Ergebnis für URL: http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#Heading6 This is chapter 7 of the [1]"The Phenomenon of Science" by [2]Valentin F. Turchin
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Contents:
* [3]WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THINKING?
* [4]LINGUISTIC ACTIVITY
* [5]THE BRAIN AS A "BLACK BOX"
* [6]AFFIRMATION AND NEGATION
* [7]THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SEMANTICS
* [8]THE LOGICAL CONCEPT
* [9]THE STRUCTURAL APPROACH
* [10]TWO SYSTEMS
* [11]CONCEPT "PILINGS"
* [12]THE SAPIR-WHORF CONCEPTION
* [13]SUBSTANCE
* [14]THE OBJECTIVIZATION OF TIME
* [15]LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY
* [16]THE METASYSTEM TRANSITION IN LANGUAGE
* [17]THE CONCEPT-CONSTRUCT
* [18]THE THINKING OF HUMANS AND ANIMALS
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CHAPTER SEVEN.
LANGUAGE AND THINKING
WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THINKING?
THE FIRST THING we must do to approach the problem of language and thinking
correctly is to clearly separate what we know about thinking from what we do not
know. We know that thinking is a process that takes place in the nerve nets of
the brain. Because the tern ''representation" to us means a state of some
subsystem of the brain it may be said that thinking is the process of change in
the aggregate of self-representations. But at any given moment in time only a
certain (obviously small) part of these representations is accessible to, as we
say, our consciousness. These representations can be consolidated into one (for
several subsystems taken together constitute a new subsystem), which is the state
of consciousness at the given moment. We do not know what consciousness is from a
cybernetic point of view: we have only fragmentary information (specifically,
that consciousness is closely related to the activity of what is called the
reticular formation of the brain).
Thus, thinking has an external, manifest aspect: a stream of conscious
representations. This stream can be fixed and studied, and from it we try to draw
conclusions indirectly about those processes in the brain which are illuminated
by consciousness. We are fairly sure about some things regarding the stream of
consciousness. We know that it is regulated to a significant degree by
associations of representations which form under the influence of experience and
reflect the characteristics of our environment. Specifically, we receive our
ability to foresee future situations to one degree or another thanks to the
association of representations. We also know that humans, unlike animals, have
the ability to control the process of association; this is manifested as
imagination, encoding, and conscious memorization. But we do not know the
concrete cybernetic mechanism of this ability or, as a matter of fact, the
mechanism of the association of representations. These mechanisms are not given
to us subjectively either: in the stream of consciousness we merely observe their
appearance, the result of their action. Finally, we are subjectively given a
sensation of freedom of choice in our actions: free will. Free will also
manifests itself in thinking. We are able to turn our thoughts to any subject we
wish. We do not know the cybernetic interpretation of free will either, and this
situation is perhaps worst of all.
LINGUISTIC ACTIVITY
REPRESENTATIONS of linguistic objects, words and sentences, occupy a distinct
place among all representations in the process of thinking. These representations
are (with the exception of deaf mutes, of course) a combination of aural and
motor representations and (for people who have dealt with written language from
childhood) the visual component may also be joined to them. When we picture a
certain word in our mind we mentally pronounce it, listen, and possibly see it
written. For brevity we will call these linguistic representations. The stream of
linguistic representations is precisely what is ordinarily called thinking. The
presence of this stream is a specifically human characteristic; it is not found
in animals. So-called ''abstract'' thinking is actually thinking in words, the
stream of linguistic representations. Without such thinking, the achievements of
thought in which the human race takes such pride would have been impossible.
The significance of linguistic representations is that they are uniquely related
to words and sentences as the material elements of the material system
''language.'' This system is the aggregate of all words and sentences pronounced
orally, transmitted by telephone and radio, written on paper, encoded on punched
cards for computers, and so on--in short, the aggregate of what we have called
the higher nervous system of the material body of culture. Functionally, a stream
of linguistic representations in no way differs from a sequence of their material
correlatives: words. The external, observed aspect of thinking may be described
as activity consisting of the creation of certain material linguistic objects,
for example pronouncing sentences out loud (unfortunately these objects are very
short-lived) or writing them on paper. We shall call this activity linguistic.
There are compelling reasons to consider linguistic activity the basic, primary
aspect of thinking and the stream of linguistic representations merely a
transitional element--a form of connection between the material linguistic
objects and the aggregate of all (not just linguistic) representations. In fact,
it is precisely the linguistic objects which store and transmit information and
operate as the elements of linguistic models of reality. The child is taught
linguistic activity in the same way as it is taught to walk, shoot a bow, or
hammer nails. As a result the child becomes, so to speak, plugged into the
language: he uses the models already available and enriches it with new ones.
Furthermore, he may also use language in a noncommunicative manner (for his own
purposes) as did the young man Uu of the Nyam nyam tribe when he counted the
enemy with his fingers. During noncommunicative use of language there may be a
stream of linguistic representations without apparent linguistic activity (''I
think!''); but after all, these representations emerged and acquired their
meanings as a result of activity involving substantial, material linguistic
objects! And often during the process of reflection we whisper certain words and
whole phrases, returning them to their material form. The primacy of substantive
linguistic activity is especially clear when we are dealing with scientific
models of reality. After long, hard study with real, written symbols a person may
be able to multiply a few small numbers or reduce similar elements of an
algebraic expression in his head. But give him a problem that is a little harder
and he will demand a pencil and paper!
Linguistics and logic investigate linguistic activity. Linguistics is interested
primarily in the syntax of language (in the broad, semiotic sense) while logic is
chiefly interested in semantics. When syntax and semantics are interwoven it is
not possible to separate linguistics from logic. It is true that traditional
logic declares itself to be the science of the laws of thinking, not the science
of language, but this pretentious statement should not be taken too seriously. Of
all the fields of knowledge which study thinking, logic has the most external,
superficial approach. It does not investigate the real mechanisms of the work of
the brain, as neurophysiology does; it does not construct models of mental
activity, as cybernetics does; and it does not attempt to record and classify
subjectively perceived emotional states, as psychology does. It recognizes only
precise, socially significant thoughts (not the ravings of a madman!) as its
object of study. But such thoughts are in fact nothing else but linguistic
representations with socially significant semantics. Logical (semantic) analysis
of language leads to primary, undefinable concepts and stops there; it does not
take us beyond language. Logic also contains its theory of proof. If language is
used in a form of notation which keeps within the rules of predicate calculus,
not in the form of natural language, it is possible to establish the formal
characteristics of the correctness of deductions and formal rules which, if used,
will always yield correct conclusions from correct premises. These rules (the
laws of logic), which are also expressed in the form of a linguistic object, form
a metasystem in relation to the statements obtained as a result of application of
the rules.
[IMG.FIG7.1.GIF]
Figure 7.1. Logic as a metasystem.
