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Robbie
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Posted 07/07/05 - 05:32 AM: Subject: Language	#1
After a bit of thinking, I've begun to wonder if using lanuage as a communication device is a help or a hinderance for human beings. Human beings as individuals are a collection of cells, which commmunicate internally via electronic impulses and chemical signals (if I'm not mistaken). Human beings in social groups are a collection of collections of cells, which have to communicate via subtle body movement, facial expressions and vocal noises. It would seem these methods of communication are flawed and lose clarity and accuracy from being to being. Philosophy seems to be made up of quite a lot of being pinickity (sp?) about the definitions of words and many "difficulties" encountered by the human race occur due to difficult communication or unclear communication. If a group of beings had telepathic, electronic or chemical communication, would the progress and development be quicker or more advanced than our own?

Timothy
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 07/07/05 - 10:01 PM:	#2
kind of pseudophilosophy if you ask me. But yes. Language (written, spoken, body) is flawed given the ambiguity of lots of words. This is a problem that Philosophy and Science have to deal with. However, to discuss wether telepathic, chemical or electronic communication is better seems to me kind of stupid. The only way we could know is by doing so. I don't think that any couple of human beings are qualified to do so. And even if there were, ambiguity isn't something that lies only in the words. Thoughts are also ambiguos as to what they refer.
"Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic." P.F. Strawson

Robbie
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Posted 07/07/05 - 11:57 PM:	#3
I thought it might be possible to compare human communication with that of cells, because I know i've certainly misheard someone and ended up doing somethingwrong , but I can't think of a time when I've intended to move my left arm and my right arm has moved instead. But yeah, it's a pretty pointless conversation, sorry.

arreno2
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Posted 07/23/05 - 08:51 PM:	#4
If a group of beings had telepathic, electronic or chemical communication, would the progress and development be quicker or more advanced than our own? ---------------------- Human communication (language) is largely encumbered by excessive amounts of personal pronouns, adjectives, adverbs, & proper nouns. Telepathic or means other than oral, could be a quicker, progressive development. Most unlikely to happen unless influenced from without. or not.
Ya don't need a pyramid to exit.

Dana Ingram
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Posted 07/26/05 - 12:51 AM:	#5
"If a group of beings had telepathic, electronic or chemical communication, would the progress and development be quicker or more advanced than our own?" This would depend on the nature of the communication. If the alternative form of communication transmitted ideas as language does, with independent signals having different meanings, meanings that have changed over time, as language has done, then meanings could be confused, and thus the alternative form of communication would have the same problems as our current forms of communication. However, if the alternative form of communication was able to transmit whole concepts as a single pulse, where meaning is definite and somehow lacking the confusion of our methods, then it seems that the transition of ideas would be more efficient, thus progress would be more agreeable to these hypothetical beings.

puurge
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Posted 08/08/05 - 03:47 AM: Subject: clarity	#6
I don't think your question is stupid at all, nor is it irrelevant to philosophy. Actually, i would say that language and philosophy have a similar goal: clarity. But a clarity of what and with what would be interessing to entertain. The activity of philosophy uses language in order to have a clear relation to the world. When some clarity is acquired, some people may have a desire to share it with others. Now, assuming that the person being told this clarity can relate to the language being used in the transmition of this clarity, to a adequate extent, the transfer would happen quite gracefully indeed. But when consindering the fact that the understanding of language is not equaly shared, the quality of clarity is lost in whatever divergence exist between the understanding of the medium of language. Philosophy tends to feverishly remedy this problem of divergence in hopes to find or create a greater quality of clarity, in end i think, in order to live with clarity. After all, clarity is quite inspiring. Now this is all considering that the clarity is actual and true. Say when considering science, clarity is usually very easily transmitted because the common source for clarity is a direct and common reference to reality itself. However, despite this fact that clarity of reference is of a high quality, the reason as for ultimately why it is such is not as clear. But philosophy can learn valuable lesson from science, that a reference to reality is primordial, including when communicating philosophical issues. When i say reference to reality during philosophical communication, this would include all types of human communion. But perhaps, as the op mentioned, there is an improved way for communication to occur between people outside/behind/with language. Communication (as a com-union) can be done on different levels as you proposed, on simplified levels, such as body movements, chemical interaction (relate sensitivity), and telepathy; music could also be considered. Any method of reference could be used as a sign(al) to communicate. So while considering these different levels, they could be complimentary to language as long as they are used with abstract, instead of an outright substitution. Now that would be an art. Unfortunately, maybe you have pointed out a very deep predicament that civilization in general has substituted more natural and fundamental modes of cummnication for a less natural method, that of abstract language, which in itself has no reality except for the one that can be related to in reality itself. Tis unfortunate because it is reality that is the true medium for communication. No need to play violins in the background to emphasize this tragic problem, but it could help ;-)

