Language, Sounds and Intelligent Design

[A Jay]

Something that I was just reminded of is that language is not exactly human specific, though it is most highly developed with us. There's the dogs who are trained to use sound boards to convey emotions and desires, the primates who are taught sign language, our pets who seem to understand words in some capacity, and so on.

Interestingly, a coworker recently went on a trip to Mount Rushmore and he came across a small herd of buffalo. There was one that he said seemed to be the leader. This leader noticed that the herd was missing one of its members so it went across the road to look for it. While this happened 3 other buffalo blocked the road so no one could drive while the leader was looking for the lost member. Once the lost one was found and brought back to the group the 3 buffalo guarding the road moved on and the herd went on their way. Now I know this story isn't language related. However, it shows complex information processing on the part of the buffalo and what is the purpose of language if not some kind of information processing.

Not sure where my mind was going by bringing these things to the forefront, but since there is an intelligent design component to our ability to speak and communicate I think we also have to consider how this all works with other animals as well.

Just some thoughts.

 

[Metrist]

Computers have been around for some time, but it was in the 90's that they really became commonplace and indispensable. And as its popularity grew, so did the languages. And they evolved rapidly and became more refined and nuanced. But with computer languages there is proprietary. Proprietary of licensing, or just proprietary of ability. And proprietary of hardware.
So, it's like when computers were fresh and new, and widely accessible - it was promising like at the stage where the tower of Babel was being built. But as it grew, it becomes too hard to hold to a cohesive understanding of the goal or vision.
And with computers it is possible to evolve rapidly as it is in a virtual domain, and this leaves us in specialties where none has a idea where it will lead, and uncertainty and doubt grows as language becomes languages, and having a comprehensive understanding is replaced with confusion and disparity.
So, ideals and visions have always been governed by language in the real world, but in a virtual domain, language becomes languages - where seeming breakthroughs lead only to recurrent limits, leading to abandonment.
So, in the same fashion where a language is applied to hardware, we construct languages in the real world applied to the boundaries established by state, national, ect. And like the components of language, there are similarities like syntax, ect. shared between them.

 

[mkrnhr]

Babies before acquiring the rudiment of thir parents' spoken language seem to communicate by signs, facial expressions, and some sounds. It looks like they understand each other (I'm sure they tell jokes about adults) and I wonder if there are any studies on the universality of those sounds.

 

[Cass]

??

I fail to see why or how. Apologies for my ignorance. Maybe this is a topic for a different thread? Or is this about language?

@Cass, your posts don't make much sense to me. You seem to be obsessed with the Grail or something, and have a "pattern recognition ran amok" issue. Unless you are more clear, I'm afraid nobody can comment on your posts.

am sorry that you are offended and are in a position of personal prejudice, it seems a defense mechanism, otherwise a projection would not have to be necessary an intervention like the one you have made...to mention the Grail, is it an obsession? ...do you participate in the Cs experiment?

 

[Cass]

Cuidado con la desinformación. Vi 10 minutos de la lata, no pude soportarlo más. No solo muchas de sus traducciones estaban completamente equivocadas, sino que se volvió loco con el sistema de control. Anunnaki esto, Matrix eso .... No gracias. Y es muy anglocéntrico, por lo que no funciona si usas otros idiomas para los nombres que, según él, revelan la realidad. Puede parecer alucinante, pero en mi opinión, es más bien

???

 

[Chu]

Something that I was just reminded of is that language is not exactly human specific, though it is most highly developed with us. There's the dogs who are trained to use sound boards to convey emotions and desires, the primates who are taught sign language, our pets who seem to understand words in some capacity, and so on.

Absolutely! The problem with that is, as usual, how Darwinism tries to explain it. Dogs, they ignore for the most part (even though they are often better than our "ancestors" the primates). As for the primates, linguists have largely exaggerated their language capacity. Primates can only learn about 1000 signs in average, and they can´t produce single sentences, for example. Or VERY simple ones, after years and years of training. For the most part, they don´t communicate, they only point at things. They have a very limited "theory of mind" (the capacity to guess what others are thinking). They lack MANY components of language.

Parrots and other birds can "speak", but they also don't have many properties of human language and thought. They just imitate.

You often find explanations like this: Biologist Terrence Deacon, for example, has a whole theory of why language evolved and is "similar" in animals. He makes an analogy with production of vitamin C. To make it simple, human bodies used to produce vitamin C. Then humans discovered that they didn't need to, because they could get it from fruit. So they stopped producing it. When a species can get something from the outside world, their aptitude becomes less a matter of "nature", and more of "nurture". Yeah.... He uses and experiment with birds to "prove it". They put two groups of birds. One of them started learning language from the mother, so they "evolved" to rely less on instinct, more on learning. Et voila ! That's how humans need adults to teach them how to speak, even though they have the innate capacity for language. But he ignores all the inconsistencies. Like, how is that "evolutionary advantageous?" And what was language like BEFORE humans adapted in this way?