Sentences are the object and result of work for the theory of proof. Thus, all of
logic lies wholly in the sphere of linguistic activity. Its lower stage is
semantic analysis and its higher stage is the theory of proof. We will talk about
proof theory later; for now we are interested in the lower stage (it may even be
called the foundation): the relationship between language and the working of the
brain.
We shall consider that by logical analysis we can translate any sentence in
natural language into the language of logic. Of course, this somewhat exaggerates
the advances made to date, but it is fairly clear that in principle there is
nothing impossible about it. Logical analysis reveals the internal structure of
language, the fundamental nodes of which it consists. Therefore we shall review
the basic concepts of the language of logic, clarify exactly why they are as they
are, and discover how they are related to brain activity. Whereas in the last
chapter we were primarily concerned with the syntax of language, here we shall
pose the question of the semantics of language.
THE BRAIN AS A "BLACK BOX"
FIRST LET US try to find direct correlatives of language elements in brain
activity. The first concept we introduced in our description of the language of
logic was the statement. With what can it be correlated? The answer suggests
itself: the association of representations. Indeed, like the brain, language is a
system used to create models of reality. In the case of the brain the basic
independent unit that can operate as a model is the association of
representations, while in the case of language it is the statement.
Now there is a temptation to correlate the representation to the object. At first
glance this creates a complete and harmonious interpretation: the object
corresponds to the representation; the relation among objects, which is the
statement, corresponds to the relation among representations, which is the
association. We may take the example of the association ''In the forest there are
wolves,'' which we gave in chapter 4, and interpret it as follows: "forest'' and
"wolves" are objects and, at the same time, representations, while "In the forest
there are wolves'' is a statement and, at the same time, an association.
But a careful analysis shows that this interpretation involves a serious mistaken
assumption; we have artificially transferred linguistic structure to the sphere
of representations. In reality this sphere has no such structure. Begin from the
fact that an association of representations is also a representation. A
representation may be correlated with the sentence ''In the forest there are
wolves'' just as it may be correlated with the nouns ''forest'' and ''wolves.''
We should recall that an association between representations S[1] and S[2] is a
new synthetic representation U (see [19]figure 3.8). It is true that the
association of representations is a model of reality, but if we understand the
term ''model'' in the broad sense as a certain correlative of reality, any
representation is a model. If, however, we understand model in the narrow sense
as a correlative of reality which permits us to predict future states, then not
any association can be a model, but only one that reflects the temporal aspect of
reality. The process of associating is important, because it leads to the
creation of a new model where none existed before. This process permits
completely strict logical definition and can be revealed by experiment, similar
to the way we easily define and uncover the process of the formation of a system
from subsystems. But it is impossible to define the difference between an
association of representations and a representation just as it is impossible to
establish criteria that would distinguish a system from subsystems.
So the statement elicits a representation and the object elicits a representation
and our harmonious system crumbles. The representation proves too broad and too
indefinite a concept to be made the basis of a study of the semantics of
language. All we know about the representation is that it is a generalized state
of the brain, but we know virtually nothing about the structure of the brain.
In chapter 4 we defined language as the aggregate of objects L[i ]each of which
is the name of a certain object R[i], which is called its meaning. Concerning
objects R we said only that they are some kind of real phenomena. The time has
now come to work toward a more precise answer as to what kind of phenomena these
are: in other words, the question is ''what are the semantics of natural
language?''
In the simplest examples usually given to illustrate the relationship L[i]-R[i]
and which we cited above (the word lion--the animal lion, and so on), the object
R[i] is a representation of a definite object. In general, language emerges as
the result of an association between linguistic and other representations, and
therefore it is natural to attempt to define the semantics of language by means
of those representations which emerge in the process of linguistic activity. It
can be said that the meaning of a linguistic object is that representation which
it evokes--the change in the state of the brain which occurs when a
representation about a linguistic object appears in the consciousness. This
definition is entirely correct, but unfortunately it is unproductive because the
states of the brain as objective reality are not directly accessible to us, and
we make our judgments about them on the basis of their manifestation in human
actions only.
Therefore let us take another route. We shall view the brain as a black box; we
shall investigate the observed manifestations of its activity without any attempt
to understand its internal organization. We are interested in the semantics of
language, the connection (associations) between linguistic representations and
all others.
[IMG.FIG7.2.GIF]
Figure 7.2. The brain as a black box.
Because the representations are inside the "black box," however, we shall rely
only on the input data corresponding to them-- which is to say the linguistic
objects and all the other activity that, for the sake of brevity, we shall call
nonlinguistic. This is the input of the black box. Its output is obviously the
person's observed actions
Because the system of actions is very complex, we shall not make progress in our
attempts to study semantics if we do not choose some simple type of action as a
standard. Of course there must be at least two variants of the action so that it
will carry some information. Suppose there are exactly two. We shall call them
the first and second standard actions. We shall formulate the elementary act in
studying semantics as follows. Linguistic objects will be presented to a person
who is perceiving a definite nonlinguistic reality and we shall assume that he
responds to them by performing one of the two standard actions.
AFFIRMATION AND NEGATION
WE CONCEIVED this scheme in a purely theoretical manner as the simplest method of
defining the semantics of language under conditions where the brain is pictured
as a black box. It turns out that this scheme actually exists in linguistic
activity, emerging spontaneously in the early stages of the development of
language! In all known languages we find expressions for two standard
actions--affirmation and negation. These actions are of great antiquity, as
evidenced by the fact that among a large majority of peoples (possibly all) they
are expressed in gestures as well as words. If we open the top of the black box
just a crack, to the degree shown in figure 7.2, we can define the affirmation as
an action performed when the linguistic object and reality are in the relation
name-meaning (that is, the necessary association exists between the linguistic
and nonlinguistic representations), and we can define negation as the action
performed when there is no such relation. But a person learning to use
affirmative and negative words and gestures correctly knows nothing, of course,
about representations, associations, and the like. At first he is simply taught
to say "cat,'' "dog," and so forth while pointing at the corresponding objects,
and then he is taught to perform the affirmative action when someone says ''this
is a cat'' while pointing at one and to perform the negative action when someone
makes the same statement while pointing at a dog. In both instances we learn
correct linguistic activity while relying on the brain's ability to recognize and
associate; but we have no knowledge of the brain s mechanisms; to us it is a
black box.
The last remark explains why it is hardly surprising that the scheme of standard
actions has become an established part of linguistic practice. A person's brain
is a black box both for himself and for other members of society. This is the
origin of the need for a socially meaningful way of determining more precise
semantics; this need appears as soon as language reaches a minimum level of
complexity.