notquitethere
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Posted 09/02/05 - 02:39 AM:	#7
I don't think that ambiguities and innaccuracies in language present such a problem. Many jokes rest on flaws in the language and many poetic lines hinge on an ambiguous term. If we were capable of being more clear and consise all the time, a certain level of creativity would be lost. It would no longer be an effort to carefully compose ones thoughts into artificial constructs to express them. Without a barrier of language these thoughts would become plain and common place. Perhaps greater human understanding may follow, but without creative use of language, life would be a lot less worth living.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." - The Duchess

notquitethere
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Posted 09/02/05 - 02:45 AM:	#8
See! There I used language creatively to create an argument whcih if conveyed directly would look something like this: "I think language flaws are good" But by using expressive terms and knowing that a little alliteration goes a long way, I was able to make my point much more eloquently, and I gave myself a purpose which I had to work at for all of five minutes. So I would say that human language is a help to mankind in ways other that merely communicating messages.
"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than what it might appear to others that what you were or might have been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared to them to be otherwise." - The Duchess

Timothy
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Posted 09/02/05 - 08:17 AM:	#9
But taking into account that Robbie seemed to be adressing "progress" and "development", the point is about a part of the use of language (technical) , not about language in general. I wasn't thinking in art when Robbie posted the subject, mainly because I don't think that there is progress in art (in the sense of progress in physics, for example, where something is less important than the former. Take into account the step from Newton to Einstein). Hence not adressing creativity.
"Neither Aristotelian nor Russellian rules give the exact logic of any expression of ordinary language; for ordinary language has no exact logic." P.F. Strawson

ghaleon
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Posted 09/02/05 - 08:00 PM:	#10
To me the key difference between the way humans communicate now and the chemical or electrical modes of communication Robbie alluded to is that verbal communication must be LEARNED. I think that's the root of the problem with verbal language, the fact that realistically no two people can learn a language under the same set of circumstances and thus that unclear communication is bound to occur. Nonetheless, I think learned verbal communication is still superior to the other kinds Robbie mentioned, for the simple reason that in those modes of communication, definitions would have to be environmentally unchangeable; that is they'd have to be independent of the environment (otherwise, an element of "learning" would exist in the language). There'd be no room for definition or concept change, even if the environment changed. A specific set of communicable "phrases" in (say) an electrical "language" might communicate how the environment exists at a certain point in time, but they would cast the world in only a certain light and prevent exploration of the environment in other terms. Progress as such, it seems to me, would be impossible. Sure, everyone would know exactly what everyone else is trying to communicate at all times, but such a language makes humanity (or the group of beings in question) a "closed system," in essence. Unique observations of the environment simply couldn't be processed by individuals without introducing an element of ambiguity in the language. Mental independence would be impossible, etc. etc. This could be reconciled of course if the group of beings somehow acted in conjuction like a single learning and observing "body," much like our cells share information to create a learning, growing whole. The individual is eliminated, a sacrifice to the whole, but the whole in and of itself is pretty damn intelligent, especially compared to the "intelligence" of its component cells. Should such a "superbody" be our goal as human beings? That's kind of off topic, so I'll stop here.
"One swallows the lie that flatters, but sips the bitter truth drop by drop." --Diderot

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