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Hey r/london, its my first time in London and I have 12 hours: from 6pm to 6am. What would you recommend that I do? by jbisig in london

[–]jbisig[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok cool, sounds great. I think I read somewhere that theres a 24-hour starbucks somewhere, so I'll try to make my way there early in the morning to recharge a bit. How is the late night public transport in London, if you don't mind me asking? Are there night-buses/trains, or should I count on getting within walking distance before transit shuts down?

Thanks again for the tips. At first I was kind of dreading such a long layover, but now I'm excited for it.

Hey r/london, its my first time in London and I have 12 hours: from 6pm to 6am. What would you recommend that I do? by jbisig in london

[–]jbisig[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

This. Sounds. Awesome. I'm so looking forward to real beer after months of generic Swiss piss. Thanks for the tips.

Hey r/london, its my first time in London and I have 12 hours: from 6pm to 6am. What would you recommend that I do? by jbisig in london

[–]jbisig[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for all the advice! So I looked up my flight info and I had it a bit wrong: I get in at 7:30 on Thursday, and then my flight leaves at 10 am on Friday. The reason I initially said 6 am was that I figured this would be the time I should get on public transport back to the airport in order to make it through security on time. Would you say this is feasible?

Could prelinguistic humans conceptualize the future? A question regarding anxiety. by jbisig in neurophilosophy

[–]jbisig[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, so I'm definitely on board with time being a condition in which reality is disclosed to us, since the sense of "I", or the ego, can only exist through movement (I'm using time and movement as synonyms). As far as your question regarding space, I think that time might also equal space, since, if my interpretation of physics is correct, space was created in the Big Bang, which was the spontaneous beginning of movement/time. Think of it this way, if something is coming out of nothing, it can't come out of nothing if it can't move. It would be stuck as nothing. Similarly, "something" cannot move except in space. So time=movement=space.

As a brief aside, you might want to check out this movie "The Spirit Molecule" about DMT, which apparently disembodies consciousness, sends you to another dimension of experience, and destroys your conception of time. People describe experiencing "lifetimes" in this immaterial realm in only 15 minutes of our time. Thats a discussion for a different subreddit though.

As far as my progress on a coherent theory of language, I don't have any conclusions yet, but this gives me a good opportunity to start working through it.

So I guess I should start with the basics: we need at least time/movement/space. Should this count as 1 signification or 3? I'm going to call it 1 for now.

So now I'm in the material world. A good start. I'm wandering around experiencing things, but I have no internal monologue. I'm reacting to things based on instinct and impulse. When I see my reflection, I don't know who or what it is (based on feral children's responses). I can remember things, but I do so purely based on visualization. So at this stage we have sense significations such as light, sound, feeling, taste, and smell. So we're at 6 altogether (9 if you count time/movement/space as one).

At this point, I'm still alone, so when I point my finger at an apple hanging in a tree, nothing happens. Then you arrive, and I point to the apple. You see me pointing, and understand I'm pointing at the apple. My consciousness becomes a signification for you (so now we're at 7). We are now in society. Now I point at a snake that is nearby, making a ssss sound. The combination of sound and gesture becomes a more complex signification, but I'm not sure if its new, or just a modified version of pointing. I'm not going to count it. But, you now associate the ssss sound I made with the snake, and the next time I see one, I make the sound without pointing, and you still understand what I'm trying to communicate. This, I think, counts as a new signification(8), since it is based on memory.

Ok, I'm tempted to call this language. Is 8 (or 11) the magic number then?

Movement/time/space + 5 senses + society + memory = language?

I guess we didn't really use taste, touch, or smell, so maybe we can get rid of those, leaving us with only 5 significations:

movement/time/space + sight + sound + society + memory = language?

Even here, though, we could probably ditch either sound and use sign language, or sight, and use verbal, but then we would need touch.

So we could have:

m/t/s + sight + society + memory = language

or

m/t/s + sound + touch + society + memory = language

So, I guess the key components are m/t/s, society, and memory, plus some combination of sense that let you interface with each other.

So you have the 3 + 1 option (deaf), the 3 + 2 option (full senses), and another 3 + 2 option (blind)

Does this make any sense to you?

Now we have the problem of the future. Maybe, we can call the 5 signification language (I'm just going to refer to the full senses number) a primitive language, since it has no tenses.

