Vygotsky vs Reality: Evidence Supporting/Contradicting Claims on Mind

[apeiron]

Wow. I'm quite impressed, etc, etc. Did you ever talk to Chalmer in person?

Yes, of course. And I then had a several year dialogue with him about our contrasting views (although that was before I really got into the systems view of causality which deals with hard problem issues so much better).

 

[Pythagorean]

Do you really think that "we are dead in the water other wise" is a valid justification for inferring subjective consciousness? We might very well talk about it, only acknowledging it as an operational assumption for which we might possibly provide proper justification in the future. Isn't this an effective approach in any case?

The problem is not that the evidence is non-rigorous, but that the evidence is not evidence at all. What is it evidence for? We have already agreed that it is not testable. You don't infer that I am conscious, you assume it and it works well.

Look, I don't know if you didn't know what 'infer' meant and now you're saving face or what, but all of the comlpaints you're making are the exact reason the word 'infer' is used in cognitive sciences.

Yes, you're dead in the water because the whole point of invoking 'infer' is you can only rely on logic and behavioral observations. In other words, we might as well be talking about our religious practices if we're not using logic in this discussion. If you're not inferring, you're making things up on the spot. Why would you do that to us? Are you a troll? I don't think so, I think you were just mistaken.

Maybe this will help:

deduce: reason by deduction; establish by deduction

generalize: draw from specific cases for more general cases

deduce: conclude by reasoning; in logic

guess: guess correctly; solve by guessing; "He guessed the right number of beans in the jar and won the prize"

understand: believe to be the case; "I understand you have no previous experience?"

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=infer

 

[disregardthat]

Look, I don't know if you didn't know what 'infer' meant and now you're saving face or what, but all of the comlpaints you're making are the exact reason the word 'infer' is used in cognitive sciences.

Yes, you're dead in the water because the whole point of invoking 'infer' is you can only rely on logic and behavioral observations. In other words, we might as well be talking about our religious practices if we're not using logic in this discussion. If you're not inferring, you're making things up on the spot. Why would you do that to us? Are you a troll? I don't think so, I think you were just mistaken.

Maybe this will help:

What are you talking about? I meant infer as in deduce all along. In addition I pointed this out after you asked me the first time. Why do you keep referring to the dictionary, and why do you think I'm trying to save face? My point here seems to have been understood by CondradJ (and I agree with him, I think his post is insightful), so what makes you think I'm a troll? See, my point is that there is no method of verifying and testing whether a creature actually have subjective experience. So I believe we must admit that we are talking on the basis of an operational assumption that subjective experience (as opposed to the behavioral aspect of it) is caused by the physics of the brain, though I believe no direct causal link have been shown to exist.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

present tense

I was having trouble with my links, and I think the ones that were about human language and symbolism, rather than just animals, may not have worked. I’ll try to fix them. I was interested in the mention that symbolism occurred too rapidly.

I think I addressed some issues with tense in the last post, for example, it would seem chimps entering a period of quiet mourning with subdued behaviour shows an awareness of the past. http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/2009/10/chimpanzees_mourn_the_death_of.php Nonetheless, I’m happy to agree that human languages seem useful for forward planning.

 

[ConradDJ]

But whether or not it's really an illusion that we're cohesive, we make the illusion a sort of reality by believing it, embracing it, and practicing it.

Thank you, that’s exactly my point. Communication between humans is very obviously a reality... and it’s therefore too easy to it take for granted, without understanding what a unique and remarkable thing it is, the kind of connection we imagine into being between two subjective minds. I tried to discuss this awhile back https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=334249".

Just reiterating what I’d said in that thread, I don’t see evidence here that there is a uniquely human self-awareness and I don’t see evidence (that if there is), that it is caused by language.

I think this must reflect a prejudice about what “uniquely human self-awareness” means. And that’s the problem I have with discussions of “consciousness” – people seem to have very unclear notions about what “it” is, which leads them to ask whether other animals “have it” or not.

I don’t know how it could be more obvious that there is something unique about our species and that it’s connected with how we use language. But if you want to use “language” or “self-awareness” to describe what other animals do too, I have no issue with that.

What’s unique about life is not that it somehow “transcends” the laws of physics – it’s that it has evolved through a very long history that gradually made organisms utterly different from non-living things. It’s the same with human beings, in comparison with other primates. I don’t know why it surprises anyone to find precursors in other primates of almost anything we humans do. And I don’t understand this as an argument against human “uniqueness”.

