General

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Zerubbabel — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 17:49:44 GMT

AJ,

I can't disallow that you might be able to think abstractly sans language but I would be curious if you might be able to confirm it as a surety over a mere belief. I've tried many times, sitting in sensory deprivation I try to think about some abstract idea and chase the demon words out of my head, always in total failure. Then in a rest period I can conjure up the images of a complex mechanism or the construction of a house, and all very relaxed and peaceful, kind of natural, with no words involved.

(It may be like multi-tasking. There is no way that I can do it and so am naturally skeptical about the claims that a few of my friends (all women) have made. Yet clinical testing that has been done shows no gender bias and that generally the ability gets better with practice. But do people actually think about two unrelated things simultaneously or do they merely alternate their attention? I see it as analogous to predators having their eyes on the front of their head focusing intently only on the hunt vs the prey with the eyes on the side of its head looking in many directions at once. But that's a tangent)

"We interpret every utterance into some form of non-verbal mental experience,* and insofar as we have not yet converted it to non-verbal mental experience, we have not yet actually interpreted it."

"non-verbal mental experience" I would interpret as sensory experience of the real world (even as an after-glow), something that all creatures experience. Abstract mental experiences are "pulled away" from the real, sensual, experiential world. Based on that caveat I absolutely agree that "We interpret every utterance into some form of non-verbal mental experience." All of language, and abstract ideas, are understood by analogy to the sensual, or experiential, world. The sensual world is the common-ground for all creatures. All language is metaphor, and by lucky coincidence these metaphors are intrinsic in the words themselves, i.e. the etymological roots.

And the coincidence increases as it was about 50,000 years ago that archaeologist find the first evidence of abstract thinking and the proliferation of languages. It was, some might argue, the birth of humanness over and above the mere beast. The two are inseparable; language (vocabulary and syntax) is an abstraction (something pulled away from the sensory experience of the real world) and abstract thinking requires language. The chronological order is that the neologism was birthed upon a metaphor in an attempt to understand something abstract, i.e. something that can not be directly described by sensory experience of the real world. It seems that you would take the word as an existential fact of unknown origin that requires a hearer constructed analogy to a sensory experience of the real world in order to give it meaning.

That most people forget the original metaphors and create their own idioms (lost convention) is the cause of misunderstanding that the OP, Jargon, laments. Yet his observation that individuals would think more clearly about abstract ideas when they refrain from putting them into words is absolutely wrong. Seeking to clearly define abstract thoughts in precise language, as you have done here, is the foundation of understanding. And dialog fleshes out the precise understandings, debate is the crucible where truth is formed. Einstein once said that if you can't explain it to the barmaid then you probably don't understand it yourself.

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Clayton — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:55:32 GMT

Addendum: I realize that digital logic may not be suitable in its raw form for your purposes, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents in case it might stir up some ideas in your head. I find that a digital logic circuit is pretty damn straightforward to read with only minimal practice required and very large, complex logical relationships that would require several pages of plaintext to explain can be compressed down to one sheet of digital logic. In particular, I can't imagine how you intend to capture the meaning of something like "If X then Y" - a very fundamental component of language - without some kind of abstraction. Digital logic diagrams are an amazing abstraction for representing conditional relationships and logical manipulations of true/false values.

Clayton -

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Clayton — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 07:49:22 GMT

OK, consider the diagram below:

Basically, this encodes the statement "For any X: If X is Red and Square, I like it, otherwise, I don't like it." I am intentionally glossing over some technical details.

The primary problem here is what you will allow to "travel" over the wires. In digital logic, only a "false" or "true" value is permitted to be on any given wire. But with some creativity, I can imagine a person extending this to allow any object of the language to travel down a wire.

In Boolean logic, the AND gate (the curved box) acts like the conjunction operator in formal logic - its output is "true" only if BOTH its inputs are "true". But as you know, the conjunction operator is formally equivalent to the set intersection operator - hence, you could use the AND gate to visually represent set-intesection rather than logical conjunction. The OR gate could represent set-union and the NOT gate could represent set subtraction (complement).

The advantage over Euler diagrams is that you can represent very complex set relationships without all the excess unused overlap regions.

Or, you could combine your Euler diagram approach with some kind of "reduction symbol" that reduces a set to a truth value. For example, imagine the intersection of the set of red things and the set of square things. Now, imagine a "reduction symbol" that only outputs "true" if it gets a "red and square" object on its input, otherwise, it outputs "false". This true/false signal can then be used in ordinary true/false logic shown above.

I like your idea. By the way, you got me searching the 'Net and I stumbled on this thing called Blissymbols, have you looked into those? Really fascinating system (though slightly aesthetically unappealing, IMO).

Clayton -

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

AJ — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:54:52 GMT

Clayton, thanks for that explanation. That clears it up quite a bit.

