The C’s teachings and the ZPD

[Novelis]

Hi, I’d like to share a particular concept found in the field of psycho-linguistics, which, I believe, has some relevance, and may shed some light to the C’s “teaching style”.

This concept was developed by the Russian linguist, Lev Vygotsky, and is explained fully in his book, Thought and Language (Highly recommended).

The ZPD, or the zo-ped, (Zone of Proximal Development), is introduced by Vygotsky in his book as:

“The place at which a child’s empirically rich but disorganised spontaneous concepts “meet” the systematicity and logic of adult reasoning. As a result of such a “meeting”, the weaknesses of spontaneous reasoning are compensated by the strengths of scientific logic. The depth of zo-ped varies, reflecting children’s relative abilities to appropriate adult structures. The final product of this child-adult cooperation is a solution, which, being internalized, becomes an integral part of the child’s own reasoning.”

Vygotsky is mainly concerning himself with how children develop cognitive/language skills, which is why he uses “adult reasoning” as the model that the child is reaching for.

But in reality, the idea of the ZPD is applicable to ANY form of learning, to persons at ANY age, and at ANY stage of the learning process.

In fact, it is applicable to any situation in which there is discourse between one with has less knowledge with another, where one is teaching and the other is learning.

To show that the ZPD isn’t just about language or cognitive development, I turn now to the book “Teaching languages to young learners”, by Lynne Cameron.

She uses the example of a child learning basic motor functions to assess where the concept of ZPD applies to the learning process:

With the help of adults, children can do and understand much more than they can on their own. To illustrate this idea, let’s (re)turn to the example of a (the) baby learning to feed herself wit a spoon.

At some point in learning to use a spoon to eat with, the baby may be able to get the spoon in the food and can put a spoonful of food in her mouth, but cannot quite manage the middle step of filling the spoon with food.

A helpful adult may assist the baby with the difficult part by putting his hand over the baby’s and guiding it in filling the spoon. In this way, adult and child together achieve what the baby was unable to do by herself, and the baby receives some useful training in turning the spoon at the angle needed to get hold of the food.

Before long, the baby will master this step and can be left to do the whole feeding process by herself. …

The kind of spoon-filling help, targeted at what the baby can nearly but not quite do by herself, is seen as particularly useful in promoting development; filling the spoon with food was an action in the baby’s zone of proximal development (or ZPD).

We can note before we leave this example that parents are often very ‘tuned-in’ to their own children and know exactly what help is needed next, and that skillful teachers also manage to do this in a class of thirty or more different ZPD’s.

Now, I’d like to show how the concept of the ZPD applies to language learning, from “Teaching languages to young learners”:

Transferring to the language classroom, we can see how classroom routines, which happen every day, may provide opportunities for language development. One immediate example would be in classroom management, such as giving our paper and scissors for making activities.

As a routine, this would always take basically the same form: for example, the teacher is talking to the whole class, organising distribution, perhaps using children as monitors; the scissors might be kept in a box, the paper in a cupboard.

The language used would suit the task and the pupils’ level; so early stage learners might hear, George, please give out the scissors. The context and the familiarity of the event provide an opportunity for pupils to predict meaning and intention, but the routine also offers a way to add variation and novelty that can involve more complex language: Sam, please ask everybody if they want white paper or black paper, or Give out a pair of scissors to each group.

As the language becomes more complex, the support to meaning that comes from the routine and the situation helps children to continue to understand. The increased complexity of language provides a space for language growth; if the new language is within a child’s ZPD, she or he will make sense of it and start the process of internalising it.

What the above quotation basically stipulates is the idea that, firstly, in the field of language teaching, a teacher can use a context that students are familiar with to teach English, then expand their ZPD’s by introducing new items into the context that students are already able to grasp confidently.

For instance, when one begins to teach English as a foreign language, one could raise up one finger while saying “One”.

Context: The gestural signal of raising one finger is recognisable to almost all children, having almost certainly encountered it before many times while learning their first language.

ZPD: Although the child has never heard the word “one” before, the context makes the meaning of the word “one” fairly clear.

So, the ZPD of the child is being able to understand the CONCEPT of the number “one” in their first language, and also being able to associate the raising of one finger with that concept.

Introducing the word “one” in English is slightly above their zone of proximal development, but if the child has the necessary scientific reasoning abilities to make that new connection, then the child learns something new.

In other words, you give them a task which contains rudimentary elements they can already do/understand by themselves (Known as scaffolding or support), but which also contains elements that they can do by applying scientific reasoning that they have used to solve other problems in this, new and unfamiliar situation (Known as demands).

From Cameron’s book, “teaching languages to young learners” again:

Clearly, whether learners can do the task, and whether they learn anything by doing it, depends not just on the demands or on the support, but on the dynamic relationship between demands and support.