The standard actions of affirmation and negation are not related to reality
itself, as primary linguistic objects are; rather they refer to the relationship
between primary linguistic objects and reality. They are elements of a metasystem
in relation to the system of primary linguistic objects. The introduction of the
actions of affirmation and negation into the practice of society was the
beginning of that metasystem transition within linguistic activity whose
subsequent stages are the appearance of the language of logic and the theory of
deduction. Although affirmation and negation appeared very early in the
development of human culture, they did not appear sufficiently early for a
prototype of them to be found in animal actions. We know that such prototypes
exist for primary linguistic objects in the form of animal signals. Among these
signals there are ones which could be described as affirmative and negative, but
they have nothing in common with the semantic actions of affirmation and negation
which are oriented to the signals themselves and lay the foundations of the
metasystem. In this we see one more manifestation of the law of branching
(expansion) of the penultimate level. The enormous growth in the number of
primary linguistic objects (signals) which is found in human society began
simultaneously with the beginning of the metalevel.
THE PHENOMENOLOGICAL DEFINITION OF SEMANTICS
NOW IT WILL not be difficult for us to interpret the basic concepts of logic from
the point of view of the phenomenological (''black box'') approach. The statement
is obviously the linguistic object to which the actions of affirmation and
negation refer. The semantics of a language appear to an external observer as the
function of two free variables (the statement and the true state of affairs); the
function assumes one of two truth values: ''true'' (''yes,'' ''truth'') and
''untrue' (''no,", ''falsehood"). The value of this function is worked out by the
black box, the human brain, which knows the given language. How this happens the
external observer does not know.
The statement is the basic unit of language. In considering language as a system
we must discover how the statement, a system of statements of subsystems, can be
constructed. Thus we come to the introduction of logical connectives, which were
discussed in the preceding chapter.
Reality is perceived by the human being through the medium of the sense organs;
it appears to the human being as an aggregate of receptor states, a situation If
a person were unable to control his sense organs and concentrate his attention on
certain parts of the situation, that is, if the situation always appeared to a
person as something whole and completely given from outside, then all logic would
probably be limited to propositional (statement) calculus. But a person can
control his sense organs and can, for example, fix his vision on a particular
object. Therefore the situation is not simply reality, it is reality with an
attention characteristic--that is, with an isolated area (approximately defined)
which we are speaking about and on which we concentrate our attention. The
concept of attention also has a psychological aspect, but we shall try to bypass
it. We can determine from observing a person what he is looking at (or feeling,
smelling, and so on), because the attention characteristic can be determined
objectively. Reality with the attention characteristic can therefore be viewed as
a free variable of the function in the ''black box" approach. People resort to
gestures or verbal clarifications to define the position of the area of attention
more precisely. In either case the result will be the same. If you say, ''I am
looking at the thick book the girl in the pink dress is holding in her hands,''
the person you are talking to will look around until he locates the girl and the
book.
The temporal aspect of the input data of semantics must also be taken into
account. If the reaction of the brain were determined only by the situation at
one specific moment, unrelated to situations close in time, once again logic
would probably be limited to propositional calculus. In fact, however, the brain
stores its memory of many past situations; the brain's reaction (and
specifically, the standard action) is therefore always a function of the moving
picture of situations. We often fail to recognize this because there are in the
environment around us objects which show a relative invariability, and when we
concentrate our attention on the invariant object it seems to us that we are not
dealing with a moving picture but rather with a single frame. In actuality, the
analysis of the concept of object which was given above shows that the time
aspect plays the decisive part in it. Now, when we have introduced the concept of
the attention characteristic we can define the object as a moving picture of
situations with the attention characteristic represented by one continuous line.
The extent to which we are inclined to ignore the dynamic aspect of perception
can be seen from the situation we ordinarily describe as the existence of at
least two distinct objects. It seems to us that we are perceiving each object
separately and still we distinguish among all the objects and concentrate our
attention on them simultaneously. But the simplest psychological self-analysis
will persuade us that in fact in such a case our attention darts rapidly from one
object to another. In the moving picture of situations, the line of the attention
characteristic will be broken; it will, indeed, easily become possible to make
several (according to the number of objects) continuous lines .
[IMG.FIG7.3.GIF]
Figure 7.3. Broken line of attention out of which two continuous lines can be
formed
We have now come to defining the concept of the object in logic. We have
established that the "nonlinguistic activity," shown in 7.2, which is fed to the
input of the black box is often broken, divided up in space and time. It can be
imagined as a moving picture on which the line of movement of the attention
characteristic is drawn in. Moreover, it turns out that this line can be broken
to become several continuous lines. These continuous lines are the objects.
Thus the object of logic is wholly liberated from its material meaning; this is
transferred to statements about the given object. The object is an identifier.
Its only attribute is to be identical to itself and it signifies a continuous
line of attention. This proposition has already been explained in sufficient
detail in the preceding chapter.
When in place of undivided reality we feed to the input of the black box a
reality divided into objects, the statement becomes dependent on the method of
division--that is, on the objects we are singling out; the statement is converted
into the predicate.
THE LOGICAL CONCEPT
WE HAVE ALMOST completed our analysis of the fundamentals of logic from the
black-box point of view. We have still to define the general concept of ''logical
concept,'' but that is simple: the concept is the predicate or logical
connective. The grounds for this are that predicates and connectives are those
basic functional nodes we discover in linguistic activity. The concept of
function in the sense that we have defined it above may not be elevated to the
rank of the basic logical concept because, as we have seen, it can be expressed
through predicates and connectives. But in the broader sense both logical
connectives and predicates are functions--that is, correlations by a certain
method of values (truth values in the given case) to free variables. Thus it can
be said that the logical concept is a function whose free variables are
linguistic objects and situations and whose values are linguistic objects. The
result of a logical analysis of language is a breakdown of linguistic activity
into homotypic functional elements: connectives and predicates.
Every logical concept is defined in the first place by its material carrier, the
linguistic object (in most cases a word or phrase), and in the second place by
the method of using this object in linguistic activity in society. The second
point offers an opportunity to refine the first. The words ''koshka,''
''koshka,'' ''KOSHKA,'' and koshka [Russian for ''cat''] are different linguistic
objects (the first two differ by their placement while the third and fourth also
differ by their type face) but we consider them to be carriers of a single
concept because they appear indistinguishable in linguistic activity. The same
thing can be said--with certain restrictions--about the German die Katze, for it
is used analogously (but only analogously!) to the Russian koshka.
The concepts of a language form a hierarchical system. In certain specialized
languages (sublanguages) used by the exact sciences this hierarchy is determined
in a completely clear and strict manner. The concepts located higher in the
hierarchy acquire their meaning by logical definitions through concepts of a
lower order--that is, it is pointed out how, being able to determine the truth
values of the predicates at a lower level, one can determine the value of the
predicate of a higher level. In natural languages there is no strict hierarchy,
but there is an approximate one. We can therefore assess the ''degree of
remoteness'' of a concept from the direct data of experience by logical analysis
and breaking complex concepts down into simpler components; the degree of
remoteness of a concept from direct experience can be equated with its elevation
in the hierarchy. This estimate of position in the hierarchy is approximate,
because the breakdown in the components is not unambiguous, the actual method of
subdividing has not been fully formalized, and no one has yet done such work for
all language. Perhaps the most firmly established fact is that the predicates
which cannot be subdivided at all are primary (belonging to the lowest level of
the hierarchy).