Clayton:
Any Boolean logic equation can be directly converted to a digital logic circuit.

What's interesting to me in this is that it seems to be a path-based system. I am currently working with a diagrammatic language/system where it looks like the verbs may be path-based, whereas the nouns and advjectives are based on Euler diagrams. It is proving to be a bit of a challenge to link them into a structure than maintains the so-called "free ride" wherein all logical deductions can simply be read off a diagram of the premises, even by a child (Euler diagrams are 100% "free ride," but augmenting them to cover more types of expressions without messing up the free ride is the challenge).

I guess the free ride for circuit logic is that if you build the circuit physically, all the "logical deductions" will come out automatically when it runs. In other words, the computer gets a free ride; the computer automatically "understands" all the logical implications inherent in the circuit(?). What we are trying to do is create a system where the human gets a free ride, where the usual physical understanding he uses to simply navigate the physical world automatically allow him to see the all the logical implications inherent in a statement, without any kind of mental manipulation.

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

AJ — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 06:35:01 GMT

Zerubbabel:

The thinking process has been described by some as an "inner dialog." I can't speak for all humanity, but for me that is the form that my thinking takes when I think about an abstract idea. When I think about a material thing the form it takes is images, a sort of virtual reality. I can tacitly think about the virtual reality image of a cat under the bed, but to make the analogous connection between the image of a cat under the bed and the abstract idea of subjectivism I inevitably fall back upon words.

Can you think about subjectivism without the "inner dialog"?

I believe so, but I'm also familiar with the "inevitabl[e] fall[ing] back upon words."

Perhaps the best way to phrase what I'm trying to say is that we interpret every utterance into some form of non-verbal mental experience,* and insofar as we have not yet converted it to non-verbal mental experience, we have not yet actually interpreted it.

There are indeed many terms and utterances that people do not interpret fully into non-verbal mental experience, or rather the non-verbal mental experience they convert the words to is something quite odd or un-useful, or at least unfaithful to what the speaker had intended to convey. For example, someone may interpret "It's all subjective" as exactly the same non-verbal mental experience as "It doesn't matter what anyone thinks." The reason people do not typically do so may be simply because it is hard to do so (and/or the mental experience is hard to explain),** the usage of the term is frequently vague or variable in different cases, or because the speaker does not really even intend for them to interpret the word but just wants to elicit a certain emotional response that is not very related to the actual meaning of the word.

*Thoughts about words themselves are of course excepted

**This is probably the biggest factor making us want to call such terms "abstract"

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Clayton — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 21:37:18 GMT

It might be. I've always been curious what connection circuit logic has to propositional logic, if any. Are those triangles and arrowheads in some way akin to grammatical function words?

Absolutely.

You may already know some of this but it's fun to explain so I'll just give you a brief synopsis of digital logic. Basically, every line in the diagram is a "wire" and a wire has some associated voltage - in old TTL logic, 0 Volts corresponded to "logical false" (or binary 0) and 5 Volts corresponded to "logical true" (or binary 1).

The triangle with a circle is the "NOT gate" or "inverter" and simply reverses the logical sense of its input. So, if there is 0 Volts on its input, there will be 5 Volts on its output and vice-versa. This page has some cute little animations that will help you understand the other gates (AND and OR). With AND, OR and NOT, you have a "universal set" of gates with which you can build any other logic function. However, there are other important gates you should take a look at.

The "mux" or "multiplexer" is a logic device that performs a "select" function on its inputs. A 2:1 MUX will have two inputs, one select line and an output. If the select line is 0, one input is selected but if the select line is 1, the other input is selected. You can "simulate" any logic gate with a MUX, so I built a little toy computer language on a clever 64-slice, 64:1 MUX.

Any Boolean logic equation can be directly converted to a digital logic circuit.

Clayton -

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Zerubbabel — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:50:05 GMT

As I understand it the thread is about the understanding of words and the emotion laden connotative baggage that gets attached to them with use. "Subjective" is only an example word to be understood.

Can you think of the abstract idea (Mises' definition) embodied in the word subjectivism without using the language of an inner dialog?

My 2 points are:

Abstract thinking and language are inseparable. And: The meaning of words are best understood (emotion laden connotative baggage avoided) by looking at the etymon of the word which is usually a metaphor or analogy to a non-abstract material image. Subject = throw under

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

vive la insurrection — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:29:58 GMT

Why not just go by this?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_theory_of_value

or a more specified Misean definition.

I think when one comes to Mises.org they ought assume subjective means whatever Mises says unless specified otherwise, as it is a critical point. No reason to deconstruct or ponder of a meaning like that on this site.

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Zerubbabel — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 20:17:06 GMT

AJ,

"we need words to describe "subjectivism" to another person, but not to understand it ourselves."