We can here recall the idea of the zone of proximal development, or space for growth, that children need for their language and cognitive development.

If the demands are too high, learners will find the task too difficult; they are likely to ‘switch off’ and not finish the task, or to finish the task as they can, using what they know to complete the task but not using the language (knowledge) intended.

…

If a task provides too much support, then learners will not be ‘stretched’.

…

In trying to strike a balance between demands and support, we can apply what cognitive scientists call ‘the goldilocks principle’: a task that is going to help the learner learn more language is one that is demanding but not too demanding, that provides support but not too much support. The difference between demands and support creates the space for growth and produces opportunities for learning.

The author then draws on an analogy to illustrate the idea.

She uses the example of lifting weights, if one starts off using too much weight (demands are too high), then injury may follow, but if the weights are too light (Too much support), then the weight lifter isn’t gaining anything (not learning), so, the trick is to start off with something just slightly above your current level (slightly above your ZPD) and then “raise the bar” every time the new weight has become the norm.

Now, what has this got to do with the C’s communications?

I am theorising that maybe this is what the C’s are doing in their communications.

If we observe, for example, the following:

Q: (L) Okay. What are the consequences of this disruption in terms of awareness and spiritual growth?

A: Remember Pavlov?

Q: (L) Yeah... So what about Pavlov?

A: Strong dogs can be broken if their health is broken first.

The C’s, as we know, do not just give answers, they instead give a response that requires the questioner (learner) to draw on their own knowledge based on the “clue” provided by the C’s.

So, if we use ‘Vygotskian’ terms, the learner is given support, in the sense that they are directed to the relevant “schema” (The schema of Pavlov), while the demand lies in how the learner applies their existing knowledge to the new problem/situation.

One might even say that in this particular exchange, the team wasn’t really “on the ball” for whatever reason, since the support that the C’s gave should’ve been more than enough for the questioners to make the link.

The C’s seem to be acutely aware of the ZPD of the questioner, and how to balance the dynamic between support and demand to allow the questioner to grow beyond their current ZPD (to move into their space for growth).

I would further postulate, and this seems to be the case according to the transcripts, that the C’s are fully aware of the totality of their ‘learners’ (All beings here on earth, and, God only knows what else), where their ZPD’s and dysfunctions lie, and know exactly how to provide problems/tasks that will allow the learners to naturally make their own progress.

Viewing the communications in this way, I’ve thought some implications, namely:

If the C’s indeed are teaching in this way, that means that if they say something is achievable, they it is most likely based on the data that the C’s have of all of the factors in question, and must be achievable.

Just like a teacher that would only give a task based on what she knows the students can do if they move into their spaces for growth.

However, this also means that the C’s will not provide tasks that are impossible to achieve, and will not tap into areas of the learners’ minds that do not exist (yet).

To draw an analogy, if a teacher had just taught the English word for “one”, she would not ask the students to tell her what’s number one is in, say, Spanish, or Japanese, would she?

And this is where I think it’s important to take note, and why the C’s have encouraged more people to get together at the sessions and to network.

It is simply impossible that the people present at the sessions know everything, so maybe the C’s say certain things that they themselves know cannot be understood fully until it is shared and distributed?

Maybe a lot of what the C’s say cannot be taken as universal statements, but rather, are totally dependant on what the questioner knows and doesn’t know, as in, the specific context and the ZPD of the questioner?

Maybe there are vast fields of knowledge that the C’s never touch upon, simply because these fields are inaccessible to the questioners, like, for example, fields that pertain to long lost knowledge, or that can only be understood in languages that the questioners do not know?

If we now look at Vygotsky’s definition of the Zo-ped once again, it could perhaps be read as the following, in relation to the C’s communications:

“The place at which a learner’s empirically rich but disorganized and entropic spontaneous concepts “meet” the systematicity, creativity and logic of Sixth density reasoning.

As a result of such a “meeting”, the weaknesses of spontaneous reasoning are compensated by the strengths of sixth density logic.

The depth of zo-ped varies, reflecting the learner’s relative abilities to appropriate Sixth density structures.

The final product of this 3D-6D cooperation is a solution, which, being internalized, becomes an integral part of the learner’s own reasoning.”

I had the idea of writing this out ever since I read the March session where the C's told Ark that "We are helping you access it!"

I cannot be certain of what I am writing, but this is just my current hypothesis. I hope that anyone who disagrees can correct my errors.

Thanks for reading,
Novelis

 

[RyanX]

Thanks for this Novelis. That was an interesting summary of ZPD, a concept which I have not encountered.

I can't help but think that ZPD is somehow related to the concept of Being. in that knowledge is just not accessible to those who have not acquired a certain level of Being. In other words, knowledge depends on Being. ZPD seems to either relate to one's state of Being or is just another more analytical way of expressing the same concept, OSIT.

