language. My general feeling is that you are pushing things a little too far. When you say to study language itself we must look exclusively at the I-Language for example. Because the I-Language would be empty without all the input from the society.

Well said.

-- Updated Thu Mar 29, 2012 4:36 pm to add the following --

Metaman wrote:Natural selection is a process in which traits (traits being hereditary) become more or less populous (that is, in a population).

Much better than before. Now we seem to be on the same page... Which is not the same page that you were on before--which is why I said, "Surely you don't mean..." Which it seems to appear from this post that you didn't.

Metaman wrote: I didn't say that. I said that the language faculty, being an expression of our genes, will be subject to changes in our genes.

Okay... I'm glad. that's a much more reasonable assertion.

Metaman wrote: ... children don't learn language. The language faculty grows.

Guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Metaman wrote: Being able to parrot off "several hundred words" does not count as a language ability.

It's a lot more than being a parrot. The animals follow rules of grammar, initiate conversation; ask for things and even combine words in creatively unique and untaught ways to produce new (more complex) ideas and so forth... So by any rational definition it is a language. A fairly simple one, but still a language.

Metaman wrote: Although you may find the argument "old" and "boring," that is irrelevant. All that matters is whether the argument is valid and sound.

In isolation, that would be true. But we're sharing ideas, bouncing them around. Using the same old argument does nothing to promote your position--or demonstrate that it is valid or sound. Thus, it does matter if you can present new arguments. If you can't, why keep posting the same old thing that I've already heard. That was my point. [quote=Metaman"] I didn't say that the language grows in total isolation. I said that the environment triggers, or sets the parameters, for language development, which is internal and innate. [/quote]Okay, fair enough.

But the point is exactly the same. The environment somehow triggers something that isn't learning. It somehow sets parameters, without learning what those parameters are. It's a bit like saying that a swimmer doesn't really need water to swim... the water just triggers the innate ability to swim. It sets the parameters for where the swimmer can swim. But the swimmer doesn't actually need the water to swim. [quote=Metaman"] The analogy hardly works. One minute we are talking about a biological organ of the mind/brain, and the next we are talking about socialisation and behaviour.[/quote]You said the child's environment is too input starved to LEARN something as complex as talking. But I showed an example of a child picking up on barely perceptible environmental clues to learn a fairly complex set of behavior patters--which, by the way must be carried out by some biological mind/brain organ too, don't you think? So it puzzles me how you could miss the relevance.

-- Updated Thu Mar 29, 2012 5:09 pm to add the following --

Belinda wrote: that socialisation of the small child is fastest when the child is very young. Also language acquisition together with other social behaviours is subsumed under socialisation.

Not a bad argument... Basically (I assume) you're saying that body language is a type of language... and so is controlled by the same mental function... so my argument is invalid.

Belinda wrote: The young child is inherently able to eat and her social environment directs how she learns to eat her food off a floor or off a plate.

Not entirely true. The child has an instinct to eat. But it doesn't know how to chew up a hamburger. Even thought the child is obviously hungry, sometimes, a child doesn't even realized that it needs to suck on the mother's tit, and needs to be coaxed into taking the nipple into its mouth and then sucking... On a more biological level, some children are alergic to mothers milk, or formula milk, or maybe they just don't like the taste of it as an infant. My Brother, for example, had to have whale milk when he was young--he couldn't handle mother's milk or cow milk. But now he can drink both just fine.

My point is that while there is an important and distinct role that instinct plays, it doesn't happen without learning. I suspect that a child has what might be called an "instinct to walk". A child who is born with one leg will learn to walk on one leg (if the adults in his life don't give off body language clues which tell the child he shouldn't be walking). A child born with NO leges will learn to walk, on his hands. But if you essentially restrain the child, by protecting it from dangerous things like toppling over onto its arms, it won't learn. Similarly, if you tie the child's legs together... it won't learn to walk.

And if there isn't anyone else to talk to, the child won't learn to talk.

I would argue that he still has an I-language. He knows inside his own mind the difference between a [tree[ and some [grass], for instance. unless he LEARNS to use a language, he won't be able to speak an E-language. He will still know what he himself means, when he communicates with himself, so to speak, but he won't be able to express himself to others clearly.

Belinda wrote: The young child is inherently able to speak a native language and her social environment directs whether she says dog or perro, or both.

So the social environment somehow directs what the child says, without the child ever learning the word [dog] or [perro]? Again, how is this magical feat accomplished?

As I've said, even if the child grows up in issolation with one other child who doesn't speak a language... and they "make up" their own language, the children still have to learn which words they have chosen to mean what.

Belinda wrote:Let us not confuse means of ingestion with the emotion of hunger. The baby mammal, human or not, who will not suckle may be unable to do so because it is moribund or very ill, or as you mention, allergic to most milk. Or it may be unable to suckle because the mother was unable to get it to the teat. A normal healthy baby possesses the emotion of hunger together with the instinct to take stuff into its mouth it will even suck on a hamburger or worse.

