What's in a name?

[Rudolph Mondal]

Today, while on the bus I realized while looking at one of the passengers, that his facial expression seemed quite familiar to me, although I couldn't find a name for it.

This made me ask the question: What's in a name?

It appears to me that our conception of reality is highly structured by language. Without it, we could identify primitive patterns but we couldn't build on them. With language and names, we can build patterns upon patterns upon patterns into the rich and wonderful experience of reality we're fortunate to experience as beings capable of language.

This is highly interesting to me. What are the characteristics of symbols that allow them to be manipulated more easily than the pattern itself?

I think it's because the symbol is a simplification, a representation so it requires less memory to manipulate and store. Sort of like chunking. Sort of like how grandmasters see chess. Sort of like how anything we do becomes simple after a while.

Thoughts?

 

[Infinitatis]

I've often wondered how I would think without language as we all once did as infants. For nearly every thought that I have, I can hear the "voice" inside of my head reciting it to myself. I think that language is more than just a form of communication. Language is the instrument of reason and the medium for understanding. I often wonder if perhaps that is why I always have this "voice" in my head narrating every action and decision that I make, as I tend to address all matters with logic. Without language, we can conceptualize the world, but we cannot so easily analyze and interpet the world.

 

[Rudolph Mondal]

I've often wondered how I would think without language as we all once did as infants. For nearly every thought that I have, I can hear the "voice" inside of my head reciting it to myself. I think that language is more than just a form of communication. Language is the instrument of reason and the medium for understanding. I often wonder if perhaps that is why I always have this "voice" in my head narrating every action and decision that I make, as I tend to address all matters with logic. Without language, we can conceptualize the world, but we cannot so easily analyze and interpet the world.

I don't think we can fruitfully conceptualize the world without language either since without a representation system, the patterns become simply to big to manipulate and store within our heads.

Language was a necessary step given need for us to survive in multiple varying environments. Language probably evolved when humans started to explore and had to use a system to keep track of and reference everything.

 

[Aerl]

Symbols and images allowed to transfer primitive and simple knowledge.

With the development of language as we know it now, we can delve into the realm of phylosophical understanding.

Yet what I noticed is that "words" which we use while easy to manipulate, they are also in one way or another "symbols", so they limit the mind to a degree as well. A "regular" human would not consider using a chair as a table to eat upon. What I am implying is that words are a summary of our knowledge of an objects potencial usage.

"Language" is a means of understanding.

Another thing to note is: our drive for understanding is driven by primitive needs, desires and feelings.

Thats what I think.

 

[Rudolph Mondal]

Symbols and images allowed to transfer primitive and simple knowledge.

With the development of language as we know it now, we can delve into the realm of phylosophical understanding.

Yet what I noticed is that "words" which we use while easy to manipulate, they are also in one way or another "symbols", so they limit the mind to a degree as well. A "regular" human would not consider using a chair as a table to eat upon. What I am implying is that words are a summary of our knowledge of an objects potencial usage.

"Language" is a means of understanding.

Another thing to note is: our drive for understanding is driven by primitive needs, desires and feelings.

Thats what I think.

If by what you're saying you mean that language constrains us by means of habituating us to that which is normative, then I agree.

I think of language as necessary "program" to be learned by human beings which "elevates" the level of thought necessary to be able to adequately make sense of the world as it is presented when the child is very young.

Therefore, it habituates the user to that which is normative.

I think it's worthwhile to note that underlying spoken and written language there is a network of eidetic images. These eidetic images or symbols as you've called them are what first appear and then we translate it to a system of representation which allows for "low-bandwith" communication so to speak since the system of representation contain a compressed form of the images of symbols as representations in sound patterns which the other person then unpacks.

With language, we can simply do more.

What you term understanding, I would call commensuration and you're probably right that this need to commensurate with the world and other people is driven by primitive needs, desires, and feelings.

Do let me know where you think I might have gone wrong, thanks!