The thinking process has been described by some as an "inner dialog." I can't speak for all humanity, but for me that is the form that my thinking takes when I think about an abstract idea. When I think about a material thing the form it takes is images, a sort of virtual reality. I can tacitly think about the virtual reality image of a cat under the bed, but to make the analogous connection between the image of a cat under the bed and the abstract idea of subjectivism I inevitably fall back upon words.

Can you think about subjectivism without the "inner dialog"?

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

AJ — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 19:03:40 GMT

Zerubbabel,

I'm not sure if you are agreeing or not. I agree we need words to describe "subjectivism" to another person, but not to understand it ourselves. Words like "justice" are further removed from direct sensory experience, but in every instance where we actually understand the word, we experience definite sensations, visual or otherwise. Insofar as it remains "abstract," it remains meaningless to us.

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

AJ — Mon, 02 Apr 2012 18:46:28 GMT

Clayton:

Might this sort of "circuit layout" be of use to you?

It might be. I've always been curious what connection circuit logic has to propositional logic, if any. Are those triangles and arrowheads in some way akin to grammatical function words?

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Zerubbabel — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 23:26:01 GMT

AJ,

Generalities are not necessarily abstractions but could merely be categories of observable (non-verbal) reality such as your things that are under things.

Abstractions are ideas pulled away from the observable reality and this requires language. I observe the reality of the cat under the bed but need words to think about subjectivism or about objectivism (in which case I would have to put the cat on top of the bed.)

"In every case, to actually use the words "things that are under other things," we have to imagine something."

Absolutely! That was my point. We understand all abstract ideas by analogy to observable reality. And at the same time we understand the meaning of all words by analogy to observable reality ... which one can find in the etymon. For instance, to understand Subject the etymon is to throw under, like the observable reality of the cat under the bed. But we need words to relate the abstraction embodied in the word Subjectivism, to the observable reality. We need words to describe the abstract idea of subjectivism; that we can not clearly see something because it is obscured by the thing it is under ... and the thing we may not see could be an unobservable ethic and the thing it might be under is an unobservable cultural conditioning. We understand that abstract though of subjectivism by analogy to a cat under the bed.

My point is that language is best understood by the analogies found in the etymon.

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

Clayton — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 21:38:21 GMT

@AJ: That's definitely interesting - I am a computer engineer so the first thing that comes to my mind is logic diagrams like this:

Might this sort of "circuit layout" be of use to you?

Clayton -

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

AJ — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:54:53 GMT

Zerubbabel:
I am not able to have an abstract thought without language. I have tried very hard and always fail. I can envision complex mechanisms or great scenes from nature, but never an abstract thought. Try the challenge.

In some ways people just define "abstract thought" as every piece of language out there that doesn't call up any definite picture. You can certainly notice or probably imagine a cat under a bed without words, and notice what that means for your situation without words. What is often called "abstract" is the generalization of the idea of "cats under beds," or "things that are under other things." But that is merely a larger set of pictures. Humans don't really generalize, but rather think of a blur of perhaps two or three examples. The words only give the illusion that we are generalizing. In every case, to actually use the words "things that are under other things," we have to imagine something.

Likewise, to actually understand something abstract like, "The state is responsible," we have to imagine something, visually or otherwise. Insofar as we do not experience any sensations (other than the sound of the words or the appearance of the text), can we really say we understood the sentence? Or that we have thought that thought?

Re: Words, Concepts and Mental Slavery

AJ — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:32:13 GMT

Clayton:
So, for any usable language, the problem is always going to be: what a priori semantic information does this language ignore and why?

This is a separate question from the matter of what form a language will take (visual, linear, etc.), and I think it handles itself unless you mean to build a language totally from scratch, alone. What information is ignored by the language is always going to be a function of the communicators' shared context. If one of us does not know the relative size of horses and barnyard gates, it is perhaps unlikely that we will make a picture of "The horse lept over the barnyard gate" and see essentially the same thing in our minds. To me, this question is one that will be answered by the practical considerations that arise as a language is cultivated, among individual people attempting to express and understand.

We have been building the language by simply using diagrams to communicate some of the things we would have said anyway, and seeing what sticks. There is a sort of constructed logical basis that is already basically finished, but everything on top of that is just through trial, error, and small insights that may come up each time we go to send a message that requires something new. We're using English words for the nouns, verbs, adjective, and adverbs, because we're first trying to build a visual "grammar" of conventions that involve orientation, enclosure, contact, and other easily apprehendable quasi-physical characteristics.

The only thing I'm aware of trying to do at this point is to communicate using 2D grammar as efficiently as possible. Basically just, "What would happen if humans had started out using nonlinear diagrams instead of strings of sounds?"