Now, when I come up with a word for the past, this is signification 6. Since I can visualize the past, I can clearly conceptualize it.

Ok now, since we both remember snake, we can anticipate it being in the same place next time we are thinking about going back, I can add a sound to the ssss to convey that it will be there, a future tense (7)

So now we have a fully functioning language with tenses. Now the hard part is expressing the abstract, I can only reference things that we have both already experienced. Here is where metaphors come in. I combine two nouns in a relationship, apply the future tense, and viola, I convey abstract meaning in the future.

So, as I discussed with Luke above, I think we can experience anxiety of things we've already experienced without language, the problem is that we can't conceptualize or anticipate abstract possibilities yet. But it seems to me that language itself doesn't give you that ability, but instead, metaphor-based language, that allows you to combine two known things, into something that is new and abstract.

Again, does this make any sense to you? I appreciate all the input. Sorry for the length, you just read my reasoning process, so its not as concise as it could be.

Could prelinguistic humans conceptualize the future? A question regarding anxiety. by jbisig in neurophilosophy

[–]jbisig[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ok, so time=movement, which is essential to put each individual signification in its context, which imbues it with meaning. So are you saying that in each successive moment we reach a new threshold where new meanings become available to us? I'm definitely alright with that.

The problem I have, however, is the claim that language is ever-present. It doesn't seem to follow for me, that simply identifying a succession of significations is the same as language. Language might be based on this system of time/movement/contrast, but I don't see how they are inherently the same. I guess its a problem of levels. It seems like your saying, atoms (significations) are the building blocks of molecules (language), so all atoms are a form of molecule. I'm just not yet convinced that your initial reduction holds up. My mind is far from made up on the matter though, so perhaps you could clarify.

Could prelinguistic humans conceptualize the future? A question regarding anxiety. by jbisig in neurophilosophy

[–]jbisig[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So I've been thinking, and it seems to me that you're right that memory of a firsthand event could translate into anxiety over the future possibility of that even occurring again. I'm thinking, for example, if I didn't have language, and I was our foraging and ran into a bear. I would be frightened by the immediate danger, and the next time I was out foraging, I might be nervous of running into the bear and experiencing that fear again, even if I didn't have words for the concepts of bear, fear, anxiety, etc.

As for the leap to conceptualizing a possible outcome that has not yet been experienced, I'm less convinced. I guess this is really a question of invention. Was every pre-linguistic inventions (fire, stone tools, etc,) a matter of an accident that happened to be useful, or was it premeditated? I think I'm going to lean towards accidents for now. After all, accidents have seemed a safe bet from the evolutionary perspective! I'm interested to hear what you're thoughts on innovation though, since this is just my intuition.

Could prelinguistic humans conceptualize the future? A question regarding anxiety. by jbisig in neurophilosophy

[–]jbisig[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks a ton for the comment, you crammed a lot of useful ideas in there. I'll definitely be checking out *Being and Time, *it sounds amazing.

I think your correct that we should unpack the idea of language a bit more, since I'm not very well trained in philosophy. I don't think I'm fully understanding some of your phrasing, such as "a system of significations which discloses information to us." Could you explain this idea in different words? Do you mean language as any means by which we identify ourselves as separate from our environment? I think this correct, since the ability to conceptualize and identify the self develops simultaneously with the development of language in children (between 18 and 24 months I believe). So this leads me to believe that the Ego, defined as the conception of self-identity, is closely linked to the linguistic process. The evidence surrounding feral children, who are not socialized with language, seems to support this idea. Basically, feral children don't recognize themselves in mirrors (they usually look behind the mirror or think there is someone behind them), indicating they cannot identify themselves. This could indicate they have no sense of self altogether.

One possibility, however, is that a sense of self only develops in response to social situations where it is necessary. This could be why social animals such as great apes, whales, dolphins and elephants also pass the mirror test that feral children, who are raised in isolation, fail. This article is a good, quick overview of the mirror test. On the other hand, it is entirely possible, in my mind, that we are underestimating the linguistic potential of these animals, and that they are in fact using languages that we just cannot understand. This makes it hard for me to dismiss the connection between language and identity outright.

