What, unless biological science is a mass of errors, is the cause of human intelligence and vigour? Hardship and freedom: conditions under which the active, strong, and subtle survive and the weaker go to the wall; conditions that put a premium upon the loyal alliance of capable men, upon self-restraint, patience, and decision. And the institution of the family, and the emotions that arise therein, the fierce jealousy, the tenderness for offspring, parental self-devotion, all found their justification and support in the imminent dangers of the young. Now where were these imminent dangers?-H.G. Wells, p. 34, "The Time Machine"
The protagonist in H.G. Wells' "The Time Machine", referred to simply and trustingly as 'The Time Traveller', finds himself sitting in an ancient and decaying throne, overlooking the landscape of the planet in a distant future, and as he does so he tries to process what he has seen thus far. He has encountered only a very frail and beautiful race of beings, for which he has at this point no name or title. He sees no evidence of strife, hunger, labor, disease, or struggle. The only thing unpleasant about the world in which he finds himself is the fact that the buildings populated by this race seem to be crumbling, moulding, and falling apart. Those parts made out of bronze are coated in verdigris. Those parts made out of glass are cracked and broken. And the floors made out of blocks of metal are worn to the point of near-concave by the feet of innumerable passersby.
'The Time Traveller' postulates that the only explanation possibly applicable to the situation of this observed race is this: Human beings, over the years, have become so refined in their ability to produce food, to cure disease, and to minimize labor that disease itself has been obliterated altogether; food grows abundantly and it is unanimously edible and never poisonous; and labor is unnecessary because communism prevails and both food and drink require no effort whatsoever for their production.
The race in question, so far as he can tell by way of his limited means of communication, is idiotic and unresponsive, lacking the curiosity and antagonism that seems to be so innate in the beings of today. He postulates that a lack of danger and a lack of cause for concern has brought about a general lack of concern altogether, and a lack of ability to deal with problems. There has been virtually no demand for advanced cognitive abilities, and so the mental supplies have, over the years, diminished to almost nothingness. He suspects that he is witnessing Human Kind in its waning cycle.
This postulation, though, is interesting: Interesting in itself, of course, but also interesting insofar as the things that it logically entails. First of all, is this a biconditional? That is, if A entails B, where A is lack of demand for capability, and B is lack of capability, then does B entail A? That is, does lack of capability lead to lack of demand for capability? Certainly not, it would seem. This would be ridiculous, and would imply that the human race's inability to cure AIDS might lead to a decrease in the likelihood of AIDS outbreaks worldwide, for example. This is intuitively ridiculous and obviously false.
Furthermore, if Wells' protagonist is right, and if a lack of need for human abilities and faculties leads to a lack of ability itself and a lack of faculty itself, then what about the negation of this conditional?
That is to say, if there were an overwhelming and unmanageable demand for mental faculties (~A), then it seems that Wells' protagonist might guess that the result would be an overwhelming increase in ability and faculty (~B). That is, 'The Time Traveller' seems to be of the opinion that ~A--> ~B. This would mean that more difficult problems would result in more able minds, more capable of dealing with said problems. Surely if this occurred, the improvement would not happen overnight, but it would - by this character's reasoning - nevertheless come to be.
This is an interesting idea to think about. Our society seems to illustrate the truth of this suggested phenomenon to some degree, but it doesn't seem that there is a direct relation between the two. It seems - and I say this only based on societal observation - that, if the demand for cognitive/ problem-solving capability were to be represented by the X axis of a graph, and the degree of cognitive/ problem-solving capability of the average individual were to be represented by the Y axis of a graph, then the points would not form a straight diagonal line leaning upwards to the right, but rather a diagonal line leading upwards in this way that eventually levels out, or plateaus. That is, it seems that an increase in demand for capability at first DOES lead to an increase in ability, due to attempts of various individuals to fulfill a need that has made itself apparent, and success of these attempts, and additional attempts that are undertaken as a result of these successful attempts, etc. However, it seems that too much demand for human capabilities would not necessarily have this effect. If the need is too great, the human will does not always seem - if you will - willing. It is almost as if the demand for capability has to be just high enough to make the efforts necessary, yet just low enough to make success seem possible, in order for human beings to remain productive and improve their capabilities as a culture or even individually. I suppose that, over a period of time, if the demand were to be slowly increased, then the capabilities could perhaps keep up; yet this doesn't seem to be the way that demand for human capabilities functions. The demand is created by events of a chaotic nature: Floods create a demand for problem-solving, with regard to the economy, and disease-prevention, and housing, etc.; deadly illnesses create a demand, and there is no slow progression toward this demand, for it is immediate. The demand for human capability is never very gradual, but often sudden. The human response - that is, levels of capability and effort - is easily humbled by these huge leaps in demand, and the human beings give up if the demand is too great.