The reliance upon this scaffolding also seems a bit circular- that this purported higher consciousness is defined by human language, which defines this purported higher consciousness, and so on. This could just render this higher consciousness meaningless aside from being human language. So it suffices to say humans have a human language and to leave it at that.

This is sensible – except for “leave it at that”. We should certainly drop the talk of “higher consciousness”, which means nothing specific – but we have a long way to go in appreciating what it means to “have a human language”.

I think examples of “human-like” primate behavior are very interesting and will play a significant role in understanding human evolution. But there’s an implicit “either/or” that makes no sense to me – either primates are like humans, or they’re not.

 

[ConradDJ]

One quick way is to say animals are stuck in the present tense, whereas through the structuring power of language, we have the other tenses of thought available to us. We have the past tense, the future tense, etc.

Animals can of course anticipate - but that is a present tense brain activity. In fact, the best theory of awareness, of how the brain is designed, is as an anticipatory machine. That is what brains are for (not to percieve, or to feel, but to evaluate the potential for action).

But still, naked animal awareness is locked into intelligent reactions about the moment. Yes, it could be current pangs of thirst that set off a long trek by an elephant to a long-remembered water hole. But that is still present tense driven.

Apeiron -- Thanks, I appreciate the background on Vygotsky, and the broad perspective you bring to this.

I'm sorry I have to get off to work and can't go further now, but I completely agree with you on the point above. What we humans have evolved through talking is a shared mental picture of reality that goes far, far beyond the "here and now" that comprises the world of other animals. If anything, we tend to get stuck living in that projected "real world," preoccupied with it, and often have a hard time getting back into real-time existence.

And we have a hard time realizing how different that is, i.e. the world of moment-to-moment experience. We've done a great job learning to talk about and conceptualize reality... not so, yet, with the world in present time.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I think this must reflect a prejudice about what “uniquely human self-awareness” means.

Why do you think my comment "must reflect a predjudice"?

I think what actually happens when we communicate is profoundly complex. It depends on the fact that each of us has our own internal, imaginary world we’ve been developing all our lives – our “conscious mind” – a world no one else will ever experience.

This is from the locked thread you started and linked to, thoughts and "facts" without evidence.

I don’t know how it could be more obvious that there is something unique about our speciesand that it’s connected with how we use language.

It could be more obvious if you provided evidence that language causes something unique about our species.

But if you want to use “language” or “self-awareness” to describe what other animals do too, I have no issue with that.

So, you have no issue with ascribing “uniquely human” qualities to animals. (!)

This is sensible – except for “leave it at that”. We should certainly drop the talk of “higher consciousness”, which means nothing specific – but we have a long way to go in appreciating what it means to “have a human language”.

I think examples of “human-like” primate behavior are very interesting and will play a significant role in understanding human evolution. But there’s an implicit “either/or” that makes no sense to me – either primates are like humans, or they’re not.

Yes, by saying “leave it at that”, I meant, as you agree, to drop the talk of “higher consciousness”. However you keep discussing, higher consciousness caused by language, or, something uniquely human connected to language.

 

[Pythagorean]

What are you talking about? I meant infer as in deduce all along. In addition I pointed this out after you asked me the first time. Why do you keep referring to the dictionary, and why do you think I'm trying to save face? My point here seems to have been understood by CondradJ (and I agree with him, I think his post is insightful), so what makes you think I'm a troll? See, my point is that there is no method of verifying and testing whether a creature actually have subjective experience. So I believe we must admit that we are talking on the basis of an operational assumption that subjective experience (as opposed to the behavioral aspect of it) is caused by the physics of the brain, though I believe no direct causal link have been shown to exist.

yet, you and Conrad (and myself) continue to use deduction for discussion in this thread precisely because you can't use induction.

Once again, deduction starts from theory:

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.php

So you see, this is exactly what we're doing (starting with Vygotsky's theory)

Furthermore, whenever cognitive scientists talk about "inferring" they're talking exactly about all your complaints. They say things like:

"there is no method of verifying and testing whether a creature actually have subjective experience"

"we must admit that we are talking on the basis of an operational assumption"

Of course no causal link has been shown to exist in other creatures. But you can prove to yourself that a causal link exists by messing with your own brain chemistry and monitoring the subjective results. They're really quite obvious, and CONSISTENT with the same chemistry manipulations (drug addiction, brain meds, etc)

I said that I don't think you're a troll, I think you're mistaken.

