possibly no lot

typing becomes innate. driving a vehicle and the such, they also become innate. Maybe language is such. If language of thought dosn't exist then language is purley social existing only in the public realmSomething of an observation-one in which we can choose to participate . ---this would be reminiscent of the adage--man is a social animal.

That there are certain components of our species that develop only in the presence of others is quite probable, and it seems like it really is the case for many things. For example, division of labor becomes physically possible only in a social setting--do we claim than division of labor is innate?. Perhaps language---existing on a purly physical level should be considered in much the same way we consider the processes of learning how to ride a bike or assembling a bedframe or a computer or anything that has a structure.

What is direct access and can it be had. So if ther is no LOT how to structure our thoughts in a general way presents many conceptual problems. But it also dosn't mean that ther is no innateness to language. Reasoning: we have trouble separating our minds from the experience our minds have. When examining whether or not there is a language of thought, if we assume ther is a LOT then we have to assume that the observation goes through many steps before it can be regurgitated if ther is no LOT perhaps we could say that recogintion of an object dosn't need to be translated into a LOT from the observation and then back to a language. We perhaps want to stick with LOT because there are many languages, and they all do the same thing. So perhaps this LOT-uber language that exists beyond the spoken language needs to exist to homogonize recognition. But it may not need to exist if we can conceptualize some sort of direct acess to the object itself--if hte mind dosn't need the LOT , if we don't do an inter translation into a lot the language itself becomes the LOT---our only pitfalll at that point is---can we truly say our ability to think as dependent onour having learned a language. Perhaps this is too far ona pendulum swing. I suggest perhaps a more gradual process. with no learned language people still have the ability to express needs and desires so the thought exists but does the thought have to take a language form at all---I think that it doesn't.
Only with langage is our ability to express thoughts more nuanced---our desires can take form and our needs can be intricately expressed.
So back to direct access---the claim that we only see representations of objects in our minds may be valid but the fact that we associate a word, or place the object in a linguistic construct has no connection with the observation. We directly connect a word with the observation or the representation----so in a way our language has direct acess to the representation of the object---our visual representation of the object cannot claim this directness but since we are actually in the mind connecting the representation of the object with the word for the object---the language made from the representations is seem sto be more direct than even the observation. so It seems that if we look at language creation in this manner we have a direct access link---this eliminates the need to translate nouns into a lot----we are merly associating a lexicon with the object. If we however get into the subject of verbs, quantifiers, and other grammatical constructs we need to develop a better theory to avoud LOT--but for now little chunks. Perhaps we caould even see that somecomponents of language are part of a lot but that other components of the language are direct acess.
"the best vocabulary and flair for words can never put you directly in touch with that perception."----true. But perception is experience and can/should we expect language to be an equivalent to the experience? remember the Movie Total Recall---Society tends to frown on any medium that can mimic the experience itself----there is somethng in the truth of an experience actual--if language could do that, reading about a romance woud be as good as being in the romance itself. I don't think language is supposed to be perfect. We need to be able to emotionally discern an experience from the perception.


These were other threads that I wanted to elaborate on at some point that also touche on the idea of LOT.
Zen of passing thoughts through

good writing/good propoganda

butterflies

I'll preface this with a disclaimer - I can't say I completely stuck to the topic proposed, though I did circle around and through it a few times...

***

Your question brings to mind the concept of language of thought. It's a subject that's always bugged me. Do our thoughts have a structure that can be considered a language - something with a grammar and a lexicon? Are there orderly rules and a vocabulary to what's going on inside our heads? Sounds funny, but if not, what is there?

Suppose there is a language of thought. If so, either it's entirely innate or it's something that was imposed on us during our first few years of life. Or, a more appealing combination of the two - we are born with some sort of predisposition to a structured language of thought, and our experiences have the effect of configuring that language the way Chomsky believes we configure our spoken language via the setting of parameters. Note that I'll be using the term "spoken language" here to mean the language we use to communicate, whether we're speaking or writing, since spoken language is the predecessor to written language.

But what kind of parameters are there for thought? And how many different languages of thought might exist? Potentially as many as there are people. Here's why: A spoken language is a very practical tool with the specific purpose of communication between one human being and another (or a group of others). Thought doesn't have as clearly defined a goal. The only requirements for a language of thought would be (1) that the thinker himself understands it and (2) that the thinker can create a relationship between his thoughts and his spoken language that's reliable enough for successful communication with others. Within these criteria, there might be an infinite variety of ways of thinking. If our language of thought is structured by our experience of the world, each of us has a slightly (or wildly) different experience.