Between the concepts of a language there are numerous interconnections given by
the set of all true statements in which the concepts under consideration are
included. Language is a system and its concepts have meaning only as elements of
the system. The meaning of a word is determined by the way this word is used in
linguistic activity. Each word, so to speak, bears the imprint of all the
sentences in which it has ever been included; it is an element of the system.
When traditional logic speaks of concepts, the two functions of the concept are
pointed out: to serve as an element of reasoning--that is, a method of shaping
thought--and at the same time to concentrate already existing thoughts and
knowledge of an object in oneself. This duality is a result of the system nature
of the concept. The linguistic object (word) which expresses a concept is used as
an element for constructing a model of reality and is associated
functionally--that is, in linguistic activity (and therefore also in our
imagination)--with all models in which it participates. Therefore, although a
trained dog does distinguish between a square and a circle, it cannot be said
that it has mastered the concept of ''square''; this word includes many things
about which the dog does not have the slightest idea. Therefore also the most
exact translation from one language to another is by no means always a literal
translation; the difference between the systems must be taken into account.
Strictly speaking, an absolutely exact translation is generally impossible (with
the possible exception of statements which contain only primary concepts
accessible to a dog).
THE STRUCTURAL APPROACH
WE HAVE DEFINED the logical concept as an element of the functioning of the
linguistic system. We shall now attempt to give a more general definition of the
cybernetic concept of ''concept,'' relying on the structural rather than the
functional approach.
Let us again consider the concept ''inside'' in application to the picture
discriminator. How would we begin to build a system that contains the concept
inside''? It is apparent that at first we would have to construct classifiers for
the concepts of ''spot'' and ''contour". Let us recall that the classifier is a
cybernetic system that recognizes the affiliation of an input state
(''situation'') with a definite set (Aristotelian concept), and converts it to an
output state that reflects the most important characteristics of the situation.
The spot classifier, for example, recognizes the existence of a spot and fixes
the coordinates of the points which bound it.
[IMG.FIG7.4.GIF]
In figure 7.4 we have designated the classifiers of spots and contours by the
letters [pi][1], [pi][2],. . .. and K[1], K[2][,] . . . These classifiers form
the first level of a hierarchy, for their input is the states of the receptors.
They translate the situation from the language of illuminated points to the
language of spots and contours.
Having constructed the first level, we begin work on the second. We construct
classifier B (as in figure 7.4) to whose input is fed the output of one spot
classifier, [pi][i], we shall assume, and one contour classifier, Kj. Classifier
B must have just two output states: one (''yes ') occurs when the spot fixed by
classifier [pi][i] lies inside the contour fixed by classifier Kj, while the
second (''no'') occurs in the opposite case. We would like classifier B to be
applicable to any pair ([pi][i], Kj). But it would be insanity to make as many
copies of B as there are pairs ([pi][i], Kj)! therefore we need some kind of
switching device by means of which information from different points of the
system could be fed to the one and only device B. Because it is meaningless to
feed information directly from the receptors or from any other inappropriate
points to a classifier, the switch should be designed so that it is able to feed
information from any of the pairs ([pi][i], Kj) and nothing else.
Classifier B is located on the second level of the overall system. It may
possibly be used as an input for the third level. For example, let us suppose
that the system is required to recognize the concept "enter into . . ". This is a
dynamic concept related to time. As the input here we must consider not one
situation but rather a series--that which above was called a moving picture of
situations. With such a moving picture we say that the spot has ''entered into''
a contour if at first it was outside the contour and then assumed a position
inside it. It is apparent that the discriminator of the concept ''enter into''
(in figure 7.4 it is designated BB) will require at its input the output from
discriminator B or from several discriminators B' related to different frames of
the moving picture (in the first case it should have a device for storing the
sequence of ''yes'' or ''no'' answers).
A hierarchy of classifiers has been obtained. For us this is not new; in chapter
2 we considered hierarchies of classifiers. But in that chapter we limited
ourselves to Aristotelian concepts, and the hierarchy of classifiers acted solely
as a means of recognizing concepts and was not included in the definition of the
concept of the ''concept.'' We defined the concept of the ''concept''
(Aristotelian) independently of the organization of the hierarchy of classifiers
as a certain set of situations--in other words a function that assumes a truth
value of ''true'' in the given set of situations.
But now, searching for a cybernetic interpretation of such concepts as
''inside,'' we see that we cannot define the more general concept of ''concept''
by relying on the level of receptors alone; instead it can only be defined as an
element of a system of concepts. Corresponding to the concept of ''inside'' in
figure 7.4 is the classifier B, not only as a device which converts the given
input into the given output but also as a subsystem of the total recognition
system-- that is, as an element connected in a certain way with other elements of
the system (in the particular case, receiving input information from one type
[pi] classifier and one type K classifier).
We have constructed a cybernetic model of the concept ''inside'' But how is this
model related to reality? What relationship does it have to the true concept of
"inside,'' which manifests itself in language and appears to us as one of the
elements of our thinking? Can it be asserted that the brain has a classifier that
corresponds exactly to the concept of ''inside''?
Although the general appearance of the diagram in figure 7.4 with its receptors
and classifiers reflects neurophysiological findings, the concrete functions of
the classifiers and their interrelationships reflect logical data. Therefore our
diagram is not a model of the organization of the brain, but rather a model of
the functioning of the linguistic system--or more precisely a structural diagram
of a device that could perform the functions discovered in linguistic activity.
In this device the classifiers perform the functions described by logical
concepts and the switching devices (which are not shown in the diagram but
mentioned in the text) fix the domain of definition of the concepts .
The diagram shown in figure 7.4 may be embodied in a real cybernetic device whose
sources of information will be the illuminated points of a screen. But even if
such a device works very well it will not, strictly speaking, yet give us the
right to consider it a model of the organization of the brain. Possibly the
division of the nerve nets into classifiers as suggested by figure 7.4 or
analogous diagrams taken from the functioning of language does not reflect the
true organization of the brain at all!
TWO SYSTEMS
WE HAVE BEFORE US two cybernetic systems. The first system is the human brain.
Its functioning is individual human thinking. Its task is to coordinate the
actions of separate parts of the organism in order to preserve its existence.
This task is accomplished, specifically, by creating models of reality whose
material body is the nerve nets and which we therefore call neuronal models. We
know that the brain is organized on the hierarchical principle. We call the
structural elements of this hierarchy classifiers. The functions of the
classifiers. considering their systems aspect--which is to say their
interrelationships--are the individual concepts (in the cybernetic sense of the
word, which simply means according to the cybernetic definition of the concept of
''concept''), which may be identified in the functioning of the brain as a whole.