Here is the section on knowledge and being from ISOTM:

[quote author=ISOTM]
"There are," he said, "two lines along which man's development proceeds, the line of knowledge and the line of being. In right evolution the line of knowledge and the line of being develop simultaneously, parallel to, and helping one another. But if the line of knowledge gets too far ahead of the line of being, or if the line of being gets ahead of the line of knowledge, man's development goes wrong, and sooner or later it must come to a standstill.

"People understand what 'knowledge' means. And they understand the possibility of different levels of knowledge. They understand that knowledge may be lesser or greater, that is to say, of one quality or of another quality. But they do not understand this in relation to 'being.' 'Being,' for them, means simply 'existence' to which is opposed just 'non-existence.' They do not understand that being or existence may be of very different levels and categories. Take for instance the being of a mineral and of a plant. It is a different being. The being of a plant and of an animal is again a different being. The being of an animal and of a man is a different being. But the being of two people can differ from one another more than the being of a mineral and of an animal. This is exactly what people do not understand. And they do not understand that knowledge depends on being. Not only do they not understand this latter but they definitely do not wish to understand it. And especially in Western culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, for example he may be an able scientist, make discoveries, advance science, and at the same time he may be, and has the right to be, a petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naive, and absentminded man. It seems to be considered here that a professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere.

"And yet it is his being. And people think that his knowledge does not depend on his being. People of Western culture put great value on the level of a man's knowledge but they do not value the level of a man's being and are not ashamed of the low level of their own being. They do not even understand what it means. And they do not understand that a man's knowledge depends on the level of his being.

"If knowledge gets far ahead of being, it becomes theoretical and abstract and inapplicable to life, or actually harmful, because instead of serving life and helping people the better to struggle with the difficulties they meet, it begins to complicate man's life, brings new difficulties into it, new troubles and calamities which were not there before.

"The reason for this is that knowledge which is not in accordance with being cannot be large enough for, or sufficiently suited to, man's real needs. It will always be a knowledge of one thing together with ignorance of another thing; a knowledge of the detail without a knowledge of the whole; a knowledge of the form without a knowledge of the essence.

"Such preponderance of knowledge over being is observed in present-day culture. The idea of the value and importance of the level of being is completely forgotten. And it is forgotten that the level of knowledge is determined by the level of being. Actually at a given level of being the possibilities of knowledge are limited and finite. Within the limits of a given being the quality of knowledge cannot be changed, and the accumulation of information of one and the same nature, within already known limits, alone is possible. A change in the nature of knowledge is possible only with a change in the nature of being.
[/quote]

 

[Buddy]

I cannot be certain of what I am writing, but this is just my current hypothesis. I hope that anyone who disagrees can correct my errors.

Thanks for reading,
Novelis

Fwiw Novelis, I think that post was extremely well written and flows beautifully towards the end. In fact, I find myself essentially in agreement with it all. I'm not trying to "correct any errors", but I have an observation to offer if you're interested.

I had never heard of ZPD and I agree with Ryan about the connection to knowledge and being, but I think there's a subtlety here that deserves attention.

The way ZPD is described and the way it is referred to as 'applicable to ANY...' seems to be correct, however a broader question might be is it useful or necessary (as ZPD) outside the given contexts and examples?

IOW, I can see how it applies to teaching a toddler to fill a spoon, or teaching a new language, or teaching anything within a classroom setting and/or anywhere a student is required to learn something within a certain time frame established by a parent, teacher or curriculum.

What about all other times? And how does that apply to the C's?

I tend to think that once a child (or older person) has developed a certain acreage of conceptual groundwork, said child's learning begins to grow exponentially due to the use of that executive function called "Reconstitution". If this is the case, then outside of time constraints, the child would learn the missing piece of the puzzle on his own through thinking, experimenting and trial and error - in essence, growing his being through growing his knowledge and his learning experience. An exception might be a child with ADHD.

In such cases, when should a 'teacher' step into the zone with help? How long should the 'teacher' wait and let the student struggle with a problem? Until the student tries to fill in the gap, runs into a wall and then asks for help? If so, then we are back to the definition of STO as giving all when asked, and only what is asked (without violating freewill) or operating with a requirement for 'getting it' within a certain time frame, and that, of course, describes the C's communication, right?

Other than that, I think it is just a novel way to describe how sensible it is for a teacher to constrain his/herself to supplying what is needed, when it is needed and practicing that towards all the students within the time frame assigned for learning.

If I am missing something or I blew this analysis in some way, please let me know. :)


ref:
------------------------------
According to Russell A. Barkley in an article titled ADHD in Scientific American, Sept. 1998, p. 70:
"The final executive function, reconstitution, actually encompasses two separate processes: breaking down observed behaviors and combining the parts into new actions not previously learned from experience. The capacity for reconstitution gives humans a great degree of fluency, flexibility and creativity; it allows individuals to propel themselves toward a goal without having to learn the needed steps by rote."