Perhaps in large numbers the blow of this 'giving up' is softened by several fringe cases of individuals who are abnormally courageous and determined - individuals who can advance an entire culture at a rate faster than usual, so as to catch up with the sudden increase in demand for capability - but so often these fringe-case individuals are ignored just because they overshadow the jealous egos of other individuals, who want to believe they are incapable of being overshadowed.
And what about this conditional, ~A--> ~B. Is it a bi-conditional? Does ~B--> ~A, where A is lack of demand for capability and B is degree of capability? That is, does an increase in degree of capability entail an increase in demand? Again, it seems that this is certainly not the case.
Unlimited demand for cognitive abilities or problem-solving abilities or production or what-have-you does not lead to an unlimited amount of response from each. Instead, limited demands for such things leads to an increase in each, because in the case of limited demand, solutions to problems are perceived to be within the realm of possibility. Only when things are deemed perhaps possible - and only when solutions are not always and immediately met with an infinite number of additional problems - do solutions seem worth attempting. Demand for solution that is too great does not encourage solution, because there is arguably no point in solving a problem that, in being solved, does little to better the state of things due to the sheer amount of other problems at hand.
19.6.08
14.6.08
Some Ponderings About Word-Use
It seems fair to say that, in contexts of conversation, we select our words based on which words we think will best express whatever it is that we are trying to say about the world. Because one of the primary goals is to communicate and organize our thoughts, not for ourselves but for the comprehension of our interlocutor, we select words from our vocabulary according to those words which we think our interlocutor will understand. Perhaps sometimes we use words that we aren't sure will be understood, but in these cases (unless the goal is self-indulgent in nature) we generally pause while speaking or after certain utterances in order to make sure that what we have said is understood. Surely we are often misunderstood, as people (I think) in general like to come across as competent, so often times it seems that the interlocutor nods his head in agreement when he thinks the speaker means one thing that turns out to be quite contrary to what the speaker actually means to convey, either because he doesn't wish to clarify or because what the speaker says can be construed in multiple says. In the conversational realm, we select our words differently than we might in another realm - perhaps one of creative expression, for example - because our audience is a specific individual or several individuals. In the creative realm, we can use whatever language we like, and our audience is something more fluid. Our audience is whoever fits the description of the person who will understand what we are saying, or glean something from what we have said. What is gleaned might be what we are intending to convey in our creative expression, or it might be something altogether different, but seeing as the goal in creative arenas is simply some kind of reaction or response (repulsion, anger, empathy, inspiration, etc.), and not a particular kind of reaction or response, the audience is in one way more limited (for only some will gain anything at all from any particular poem or bit of writing), and less limited (because what we convey can be a multitude of things).
Because of the different kinds of intentions involved in the process of writing in this creative realm, the manner of word-selection seems altogether different. Words are chosen not because they represent a kind of common ground or understanding between two people, but because they represent a kind of common ground between the writer and an experience, or the writer and the world: one that a reader may or may not relate to or gain anything from. The writer in this realm generally doesn't care whether a specific or particular individual understands him, but he may hope that SOMEONE does. Whomever this may be perhaps doesn't matter. In fact, the knowledge that someone - whomever it may be - understands or possibly understands some variant of what the writer means to convey sufficiently justifies the writing. Just the CHANCE of there being some such person justifies the writing, for if that person is not around at the time a given work is written, he may be in any year in the future, and then the writing does not simply slip through fingers but lands somewhere; permeates some THING.