So, he´s no better than Darwin who claimed humans just wanted to imitate sounds in nature, the male sang to attract females, suddenly one human got "smart" and started talking, etc. This ignores that human children learn language (which has NO immediate reproductive advantage), and that women and men have an equal capacity for language, etc. Not to mention that to go from grunts to complex grammar, you have a long way to go. And how on Earth would having subordinated clauses or subjunctive be evolutionary advantageous? And how, if human dispersion is true, language evolved so similarly accross vast terrotories, and among people who weren't in contact with each other? it would be a striking case of parallel evolution. It's ridiculous.

Anyway, back to animals... Some have super complex communication systems (like bees or dolphins). Those get ignored too. One of the only things that keeps being quote from Chomsky's theory is that human language has recursion (the ability to construct infinite structures from finite elements, and embed them. Like, "Paul likes apples"---> "Mary says that Paul likes apples"---> "Peter says that Mary says...."). BUT, they've found a similar function in birds, who can recognize the "syntax" of songs when not embedded properly. So, the only thing that supposedly differentiates our capacity for language from that of animals, is ALSO wrong.

Another trait that supposedly led to language is the descent of the larynx. Primates' larynx is higher than in humans. Being lower, in humans it allows for speech (more room for articulating sounds). It also makes them choke more easily, so that's not very advantageous in evolutionary terms either! AND, now we know that tigers, koalas, lions, deer and others also have a low larynx, but can't produce human-like sounds.

So, me thinks that the "intelligent designers" usually have fun. They use and reuse "parts", to create new models and new species. That´s why some share functions or genes or physical traits. Not due to evolution, but just coming from the same "factory", so to speak. Animals have their own communication systems, and so do we. From there to finding a "missing link", good luck with that!

 

[ryu]

Babies before acquiring the rudiment of thir parents' spoken language seem to communicate by signs, facial expressions, and some sounds. It looks like they understand each other (I'm sure they tell jokes about adults) and I wonder if there are any studies on the universality of those sounds.

I once read a study that linguists and doctors had done on babies. Apparently, babies are crying at different "tunes", and those tunes match the "melody" of their mother tongue. They had recorded the cries of babies from all over the world. Must have been fun.

 

[Alejo]

Not sure where my mind was going by bringing these things to the forefront, but since there is an intelligent design component to our ability to speak and communicate I think we also have to consider how this all works with other animals as well.

This is true, and it's a rather complex and sophisticated behavior, and I suppose it needed to be communicated somehow, a form of language to instruct was being used I would think.

it reminded me of the following:

Q: (L) Is there some way to communicate with whales or dolphins and can one find a way to translate the differences and have a reasonable, intelligent exchange with a whale or a dolphin or even an elephant?

A: You don't need conversation "with" when a higher telepathic level.

Q: (L) Dolphins and whales communicate telepathically?

A: Yes. So do dogs and cats and snakes etc. etc. only humans have learned the "superior" art of verbal communication.

Q: (L) But, at the same time, verbal communication can be quite limiting, is that correct?

A: That is the point.

Q: I want to start off tonight with a question that has been bugging me all week: I want to know why whales sing?

A: Communication.

Q: They sing to communicate. I kind of figured that. Is this an elaborate and complicated form of communication?

A: Yes.

Q: Is it as complicated as a spoken language such as what we know?

A: More so.

Q: Is there any key you could give us as to how to interpret this language?

A: You would need to think in an entirely different way.

Q: What way would this be? Is it an image based language, or is it tone based? Do the tones evoke images or concepts and ideas?

A: It is psionic/practical wave modulation through flange scopotic transmisson.

Q: Could you define your use of psionic for me?

A: Seeing, hearing, feeling, absorption and response in simultaneous thought wave profile.

So perhaps language was necessary as telepathic abilities weren't present in our model/design, so to speak? so a spoken language package was included "in the box".

 

[whitecoast]

So perhaps language was necessary as telepathic abilities weren't present in our model/design, so to speak? so a spoken language package was included "in the box".

Or perhaps it was a backup "failure mode" in the event that the edenic humans lost their abilities?

 

[Alejo]

Or perhaps it was a backup "failure mode" in the event that the edenic humans lost their abilities?

Sort of like Rebooting human in "safe mode" with limited functionality? as you would a computer... that's quite an interesting concept, but it also speaks of the resiliency of life, and of the adaptability to "injuries"

 

[Mililea]

@Chu I watched the videos and there were a lot of aha moments and I think you are a great teacher, thank you for your work.
I am really a newbie in this field, but it reminded me of some insights from talking to our house residents.