So, right now I'm talking about spoken language as a translation of thought - a mapping. This is where the loss of meaning between the thinker and the audience (the perceiver, the listener, the reader, etc.) comes in. If every time we communicate there are two translation steps being done (from thinker to spoken language, then from perceived words to perceiver's thoughts) there are two places meaning can be lost or skewed. With every passing-on of an idea, there's another chance for distortion, like a huge game of "telephone".

With this kind of scenario, one has to wonder how human beings can ever be sure they're being understood. Why isn't the whole of human communication on the level of me pointing to a flower and saying "flower", and one listener thinking I'm referring to the color, another thinking I'm referring to the species of flower, another thinking I'm complimenting the flower's beauty, etc.? Simply because we've had such a lot of time for trial and error to figure out what everyone's talking about. What we've got now is close enough to work most of the time. It works better between people who have spent their lives together, and doesn't work as well between strangers. When you meet someone and feel like the two of you are "speaking different languages", maybe you're just translating very differently.

I'd like to look harder at the loss of meaning we're talking about. If our words are an attempt at translation of our thought, what might be getting lost? A quality of depth, I think. My internal experience of a thing is as rich as the capacity of my senses, and as subjective as the influence of a lifetime of experience can make it. The best vocabulary and flair for words can never put you directly in touch with that perception.

My thoughts keep returning to the metaphor of butterfly collecting. Humans have a drive to capture a thing of beauty, examine it, preserve it. But what starts out as a gorgeous, delicate thing full of life becomes, when the goal is reached, something far less. The shape and color remain, but the energy and movement are gone. The urge to express our thoughts drives us to capture them, force them to be still, and pin them to a board. Something is lost. We still do it, because having an approximation of the true thing seems better than letting it fly away to be forgotten. For example, I have a memory of my grandmother, who collected butterflies. But how many words do I need to truly communicate the old house, the smell of her basement, the brittle, iridescent wings that seemed to glow in shades of blue and gold? And what about the feeling of knowing that right now all those carefully collected specimens are decaying, crumbling to dust, their colors faded to gray?

So how can a writer hope to get his point across? What techniques can we use to shrink the gap between the thinker and the audience? One way is to call on themes and archetypes that underlay civilized society and span cultural differences. Most people can understand and relate to birth, death, conflict, hope, fear, etc. Many words and images, like those employed by religion, superstition, horror movies, etc., speak directly to our instincts. I'm not saying all good writing has to be sensationalism, just that these are the things that are most likely to relate directly to something in the audience's mind.

I could say more, but I'll stop here for now. There are plenty of ideas that I'd like to explore further. If you like, you can take one and see where it goes, or pick something else entirely. Here are some: (1) Suppose there actually is no language of thought. Then what is the nature of our thoughts? (2) Can we have direct access to our own thoughts? (3) Is there any merit to the sort of Zen concept of letting thoughts (like butterflies) fly away free rather than capturing and dissecting them? (4) In the last paragraph I pretty much compare good writing to good propaganda. Any comments?

parts

From the last post I take the idea of the building block.

What we have are a myriad of blocks pulled from our selves, other blocks from our friends and aquaintances, blocks that we take from larger frames like our social and economic environment that are formed by the myriad of organizations and governments; and finally our physical environmantal limitations, (I.e. we need to breate air) make up the last blocks we have.

A little sidenote--this breakdown is also a buildingblock---a simple construction created to put form to an idea. The idea of building block is more malleable ( I will explain at some point in the future if it makes sense to or if I am able to expand, the idea is still growing).

But the idea that the self is really a cocollection of these building blocks, draped over yet another framework of building blocks(our body) helps us to look at our existence parsed and to define parts of ourselves at lease for the moment.

Enough of that.

Growing the buildng blocks idea is something I would like to do in the context of my life. But this is only an example. we could probably analyze any thing, idea, person, or structure with the building block idea.
The building block idea is a concept that can be used to create as well as deconstruct.

First---I have my body, a shell that is doing fairly well for the time being but is aging rapidly, (or I am just percieving it as aging more rapidly) it consists of hands, arms, legs, feet, a head , lats of sensory perceptors and some stuff in the middle that I need to watch out for but don't really use on a regular basis to accomplish anything outside of my body (Allow this shortness for it is not my main point).