This act of writing in a creative way (and I don't mean just poetry or fiction, but also essays that are creative in the thoughts that they address, etc.) is creative in itself: It isn't just creative in the sense of something that is 'artsy', but in the sense that a seed is creative. It is something that can cause growth; something that cannot grow on its own; something that can cause a series of other causal entities that in turn cause growth. Furthermore, it can be creative in a way that is indeterminate to the writer himself. What grows from a thought, or from a work of poetry, is only up to the writer insofar as he is able to control the way his words are interpreted. And he can arguably only do this to a very limited extent. So the way that a writer's words are creative is just as much up to the reader as it is to the writer; likely MORE so.
None of the words that we write are born just from our interpretation of the world. None of the words we select are selected because we feel they represent the world in OUR specific way. The words we associate with given objects or references are the result of words we have previously heard associated with those objects or references. Even words used poetically or metaphorically - supposedly alloted a greater amount of abstraction from the object itself - can only be abstract within a certain realm or confined space, so long as the writer intends to be understood in a way somewhat close to the way in which he means to be understood. If a word is assigned to a concept in a way that is entirely random, without any contextual cues to indicate the reason for this assignment, the writer cannot hope to be understood in the way that he intends. Perhaps this is part of the beauty of creative word use. It allows the writer to have a personal relationship with his own writing that will be specific to his own interpretation and no one else's. But few writers seem to use words in a way that is completely inaccessible to the audience. Small steps of abstraction from literal meaning or conventional meaning can be taken, so that an eventual word use may be a complete abstraction from the original, but if this does not happen in steps, the meaning will be lost because it will be trapped in the mind of the author and the author will alone have access to the intended meaning.
Perhaps there are words that seem naturally appropriate to objects or ideas. Perhaps something about the phonetic sound of certain words seems appropriate to certain things. But it is likely impossible to even capture these words in this pure sense, because the act of even THINKING about which words may be appropriate for which ideas or objects automatically kicks off a series of associations in the mind, so that the words ultimately selected will have some correlation to the object through some causal chain of thought processes, unless the writer/ speaker intentionally tries to select words that are not intuitively appropriate, in which case the result will be forced, and the meaning inaccessible; and in these cases the words will likely have little intuitive connection to the object that the writer wishes them to designate, because they are selected specifically BECAUSE they are the least likely words to be associated with that given object. Yet even something's being the LEAST LIKELY THING to be used to reference an object or idea still gives it a relation to that object or idea. The only difference is that it is a negative relation. But seeing as human beings tend to recognize opposites, this negative relation - this word's being selected due to its lack of intuitive connection to an object - might still be recognized as a connection to that object (the connection being just that it is something quite opposite or far removed from that thing); and thus it might be more intuitively associated with that object in being so FAR REMOVED from that object than some word nearer in proximity of intuitive association might be. That is, if one intended to say a word in order to poetically speak of an object, the most cryptic word he could possibly select would likely not be one connoting something directly OPPOSITE from the more likely word-candidates for that object; but rather one connoting something SOMEWHAT intuitively appropriate to that object, but somehow not entirely.
The act of thinking about what words we are using necessarily affects our choice of words. The act of considering our audience necessarily affects our choice of words. It is difficult to use words to denote objects in a way that is a pure representation of the unique way that we perceive an object, for in the very act of cognizing a word we are considering our audience or our ability to be understood, even if it is just ourself whose ability to understand that we are most concerned with.
Let's say we take it upon ourselves to think up a number of words most appropriate to describe a color, and let's say we wish to do so in a new and innovative way, so that we might say something specific about our personal relationship to that color. Simply KNOWING that there are particular KINDS of words generally associated with a given color (such as the names of crayons, etc.) automatically affects the kinds of words we will select. Even if they are new words that are not conventionally associated with that color, they will likely have either categorical semblance to those words, or they will be indicative of a conscious attempt to AVOID such categories as those words most often associated with that color might generally fit into. In selecting words outside of such categories, we are still selecting words based on categories containing words often associated with a given color, and so our description of that color will still be influenced by other speakers' past descriptions of that color. It seems that only by way of making mistakes, in a legitimately accidental manner, can we describe things in ways that are entirely removed from convention; and yet if it is accidental then it could be argued that we are not selecting our words based on the object at all. If the chosen word is chosen as the result of a mistake, then it seems we must have in mind a false conception of the object (e.g., color) in question, and we are not talking about that THING at all.