There are 100 people living in the house, coming from many different countries, like Germany, Sweden, Finland, Croatia,
Eritrea, Iran, Vietnam, Peru, Portugal... I can't remember anymore. As I am very interested in this language topic, I have often talked about it with some of the people and noticed similarities in different words that I was not aware of before. Unfortunately, this was before I saw the videos and I didn't remember the examples. But I will pay attention in the future and also ask more specific questions, because I really find this topic very interesting.

And thank you for the picture of the elephant.... it's very meaningful for many conversations you have with people nowadays as well, where people have different "realities" because they are not look at the whole.

 

[Metrist]

This topic gives me a chance to write about something that I often wanted to query.

This community often talks about 3D, 4D dimensions, and there is a thread about pets where they are referred to as 2D friends....

I often wonder while reading something interesting - perhaps being distracted - but I marvel at the meaning being conveyed on a page full of letters... every word being a meaning in itself, yet combine to form larger meanings, and as they are unique and complimentary, they are alive in a sense.

So, as far as written language is concerned, as it applies to conveying 3D or higher experiences, it is 2D existence, or even 2D existence in reference to itself: linguistics or language.

Ideas and concepts, notions, fantasies, ect. are the souls resident in words formulated from a higher sphere that is 3D. We wield a god-like authorship in our ability to create in 2D.

Still, origins of language is elusive, because it has always been and inseperable. Only in 2D we can speculate, and if you take a page of letters and words and paragraphs and scramble them, they break down into a fundamental element - each with meaning and design, ready to be assembled into higher meanings over again.

So, language is a mental reality concurrent with our physical reality, and its merit lays a shared assessment that adheres us in a common understanding - until it breaks - whereupon we reassess the situation, continually, as life is dynamic. Life doesn't break so much as our understanding of it - reality just is.

So, unless we write of things perennial, language is like life in that it is mortal, and language breaks down into fundamental elements to again formulate and adhere to a revised understanding.

 

[nicklebleu]

Thanks, Chu, for the video series - utterly fascinating stuff! So just a few loosely connected thoughts - well, they may well feel totally unconnected to you, but to me they seem connected, even though I cannot explain why.

I have always had a deep interest in language and have either learned or attempted to learn about a dozen others, mostly with limited success. But it was always an interesting journey, an eye opener and fascinating.

One thing I have been thinking about for years is: whether or not it would (or will be) possible to design a ‘Universal Translator’ device, at least for human speech, that would be able to translate any language without having to learn it before, just by context and sound. I always thought that speech is a reflection of how we think, and maybe even of how exactly our brains are wired, which means that it would follow some internal rules (a bit like hardware constrains the way you can write code for your software). And your videos have given me more insight into this question - maybe in addition to the constraints in the brain, the sounds themselves have an inbuilt meaning. And if it was possible, would such a device work for an alien language, thus reflecting a truly universal substrate to language based on sound (maybe alien language is based on something else)?

Connected to that is the observation that the word ‘mother’ is very similar in most - but not all! - languages (in Aymara it is ‘Taica’; in Calo it is Dai; then there are a few languages with a N rather than a M sound - like nan). It also happens to be the first word for a lot of babies. Most linguists explain this with the immaturity of the voice apparatus and that this sound mimics suckling the breast in terms of muscular use. And this might be partially true, but again, there might be also a deeper meaning in the sound MA.

The interesting thing with the words ‘mother’ that don’t contain the MA sound - like ‘Taica’ And in case the word in another language doesn’t closely resemble the MA syllable, maybe there is a ‘children’s word’ that would do so - a bit like ‘mum’ vs ‘mother’

The last issue that seems connected to all this (and it may well not be) is a thought I have held for a very long time: Anything that a human can think of will become reality at some point. Again, this may be false, and of course I don’t have proof - I can only look back (think Jules Vernes). But it always has looked to me that if we can form a thought, that already halfway materialises what we are thinking about in a sensed - the rest is research and development.

Now, don’t ask me how this is related to the thread …

I have ordered the books and looking forward to more videos!

 

[stellar]

Babies before acquiring the rudiment of thir parents' spoken language seem to communicate by signs, facial expressions, and some sounds. It looks like they understand each other (I'm sure they tell jokes about adults) and I wonder if there are any studies on the universality of those sounds.

Cannot believe I recalled her name after all these years: Priscilla Dunstan
I bought her video for my kids when they were having babies many years ago.

 

[Chu]

So, unless we write of things perennial, language is like life in that it is mortal, and language breaks down into fundamental elements to again formulate and adhere to a revised understanding.

Indeed. And further, you could also say that we process things differently depending on how we use language. Speech requires time and disappears immediately after. Writing, on the contrary, is more perennial (once it's done, time is not important to its existence) and, as you said, inscribed in 2D for the most part. Sign language could be said to require time and space more so than normal speech.