 

[apeiron]

I think I addressed some issues with tense in the last post, for example, it would seem chimps entering a period of quiet mourning with subdued behaviour shows an awareness of the past. http://scienceblogs.com/primatediaries/2009/10/chimpanzees_mourn_the_death_of.php

Again I would view this as present tense thinking, because an absence can be just as significance to consciousness as a presence.

A trivial example. If a humming fridge suddenly shuts off, it is the absence of that drone which makes you pay attention. This by the way is part of the evidence that you anticipate your perceptual world and so can ignore most everything, only responding strongly, with attention and thoughts, to unexpected change.

Anyway, we also all know how the absence of a loved one can nag in situations where "they should be there". So really the examples of chimps mourning fit the explanation of present tense thinking. If a tribe mate is lying dead, that is going to be "a salient absence". The dead chimp is not responding as normal, to say the least. And even for some time later, even with no corpse in sight, that absence will be salient. There will be a lack of that troop mate in every context where that troop mate would have been expected, so everyday routine life becomes itself the constant current reminder.

 

[ConradDJ]

Again I would view this as present tense thinking...

I'll try to clarify this point, which I think is basic to the "uniqueness" of us humans.

First, whatever the differences between human and animal experience of the world, of course all experience is in present time. And it's always conditioned by past experience, and is always anticipatory.

What humans have that animals lack is a highly detailed and structured mental picture of the world beyond the present moment, that we learn to construct in language, when we're very young. We have names for things and ways of describing them. As soon as you put something into words, you've taken it out of present time and located it in this quasi-permanent, evolving picture of the world you maintain in your head. That language-based picture let's you scan over your past experiences and consider things other people have told you about, it let's you make plans for specific dates far in the future. And think about what may be happening today on the other side of the world.

I think this is one of the two fundamental functions of language, to enable this shared construction of an imagined "real world" that we use to guide our present-time behavior, and that we're constantly updating when we talk with each other and with ourselves. The other basic function being to create the bridge of "mutual imagining" between people, by which this language-software reproduces itself from one human brain to another.

The OP asks for evidence... for that you could point to most anything in the human world – drugstores, for example. The fact that my cat sometimes chews on a plant is a precursor of the drugstore, which makes the stores no less “uniquely human”. Now can we “prove” that drugstores are a result of language? To me this example only shows that the question is not well-posed.

The real problem here is that we take human language so much for granted that it’s very difficult to appreciate what it is, basically, and what it does. My sense is that it’s much deeper than words, grammar and syntax – it’s a unique kind of communications software that’s managed to reproduce itself in one brain after another over thousands of generations. And you and I, as “conscious minds”, are self-updating run-time structures created by this brain-software.

In general, I’m definitely in favor of scientific evidence. But before we can ask for evidence pro and con, we need to be able to imagine a hypothesis and state it clearly. And when it comes to the function of language in relation to consciousness, I just don’t think we’re there yet. But to me, this is really what “philosophy” is about – i.e. this “pre-scientific” stage of learning to focus on and conceptualize aspects of our existence that we’ve previously taken for granted.

 

[disregardthat]

yet, you and Conrad (and myself) continue to use deduction for discussion in this thread precisely because you can't use induction.

Once again, deduction starts from theory:

http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/dedind.php

So you see, this is exactly what we're doing (starting with Vygotsky's theory)

Furthermore, whenever cognitive scientists talk about "inferring" they're talking exactly about all your complaints. They say things like:

"there is no method of verifying and testing whether a creature actually have subjective experience"

"we must admit that we are talking on the basis of an operational assumption"

Of course no causal link has been shown to exist in other creatures. But you can prove to yourself that a causal link exists by messing with your own brain chemistry and monitoring the subjective results. They're really quite obvious, and CONSISTENT with the same chemistry manipulations (drug addiction, brain meds, etc)

I said that I don't think you're a troll, I think you're mistaken.

All right, as long as you agree with

"there is no method of verifying and testing whether a creature actually have subjective experience"

"we must admit that we are talking on the basis of an operational assumption"

then it's pretty much settled, I have nothing more to say. My point was nothing more than that.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

I think this must reflect a prejudice about what “uniquely human self-awareness” means.

Now can we “prove” that drugstores are a result of language? To me this example only shows that the question is not well-posed.