 

[Novelis]

Hello,

Thank you both for your immensely thought provoking and insightful feedback.

These responses highlighted quite a few factors regarding this topic that I have never thought about, so thank you for broadening my perspectives.

First, allow me to make some comments about what Ryan has said about the ZPD being related to the concept of being.

I have to mention here that my understanding of the meaning, as it is used here, of the word being, may be limited, faulty or at a lower level, so please correct me if I’m wrong.

In my view, then, considering Ryan’s quote:

[quote author=ISOTM]And especially in Western culture it is considered that a man may possess great knowledge, for example he may be an able scientist, make discoveries, advance science, and at the same time he may be, and has the right to be, a petty, egoistic, caviling, mean, envious, vain, naive, and absentminded man. It seems to be considered here that a professor must always forget his umbrella everywhere.[/quote]

The concept of being, to me, seems to coincide with the idea of social development, or the extent of which we are able to relate to others socially.

If I am not mistaken, then, the way to designate someone of possessing a higher or a lower level of being stems from THE essential and objective truth of what a human is supposed to BE, as in, a SOCIAL creature, a being that is supposed to be empathetic, so someone with a high level of being is someone who performs his/her (Partkolg?) duty in serving others… Yes?

Conversely, a person with a lower level of being is someone who manifests actions, attitudes, beliefs and traits that are pathological and/or self serving.

When viewed in these terms, then it’s not hard to see that the ZPD, or the Zone of proximal development, can be used to gauge social development.

In fact, I think it is fair to say that through language, one can discern where an individual is in terms of social development, I’ve witnessed this for myself many times.

If it is valid to say that the concept of social development and BEING can be used interchangeably, then a person’s being/social knowledge is a form of development that can be construed as having a space for growth.

This seems to be in line with the idea that the ZPD is related to any form of development.

Ryan, this is what I gathered from what you were referring to, please tell me if I am missing something.

Now, I’d like to refer to Bud’s response:

[quote author=Bud]The way ZPD is described and the way it is referred to as 'applicable to ANY...' seems to be correct, however a broader question might be is it useful or necessary (as ZPD) outside the given contexts and examples?

IOW, I can see how it applies to teaching a toddler to fill a spoon, or teaching a new language, or teaching anything within a classroom setting and/or anywhere a student is required to learn something within a certain time frame established by a parent, teacher or curriculum.

What about all other times? And how does that apply to the C's?[/quote]

The hypothetical dichotomy of knowledge and being seems to be a description of the STATE of a person’s knowledge and being, whereas the ZPD is strictly a diagnostic/analytical tool to be used to figure out (with the level of accuracy increasing the more knowledge the person using it possesses), what has been learned, and what needs to be learned next.

[quote author=Ryan]ZPD seems to either relate to one's state of Being or is just another more analytical way of expressing the same concept, OSIT.[/quote]

[quote author=Bud]I think it is just a novel way to describe how sensible it is for a teacher to constrain his/herself to supplying what is needed, when it is needed and practicing that towards all the students within the time frame assigned for learning.[/quote]

It is true that the concept of the ZPD has a lot of ground in common sense and sensible practice, and we are using it all the time.

Consider the following example:

A: Excuse me, where is the next bus stop from here?

(“A” has a gap in his geographical knowledge, perhaps because he is unfamiliar with his location)

B: Oh, go straight down this road until you reach the next traffic lights, turn right, you’ll see it from there, can’t miss it.

(“B” is able to determine, from the language that “A” uses, as well as a vast complex of other data (such as A’s fluency of English, signs of physical/mental handicaps, etc.) the necessary balance of support and demands to offer “A” so that he can fill in his gap in knowledge and not only get to the bus stop, but also to assimilate the new data and remember it for future use.

As I said earlier:

[quote author=I said earlier]In other words, you give them a task which contains rudimentary elements they can already do/understand by themselves (Known as scaffolding or support), but which also contains elements that they can do by applying scientific reasoning that they have used to solve other problems in this, new and unfamiliar situation (Known as demands).[/quote]

Now, think about this next example:

A: Uhh… Sorry… Where… Bus stop.

(From the above syntax, one might assume that “A” is not very fluent in English, but is able to give “B” enough so that “B” knows the problem. So, it isn’t only his geographical knowledge that has a gap, but also his ability to understand what the instructions are about to be.)

B: Oh, (emphasizes hand signals) Go straight (Speaking slowly and more clearly than before, also loses a lot of the less important words to make sure “A” doesn’t have to assimilate too much information), See those traffic lights? (Points to the next set of traffic lights and makes sure “A” knows what he is pointing at)

A: Yes, Yes… Traff… ic light… (points to the traffic lights)

(Shows “B” that he was not being too demanding and understands the word “traffic lights”.)

