language is a virus

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Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 07:04 am
we live inside the language. some words makes us feel well if we have sides that coresponde to the meaning of it, and some words makes us feel bad if they corresponde to its meaning. but liveing inside the language is something else than living with other people. you can have many negative words working on you and still be a good friend or relative.
 
Aedes
 
Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 09:01 am
@backworldman,
How does this make language a virus?

Viruses are self-replicating, and they operate by parasitizing the machinery of their host. This may or may not cause damage.

In the case of language, neither is it parasitizing us nor are we parasitizing it. Words don't do anything unto themselves -- words allow us to do things to one another.

Language is just a tool -- if anything is a virus, it is us.
 
jgweed
 
Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 09:22 am
@backworldman,
Living within language is at the same time living with other people, it would seem. We use language to communicate with Others, and we learn language from Others in society.
Doesn't language begin with two?
 
Khethil
 
Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 09:51 am
@backworldman,
backworldman wrote:
... some words makes us feel well if we have sides that coresponde to the meaning of it, and some words makes us feel bad if they corresponde to its meaning...


Well, 'tis both a blessing and a curse in the way the right expressions can amplify both the good and the bad. Thought I'd agree heartily with others that no sentiment expressed makes true the "virus" statement.

Perhaps a little elaboration is in order; if at all possible, backworldman?

Thanks
 
backworldman
 
Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 10:04 am
@backworldman,
i just think since language is dead and has impact on the soul i think it resembles the way virus change the cells it atacks, the way it changes our selfesteem.
 
Khethil
 
Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 10:15 am
@backworldman,
backworldman wrote:
i just think since language is dead and has impact on the soul i think it resembles the way virus change the cells it atacks, the way it changes our selfesteem.


Ah, well that helps some.

I'd agree that it is 'dead' in that it has no life of its own. But that's as is should be, is it not? It is nothing but a system of representations we clumsily fling about in an attempt to transfer meaning... nothing more (at least to my thinking).

And yes, it most-certainly CAN have an impact on the soul. But I think this is true only insomuch as we allow it. Any word, said to me, can be devastating to me emotionally if I'm of a mind to feel that pain or interpret what I've heard in that manner.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Language is clumsy at best and destructive at its worst. But at least half of this equation is the receiver in how they (read: you) interpret the elements of language. Many times I've been party to misinterpretations of motive (or meaning) based on the meaning of the words I've received.

I hope this additional perspective helps. It's a subtle aspect that's difficult to communicate.

Thanks
 
backworldman
 
Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 11:06 am
@backworldman,
well, i think it will be a long time until we see the topic: "a Word became alive and showed itself and spoke itself to the people it wanted to hurt"
 
schloopfeng
 
Reply Tue 23 Dec, 2008 01:19 pm
@backworldman,
RE language is dead, i beg to differ, language is an ever mutating entity that takes very little credit for itself, first can i ask "what language do you think in?", lets face it of most of the words that "occur" in the next minute around the world, only a tiny fraction will actually be spoken, I find language a vital part of our being & really cannot get my head around how we ever thought of anything without it, it's a classic chicken & egg conundrum & worthy of some respect.:shocked:
 
Khethil
 
Reply Thu 25 Dec, 2008 04:43 pm
@schloopfeng,
schloopfeng wrote:
RE language is dead, i beg to differ, language is an ever mutating entity that takes very little credit for itself, first can i ask "what language do you think in?", lets face it of most of the words that "occur" in the next minute around the world, only a tiny fraction will actually be spoken, I find language a vital part of our being & really cannot get my head around how we ever thought of anything without it, it's a classic chicken & egg conundrum & worthy of some respect.:shocked:


I think I'd agree with your intent for the most part.

It is a dynamic medium that is ever changing. I'd also agree that thought almost requires language. We had a discussion some time ago on this and I believe I was in the vast minority in believing that language (at least some representational system with which to compartmentalize ideas and concepts) was necessary for higher-level thought.

Good points
 
Delinquo
 
Reply Fri 26 Dec, 2008 12:51 pm
@backworldman,
wouldnt language live inside us??? Its a human made tool to begin with.
 
Petrovich phil
 
Reply Sat 27 Dec, 2008 02:25 am
@Delinquo,
Delinquo;39702 wrote:
wouldnt language live inside us??? Its a human made tool to begin with.


there's language in everything. i don't have to say something out loud to communicate with you. there's language in images, touch, and in all our senses. it wasn't really made by us, it's always been there, hardwired in our brains. to make association and build framework for functioning in this world is what your brain does automatically to stay sane. it's a brain's purpose. the association can be anything to anything else, conceptual or not. if your brain didn't make a language of things, you wouldn't have reference, no reference means no order, and no order means no relative progress. but yeah my point is that humans didn't make what makes language.

i like that definition of language though, a clumsy system of representation.
 