The real problem here is that we take human language so much for granted that it’s very difficult to appreciate what it is, basically, and what it does. My sense is that it’s much deeper than words, grammar and syntax – it’s a unique kind of communications software that’s managed to reproduce itself in one brain after another over thousands of generations. And you and I, as “conscious minds”, are self-updating run-time structures created by this brain-software.

But before we can ask for evidence pro and con, we need to be able to imagine a hypothesis and state it clearly. And when it comes to the function of language in relation to consciousness, I just don’t think we’re there yet.

Despite what you say, claiming something you are unable to verify is verifiable is erroneous. Attacking me and the question of the op doesn’t mitigate the error, it compounds it.

What evidences support or contredict Vygotsky's philosophy of mind? .

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Again I would view this as present tense thinking, because an absence can be just as significance to consciousness as a presence.

A trivial example. If a humming fridge suddenly shuts off, it is the absence of that drone which makes you pay attention. This by the way is part of the evidence that you anticipate your perceptual world and so can ignore most everything, only responding strongly, with attention and thoughts, to unexpected change.

Anyway, we also all know how the absence of a loved one can nag in situations where "they should be there". So really the examples of chimps mourning fit the explanation of present tense thinking. If a tribe mate is lying dead, that is going to be "a salient absence". The dead chimp is not responding as normal, to say the least. And even for some time later, even with no corpse in sight, that absence will be salient. There will be a lack of that troop mate in every context where that troop mate would have been expected, so everyday routine life becomes itself the constant current reminder.

Ok, firstly, maybe I’ll discuss symbolism elsewhere. :)

Secondly, I find that an interesting idea: not present memories, but absence in the present.

Thirdly, I think this works now.
http://wn.com/Nicaraguan_Sign_Language

What of the past memories of the woman free from syntactic language?

 

[apeiron]

What of the past memories of the woman free from syntactic language?

One youtube case is not enough to make judgements. But if you review the full literature on deaf signing, there is plenty of evidence for the Vygotskean position, such as that fluent signers think in signs (they make slips of the hand errors instead of slips of the tongue), or that Victorian era deaf/mutes (with no signing culture) appeared more like animals.

Oliver Sacks wrote a good book, Seeing Voices, on this. The Wild Boy of Aveyron is another good one.

(BTW, there was rudimentary syntax in the lady. She was still having to express one "word" at a time, first son, then gone away. And in a logical order. She followed the same object-verb phrasing to describe the going away of each family member. She was also vocalising, which raises questions of when she went deaf, or if she was completely deaf (something that is rarer than you think). So evidence either for or against a Vygotskean position needs to be carefully considered.)

 

[fuzzyfelt]

One youtube case is not enough to make judgements...



(BTW, there was rudimentary syntax in the lady. She was still having to express one "word" at a time, first son, then gone away. And in a logical order. She followed the same object-verb phrasing to describe the going away of each family member. She was also vocalising, which raises questions of when she went deaf, or if she was completely deaf (something that is rarer than you think). So evidence either for or against a Vygotskean position needs to be carefully considered.)

Sure. Your familiarity didn't extend as far as a not working youtube line ( at the time), my fault, I understand.:)
I actually don't know much about PBS, but the linguists involved are well credentialed, etc.

Kegl, Judy, Ann Senghas & Marie Coppola. 1999. Creation through contact: Sign
language emergence and sign language change in Nicaragua. In Michel
DeGraff (ed.), Langauge Creation and Langauge Change: Creolization,
Diachrony, and Development, 179–237. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.

Interesting, and thanks, I'll look at your recommendations.

 

[Pythagorean]

(article)

Self-Doubting Monkeys Know What They Don’t Know:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d...lf-doubting-monkeys-know-what-they-dont-know/

 

[Lievo]

I'll try to clarify this point, which I think is basic to the "uniqueness" of us humans.

First (...) What humans have that animals lack is a (...) mental picture of the world beyond the present moment (...) The other basic function being to create the bridge of "mutual imagining" between people, by which this language-software reproduces itself from one human brain to another.

Ok interesting. But I don't see why you say these particular claims could not be evidence-based or contredict by evidence. All you need for first claim is evidence that animal can't think about their past experience, and for second claim that language is not spontaneous. Don't you agree this? (take care I think evidences exist against both). If not, what is the kind of evidence that would convinced you one way or the other?