We will call them neuronal concepts. The second system is language. Its
functioning is linguistic activity in society. Its task is to coordinate the
actions of individual members of society in order to preserve its existence. This
task is accomplished, specifically, by creating models of reality whose material
body is linguistic objects and which we therefore call linguistic models. Like
the brain, language is organized hierarchically. The functional elements of this
hierarchical system are the logical (linguistic) concepts.
These systems are by no means independent. The linguistic system is set in motion
by the human brain. Without the brain, language is dead. On the other hand, the
brain is strongly influenced by language.
Now the problem may be formulated as follows: what is the relationship between
neuronal and logical concepts? Let us survey the sources of information about
these systems of concepts. Logical concepts are on full display before us:
phenomenologically speaking, we know virtually everything that can be known about
them. We know very little about neuronal concepts. Neurophysiological research
offers some information about the lowest levels of the hierarchy only; about the
higher levels we have absolutely no information which is independent of language.
But we do know that language is an offspring and, in a certain sense, a
continuation of the brain. Therefore a close relationship must exist between the
highest stages of neuronal concepts and the lowest stages of logical concepts.
After all, logical concepts came from somewhere! The logical concept of an object
unquestionably has a very definite neuronal correlative; that is, long before the
appearance of language and independent of it the world presented itself to people
(and animals) as an aggregate of objects. From the ease with which people and
animals recognize some relations among objects (in particular transformations in
time) we may conclude that there is also a special neuron apparatus for relations
among a small number of objects. It can scarcely be accidental that the languages
of all people have words that signify the objects surrounding human beings and
words for the simplest relations among them--such as the relation of ''inside,''
which we used as an example above. Thus figure 7.4 can be considered a model of
brain organization with a certain probability after all!
When speaking of neuronal models and concepts we have in mind not only the inborn
foundation of these concepts but also those concrete concepts which form on this
foundation through the action of the stream of sensations. In higher animals and
human beings the formation of new concepts as a result of association of
representations plays an enormous part, as we know. It begins from the moment the
individual appears on earth and develops especially intensively at a young age,
when the conceptual ''flesh'' fills out the congenital conceptual ''skeleton.''
This introduces a new element into the problem of the mutual relations of
neuronal and logical concepts. Those initial neuronal concepts which form in a
baby before it begins to understand speech and talk can be considered independent
of language, and then logical concepts can be considered reflections of them. But
the more complex concepts form in a baby under the direct and very powerful
influence of language. The associations of representations which make up the
basis of these concepts are dictated by society's linguistic activity; to a
significant degree they are thrust upon the child by adults during the process of
teaching the language. Therefore, when we analyze the interrelations of
linguistic activity and thinking and attempt to evaluate the degree to which the
language is a continuation of the brain we cannot view neuronal nets as a given
against which the logical concepts of the particular language should be compared.
Considering the inverse influence of linguistic activity on thinking, the
question can only be put as follows: what would the neuronal and logical concepts
be like if the development of language were to follow this or that particular
path?
CONCEPT "PILINGS"
THE INFORMATION capacity of the brain is incomparably greater than that of
language (in the process of speech). Language does not reflect the full wealth of
sensations and cognitive representations. We know, for example, that the ancient
Greek language had just one word for both dark blue and green; as a result they
had just one concept in place of our two. Does this mean that they perceived
color differently? Of course not. The human eye distinguishes hundreds of nuances
of color but only a few words exist to denote them.
The primary logical concepts may be compared with buttresses or, better, with
pilings driven into the ground of the neuronal concepts. They penetrate to a
certain depth and occupy just a small part of the area. Floor by floor the entire
building, the hierarchy of concepts of the language, is erected on these piles.
We take pride in the building because it contains concepts which were not even
conceived of at ground level, among the neuronal concepts. But have the pilings
been driven well? Could they have been driven at other points and is it too late
now to drive additional ones? How does this affect the building? In other words,
is the selection of primary predicates fundamental for the development of
language, culture, and thinking? We rarely ask ourselves this question because we
do not see the ground itself; it is covered by the edifice of language. But if we
go down under the floor we can touch the original soil and feel around in the
darkness with our hands. By doing this we may learn once again how much of the
ground is not touched by the pilings (especially in the sphere of spiritual
experience) and we shall recall the words of the poet Tyutchev: ''The thought
expressed is a lie.''
From this metaphor one more question arises: how good is the architecture of the
building? Is it the only possible architecture, and if not, how much does its
selection influence the functioning of the edifice, the possibility of expansion,
remodeling, and so on? In other words, is the grammar of language (at least in
its most important, fundamental features) something external and unimportant for
thinking, or does it fundamentally affect thinking and direct its development?
We have formulated both of these questions, concerning the effect of selection of
primary predicates and of grammar, in a form requiring a yes or no answer only
for purposes of clear presentation. The point is not, of course, to answer them
simply by yes or no. The answer will always, in the last analysis, contain a
conditional element, and the fact that there is some influence is undoubted. Our
job is to investigate real findings regarding language's influence on thinking.
THE SAPIR-WHORF CONCEPTION
THE WORK of two American linguists, E. Sapir and B. Whorf, is very interesting
from this point of view. The following quote, which Whorf used as the epigraph to
his article ''The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to Language,'' gives
an idea of Sapir's views:
Human beings do not live in the objective world alone, nor alone in the world of
social activity as ordinarily understood, but are very much at the mercy of
the particular language which has become the medium of expression for their
society. It is quite an illusion to imagine that one adjusts to reality
essentially without the use of language and that language is merely an
incidental means of solving specific problems of communication or reflection.
The fact of the matter is that the ''real world'' is to a large extent
unconsciously built up on the language habits of the group.... We see and
hear and otherwise experience very largely as we do because the language
habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpretation.[20][1]
B. Whorf takes this conception as his basis and gives it concrete form in his
studies of certain Indian languages and cultures and his comparisons of them with
European languages and culture. We will present some of Whorf's observations and
thoughts on such logical categories as space and time, form and content.[21][2]
Whorf notes that to correctly evaluate such categories one must first reject
those views regarding the interaction of language and thought which are
ordinarily considered an integral part of ''common sense'' and are called, by
Whorf, ''natural logic.'' He writes:
Natural logic says that talking is merely an incidental process concerned
strictly with communication, not with formulation of ideas. Talking, or the
use of language, is supposed only to express what is essentially already
formulated non-linguistically. Formulation is an independent process, called
thought or thinking, and is supposed to be largely indifferent to the nature
of particular languages. Languages have grammars, which are assumed to be
merely norms of conventional and social correctness, but the use of languages
is supposed to be guided not so much by them as by correct, rational, or
intelligent thinking.
