Language (split from, 'I am Anti-Humanist')

[Daecon]

You must be using a rather broad definition of "language".

That makes me think of an interesting point. Would a bee's "waggle dance" count as a language? Perhaps we should have a new thread about what constitutes a language?

[Strange]

That makes me think of an interesting point. Would a bee's "waggle dance" count as a language? Perhaps we should have a new thread about what constitutes a language?

 

 

Or, are the scent trails used by insects a language? Only in a very limited sense. They are ways of transferring a limited range of information in a fixed way.

 

The point about "real" languages is that they are capable of expressing any idea at all.

[iNow]

The point about "real" languages is that they are capable of expressing any idea at all.

I was previously unaware this is a requirement for something to be a language. Is Fortan not a language because it cannot transmit scent? Is Sanskrit not a language because it cannot transmit the code that makes wifi work?

[StringJunky]

I was previously unaware this is a requirement for something to be a language. Is Fortan not a language because it cannot transmit scent? Is Sanskrit not a language because it cannot transmit the code that makes wifi work?

I would say, fundamentally, language is information embedded in a set of signals that can be used by another

[John Cuthber]

Rather than having a debate about "what is a language", perhaps you could have a meta-argument about which dictionary to look it up in.

You might want to do that in a different thread.

[Strange]

I was previously unaware this is a requirement for something to be a language. Is Fortan not a language because it cannot transmit scent? Is Sanskrit not a language because it cannot transmit the code that makes wifi work?

 

 

It depends on the definition of language you are using. I think that if you are using it to distinguish some higher level of thought, for example, then it has to be more than an set of finite symbols with fixed meaning. Human languages are, as far as we know, in this respect. And that seems to be related to the concept of consciousness (whatever that is).

[Raider5678]

 

 

It depends on the definition of language you are using. I think that if you are using it to distinguish some higher level of thought, for example, then it has to be more than an set of finite symbols with fixed meaning. Human languages are, as far as we know, in this respect. And that seems to be related to the concept of consciousness (whatever that is).

Yes.

 

Language, I believe, is directly related to consciousness.

 

Language gives you the ability to put into meaning what you see. Even if you can't speak it. You think in the language you know. A dog can see food and think of the feeling that it gets when it eats, and decide to eat. But it's instinct. It's sense of smell simply registers good or bad. Same with taste, feeling, and hearing. Good or bad. Now while a dog might not be the best example, because dogs can be pretty smart, that's what I think most animals go by. Simply deciding if somethings good or bad.

 

One universal thing in the human language, is the fact that words can be rearranged to mean something totally different. Maybe animals can communicate "danger" "food" "water" and they can obviously do body motions like pointing or dancing, but can they communicate the idea "Danger by water."?

 

Language, is complex. But in it's simplest form, I think it has to be able to communicate ideas just a tad bit more then just saying "danger."

Otherwise, it's just a behavior.

[hypervalent_iodine]

!

Moderator Note

Split from here.

 

I have put this in General Philosophy, for lack of a better home. I'm open to suggestions, if anyone has a better fit. Please report the post if so.

[iNow]

Thx, HI

 

It depends on the definition of language you are using. I think that if you are using it to distinguish some higher level of thought, for example, then it has to be more than an set of finite symbols with fixed meaning.

Language is a system of communication used by some community. That's all it needs to be. That's it's barest most fundamental and dstlled essence.

 

What value is there in arbitrarily restricting it to "some higher level if thought" or mandating that it be "more than a set of finite symbols with fixed meaning" if not merely to post-emptively justify a preconceived conclusion that humans are somehow special, unique, or separate?

 

Human languages are, as far as we know, in this respect. And that seems to be related to the concept of consciousness (whatever that is).

It's entirely possible I'm missing something subtle here, but this doesn't convince me. Seems non-sequitur, though I agree the concept of consciousness is profoundly resistent to simple definition. Edited April 20, 2017 by iNow

[Strange]

While I agree that you can define language to be any system of communication, in the context of the original thread it seemed that it needed to be more than a finite and fixed system like bird calls, scent trails, the bee's waggle dance etc.

 

Human languages are qualitatively different from those and could be used to indicate a different level of mental processing (which seemed to be the reason it was included in the definition there).

 

(Re the connection to "consciousness", that was something that occurred to me as I was writing and I haven't really thought it through yet. But something to do with the connection between self awareness and recursion in language. )

[Daecon]

They say that necessity is the mother of invention. I wonder if necessity is also the mother of language?

 

Of course it's sensible that a proper language should be able to convey any needed information, but then animals don't seem to have a need for any complex instruction and perhaps that's why their "language" is so limited?

 

If a particular animal group's situation were to change, I wonder if their communication capability would also increase over successive generations?

 

At what point would we be comfortable in stating "now these creatures have a language"?

Edited April 20, 2017 by Daecon

[Delta1212]

Philosophy of language is a fairly deep subject.

 

If language is simply a set of symbols in some form that are used to represent some meaning in order to communicate, the humans are far from the only species that utilizes language.

 

There is some trouble with using this as a definition, however. Are street signs, for example, a distinct language? They are a consistent set of symbols that each encode specific meaning. Are emojis their own language?

 

If that's too abstract, you could, with the above description, qualify any encoding system or cipher as its own separate language. Morse code becomes a language. Pig-Latin becomes a language. The Latin alphabet turns written English into an entirely separate language from spoken English, because they use different completely symbols to encode meaning.

 

For human languages, a major component is not just symbolic representation of concepts, but also the syntax. That is, a major part of the meaning of a language is encoded not just in the symbols themselves but in the way those symbols are arranged, which generally conveys information about the relationships between the concepts reprinted by those symbols.

 

This is why memorizing a foreign language dictionary does not mean that you actually speak the language in question and why word-for-word translations are usually broken, even to the point of complete incomprehensibility.

 

As far as we have been able to determine this far, this critical aspect of human language is also something that is unique to human communication. Even most of the more exemplary examples of animals being taught human language have struggled with or entirely lacked any concept of grammar and syntax.

 

Symbolic communication in some form is not especially uncommon, but it's more on par with the kind of communication you would see by playing a game of, say, charades or pictionary, which I don't think qualifies as language use unless we are extending "language" to mean "any kind of communication whatsoever."

 

 

That said, I'd be interested to see more research done on cetacean communication and birdsong. What I know of the research done on the information entropy of whale songs doesn't make that seem particularly promising as the "bandwidth" appears extremely low in terms of the amount of information it is possible to convey through it, but I don't of any similar studies targeting whale or dolphin clicks.

[quickquestion]

Id say Human language involves logic. Adjectives, adverbs, nouns, etc. all perform a logical function, like a Code.

 

Saying language is needed for consciousness is like saying people who can't program code are pzombies. If someone gets a stroke and is unable to understand language they are still sentient. A mentally challenged person who can't put a peg into a hole and is illiterate, is most likely still sentient.

Perception and Memory, is a key cause of sentience. We are not sentient of other people's brains, because we have no memory and perception of those brains.