|
|
Re: Culture & symbols
Arthur L. Baron (abaron@STU.ATHABASCAU.CA)
Tue, 30 Jul 1996 12:40:24 MDT
> > At 04:24 PM 7/29/96 +0000, Ronald Kephart wrote:
>
>
> Again, this is a question that deserves more time than I have right now.
> Briefly, is Language the root and source of "consciousness," "intellect,"
> "thinking," etc., or is it as you suggest one component of a larger process?
> Can you really "think" without language? Or are you really "thinking" with
> language even when you "think" you aren't?
>
> Ron Kephart
> University of North Florida
>
GREAT QUESTIONS. The perceptual prison of language. I hope this thread
develops, unfortunatly I will be camping in the Rockies come Friday. Consider
this, you are asked to give directions to a location five miles away.
Linguistically the directions are step wise, logical, and sequential: turn left
at the lights, proceed until a "T" intersection turn north, etc, etc., this
takes time and ability to describe. Now visualize in your mind that same
destination on a foldout map and now draw a red line along the streets you
would take to that destination. This process happens immediately and is
another form of thinking. Linguistically what we describe attempts to paint
the picture we hold in our mind - mutually exclusive? The problem is how do
linguistically challenged people or other hominids, be they "australopithecus"
or whomever, communicate intraspecies, grunts and hand signals can't
accommodate or explain everything that happened in their lives?
that's my 2 cents
arthur baron
|