Yes, of course there is a large measure of instinct involved. But there is a large measure of learning too. As you said, the baby instinctively understands hunger... and (barring deformity or some other complication) it has the mechanics needed to suckle. But it needs to learn what things are appropriate to suckle. Sometimes the infant will suckle a hamburger (as you said). And sometimes it will be confused by a nipple and be "unwilling" to suckle, even though hungry (as I pointed out). Once it discovers that the nipple provides milk... then it will suckle. Which is why it is sometimes helpful to get milk on the nipple before putting it in the child's mouth--if it is having this problem. The taste of the milk will inform the child that this is an appropriate sucking object, and once it has LEARNED this it will begin to suck.

Belinda wrote:I doubt if he can distinguish between a tree and grass by looking at them.

Personally, I DO believe that a person WITHOUT an adopted mE-Language can distinguish betgween such things as a [tree] and [grass] just by looking at them... much as a dog or a deer (or any other higher animal) can distinguish between them. A deer, for instance, can eat tree leaves and other types of plant materials when it has to... but it prefers soft, tasty grass when it is available. It recognizes that grass grows in the summer and that it grows almost exclusively on the ground. So you generally don't find dear trying to graze in the tree limbs. It knows the difference between the ground and a tree and it knows which to go to for food and which to go to for shelter from rain.

Belinda wrote:I think he has also to use the pressure nerve endings, and the kinaesthetic sensors in his joints. Probably smell too.

Helen Keller, before she learned to sign, could distinguish between something she wanted and something she didn't. She was undisciplined and tempermental, but she could tell if she wasn't receiving what she wanted--and that's largely why she was tempermental. She had no way to communicate to others what she could distinguish for herself, and it was extremely frustrating. Noe dhe didn't have sight. She relied on her other senses. So these other senses are often also sufficient for making such distinctions--but I'm not sure why you would think these other senses would be REQUIRED.

Belinda wrote:... if I understand Antone, that there are means of knowing which are independent of language. Those means of knowing are subconscious, and the subconscious of mind is vastly more huge than the linguistic, conscious part.

Yes and no... I would characterize these "internal" ways of knowing as being PART of the mI-language. In fact, this part of the mI-language is (by my thinking) the part that comes closest to achieving Metaman's mystical LEARN-LESS language aquisition. It is something that happens without conscious thought... When a child learns to speak, the process is not something we think about consciously--but the learning process does happen in the conscious part of the mind. This unconscious ability to distinguish between things does not happen in the conscious portion of the mind... but it is still learned. We come to distinguish between a [tree] and [grass] by observing these objects and LEARNING what characteristics they have. Once we have learned these "categories" we can distinguish between them. Earning to Speek involves associating the words from an mE-language with these termless mI-language "categories".

Thus, when a child points to a [ball] and says, "Ball!" They have spoken a TRUTH... becasue the "category" [ball] corresponds positively to the physical object they are calling "ball". This means there are three crucial parts to an mI-language. 1) the internal "categories" or ideas. 2) the ability to analyze a [new physical object] and determine which "category" it belongs to, and 3) the [names] which can be used (at various times) to refer to any of the following: (1), (2) or (1 & 2).

With a few exceptions, these names (or signs) are largely shared by most of the people who speak the same mE-language. Where different mI-languages differ most is in the [way the "categories" are organized] and the [way the "categories are paired with actual physical objects]. And the reason is because these are processes of the individual's subconscious mind. They are things which we learn to do instinctively... without conscious thought. But they are still LEARNED associations.

That's all I'm saying.

A child raised in total isolation, without being allowed to explore it's environment would not be able to LEARN to make these associations. The fact that this learning occurs at a subconscious level does not change the fact that it IS LEARNING. In fact, I suspect that's one reason why children who are raised in "foundries" where they receive little interaction with adult human and lay in their bed all day just looking at the ceiling tend to experience severe emotional and (I suspect) learning disabilities. Similarly, a monkey who looses it mother and is raised without the contact of its mother will experience the same sort of severe learning trauma.

Part of this, of course, is emotional. But I suspect that it is also largely because they have not been allowed to LEARN what they needed to learn.

Instinct only gets you so far... that's why not all the young birds that are pushed out of the nest actually fly. Some fall to the ground and die. The bird has to LEARN to fly as it is falling. Instinct helps greatly... but it isn't everything.

-- Updated Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:24 pm to add the following --

Metaman wrote: I think, because of our differing conceptions of language we are being lead to different conceptions of what is to be classed as a language. ...for the moment, I don't think we can talk about this subject—due to our differing conceptions of language.

I agree.

Metaman wrote: If you could give some examples, or links, that would be helpful.