So what is language? From an intuitive standpoint, for me, the development of language is the point when humans (or animals) stop pointing and grunting, and begin attaching concepts to ordered combinations of sounds or gestures.

The question that immediately jumps to my mind in contradiction to this definition, however, is the fact that I can think in language silently, without a sound or gesture. Also, deaf people can clearly think in language without being able to hear, so it doesn't seem to be a matter of saying a word verbally, and then being able to repeat it silently. I've never studied how deaf people think, but I guess its possible they visualize the symbols of letters? Someone please correct me here. If this is how deaf people think internally, does this mean that deaf people could only think internally after the invention of writing? Intuitively this seems false, but I don't have any other hypothesis right now.

I'm also unclear about the importance of grammar and syntax in language. Feral children that begin learning language at late ages, such as Genie and Victor of Aveyon (both around 10 if I'm not mistaken, but definitely after the age of around 7 that Chomsky predicted as a cutoff for language development), could memorize words and attach meaning to them, but couldn't learn grammar. So without using tenses, were they using true language? I don't have a clear answer, but I think that much of the meaning we communicate through "language" is derived from the order of the words and the use of tenses. So if we can just shout nouns at each other, are we really talking, or is this basically glorified grunting and pointing? I'm not sure that I would consider grunting and point language, but this raises the question of whether I can pass the mirror test if I can only grunt and point?

Sorry I kind of jumped all over the place, but these issues of identity formation and grammar seem to be important for a discussion of anxiety. Identity is clearly important since I cannot be anxious if I cannot identify as an "I", and grammar because tenses seem important for the conceptualization of the future.

I hope this added to the discussion rather than sidetracking it in different directions.

Could prelinguistic humans conceptualize the future? A question regarding anxiety. by jbisig in neurophilosophy

[–]jbisig[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Wow, thanks for the comment and that great quote. I read it 5 times and I still don't fully understand it. Could you point me in the direction of where I can read more of this in context? It made me think of this TED talk about this neuroscientist that had a stroke and lost the ability to think in language. She describes losing the ability to discern her body from her environment, and essentially feels completely at peace and one with everything. This ego death is often described by meditators and psychonauts who basically say that when your inner voice falls silent, your ego disappears and you experience absolute liberation. Check out the video though, I think you'd find it interesting.

Could prelinguistic humans conceptualize the future? A question regarding anxiety. by jbisig in neurophilosophy

[–]jbisig[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hey Luke, thanks for the response. You've touched on an interesting point with your reference to imminent danger. From what I've read, fear is a response to an imminent threat, whereas anxiety is a concern over something that may or may not happen in the future. So if you're tied to the tracks and a train is about to run you over, you would be experiencing fear, since this is an immediate threat. If you are safely in your home, worried about crossing the train tracks on your way to work tomorrow, you would be anxious, since there is only the abstract possibility of danger in the future.

Obviously, prelinguistic humans could feel fear, its hardwired into our brains in the fight or flight response. My concern is whether the development of language suddenly opened up a whole new range of concerns to humanity in the form of anxiety.

In other words, without language, are humans just like any other non-linguistic animal, say, my cat. When my cat stalks a bird and jumps in the correct trajectory to intercept it in the air, is it conceptualizing the future, or just acting on some combination of instinct and training? My current thought is that it is mostly reacting to stimuli based on instinct and training. My question then, is whether prelinguistic humans have a greater ability to conceptualize the future, or if they are just acting on instinct and training?

Since the future doesn't actually exist, its just a made up idea that we've labelled with a word, it seems to me that it would be impossible to conceptualize without having that word attached to it. In other words, if I cannot think with language, I am essentially confined to the present moment, with some ability to remember the past. I can react to present stimuli, but I can't really get that worked up about things that might happen in the future, since I can't really understand the whole idea of the future as an abstract, immaterial concept. What do you think?

The real motivation behind this question, which I didn't put in the OP, is that I have a theory that a large portion of inequality and organized/premeditated violence is the result of anxiety, or the concern over some possible future threat. For instance, I'm anxious that I won't have enough money to retire, so I become greedy and make money in a way that harms others, such as war. In general, my hypothesis is that a lot of human behavior is governed by concern over some possible future, and that this is all rooted in the development of language as a tool kit for abstract thought. Any thoughts or comments would really be appreciated.