Second-- I have my mind and my ideas, things that float around in my head sometimes they are written down and sometimes they are lost. Along with ideas are what I choose to call themes. I should explain a theme. It is an idea of a certain proportion, an idea linked to other ideas to create a larger picture. A theme in a sense is a larger structure created from building bocks-- ideas. Themes have strong associations in my mind and become things that I want to see accomplished. Themes I have are related to the creation of stories, the learning of a subject, the learning of an instrument. The things I choose to decicate my time to, those things have their beginnings as themes. Please not that this is an in retrospect perspective. the building blocks if my mind are things like the various moods I have, my energy level and the such.
third-- I have my life. What I am currently doing----running a business, fixing houses, trying to plan for a change and a constant attempt to fit it all in. hopng to relax, loooking for something more fulfilling.

ohh an idea----the idea it that when writing out a thought it may be more complete but that in the calm completion of it, during the transfer to words on a page, the idea is slowed down and morphs into something else that is only a distorded reflection of the origional idea. but here I guess i've done it again. The idea comes on and I Use a word like morph and I realize that in transmitting an idea we mold it to words that are expressable, and in the doing of it perhaps some of the idea is lost; perhaps only the curse of a poor vocabulary but perhaps the curse of the human condition, each human doomed to isolation from direct contact with one's own ideas. Perhaps we are ambling through life not knowing what we or others are thinking, only perceiving reflections of the mind dulled by the prisim (prison) of language. but perhaps we must also see the possibility that an idea may not even be able to take root without a medium.
And Yet in this bleak hopeessness I continue to write on hoping, pleading, enduring this dull reflection of existence in favor of blackness, the absence of any reflection at all. Yes this perhaps is why we all choose life over death. We choose to endure bleakness over nothing because after all something is better that nothing.

Ahh. That was a fun idea anyway.

back to building blocks.

Third-- we must account for what exists. Each thing that exists is a building block much in the same way our bodies are composed of blocks. we have an actual physical reality that must be counted ans parsed into little blocks.

Fourth---we must recoginze that we have the ideas of others that have built this world, and we must, to a certain extent, function within these ideas---our goverenment has been choosen, our monetary system has been chosen, and the like for many other such constructs like our language and our accepted rules of behavior. We may disagree with them but try to come up with one independently---it's no easy task. So why not consider it fortunate that we don't have to reinvent these things very frequently--I mean ours work pretty well. Could you imagine scrapping english because you decied that you invented a better language---perhaps it's possible but is it realistic? So we have certain building blocks we must endure---or more positivley use to create more complex things. this is what I meanwhen I say we have others ideas

More or less, I guess looking at thinks broken up like this creates some holes but likened to the ideas of simple machines, if we put put them together, we can create much more complex ideas and perhaps create a fuller life.

The idea would lik to develop next is the idea of lost meaning betrween the thinker and the perciever. There are many components to language and many components to ones mind. How do things get mis-interpreted or, how can we avoid being misunderstood? Especially from the perspective of a writer writing for an audience, when telling a story how can one be sure that the reader is actually reading it the way it is intended, or is that always the goal, I'm thinking of some poetry that was meant to be misunderstood by certain people and understood by others, and certain Novels that are rather cryptic. I bring this up because i tend to misenterpret frequently.
even better..use theidea of building blocks to analyze lost meaning.

Have fun.

what's this thing for?

Primate Screw and Bearing is a theoretical company, but it's also a concept. I'll let Aaron wax philosophical on it, mostly because I'm more interested in his description than mine. But briefly, what appeals to me is the idea of the tiny building blocks that make the world run - screws, bearings, etc. A screw is a simple machine (I love simple machines), an inclined plane wrapped around an axis. It does work for us. A bearing is a perfect sphere, to the extent that we can come close to perfection. Without these tiniest and simplest of parts most of our world would grind to a halt.

But by themselves they're not especially useful. To apply the concept of emergent properties, something amazing happens when you join these small parts together with other passive objects - something far beyond what the screw could do by itself, or what the slab of metal or wood could accomplish on its own. You get motion, utility, life, even beauty. Things happen.

I said I'd be brief, and it may be too late for that now, but this is the spirit with which I'd like to open this forum: it's a place to try out parts in combination with other parts - to test, combine, connect and play with ideas in combination with other ideas. We might build some strange machines, and it might be a whole lot of fun. Enjoy. :)