Vision and Evolution (A Critique of Dawkins)

[John 6IX Breezy]

It has to account for its visual counterpart? How? Why?

Are you trying to say English words have to match the spelling we put to them? Because that would be about as far off as one could be describing English.

Anyway, Language is not inherited.

I meant that to define English as a pattern of soundwaves is problematic because English can be said to exist in others forms, such as written, that have an absence of sound.

[GrandizerII]

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Physically speaking, English refers to the soundwaves that are manifested in such a way that they follow patterns in line with a specific language, generally speaking. These patterns are communicated intentionally and comprehended by a large membership of the human species. You have to teach the language as well. It's not instinct.

I don't know to what extent English exists physically; I'm tempted to say it exists only in the psychological environment of other minds. It seems impossible to prescribe a pattern that a soundwave must follow for it to qualify as a morpheme of the English language; it has to vary with pitch, length, intensity, tonality, and almost every other feature that can be possibly used as a criteria. This is due to how much people's voices can differ in tone, prosody, accent, etc. Not to mention English has to also account for its visual counterpart as well.

To further argue that English is purely psychological, consider the attached link below (Holdgraf, et al., 2016). The audio first plays an unintelligible sound, followed by a reference clip, and then replays the unintelligible sound again. Notice that the sound is not heard as English until after the listener is given the reference clip. This leads me to believe there is nothing in that soundwave that qualifies as English; English has to be constructed in the listeners mind, and it can do so even with an impoverished stimuli.

https://media.nature.com/original/nature...654-s4.wav

Reference: Holdgraf, C. R., de Heer, W., Pasley, B., Rieger, J., Crone, N., Lin, J. J., Theunissen, F. E. (2016). Rapid tuning shifts in human auditory cortex enhance speech intelligibility. Nature Communications, 1-15.

 

The brain receives those soundwaves and interprets them according to what it has learned in life. If the soundwave patterns match how the English language has been learned by the brain, then the brain would interpret them as meaningful words/phrases/sentences in English.

There's such a thing as top-down processing as well. Remember that in cognitive psychology? Regarding the audio, that's easy. It's called priming. Remember that as well?

And yeah, ok, it's not just soundwaves. It's written words as well that are visually received by the brain.

[John 6IX Breezy]

The brain receives those soundwaves and interprets them according to what it has learned in life. If the soundwave patterns match how the English language has been learned by the brain, then the brain would interpret them as meaningful words/phrases/sentences in English.

There's such a thing as top-down processing as well. Remember that in cognitive psychology? Regarding the audio, that's easy. It's called priming. Remember that as well?

And yeah, ok, it's not just soundwaves. It's written words as well that are visually received by the brain.

Right, but top-down processing is why speaking of English in physical terms is problematic. English is an interpretation supplied by the brain, not the environment; thus why we are able to extract or supply meaning from noise.

[GUBU]

It has to account for its visual counterpart? How? Why?

Are you trying to say English words have to match the spelling we put to them? Because that would be about as far off as one could be describing English.

Anyway, Language is not inherited.

A close study of a toddler trying to learn a language will teach you the last bit. One of the most interesting aspects of learning a language is that in the process the brain clips away the speech patterns not used in that language, hence for example why Chinese people often have problems with English "l's".

[GrandizerII]

The brain receives those soundwaves and interprets them according to what it has learned in life. If the soundwave patterns match how the English language has been learned by the brain, then the brain would interpret them as meaningful words/phrases/sentences in English.

There's such a thing as top-down processing as well. Remember that in cognitive psychology? Regarding the audio, that's easy. It's called priming. Remember that as well?

And yeah, ok, it's not just soundwaves. It's written words as well that are visually received by the brain.

Right, but top-down processing is why speaking of English in physical terms is problematic. English is an interpretation supplied by the brain, not the environment; thus why we are able to extract or supply meaning from noise.

English is taught, man. This isn't rocket science. There's the neuronal/physiological aspect of English communicating and there's the environmental aspect.

[John 6IX Breezy]

Right, but top-down processing is why speaking of English in physical terms is problematic. English is an interpretation supplied by the brain, not the environment; thus why we are able to extract or supply meaning from noise.

English is taught, man. This isn't rocket science. There's the neuronal/physiological aspect of English communicating and there's the environmental aspect.

You're not being very clear with what you're arguing for, or against. What exactly are you disagreeing with?

[GrandizerII]

English is taught, man. This isn't rocket science. There's the neuronal/physiological aspect of English communicating and there's the environmental aspect.

You're not being very clear with what you're arguing for, or against. What exactly are you disagreeing with?

You're saying English is purely psychological. That's false.

[John 6IX Breezy]

You're not being very clear with what you're arguing for, or against. What exactly are you disagreeing with?

You're saying English is purely psychological. That's false.

Consider the difficulty of understanding a newly discovered stone tablet with some imaginary ancient language. They appear to us as scribbles because that's all they are. The language itself is lost with the minds of the civilization in which it existed.

[The Grand Nudger]

Sure, any language requires interpretation.

Interpreting language is something that we do, well even do it when it really is just scribbles, or noise.

[The Valkyrie]

You're saying English is purely psychological. That's false.

Consider the difficulty of understanding a newly discovered stone tablet with some imaginary ancient language. They appear to us as scribbles because that's all they are. The language itself is lost with the minds of the civilization in which it existed.

Seriously?

That’s all they are?

They’re often the thoughts and daily goings on of people in a list culture long gone.

They give us insights to their culture, their laws, and how they lived their lives.

Dismissing them as “squiggles” is an insult to those who came before us and those of us who are interested in these ancient peoples, as well as those who dedicate their lives learning about them.