Does our being conscious of our own language use cause us to use words that are more appropriate to a given object, or less appropriate? Does it depend on our audience? In which cases do we choose words because they conform and may then be better understood, as opposed to those cases in which we choose words that are less conventional because we want to say something new? How far in abstraction can we go, with regard to word selection, without rendering ourselves incapable of talking about the object/thing in question altogether? Language use is inherently a self-conscious activity. We cannot be random in our use of words unless we are not conscious of the objects that we are talking about. Even attempts at random word-use will be anything but random. Calculated randomness is just as algorithmic as intentionally orderly word-selection.
Do our errors in speech enable us, over time (by way of causality, from one speaker to another and so on down the line) to say things that are more true about the world, or less true? In making errors, are we speaking more intuitively about the world, or are we broadening the gap between what we say and what we mean? Are all words equally appropriate in their application to given objects? Does the appropriateness depend entirely upon the audience, speaker, interlocutors, etc.?
Changes in language and word-use often result from mistakes in translation and mistakes in understanding (and the resulting misuse of words). Does this make language resemble objects less, or more so, or to the same degree no matter what? What about the association of objects to other objects, as with metaphor? What about our association of KINDS of words with other KINDS of words? What effect does our self-consciousness in use of language have, with regard to our ability to convey something resembling our meaning? Do our words ever diverge from our meaning to a GREATER degree, or is this divergence impossible, because of this aforementioned self-consciousness in our use of the words?
Because of the different kinds of intentions involved in the process of writing in this creative realm, the manner of word-selection seems altogether different. Words are chosen not because they represent a kind of common ground or understanding between two people, but because they represent a kind of common ground between the writer and an experience, or the writer and the world: one that a reader may or may not relate to or gain anything from. The writer in this realm generally doesn't care whether a specific or particular individual understands him, but he may hope that SOMEONE does. Whomever this may be perhaps doesn't matter. In fact, the knowledge that someone - whomever it may be - understands or possibly understands some variant of what the writer means to convey sufficiently justifies the writing. Just the CHANCE of there being some such person justifies the writing, for if that person is not around at the time a given work is written, he may be in any year in the future, and then the writing does not simply slip through fingers but lands somewhere; permeates some THING.
This act of writing in a creative way (and I don't mean just poetry or fiction, but also essays that are creative in the thoughts that they address, etc.) is creative in itself: It isn't just creative in the sense of something that is 'artsy', but in the sense that a seed is creative. It is something that can cause growth; something that cannot grow on its own; something that can cause a series of other causal entities that in turn cause growth. Furthermore, it can be creative in a way that is indeterminate to the writer himself. What grows from a thought, or from a work of poetry, is only up to the writer insofar as he is able to control the way his words are interpreted. And he can arguably only do this to a very limited extent. So the way that a writer's words are creative is just as much up to the reader as it is to the writer; likely MORE so.
None of the words that we write are born just from our interpretation of the world. None of the words we select are selected because we feel they represent the world in OUR specific way. The words we associate with given objects or references are the result of words we have previously heard associated with those objects or references. Even words used poetically or metaphorically - supposedly alloted a greater amount of abstraction from the object itself - can only be abstract within a certain realm or confined space, so long as the writer intends to be understood in a way somewhat close to the way in which he means to be understood. If a word is assigned to a concept in a way that is entirely random, without any contextual cues to indicate the reason for this assignment, the writer cannot hope to be understood in the way that he intends. Perhaps this is part of the beauty of creative word use. It allows the writer to have a personal relationship with his own writing that will be specific to his own interpretation and no one else's. But few writers seem to use words in a way that is completely inaccessible to the audience. Small steps of abstraction from literal meaning or conventional meaning can be taken, so that an eventual word use may be a complete abstraction from the original, but if this does not happen in steps, the meaning will be lost because it will be trapped in the mind of the author and the author will alone have access to the intended meaning.