Thought, in this view, does not depend on grammar but on laws of logic or
reason which are supposed to be the same for all observers of the
universe--to represent a rationale in the universe that can be ''found"
independently by all intelligent observers, whether they speak Chinese or
Choctaw. In our own culture, the formulations of mathematics and of formal
logic have acquired the reputation of dealing with this order of things,
i.e., with the realm and laws of pure thought. Natural logic holds that
different languages are essentially parallel methods for expressing this
one-and-the-same rationale of thought and, hence, differ really in but minor
ways which may seem important only because they are seen at close range. It
holds that mathematics, symbolic logic, philosophy, and so on, are systems
contrasted with language which deal directly with this realm of thought, not
that they are themselves specialized extensions of language.[22][3]
This conception has taken such deep root that we are not even aware that it can
be subjected to critical analysis. Similarly, we are only aware that we breathe
air when we begin to experience a scarcity of it. Whorf gives one more
illustration. Suppose that owing to a certain defect in vision a certain people
can perceive only the color blue. For them the very term ''blue'' will be
deprived of the meaning which we give it by contrasting it with red, yellow, and
the other colors. In the same way, a large majority of people who talk, or at
least think, in only one language are simply unaware of the limitations it
imposes and the arbitrary element it contains. With nothing with which they can
compare their language, its limitations and arbitrary character naturally seem to
them universal and unconditional. When linguists conducted critical
investigations of large numbers of languages, the structures of which differed
greatly, they encountered violations of rules they formerly had considered as
universal. It turned out that grammar is not simply an instrument for reproducing
thought, but a program and guide for the thinking activity of the individual.
Whorf writes:
'We dissect nature along lines laid down by our native languages. The categories
and types that we isolate from the world of phenomena we do not find there
because they stare every observer in the face; on the contrary, the world is
presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized by
our minds--and this means largely by the linguistic systems in our minds.''
[23][4]
It should be noted here that Whorf is plainly carried away when he speaks of
organizing the stream of impressions, and he incorrectly describes the division
of labor between the neuron system and the linguistic system, ascribing the
organization of impressions ''largely'' to the linguistic system. In reality, of
course, a very large part of the work of initial organization of impressions is
done at the neuron level and what language receives is no longer the raw
material, but rather a semifinished product processed in a completely definite
manner. Here Whorf makes the same mistake in relation to the neuron system as
''natural logic'' makes (and Whorf correctly points out!) in relation to the
linguistic system. He underestimates the neuron system because it is the same in
all people.
It is difficult to conclude that the linguistic system is important for the
organization of impressions if we restrict ourselves to a comparison of modern
European languages, and possibly also Latin and Ancient Greek. In their
fundamental features the systems of these languages coincide, which was an
argument in favor of the conception of natural logic. But this coincidence is
entirely explained by the fact that the European languages (with minor
exceptions) belong to the single family of Indo-European languages, are
constructed generally according to the same plan, and have common historical
roots, moreover, for a long period of time they participated in creation of a
common culture and in large part this culture, especially in the intellectual
area, developed under the determining influence of two Indo-European languages:
Greek and Latin. To estimate the breadth of the range of possible grammars one
must refer to more linguistic material. The languages of the American Indians,
the Hopi, Shawnee. Nutka, and others, serve as such material for Whorf. In
comparison with them the European languages are so similar to one another that,
for convenience in making comparisons, Whorf consolidates them into one "Standard
Average European'' language.
SUBSTANCE
STANDARD AVERAGE EUROPEAN has two types of nouns which denote material parts of
the world around us. Nouns in the first group--such as ''a tree,'' ''a stick,''
''a man,'' and the like--refer to definite objects which have a definite form.
Nouns of the second group--such as ''water,'' ''milk,'' and "meat''--denote
homogeneous masses that do not have definite boundaries. There is a very clear
grammatical distinction between these groups: the nouns which denote substances
do not have a plural case. In English the article before them is dropped, while
in French the partitive article is placed in front of them. If we think deeply
about the meaning of the difference between these two types of objects, however,
it becomes clear that they do not differ from one another so clearly in reality
as in language, and possibly there is no actual difference whatsoever. Water,
milk, and meat are found in nature only in the form of large or small bodies of
definite shape. The difference between the two groups of nouns is thrust upon us
by language and often proves so inconvenient that we must use constructions such
as ''piece of meat'' or ''glass of water,'' although the word ''piece'' does not
indicate any definite shape and the word ''glass,'' although it assumes a certain
shape, introduces nothing but confusion because when we say ''glass of water'' we
have in mind only a quantity of water, not its shape in the container. Our
language would not lose any expressive force if the word "meat" meant a piece of
meat and the word ''water'' meant a certain amount of water.
This is exactly the case in the Hopi language. In their language all nouns denote
objects and have singular and plural forms. The nouns we translate as nouns of
the second group (substances) do not refer to bodies which have no shape and
size, but rather to one where these characteristics are not indicated, where they
are ignored in the process of abstraction just as the concept of ''stone'' does
not indicate shape and the concept of ''sphere'' does not indicate size.
Therefore the concept of substance as something which has material existence and
at the same time cannot in principle have any shape could obviously not occur
among the Hopi or be understood by a person speaking only the Hopi language. In
European culture the concept of substance emerges as a generalization of the
concepts which express nouns of the second group while the generalization of
concepts which express nouns of the first group leads to the concept of the
object. For the Hopi, in whose language there is no division of nouns into two
groups, only one generalization is possible and it leads, of course, to the
concept of object (or body), for it is possible to abstract from the shape of an
observed material object but it cannot be said that it does not exist. The
intellectual division of everything existing into a certain nonmaterial form
(shape) and a material, but non-form content (substance), which is so typical of
traditional European philosophy, will probably seem to the Hopi to be an
unnecessary invention. And he will be right! (This is not Whorf's remark, but
mine.) The concept of substance, which played such an important part in the
arguments among the Medieval Scholastics, has completely disappeared in modern
science.
THE OBJECTIVIZATION OF TIME
WE WILL NOW take up one more interesting difference between the Hopi language and
the Average European Standard. In the European languages the plural forms and
cardinal numbers are used in two cases: (1) when they signify an aggregate of
objects which form a real group in space and (2) to classify events in time, when
the cardinal number does not correspond to any real aggregate. We say ten men"
and ''ten days.'' We can picture ten men as a real group, for example ten men on
a street corner. But we cannot picture ten days as the aggregate of a group. If
it is a group, then it is imagined and consists not of ''days,'' for a day is not
an object, but of some objects which are arbitrarily linked to days, for example
pages of a calendar or segments in a drawing. In this way we convey a time
sequence and a spatial aggregate with the same linguistic apparatus, and it seems
to us that this similarity is in the nature of things. In reality this is not
true at all. The relations to be "later'' and ''to be located near" do not have
anything in common subjectively. The resemblance between a time sequence and a
spatial aggregate is not given to us in perception, but rather in language. This
is confirmed by the existence of languages in which there is no such resemblance.