Poseidon
 
Reply Sat 27 Dec, 2008 08:27 am
@backworldman,
Its ironic of course that your idea in this thread (and all ideas) are then said to be viruses? How could the world ever move forward without communication? No matter how important a scientific theory is, it always has to be reduced to words to explain it. Thus words will always be more intrinsic to any type of understanding than science itself. Even the term 'science' is a word.

The term 'language' can be deconstructed to mean any symbolic communication. A cat hissing, is communicating with a sound that basically says 'Go away, I don't like you'. My old dog would lick his lips to tell me he was hungry, and I should give him some of my biltong. So 'language' is meaning.

Language is abstracted form. It is formal abstraction.

When we consider Plato's forms, we see that notions like Pi, and Pythagorus' triangle, are intrinsic abstract forms of the universe, so precise and perfect that they could never seriously be considered to have evolved out of randomness. How did these perfect ideas arise?



?




'In the beginning was the word, and the word was God.'
 
jgweed
 
Reply Sat 27 Dec, 2008 08:35 am
@backworldman,
Thinking seems to include (amongst other things) the use of universals, and these universals must have a name, and a name is a part of language. We think, moreover, about objects and things, and these also have names and meanings provided by language. Without our use of language, we would be condemned to have a "knowledge" of particulars in the form of sensations only, but in fact, our knowledge is not at all like that.
 
Petrovich phil
 
Reply Sat 27 Dec, 2008 12:35 pm
@Poseidon,
Poseidon;39802 wrote:

When we consider Plato's forms, we see that notions like Pi, and Pythagorus' triangle, are intrinsic abstract forms of the universe, so precise and perfect that they could never seriously be considered to have evolved out of randomness. How did these perfect ideas arise?



?




'In the beginning was the word, and the word was God.'


Plato believed there was a conceptual realm that we understood and saw, and that we pulled these concepts out and tried to represent them in our world. for instance you know that a circle is perfectly round, but you can never, create the perfect circle in this world, you can only create something that is close.

the conceptual world didn't 'evolve' out of randomness. concepts are constant. they don't need to change, nor do they.

but i don't see how god can tie into the conceptual world. these seemingly perfect ideas didn't 'arise' as there was never a time when they didn't exist. your last sentence doesn't make sense, by word do you mean the conceptual world? please explain what you believe is the correct interpretation.

if the word was god, can we say 'in the beginning was god.' ? and if you're with me so far, we can make this sentence a little easier to read, 'god was in the beginning'. in the beginning of what? our universe? how do we even go about knowing this? the answer you'd say is the scriptures right? the scriptures were written by man. i hope you get what i'm saying.
 
Poseidon
 
Reply Sun 28 Dec, 2008 02:31 pm
@backworldman,
Quote:

concepts are constant
i agree.

Quote:

the conceptual world didn't 'evolve' out of randomness

couldn't agree more

Quote:

by word do you mean the conceptual world?

yes!

Quote:

the scriptures were written by man

No!
Thats like saying that Pythagorus created the Pythagorean triangle, or Newton made the laws of Gravity, or Plato constructed the platonic forms.
The Scriptures describe the Universe. Sometimes in parable, sometimes in ordinary language. Recorded by man, yes, but not formed by man. Was killing and stealing a good way to live before Moses? Hardly.

Quote:

there was never a time when they {forms} didn't exist.

So we have to ask ourselves, what was 'before' time? I am of course using the concept of time in two quite alternative contexts.
(1) Time as we know it.
(2) Time as another dimension distinct from (1).

In (1), time is limited to that which is embedded in Einstein's space-time. The extent of the universe can be measured as both having a specific size and a specific duration, which cannot actually truly separated from each other.

In (2) we are looking at a second dimension of time (I'll call it 't2me' for convenience) which exists outside of our universe. It is the t2me 'b2fore' the big bang. It could also be seen to be the t2me after the end of our universe.

You say 'there was never a time when forms didn't exist.' This would be true to the forms in this particular universe. But there certainly was a t2me when our local forms did not exist.

How do I know this?

Instead of projecting backward in time, I project forward in t2me.
Imagine a future where biological immortality becomes the norm.
We also, for the sake of argument, assume a purely materialist metaphysic to the mind-body problem.
(Not that this is my belief, its just a default to a worst case scenario)

I do not see why immortality should be that hard to achieve, seeing as though information processing increases to the power 2 every 2 years. In 500 to a 1000 years, we will have computers that can map every atom in the body. Nanotechnology does the rest.