The OP asks for evidence... for that you could point to most anything in the human world – drugstores, for example. The fact that my cat sometimes chews on a plant is a precursor of the drugstore, which makes the stores no less “uniquely human”. Now can we “prove” that drugstores are a result of language? To me this example only shows that the question is not well-posed.

To me that only shows that this example is badly choosen. I don't think you're trying to build a straw man but look, there are three possibilities in my view: a claim is based on evidences, it is not but could in theory if not in practice now, or neither.

If you think that it's the latter case, then to me the claim is useless. Or usefull for poetry or your own sense of aethetic or whatever, but nothing usefull to understand reality and help me deciding how to do my job. Some philosophies of mind are of this kind. I'm of course interested in the formers, and I just don't know yet where to fit Vytgostky in this framework.

claiming something you are unable to verify is verifiable is erroneous.

Erroneous is for the first time you do it. I'm not sure that's the exact word for >5^th occurences.

if you review the full literature on deaf signing, there is plenty of evidence for the Vygotskean position

 

[apeiron]

Ok interesting.

But Lievo, you have yet to make a single point of any substance here. Your first example fell flat on its face. You do not appear to have any personal expertise in the subject. So why should anyone believe your doubts, no matter how sincerely held?

If I am wrong and you are familiar with the deaf literature, then I would expect to hear some kind of argument in return. Emoticons don't really count as an argument do they.

 

[apeiron]

(article)

Self-Doubting Monkeys Know What They Don’t Know:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d...lf-doubting-monkeys-know-what-they-dont-know/

Same paradigm as presented earlier in the thread. And really, what is the difference from any animal's ability to respond appropriately to ambiguous stimuli?

See coyote metacognition for example...

In addition, coyotes were able to differentiate among the activity of different humans based on their association with negative, neutral, or positive threat levels, even in the presence of confounding visual and olfactory cues. They remembered these associations even after one month. This study is the first that provides evidence suggesting that canids gather and interpret complex information for cognitive inference about threat level associated with access to food.

http://digitalcommons.usu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1240&context=etd

 

[Pythagorean]

Same paradigm as presented earlier in the thread. And really, what is the difference from any animal's ability to respond appropriately to ambiguous stimuli

Nothing! In this very behavioralistic view, why are human behaviors any different from an animal's ability to respond appropriately to ambiguous stimuli?

 

[apeiron]

Nothing! In this very behavioralistic view, why are human behaviors any different from an animal's ability to respond appropriately to ambiguous stimuli?

Coyote's don't go to church, cover their private bits from modesty, celebrate their birthdays. Or any of the unlimited other things that make humans distinctive. So what exactly are you arguing here? It is unclear.

Animals and humans share a lot. And then there are the differences. Mind science has to account for both the similarity and the difference. So what's your theory? (Vygotsky at least had one, and gathered evidence for it).

 

[ConradDJ]

What humans have that animals lack is a highly detailed and structured mental picture of the world beyond the present moment, that we learn to construct in language, when we're very young...

The other basic function being to create the bridge of "mutual imagining" between people, by which this language-software reproduces itself from one human brain to another.

Ok interesting. But I don't see why you say these particular claims could not be evidence-based or contradict by evidence. All you need for first claim is evidence that animal can't think about their past experience, and for second claim that language is not spontaneous.

... there are three possibilities in my view: a claim is based on evidences, it is not but could in theory if not in practice now, or neither.

I get your point of view, but I don’t agree with it. Even in the sciences, I think it’s short-sighted to reduce thinking to “claims” that one argues pro or contra based on “evidence”. Because the claims first of all have to be imagined and put into clear language, and also because what’s “evident” to some folks is not so to others. So behind the argumentation are imagined constructions of the world in each of our heads, that we for the most part take for granted.

Once there’s a claim on the table, we may find we don’t know the right answer, but at least we’re aware there’s a question there. But when we take something for granted, it’s not yet accessible for questioning. There’s no direct way to investigate it. What you can do, which is what I was trying to do in the posts above, is to describe something we’re all familiar with in a somewhat unfamiliar way... to try to bring into focus something that hasn’t before been clearly seen or put into words.

I can well understand that a hard-headed, non-nonsense sort of person would have no patience for this kind of intuitive process. You want translate my description into something like “animals can’t think about their past experience” so you can classify it as right or wrong. Or “language is not spontaneous.” I can easily imagine arguing either side of ambiguous “claims” like these – but I can’t imagine that it would lead to any new insight.