In the Hopi language the plural forms and cardinal numbers are used only to
designate objects which may form real groups. The expression ''ten days'' is not
used. Instead of saying '"They stayed ten days," the Hopi will say ''They left
after the tenth day". One cannot say ''Ten days is more than nine days,'' one
must say "The tenth day is after the ninth.''
Whorf calls the European representation of time objectiviced because it mentally
converts the subjective perception of time as something ''which becomes later and
later'' into some kind of objectively (or, it would be better to say,
objectively) given objects located in external space. This representation is
dictated by our linguistic system, which uses the same numbers both to express
temporal relations and to measure spatial quantities and designate spatial
relations. This is objectivization. Such terms as ''summer.'' "September,''
morning," and "sunset'' are nouns in our languages just as the words which
designate real objects are. We say "at sunset'' just as we say "at a corner,''
"in September", just as we say ''in London.''
In the Hopi language all time terms such as summer, morning, and the like are not
nouns, they are special adverbial forms (to us, the terminology of the Average
European Standard). They are a special part of speech which is distinguished from
nouns, verbs, an even from other adverbs. They are not used as subjects, objects,
for any other noun function. Of course they have to be translated ''in the
summer,'' ''in the morning,'' and so on, but they are not derivatives of any
nouns. There is no objectivization of time whatsoever.
In European culture the very concept of ''time'' is a result of the
objectivization of the relation of ''earlier-later'' combined with our notion of
substance. In our imagination we create nonexistent objects such as year,''
''day,'' and ''second,'' and we call the substance of which they consist "time.''
We say ''a little time'' and ''a lot of time" and we ask someone to give us an
hour of time as if we were asking for a quart of milk. The Hopi have no basis for
a term with this meaning.
The tripartite (past, present, future) verbal system of the Average European
Standard directly reflects the objectivization of time. Time is represented as an
infinite straight line along which a point is moving (usually from left to
right). This point is the present, while to its left is the past and to the right
is the future. In the Hopi language, as one might assume, things are different.
Their verbs do not have tenses as the European verbs do. Verb forms reflect the
source of information and its nature. And this corresponds more closely to
reality than the three-tense system. After all, when we say "we shall go to the
movies tomorrow,'' this does not reflect what will actually occur but only our
intention to go to the movies, an intention that exists now and may change at any
minute. The same thing applies to past time.
LINGUISTIC RELATIVITY
ALL THAT HAS BEEN said in no way leads to the conclusion that the objectivization
of time is a bad thing, that we ought to renounce it and change to a Hopi-type
language. On the contrary, the most important traits of European culture which
have secured such an outstanding place for it--its historical sense (interest in
the past, dating, chronicles) and the development of the exact sciences--are
linked to the objectivization of time. Science in the only form we yet know it
could not have existed without the objectivization of time. The correlation of
temporal to spatial relations and the following step, the measurement of time,
amounted to the construction of a definite model of sensory experience. It may be
that this was the first model created at the level of language. Like any model,
it contains an element of arbitrary and willful treatment of reality, but this
does not mean that it must be discarded. It must, however, be improved. To
improve it, we must conceive of it as a model, not as the primary given. In this
respect linguistic analysis is extremely useful because it teaches us to
distinguish the relative from the absolute; it teaches us to see the relative and
conditional in what at first glance seems absolute and unconditional. Thus, Whorf
calls his conception the conception of linguistic relativity.
There is a curious similarity here with the physical theory of relativity.
Objectivized time is the foundation of classical Newtonian mechanics. Because the
imagined space into which we project time is in no way linked to real space, we
picture time as something that "flows'' evenly at all points in real space.
Einstein dared to reconsider this notion and showed that it is not upheld in
experimental data and that it should be rejected. But as we know very well, this
rejection does not come without difficulty, because, as Whorf writes: "The
offhand answer, laying the blame upon intuition for our slowness in discovering
mysteries of the cosmos, such as relativity, is the wrong one. The right answer
is: Newtonian space, time, and matter are no intuitions. They are recepts from
culture and language. That is where Newton got them.''[24][5] Once again here we
should temper the statements of the enthusiastic linguist. Newtonian concepts, of
course, rely directly on our intuition. But this intuition itself is not a pure
reflection of primary sensory experience, of the ''kaleidoscopic flux of
impressions''; rather it is a product of the organization of this experience, and
language and culture really do play a considerable part in this organization.
THE METASYSTEM TRANSITION IN LANGUAGE
LANGUAGE EMERGES when the phenomena of reality are encoded in linguistic objects.
But after its origin language itself becomes a phenomenon of reality. Linguistic
objects become very important elements of social activity and are included in
human life like tools and household accessories. And just as the human being
creates new tools for the manufacture and refinement of other tools so he creates
new linguistic objects to describe the reality which already contains linguistic
objects. A metasystem transition within the system of language occurs. Because
the new linguistic objects are in their turn elements of reality and may become
objects of encoding, the metasytem transition may be repeated an unlimited number
of times. Like other cybernetic systems we have considered in this book,
language, is a part of the developing universe and is developing itself. And like
other systems, language--and together with it thinking--is undergoing qualitative
changes through metasystem transitions of varying scale, that is to say,
transitions which encompass more or less important subsystems of the language
system.
With all the physical-chemical differences that exist between the linguistic
system and the neuronal system it is easy to see that, functionally, metasystem
transitions in language are a natural continuation of the metasystem transitions
in the neuronal structures, serving to create more highly refined models of
reality. To clarify this thought let us look again at the diagram in figure 7.4,
this time viewing it as a diagram of a device for processing information coming
from an illuminated screen and, consequently, as a partial (and crude) model of
the organization of the brain. In the diagram we see classifiers which correspond
to the concepts of ''spot,'' ''contour,'' "inside,'' and "enter into.'' These
concepts stand at different levels of the hierarchy and the number of levels is
in principle unlimited. But let us ask: how is it possible that there could be a
metasystem transition of such large scale that it would be represented not by
adding a new level to figure 7.4 but as a departure from the plane of the drawing
in general, as the creation of a new plane'?
If we compare our artificial system to real biological systems it corresponds to
a nerve net with a rigidly fixed hierarchy of concepts This is the stage of the
complex reflex. To reach a new plane would signify the transition to the stage of
associating, when the system of connections among classifiers becomes controlled.
The concepts involved in figure 7.4 are taken from language. In addition, there
are in language concepts that ''go outside the plane'' of the diagram. Regarding
the concept ''inside'' we can say that it is an example of a spatial relation
among objects. Other examples of spatial relations are the concepts ''touches,''
''intersects,'' and ''between" Classifiers to recognize these concepts could be
added to the diagram But how about the very concept ''spatial relation"? It is
the sought-for metaconcept in relation to the concepts ''inside,'' ''between, and
so on; its relation to them is that of name to meaning. If we were able to think
of a way to embody the concept of "spatial relation in the form of some kind of
device that supplements the device in figure 7.4, it would plainly have to form a
metasystem in relation to such classifiers as "inside,'' ''between,'' and others.