Perhaps there are words that seem naturally appropriate to objects or ideas. Perhaps something about the phonetic sound of certain words seems appropriate to certain things. But it is likely impossible to even capture these words in this pure sense, because the act of even THINKING about which words may be appropriate for which ideas or objects automatically kicks off a series of associations in the mind, so that the words ultimately selected will have some correlation to the object through some causal chain of thought processes, unless the writer/ speaker intentionally tries to select words that are not intuitively appropriate, in which case the result will be forced, and the meaning inaccessible; and in these cases the words will likely have little intuitive connection to the object that the writer wishes them to designate, because they are selected specifically BECAUSE they are the least likely words to be associated with that given object. Yet even something's being the LEAST LIKELY THING to be used to reference an object or idea still gives it a relation to that object or idea. The only difference is that it is a negative relation. But seeing as human beings tend to recognize opposites, this negative relation - this word's being selected due to its lack of intuitive connection to an object - might still be recognized as a connection to that object (the connection being just that it is something quite opposite or far removed from that thing); and thus it might be more intuitively associated with that object in being so FAR REMOVED from that object than some word nearer in proximity of intuitive association might be. That is, if one intended to say a word in order to poetically speak of an object, the most cryptic word he could possibly select would likely not be one connoting something directly OPPOSITE from the more likely word-candidates for that object; but rather one connoting something SOMEWHAT intuitively appropriate to that object, but somehow not entirely.
The act of thinking about what words we are using necessarily affects our choice of words. The act of considering our audience necessarily affects our choice of words. It is difficult to use words to denote objects in a way that is a pure representation of the unique way that we perceive an object, for in the very act of cognizing a word we are considering our audience or our ability to be understood, even if it is just ourself whose ability to understand that we are most concerned with.
Let's say we take it upon ourselves to think up a number of words most appropriate to describe a color, and let's say we wish to do so in a new and innovative way, so that we might say something specific about our personal relationship to that color. Simply KNOWING that there are particular KINDS of words generally associated with a given color (such as the names of crayons, etc.) automatically affects the kinds of words we will select. Even if they are new words that are not conventionally associated with that color, they will likely have either categorical semblance to those words, or they will be indicative of a conscious attempt to AVOID such categories as those words most often associated with that color might generally fit into. In selecting words outside of such categories, we are still selecting words based on categories containing words often associated with a given color, and so our description of that color will still be influenced by other speakers' past descriptions of that color. It seems that only by way of making mistakes, in a legitimately accidental manner, can we describe things in ways that are entirely removed from convention; and yet if it is accidental then it could be argued that we are not selecting our words based on the object at all. If the chosen word is chosen as the result of a mistake, then it seems we must have in mind a false conception of the object (e.g., color) in question, and we are not talking about that THING at all.
Does our being conscious of our own language use cause us to use words that are more appropriate to a given object, or less appropriate? Does it depend on our audience? In which cases do we choose words because they conform and may then be better understood, as opposed to those cases in which we choose words that are less conventional because we want to say something new? How far in abstraction can we go, with regard to word selection, without rendering ourselves incapable of talking about the object/thing in question altogether? Language use is inherently a self-conscious activity. We cannot be random in our use of words unless we are not conscious of the objects that we are talking about. Even attempts at random word-use will be anything but random. Calculated randomness is just as algorithmic as intentionally orderly word-selection.
Do our errors in speech enable us, over time (by way of causality, from one speaker to another and so on down the line) to say things that are more true about the world, or less true? In making errors, are we speaking more intuitively about the world, or are we broadening the gap between what we say and what we mean? Are all words equally appropriate in their application to given objects? Does the appropriateness depend entirely upon the audience, speaker, interlocutors, etc.?
Changes in language and word-use often result from mistakes in translation and mistakes in understanding (and the resulting misuse of words). Does this make language resemble objects less, or more so, or to the same degree no matter what? What about the association of objects to other objects, as with metaphor? What about our association of KINDS of words with other KINDS of words? What effect does our self-consciousness in use of language have, with regard to our ability to convey something resembling our meaning? Do our words ever diverge from our meaning to a GREATER degree, or is this divergence impossible, because of this aforementioned self-consciousness in our use of the words?
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