As we progress, thousands of years into the future, the concept of an 'IQ' measuring 1 million becomes normal.

After a while we have masterful control of the very nature of space-time as we know it today. We are now able to slice off a piece of space-time, and create an artificial universe which would start with something like a big bang. (From its own perspective)

Can you see how the serpent bites its tail?

Now of course, the sceptic is going to say, 'how do we control space-time?'
Well if a million IQ is not enough, then how about several Google of IQ? If a few thousand years is not enough, then how about a few billion years of immortality?

What else would there be to do?

You see, one has to really appreciate the 'argument from design' to explain the perfect nature of Pythagorus' triangle. If it cannot possibly be said to originate from randomness because of its perfection, then the only other possibility, is design.

Even time itself would have to have be designed, in another dimension of t2me. And so on, and so forth, until we deconstruct (or reconstruct) the universe into a state of pure imagination. A mystical creative spontaneity of absolute free will. Even if you do not believe this is true of our past, it must be certain of an infinite future, and thus how can we then be certain that our present situation is NOT such an instance from a previous state of development?

If you have read Edwin Abbot Abbot's Flatland, this will be much easier to grasp. Smile
 
Petrovich phil
 
Reply Sun 4 Jan, 2009 12:46 am
@Poseidon,
Poseidon;39947 wrote:
i agree.


couldn't agree more


yes!


No!
Thats like saying that Pythagorus created the Pythagorean triangle, or Newton made the laws of Gravity, or Plato constructed the platonic forms.
The Scriptures describe the Universe. Sometimes in parable, sometimes in ordinary language. Recorded by man, yes, but not formed by man. Was killing and stealing a good way to live before Moses? Hardly.


So we have to ask ourselves, what was 'before' time? I am of course using the concept of time in two quite alternative contexts.
(1) Time as we know it.
(2) Time as another dimension distinct from (1).

In (1), time is limited to that which is embedded in Einstein's space-time. The extent of the universe can be measured as both having a specific size and a specific duration, which cannot actually truly separated from each other.

In (2) we are looking at a second dimension of time (I'll call it 't2me' for convenience) which exists outside of our universe. It is the t2me 'b2fore' the big bang. It could also be seen to be the t2me after the end of our universe.

You say 'there was never a time when forms didn't exist.' This would be true to the forms in this particular universe. But there certainly was a t2me when our local forms did not exist.

How do I know this?

Instead of projecting backward in time, I project forward in t2me.
Imagine a future where biological immortality becomes the norm.
We also, for the sake of argument, assume a purely materialist metaphysic to the mind-body problem.
(Not that this is my belief, its just a default to a worst case scenario)

I do not see why immortality should be that hard to achieve, seeing as though information processing increases to the power 2 every 2 years. In 500 to a 1000 years, we will have computers that can map every atom in the body. Nanotechnology does the rest.

As we progress, thousands of years into the future, the concept of an 'IQ' measuring 1 million becomes normal.

After a while we have masterful control of the very nature of space-time as we know it today. We are now able to slice off a piece of space-time, and create an artificial universe which would start with something like a big bang. (From its own perspective)

Can you see how the serpent bites its tail?

Now of course, the sceptic is going to say, 'how do we control space-time?'
Well if a million IQ is not enough, then how about several Google of IQ? If a few thousand years is not enough, then how about a few billion years of immortality?

What else would there be to do?

You see, one has to really appreciate the 'argument from design' to explain the perfect nature of Pythagorus' triangle. If it cannot possibly be said to originate from randomness because of its perfection, then the only other possibility, is design.

Even time itself would have to have be designed, in another dimension of t2me. And so on, and so forth, until we deconstruct (or reconstruct) the universe into a state of pure imagination. A mystical creative spontaneity of absolute free will. Even if you do not believe this is true of our past, it must be certain of an infinite future, and thus how can we then be certain that our present situation is NOT such an instance from a previous state of development?

If you have read Edwin Abbot Abbot's Flatland, this will be much easier to grasp. Smile


you missed the point a little :/ aw well i don't want to bring up an old thread.
 
manored
 
Reply Sun 4 Jan, 2009 04:51 pm
@jgweed,
jgweed wrote:
Thinking seems to include (amongst other things) the use of universals, and these universals must have a name, and a name is a part of language. We think, moreover, about objects and things, and these also have names and meanings provided by language. Without our use of language, we would be condemned to have a "knowledge" of particulars in the form of sensations only, but in fact, our knowledge is not at all like that.
However, I believe we use our common language for thinking only because we have it. If we didnt had the common language, we would create a language for thinking, not be restricted to sensations... else, how would we have created language in the first place? This also explains why there are things we can understand but have trouble expressing in words for others.
 
 

 
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