The main reference I was thinking about was an article in Scientific America from about 20 years ago, I think. But I haven't found it, and don't want to waste hours looking. So I did a quick google search for [Apes + Language+ symbols]. Below are links and excerpts to a few articles I found:

But first, a few things are worth noting. 1) I'm not suggesting that apes possess human-like abilities with language. Their language ability is similar to ours in the same way that an infant is similar to an adult. We can recognize the shape--but we expect only one of them to stand up and walk. 2) I admit that animals have many disadvantages. They do not have the same brain configurations and are missing much of what humans have which make learning so easy for us. They do not have the facial and vocal cord muscles that allow us to utter a lot of unique and different sounds. 3) For this reason, teaching spoken language has pretty much been a dismal failure. Even in the most successful cases, the animals have a very limited vocabulary--and can understand many more words than they can speak. 4) sign language has had more success, but that success has still been extremely limited, from what I've seen. 5) the most succussful primate efforts have involved using symbols, which the animal accesses by touching a computer screen. 6) Different animals clearly have different abilities to understand and use language. Many show little or no aptitute--but a few show moderate aptitude. By contrast, virtually all humans (except those with physical or mental problems) show far greater aptitude than even the best animal subjects. 7) Part of this may be that lower primates have a shorter youthful learning period than humans, and most animals who become part of these experiments are older (say 2 years) so they are in effect analogous to adult humans learning a second language... only without the benefit of having a native language. And perhaps most important for the purposes of our discussion, note the excerpts below on baby Kanzi. This animal was the baby of the mother who was being taught. Kanzi was not being taught... but instead picked up the language in much the same way that a human baby does... by observing. AND Kanzi was much more successful at learning language than the mother.

This last point supports my premise that the way a human baby learn language is NOT a disadvantage (as you've suggested) but is instead the most effective learning method possible--not just for humans, but for animals too.

greatapetrust.org/science/history-of-ap ... reat-apes/ Lana is a female chimpanzee born in 1970... Her name derives from the LANguage Analogue (LANA) Project, which sought to develop a computer-based language training system... Lana joined the research as a subject when she was two-and-a-half years old.

Lana demonstrated that she could discriminate between lexigrams and associate them with ideas. As she progressed, she would sequence words and use them grammatically, later starting to create novel utterances in response to unplanned events that affected her life. For example, Lana would request that the research technician refill her computer vending device when it was empty of treats, or request an item she had seen outside her room that the computer had no facility to provide to her.

http://acp.eugraph.com/apes/index.html Two chimps, Sherman and Austin, learned, with extensive training, to communicate by way of keyboards in a cooperative effort to use simple tools to get food. In the process, they had to learn lexigrams for foods and for tools they needed to obtain the food. With much less training, they learned to categorize 20 lexigrams for foods and 20 for tools using a lexigram for tool and another for food, a significant linguistic feat in itself. ...Without specific training, both chimps were able to look at a lexigram, then reach into a box they couldn’t see into and pull out the named object. These feats appeared to show at least that Sherman and Austin grasped the concept of naming. They seem to use symbols as words.

...a separate project with an adult ape called Matata ... Matata was a working mom, however, and brought her adopted baby Kanzi to work. ...While Matata sat bemused by the keyboard, Kanzi crawled in her lap and on her back or played nearby. The researchers tolerated Kanzi, but never trained him. He grew up for two years in an environment where humans continuously made sounds to his mother and tapped at a keyboard, trying to teach her individual signs. When Savage-Rumbaugh finally gave up on Matata she hadn’t learned to use lexigrams to ask for what she wanted... Like the child of an immigrant, Kanzi soon showed he had absorbed just what Matata had resisted. Within a week he spontaneously began to use the keyboard to make his desires known, But he also appeared to name objects even when he did not want the object. Savage-Rumbaugh and Sevcik decided not to train Kanzi at all, but to see if he could continue to soak up the keyboard “language” during daily interactions with researchers, who talked to him, using both lexigrams and speech, as if he understood. In other words, they treated Kanzi like parents treat a preverbal child constantly hearing language. Kanzi’s keyboard helped in this effort by generating synthesized speech to sound out the English word for each lexigram. ...They use the phrase “non-random lexigram combinations” instead of “sentences,” ... But Kanzi works for attention, not food.... Kanzi’s non-random lexigram combinations rarely exceed three lexigrams. ... Kanzi’s two-and-three-word sentences on the keyboard may seem less than impressive. But a set of experiments comparing Kanzi’s understanding of spoken English to that of Alia, the two-and-one-half-year-old daughter of a Language Center researcher appears to show a very different level of understanding. Kanzi and Alia were presented with sentence-understanding tasks as similar as the researchers could make them. ...