B: Yes, yes, Go to the traffic lights, turn right (gestures with hand exaggeratedly), you will see the bus stop (points to eyes when saying the word “see”)

Consider the differences between the two examples, this is how we are using the ZPD in action.

However, when considering why the term ZPD is even necessary, what we are to bare in mind, is that this term, seemingly over technical, was created for the purpose of investigation into a particular field of science that requires such a term, namely, the relationship between language and thought.

Vygotsky writes in first chapter of his book, “thought and language”:

[quote author=Vygotsky]The study of thought and language is one of the areas of psychology in which a clear understanding of interfunctional relationships is particularly important. As long as we do not understand the interrelation of thought and word, we cannot answer, or even correctly pose, any of the more specific questions in this area.[/quote]

I hope that the ramifications of what he is saying isn’t lost on anyone, since any question one may ask about psychology and/or linguistics is inextricably bound to the relationship between thought and speech.

[quote author=Vygotsky]Strange as it may seem, psychology has never investigated the relations systematically and in detail. Interfunctional relations in general have not as yet received the attention they merit. The atomistic and functional modes of analysis prevalent during the past decade treated psychic processes in isolation. Methods of research were developed and perfected with a view to studying separate functions, while their interdependence and their organization in the structure of consciousness as a whole remained outside the field of investigation.[/quote]

I think it is necessary here to mention that this book starts off with a thorough critique of the work done by numerous psychologists, who he has been able to discern has made some subtle but important mistakes by treating psychic processes in isolation, including the leading psychologists in this field of investigation, Piaget and Stern.

I must also note that this book was written in Russian first in 1936, while Vygotsky says that this problem hasn’t been tackled yet, so this might be an opinion that is a little out of date.

However, in his defense, this version of the book is a revised edition, released in 1986, and looks to have been brought up to date rather well.

[quote author=Vygotsky]The unity of consciousness and the interrelation of all psychological functions were, it is true, accepted by all; the single functions were assumed to operate inseparably, in a uninterrupted connection with one another. But this unity of consciousness was usually taken as a postulate, rather than as a subject of study. Moreover, in the old psychology the unchallengeable premise of unity was combined with a set of tacit assumptions that nullified it for all practical purposes. It was taken for granted that the relation between two given functions never varied; that perception, for example, was always connected in an identical way with attention, memory with perception, thought with memory.[/quote]

It is important for me to say that, basically, Vygotsky uses “the word and its meaning” as a UNIT that bares all the sum of its parts for analysis, rather than using elements, which, as he says, when parts are investigated in isolation, it tends to go wrong, since every psychic process is inextricably bound to all others.

This, he says, was the chief mistake of psychologists like Piaget when studying children, and this version of “thought and speech” actually contains detailed notes from Piaget himself agreeing with Vygotsky.

Vygotsky uses an experimental study of concept formation in children as a means to understand how thought and language forms its bridges and become inseparable in all humans that use language to communicate.

In my current working hypothesis, I’d say that this field of study touches upon just about everything that involves language, as our every thought is expressed with, and even stems from language.

I cannot overstate the immensity of what Vygotsky opens up for us in the field of psychology, and indeed, the human condition.

Vygotsky finishes his book with this:

[quote author=Vygotsky]We cannot close our study without mentioning the perspectives that our investigation opens up. This is even more momentous a problem than that of thinking; what I mean is the problem of consciousness. We studied the inward aspects of speech, which were as unknown to science as the other side of the moon.

We tried to establish the connection between word and object, word and reality.

We attempted to study experimentally the dialectics of transition from perception to thinking, and to show that a generalized reflection of reality is the basic characteristic of words. This aspect of the word brings us to the threshold of a wider and deeper subject, i.e., the problem of the relation between word and consciousness.

If perspective consciousness and intellectual consciousness reflect reality differently, then we have two different forms of consciousness. Thought and speech turn out to be the key to the nature of human consciousness.

If language is as old as consciousness itself, and if language is a practical consciousness-for-others and, consequently, consciousness-for-myself, then not only one particular thought but all consciousness is connected with the development of the word.

The word is a thing in our consciousness, as Ludwig Feuerbach put it, that is absolutely impossible for one person, but that becomes a reality for two. The word is a direct expression of the historical nature of human consciousness.

Consciousness is reflected in a word as the sun in a drop of water. A word relates to consciousness as a living cell relates to a whole organism, as an atom relates to the universe. A word is a microcosm of human consciousness.[/quote]

If the C’s are using are our human language as a medium of their “thoughts”, which, as Vygotsky puts it, is “old as consciousness itself” and “is a direct expression of the historical nature of human consciousness”, then NOT ONLY are the C’s transmissions, the work Laura and the team do, and indeed the work of all of us here that are working on ourselves and our various researches, SIMPLY a search for answers, but therein lies the microcosm, behind our every word, of the True nature of human consciousness.