My personal sense of the matter is that our clear-minded intellectual mode of consciousness is by nature peculiarly blind to its own emotional and linguistic foundations. It wants clear-cut issues and demonstrations... and there are of course many fields of study where the basics are well-established and this kind of thinking can make important progress. The study of human consciousness and its precursors is not one of those fields, at the present time. It’s a field where “claims” tend to be poorly defined or articulated, where very basic factors like the function of language have not been thought through. Take for instance Derek Bickerton's Langauge and Species, which argues that the function of language is almost exclusively representational, and that its use for communication is entirely secondary. Here we have a completely unnecessary "either/or" argued with chapters full of evidence. This hardly seems like progress to me, but I certainly recognize there are those who disagree.

It’s not that empirical evidence is irrelevant or uninteresting, in this context. But in my personal opinion, we’re fooling ourselves if we think we’re ready to prove something one way or the other about the difference between animal and human awareness. IMHO, we don’t yet have the conceptual language we need to articulate clearly what’s at issue here – i.e. what the distinctiveness of human evolution has been about. And that’s where the work needs to be done, in this field. Please note, this is stated as a well-considered personal opinion, not as fact.

 

[Pythagorean]

... don't go to church, cover their private bits from modesty, celebrate their birthdays...

...all of which are examples of responding ambiguously to appropriate stimuli.

So what's your theory?

What would having my own theory make a difference? I'm still learning what the observations are and what theories have already been developed (and whether or not they were successful). I feel no itch to jump on any particular viewpoint yet, because then I'll only see the observations in a skewed way.

I have been exposed to several of the perspectives (behavioral, humanistic, cognitive, biological). Behavioralism is the safest (just write down what you see) but it's also the least satisfactory for questions bout consciousness. So we have to invoke one of the other perspectives to interpret behavior and we've already opened the floodgate of our own subjective contamination.

This is not an easy task to take one view or the other. Not for me, anyway. I'm still not sure anybody really knows what they're talking about when it comes to "consciousness". Once you start narrowing the subject down to specific cognitive traits/behaviors then it becomes more tangible.

 

[Lievo]

I get your point of view, but I don’t agree with it.

I'm not sure to get yours. Are you saying as a matter of principle that a philosophy of mind can be interesting even if it will never lead to any experimental predictions, or are you saying that Vytgotsky's theory is not ready yet to make predictions but could in some distant future?

If it's the former, yeah let's agree to disagree. But if it's the latter, I have no problem of principle with that -that just means I should wait for the philosophers to figure out what can be.

Remember that I started this thread on behalf of some claims that there were already evidences supporting some claims. Of course I've now came to conclude that's bull, but will certainly not put that on Vytgostky himself... he of course didn't choose himself how he will be promoted 85 years later

The study of human consciousness and its precursors is not one of those fields, at the present time

I would disagree, but that's maybe for another time/thread.

IMHO, we don’t yet have the conceptual language we need to articulate clearly what’s at issue here

I could say that for the hard problem of consciousness. Maybe I'm wrong too.

 

[apeiron]

Remember that I started this thread on behalf of some claims that there were already evidences supporting some claims. Of course I've now came to conclude that's bull, but will certainly not put that on Vytgostky himself... he of course didn't choose himself how he will be promoted 85 years later

What I remember is that you started the thread with a demonstration that you did not even understand the theory. Because you put forward an example about apes that was not a challenge. So until you are competent with regards to the nature of the hypothesis, worrying about the evidence seems a triffle redundant. But you have been directed towards both theory and evidence anyway.

 

[Pythagorean]

Another point to Vygotsky:

The finding contradicts the common understanding that word-order develops in accordance with a set of universal rules, applicable to all languages. Researchers have concluded that languages do not primarily follow innate rules of language processing in the brain. Rather, sentence structure is determined by the historical context in which a language develops.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110414065107.htm

 

[apeiron]

Another point to Vygotsky:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110414065107.htm

To be fair, Vygotsky would not require grammatical structure to be a cultural habit rather than genetically hardwired. His position only requires that the habits of thought which create the higher human functions are encoded by language and evolved socioculturally.

The real problem with a hard Chomskian position is that because it requires genetic hardwiring, this does not fit with either the available paleo or neuro evidence. Langauge arose too fast in human history, and there is too little evidence of a syntax template in the brain's architecture, and so a more soft-wired position seems necessary.