Kanzi sits in a room with two researchers ... A third ... stands outside the room with a microphone. The two inside researchers wear earphones playing loud music to reduce the chance they can give Kanzi any clues. The room has a “kitchen,” and a large playroom with a number of objects Kanzi has never seen. A child’s toilet, a pitcher of water, a rubber snake, a stuffed dog, a 25-pound bag of carrots, a hand puppet vaguely resembling a rabbit. The voice from outside says “Kanzi, make the dog bite the snake.” Kanzi immediately picks up the rubber snake and the plush toy dog. He carefully puts the snake’s head into the dog’s mouth and gently squeezes the dog’s jaws shut. An impressive show of understanding made more impressive by the fact that Kanzi has generalized the spoken words dog and snake to toys he’s never seen. This is me... notice that the primate is forming "categories". He understands the concept snake (in some form) and is able to compare that concept to a new, previously unseen object, which he can identify positively as [snake].... this is the very essence of language use.

“Kanzi, tickle Rose with the bunny,” says Savage-Rumbaugh. Kanzi picks up a bunny hand puppet, carries it to Sevcik and tickles her. Sevcik says in explaining the videotape that Kanzi’s only previous knowledge of “bunny” was a videotape of a Language Research Center worker dressed in a bunny suit. The researchers had never drilled Kanzi (or Alia) on the requests, and all of the objects were new, purchased just for the experiment.

Duane Rumbaugh summarizes the results: “Kanzi’s comprehension of 500 novel sentences of request were very comparable to Alia’s. Both complied with the requests without assistance on about 70% of the sentences.”[/color] ... Kanzi learned by observation alone very early in life, and further that the researchers only discovered this fact by the lucky decision to keep Kanzi around after Matata was sent home. “The apes can come to understand even the syntax of human speech at a level that compares favorably with that of a two-to-three-year-old child—if they are reared from shortly after birth in a language-structured environment. Reared in this manner, the infant ape’s brain develops in a manner that enables it to acquire language. First through its comprehension and then through its expression, a pattern that characterizes the course of language acquisition in the normal child.

“Though none will argue that any animal has the full capacity of humans for language, none should deny that at least some animals have quite impressive competencies for language skills, including speech comprehension.”

Metaman wrote: Human's undoubtedly have an innate ability to grow legs. That is undeniable. But, that in itself is not enough for the growth of human legs. The person also needs the environment to provide the right nutrition for leg growth. Once the environment has provided that, then leg growth will invariably occur.

I have no problem with this analogy... but suggesting a child can aquire a language without learning is a lot like saying that a child can grow a leg without nutrition. Learning is the nutrition that makes language grow.

Metaman wrote: ...all that the child needs is there in the environment. But the difference with language is that the environment is not fully equipped to teach a child a language. For instance, how could the environment possibly teach recursive structures to a child, which have the potential to produce an infinite number of sentences?

Actually, recursive sentences structures are probably one of the easiest things for a human child to learn. It seems very natural for them to pick up this idea.

Now granted, this is a concept that animals in language learning programs seem to pick up only with the greatest of difficulty... so clearly, there is an innate aptitude in the human child. But as soon as you truely understand the term [and] you understand the recursive structure. There are other ways to produce it too... but they do not add all that much complexity to the situation.

Animals can't count very well either--and I suspect that this recursive aptitude actually has more to do with innate mathematical abilities than with language aquisition abilities.

In any case, I think it's pretty clear that the child begins to learn this recursive structure the first time they hear someone say something like, "Johnny runs and jumps and hides so that the others cannot find him." Or any other sentencde that strings together more ideas than simply x does y. And that includes going from a sentence like "Johnny walks home" to "Johnny walks home quickly" and then to "Johnny walks home quickly so that he will not be late for dinner"... and then "Johnny walks home quickly so that he will not be late for dinner with his friend Ben"... and then "Johnny walks home quickly so that he will not be late for dinner with his very best friend Ben, who lives next door... " and so on. The very observation that sentences can become increasingly complex intuitively implies that this increasing complexity has no NESSESSARY end. So how could the child possibly not learn the recursive structure?

Yes, we have the intelligence to do so... but we still have to LEARN the rules by observation and immitation...reinforced by both positive and negative feedback. The rules we get right, we get positive feedback... in the form of approving nods, smiles and other body language that you've acknowledged is so simple to pick up. Each time we pick up on these subconscous clues it is a reinforcing LEARNING experience. Whether it's simply understanding a sentence well enough to do what an adult asks us to do... or the more difficult linguistic task of forming actual sentences of our own. It's all just various stages of the learning process... Which primates like Kanzi appear to be able to master about as well as a human child of a few years old. If we don't assume that the primates are absorbing language mysteriously (without learning)... why would we suppose that the human children are?

The human children have many more years of learning to build on that initial beginning; and fortunately we have the mental ability to make that transition to the more complicated forms of language use... which the primates do not seem to have. But this is a sign of the different levels of learning that we are capable of... not an absence of learning in Humans.