This is the essence, or the “heart” of what I am investigating. I am no way near making this study the driving force of all of my endeavors, but I will keep trying.

I've tried to be as precise and apt for your responses, which was especially difficult considering the vastness of this field of study, so please forgive my inadequacies and lack of compositional skills, and indeed my imperfect logic.

Thank you for reading and for your patience,

Novelis

 

[Novelis]

Hello,

I feel quite silly asking for this (Rhys, here comes that "disclaimer" you suggested, Umm... Rhys told me to write this), but I'd appreciate some feedback for my last post...

I mean, if you'll notice, there was a bit of a delay in my response time after Bud and RyanX posted their comments. This was because it was a must for me to think about it, draft it, think again, redraft again... And so on, for nearly 20 days before I was satisfied with my own feedback.

I have never written anything with this much care, to be honest.

I aimed to cover all the points made by Bud and RyanX and to answer the questions as fully as my current level of understanding allowed, but I don't really know if I was successful in this endeavor, nor do I really know if it was useful for anyone, or indeed if there is any interest in this subject.

So, I'll just ask directly, should I dive further into this topic? Did it in any way, shall I say, "strike a nerve"?

Where could/should I take this study and research? Any suggestions?

To Bub and RyanX, was this feedback adequate? Were your questions answered satisfactorily?

Thanks,
Jason

 

[Buddy]

Hello,

I feel quite silly asking for this (Rhys, here comes that "disclaimer" you suggested, Umm... Rhys told me to write this), but I'd appreciate some feedback for my last post...

Ok. No need to feel silly. Perhaps more people could follow your example and directly ask for what they want. :)

I mean, if you'll notice, there was a bit of a delay in my response time after Bud and RyanX posted their comments. This was because it was a must for me to think about it, draft it, think again, redraft again... And so on, for nearly 20 days before I was satisfied with my own feedback.

I have never written anything with this much care, to be honest.

Wow, this subject means a lot to you doesn't it?

I aimed to cover all the points made by Bud and RyanX and to answer the questions as fully as my current level of understanding allowed, but I don't really know if I was successful in this endeavor, nor do I really know if it was useful for anyone, or indeed if there is any interest in this subject.

So, I'll just ask directly, should I dive further into this topic?

If that's what you want to do.

Did it in any way, shall I say, "strike a nerve"?

Not with me. I understood your answer but I still don't quite fathom your intent concerning this subject.

Where could/should I take this study and research? Any suggestions?

Where do you want to take it?

To Bub and RyanX, was this feedback adequate? Were your questions answered satisfactorily?

Thanks,
Jason

I guess so, but maybe I'm not totally sure. Perhaps I have a couple more questions:

Vygotsky writes in first chapter of his book, “thought and language”:

It is important for me to say that, basically, Vygotsky uses “the word and its meaning” as a UNIT that bares all the sum of its parts for analysis, rather than using elements, which, as he says, when parts are investigated in isolation, it tends to go wrong, since every psychic process is inextricably bound to all others.

What is that supposed to mean exactly? Is this UNIT supposed to exist independently of an individual? A word and it's meaning only exists "as a unit" in someone's mind, right? Meanings, themselves, cannot exist apart from someone who understands a given word. IOW, words don't have meanings. People have meanings for words - in their heads. That's why feedback is often needed to ensure understanding. Is Vygotsky trying to say something other than that?

In my current working hypothesis, I’d say that this field of study touches upon just about everything that involves language, as our every thought is expressed with, and even stems from language.

Really? "our every thought"? It might for some, I suppose. I can think in terms of processes and energy flows and identify relationships via visualization. I think words and language are only needed when one thinks in terms of categories and desires to communicate verbally and in written form in a linear manner. At such a time, for life and survival, categories can be a matter of pragmatism. They are certainly useful for the internal dialog that keeps us 'doing' the world.

Have we not been raised in an insane, ponerized culture? Driving that insanity is a slavery to words. Because language is so very useful to human progress, a central objective of education is to develop language usage; but the process goes too far, osit. Language is near universally taught in such a manner that it ceases to be merely a tool for communication, but becomes a straight-jacket on the thinking process and thinking progress. This extends until most of us cannot think outside the mass of words circulating in our consciousness. That is, we become just as addicted to language as we do with any other behavior. We become the servants of our local language structures instead of the masters of language.

For the sake of sanity, we must learn to attend to reality left and right and pay attention to the feedback that fine tunes our communicating and understanding of what we are perceiving.