What is actually universal in languages is not word order but an idea - the idea of a sentence that involves the three components of a subject/verb/object, a linear causal tale of who did what to whom. This is what ties every language together. Subject, verb and object can come in any order, but these three components act as a mental template that breaks reality into crisp causal statements.

Yet it is in turn still unknown how the brain could be hard-wired, or even just "language-ready", to see the world in terms of subject/verb/object relationships. Again, it makes no real difference to the Vygotskean story whether this universal structure is hard, soft or un-wired (and completely learned and handed down as a cultural habit). But it is an important research question in its own right.

As an aside, given all the Heidegger talk, it is worth noting that the inauthentic view seems in fact fundamental to humans in this regard. Langauge clearly objectifies the subject, the doer, along with the doings and the done-to (the verbs and the objects). It already lifts us out of any local particular notion of the subject, the active agent, the effective cause, and forces us into a generic or objective stance where we are just an example of such a locus of agency, the cause that produces the effects.

The open question is whether animals also have some kind of proto-objectification and cause and effect thinking wired in. I would expect this to be so as the neural architecture of apes is so similar.

This is then why you need an explanatory mechanism such as Pattee's epistemic cut to explain how brains that are basically the same can with just a little tweaking start to operate at a whole new level.

In animals, syntax and semantics would all be jumbled together in unstructured fashion. In humans, they have become crisply divided into "a universal language generator" (even if the template is more cultural than neurological) and a vocabulary (syllables coding for ideas and impressions).

 

[fuzzyfelt]

More about communication in today’s news-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9475000/9475408.stm
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m1842175233027j1/
“Such highly intentional use of a species-typical repertoire raises intriguing questions for the evolution of advanced communication.”

 

[apeiron]

More about communication in today’s news-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_9475000/9475408.stm
http://www.springerlink.com/content/m1842175233027j1/
“Such highly intentional use of a species-typical repertoire raises intriguing questions for the evolution of advanced communication.”

In linguistics, it is useful to follow Peirce's distinction between the three levels of icon, index and symbol. Animals can have sophisticated indexical communication, but only humans have symbolic level communication. Or at least this dividing line seems defensible. And this latest work does not challenge that so far as I can see.

When a chimp is seen using gestures to communicate ideas about a third party to a second party, that's when things would get interesting.

See - http://www.cs.indiana.edu/~port/teach/103/sign.symbol.html - for the basic distinction as used in linguistics.

 

[fuzzyfelt]

Yes, it is helpful to mention linguistic distinctions, but I found the species-typicality and family-typicality most interesting.

 

[Pythagorean]

The opposing view: Interesting study, but I'm not sure why they did it on adults. How did they control for learning? They talk about the children, but they haven't actually raised a child on the "Verblog" language then ran the experiment on the adult result. That would have been a more appropriate control.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110513112256.htm

@apeiron:

Is Vygotsky's position no different than the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

Are you saying that language is entirely a preadaptation (or equivalently to this conversation, exaptation?)

 

[apeiron]

The opposing view: Interesting study, but I'm not sure why they did it on adults. How did they control for learning? They talk about the children, but they haven't actually raised a child on the "Verblog" language then ran the experiment on the adult result. That would have been a more appropriate control.

Not sure what this opposes. Is it surprising that an irregular grammatical structure with contradictory rules is harder to learn than a regular grammar with a single rule to learn and remember?

Is Vygotsky's position no different than the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

Are you saying that language is entirely a preadaptation (or equivalently to this conversation, exaptation?)

Vygotsky goes beyond the simple-minded antimonies of the blank slate and hardwired camps. So I wouldn't call it a weak version of Sapir-Whorf. Just as I wouldn't call it a weak version of Chomskianism.

 

[Pythagorean]

I took the article to be a hard Chomskian view.

 

[apeiron]

I took the article to be a hard Chomskian view.

That's a risk you take citing university publicity departments rather than research papers . They have an interest in making papers seem ground-breaking when they aren't.

 

[apeiron]

Is Vygotsky's position no different than the weak version of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis?

I should add that Vygotksy goes beyond because Whorf was not claiming that language and socio-cultural evolution were the basis of higher human mental abilities. He didn't say they led to self-awareness, recollective memory, introspection, voluntary imagery, etc. So Vygotsky's is the broader theory.