The task it would be able to perform would be modifying the structure of work of
these classifiers or creating new ones that recognize some new spatial relation.
But is not the very purpose of the appearance of the concept of ''spatial
relation'' in language itself to achieve a better understanding of how the
linguistic system works--to modify it and create new concepts? Most certainly it
is. The metasystem transition in the development of language performs the same
role as it does in the development of neuronal structures.
THE CONCEPT-CONSTRUCT
CONCEPTS SUCH AS that of "spatial relation'' rely on reality indirectly, through
the mediation of intermediate linguistic structures. They become possible as a
result of a certain linguistic construction, and therefore we shall call them
constructs. Statements containing constructs demand a certain linguistic activity
to establish their truth or falsehood. Concept-constructs do not exist outside
the linguistic system. For example, the concept of ''spatial relation'' cannot
arise where there are no words "inside,'' "between,'' and so on, although the
corresponding neuronal concepts may have existed for a long time.
We can now make a survey of the levels of language viewed as a control hierarchy.
We shall take the signals of animals for the zero level of language. The
appearance of the standard actions of affirmation and negation, logical
connectives, and predicates is, as we have already said, a metasystem transition.
They create the first level of language. The next metasystem transition forms the
second level of language, whose concepts are constructs. Among the concepts are
grammar and logic. At the first level, grammar and logic are the highest control
systems that create language but are not themselves subject to control; however,
at the second level they become objects of study and control (artificial
construction). The second level of language may be called the level of
constructs, and also the level of selfdescription.
The level of development of language determines the relation between the
linguistic and the neuronal systems. At the zero level. Language transmits only
elementary control information: at the first level it acquires the ability to fix
and transmit certain models of reality, but only those models which already exist
at the neuronal level. First-level language may be represented as a copy or
photograph of neuronal models (taking into account the inverse of language as
corrective). Finally, at the level of constructs language becomes able to fix
models of reality which could not (bearing in mind the given biological species
of the human being) occur at the neuronal level. Such models are called theories.
We have cited numbers and operations with them as the simplest and most graphic
example of models that do not exist at the neuronal level and are created at the
language level. Arithmetic was one of the first theories created by the human
race. It is easy to see that numbers, or more precisely large numbers, are
constructs. Neuronal concepts correspond to the numbers two and three; we
distinguish two objects from three and from one at the first glance. But the
number 137 is a construct; it has meaning only to the extent that the number 136
has meaning, which in its turn relies on the number 135 and so on. Here there is
a metasystem transition, the emergence of the process of counting which generates
concrete numbers. Within the framework of the metasystem of counting, a hierarchy
by complexity arises: the natural series of numbers. The appearance of the
concept of ''number'' marks a new metasystem transition which assumes that
counting has become an established part of everyday life. An abstract concept of
''number'' is not required for counting: it only becomes necessary when people
begin to think about counting. The concept of the number is a construct of a
higher level than concrete numbers. The concepts of arithmetic operations are
located at the same level.
On the second level of language we have consolidated all the concepts which do
not rely directly on neuronal concepts but rather require auxiliary linguistic
constructions. With such a definition the second level is the last one formally,
but it contains a control hierarchy that forms through metasystem transitions and
may in principle be as high as one likes. We have seen this in the example of
concrete numbers and the concept of ''number.'' Metasystem transitions can differ
in scale and occur in relation to different subsystems of language. Therefore,
second-level language has a complex structure which can be figuratively pictured
not in the form of even layers lying one upon the other but in the form of a
building or complex of buildings with vertical and horizontal structure.
Different control hierarchies and hierarchies of complexity generated by the
subsystems become interwoven and form a multifaceted architectural complex.
Second-level language is the language of philosophy and science. First-level
language is ordinarily called ''everyday'' or "conversational'' language.
THE THINKING OF HUMANS AND ANIMALS
IT IS SOMETIMES SAID that the human being can think in abstract concepts, whereas
abstract concepts are inaccessible to the animal, who can attain only a few
concrete concepts. If the term ''abstract'' is understood (as is the case here)
to mean devoid of nonessential characteristics, this assertion will not withstand
even the slightest criticism. We have seen that the crucial distinguishing
feature in human thinking is the presence of control of associations, which
manifests itself above all as a capability for imagination. As for a difference
in the concepts, in any case it cannot be reduced to an opposition between
abstract and concrete. Every concept is abstract. The concept of cat is abstract
for the dog because, for example, it contains an abstraction from the coloring of
the cat (a nonessential characteristic). If we measure mental capabilities by the
degree of abstraction of concepts the frog will prove to be one of the most
intelligent animals, for it thinks with just two concepts, albeit extremely
abstract ones: "something small and rapidly moving" and ''something large, dark,
and not moving very rapidly.'' As you see, our language does not even have
special terms for these concepts.
The truly profound difference between the conceptual apparatus of higher animals
and that of human beings is that animals cannot attain concept-constructs; these
concepts assume a capability for linguistic activity. It is not abstract concepts
which distinguish human thinking; it is concept-constructs. In partial
justification of the statement above, we should note that the expression
"abstract concept" is commonly used to refer to precisely what we call the
concept construct, and people talk about the degree of abstraction where they
should actually speak of the ''construct quality" [''konstruktnost''--the degree
to which constructs are used--trans.]. It is true that the concept of number is
formed by abstraction starting from concrete numbers and that the concept of the
spatial relation begins from concrete relations; but the distinctive feature here
is not actual process of abstraction (which, as we have seen, appeared in the
very early stages of the cybernetic period of life), rather it is the fact that
in the process of abstraction linguistic objects play the most essential part.
The principal thing here is construction not abstraction. Abstraction without
construction simply leads to loss of meaning, to concepts such as ''something''
and "some".
_________________________________________________________________________________
[25][1] Quoted from Novoe v lingvistike (New Developments in Linguistics). No 1.
Moscow, 1960. [Original Whorf article in Language, Culture, and Personality,
Menasha. Wisconsin, 19 41, pp 75-93.
[26][2] I have taken the quotes by Whorf from the above-mentioned Soviet
publication.
[27][3] [Original article, ''Science and Linguistics,'' in The Technology Review
42 no 6 (April 1940), Massachusetts Institute of Technology.]
[28][4] "Science and Linguistics".
[29][5] [Original article, ''The Relation of Habitual Thought and Behavior to
Language," published in Language, Culture and Personality (Menasha, Wisconsin:
Sapir Memorial Publication Fund 1941), pp. 75-93.]
____________________________________________________________________________
References
1. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/default.html
2. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/turchin.html
3. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#Heading2
4. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#Heading3
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19. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/turchap3.html#IMG.FIG3.8.GIF
20. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fn0
21. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fn1
22. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fn2
23. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fn3
24. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fn4
25. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fnB0
26. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fnB1
27. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fnB2
28. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fnB3
29. http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/POS/Turchap7.html#fnB4
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