If the C’s are using are our human language as a medium of their “thoughts”, which, as Vygotsky puts it, is “old as consciousness itself” and “is a direct expression of the historical nature of human consciousness”, then NOT ONLY are the C’s transmissions, the work Laura and the team do, and indeed the work of all of us here that are working on ourselves and our various researches, SIMPLY a search for answers, but therein lies the microcosm, behind our every word, of the True nature of human consciousness.

So you are thinking that the words, themselves, hold the secret (as microcosms) of understanding the nature of human consciousness?

 

[Lauranimal]

Thank you for sharing this Novelis. I found it very enlightening.

Having someone explicate how the process of developing words into experiential concepts, and how that can be consciously directed for teaching and learning (I read this several days ago and have been chewing on it a little) definitely shed some light on some part of the process the C's may use in communicating.

The C's also recently said something about how the words (?) or maybe it was names (?) they choose have a much deeper meaning and manifestation. This connection that you are making could perhaps be a step in the direction of developing deeper understanding. (???)

FWIW, that is what I am thinking :)

 

[Nawd]

This is weird Bud, but actually I was having the same thoughts over the past few weeks.

So you are thinking that the words, themselves, hold the secret (as microcosms) of understanding the nature of human consciousness?

For what it's worth....my own thoughts, were that letters that create words could be identified with a common denominator (this is so much easier to explain to myself.) But for an example: Words that start with a particular letter - the energy it carries. Much like numerology, in a way at least. What if you could find out a common denominator of each letter that makes up the word(s) and then find that it fits perfectly or even more interesting, not so perfectly. I would have to really expound on this idea, but it's hard to put into heh, words.

Let's take the letter "A": Here is a small excerpt from Dictionary.com (although an older 'book' Dictionary also might hold some clues)

Letter a
Financial Dictionary
A definition
A Nasdaq stock symbol specifying that the stocks are Class "A" shares of the company.
Investopedia Commentary
Nasdaq-listed securities have four or five characters. If a fifth letter appears, it identifies the issue as other than a single issue of common stock or capital stock.
See also: Class, Nasdaq, Stock Symbol
Also spelled: a, A, A
A, a   /eɪ/ Show Spelled[ey] Show IPA
–noun, plural A's or As, a's or as.
1. the first letter of the English alphabet, a vowel.
2. any spoken sound represented by the letter A or a, as in bake, hat, father, or small.
3. something having the shape of an A .
4. a written or printed representation of the letter A or a.
5. a device, as a printer's type, for reproducing the letter A or a.
—Idioms
6. from A to Z, from beginning to end; thoroughly; completely: He knows the Bible from A to Z.
7. not know from A to B, to know nothing; be ignorant. a1    /ə; when stressed eɪ/ Show Spelled[uh; when stressed ey] Show IPA
–indefinite article
1. not any particular or certain one of a class or group: a man; a chemical; a house.
2. a certain; a particular: one at a time; two of a kind; A Miss Johnson called.
3. another; one typically resembling: a Cicero in eloquence; a Jonah.
4. one (used before plural nouns that are preceded by a quantifier singular in form): a hundred men (compare hundreds of men ); a dozen times (compare dozens of times ).
5. indefinitely or nonspecifically (used with adjectives expressing number): a great many years; a few stars.
6. one (used before a noun expressing quantity): a yard of ribbon; a score of times.
7. any; a single: not

The cool thing about researching just a letter, is that it comes with a defined use already. Unlike numerology which is somewhat up to the interpreter, letters are used and already have a 'solid' meaning about them. Not that numbes are not 'solid', but they have sort of a 'nonsolid' interpretation with regards to 'what they mean in symbolism.



Meh, or maybe I'm obsessive. :D

 

[Laura]

I've thought quite a number of times that words and the way words are put together, are keys to understanding the landscape of the mind. Of course, my thoughts on the topic have been mostly geared to trying to understand pathology. And the reason for that is because I realize that pathologicals are in charge of our world and I really want to know their plans and agenda so as to best be able to navigate in this world.

There are actually some studies that have been done on trying to suss out the mental landscape of pathology via examination of words - psycholinguistics. It's a fascinating topic.

Regarding the Cs, yes, I've noticed their extremely clever way of teaching and I certainly have noticed the difference between where I was at the beginning and where I am now in terms of my thinking, understanding, emotional state, etc. I often tell people that interacting with the Cs was, for me, an initiation process.

Here is what I wrote about it in Grace:

After working with spirit attachment issues, I had a lot of questions. As I have already said, there was an open possibility in my mind that such "spirits" were merely fragments of the personality of an individual, sort of like little broken off circuits in the brain running in repetitive loops, created by trauma or stress. Perhaps an individual, when faced with a difficulty, entered a narcissistic state of fantasy, created a "dream," which was imprinted in the memory of the brain. If they then emerged from this state back into dealing with their reality, but not having dealt with the issue itself, it might become locked away in a sort of cerebral file drawer, sitting there, waiting to be triggered by the electricity or neurochemicals of the brain in some random unconscious scan. The same could be said for so-called past life memories; they were merely self-created memory files generated in a state of narcissistic withdrawal due to stress. Such neurological files could then be downloaded and read by using the conscious bypass method of either automatism or simply allowing the conscious mind to "step aside" as in trance channeling. For that matter, simple psychotherapy could be considered channeling in these terms. Conscious channeling is more problematic because it suggests a definite pathological condition in which spirit attachment or multiple personality may play a part. In such cases, the "alter" ego, as either an alternate personality or an actual attached entity, is strong and well entrenched enough to establish a far stronger hold on the body of the host than those which can only manifest via automatism or trance.

Professor Douglas Robinson at Ole Miss suggests that an analogy can be drawn between the function of a translator and the channel or medium. It is their purpose to step aside and allow the original author of a work in another language to speak through them. It is their profession to convey the fullest intention of the original author to a new audience that otherwise, not knowing the language would not have access to the material. In the ordinary sense, translation is done merely across linguistic or cultural barriers. In the sense of channeling, it is done across temporal, consciousness, or even hyperspatial barriers.

The crucial thing about both translating and channeling is the necessity for the mediator to not convey to the target audience his or her own ideas, meanings, arguments, or images. The translator must be a neutral conduit to the target audience of the ideas and meanings of the original author.

The analogy suggests both (a) that the source author has the power to initiate communication with the target audience through the translator (the author is active, the translator is passive, or at the very most active only in the act of surrendering his/her activity to that of the author), and (b) that the translator possesses some means of gaining access to the author's voice and meaning, of reliably "opening up" to the intentional speaking of a person who is almost invariably other. Sometimes translators translate source texts they wrote themselves, but usually the source author is another person, most often distant in time and place, and not infrequently dead.

In the present day, under the influence of rationalist Western technology, the idea that anyone can just sit down and begin to channel is very similar to the idea that translation can be done by machines with no human interface. This is a very subtle point. In terms of a computer program that translates from one language to another, and most channels, we see that the program attempts to execute an algorithm, or series of algorithms that consist of gathering intelligence, charting a course of action, giving a series of commands, and carrying them out. The results are only as good as the algorithms. And we see, from the literature, that the "channeling phenomenon" as it is widely practiced, omits reason from the algorithm. There is no feedback mechanism, and thus no possibility of accurate tuning. This means that it does not allow for an algorithm that can handle the fact that there may be competing forces inside the channel's head. Excluding Reason and the possibility of competing forces results in the algorithm: "I am the Lord your God and there is no other because I said so! And if you don't believe me, then it will be all the worse for you!" Not very productive, to say the least.

The fact is, machine translation researchers despair of ever programming a machine to produce a translation of professionally usable quality without human assistance. In the same way, it is likely impossible to produce channeled material of any usable quality without full consideration for the competing forces as well as the application of Reason in dealing with them. Without application of knowledge and direct, rapid feedback, there is little possibility that anything other than useless psychobabble will emerge. And such seems to be the case. But of course, that excludes the narcissistic delusionals, the deliberate frauds, and the pathological cases of multiple personality. They are all out there in New Age Land, and it's a jungle!

In the end, those machine translation systems that do work are, effectively, cyborg translation systems: they all require a human-machine interface.

In science fiction movies, we often see a "machine translator" that enables the space traveler to just plug himself into a gadget via some brain electrode, and open his mouth and automatically speak in the language of the planet he is visiting. The words may start out in his brain in his own language, but by the time the come out of his mouth, the machine has altered the nerve impulses to the organs of speech causing them to produce correct words in the unknown tongue. Apparently, the machine also works in reverse, and the space traveler may hear words spoken in the unknown language, but he "experiences" them in his own. What is interesting to me is the fact that it is a prosthetic device that turns the space traveler into a sort of cyborg translator who becomes able to "channel" foreign speech.

The point I am trying to make in this funny "reverse analogy," is that by the use of prosthetics, we are in a position to employ an algorithm that includes reason and feedback! Reason, when properly employed, posits an entire army of what Adam Smith called "invisible hands," which shape, direct, regulate, and control translation. And that leads us to the most interesting conclusion that reason, itself, can be an "invisible hand".

"Reason is an internalized form of ideological mastery." Just as the spirit seizes or possesses the channel and speaks or otherwise operates through the channel's willing body in the same way a text in a foreign language is fed into a computer to be translated, (often quite ineptly), so too does ideology and its agents - including reason - seize or possess the ideological subject and wield that subject's body as virtually its own. And in this sense, we discover that the channel, as a "translation machine," can become something far more interesting.

An individual who, via long and intensive study, comes to the idea that there is a possibility of communicating with higher consciousnesses, and formulates a hypothesis of how to do it, and then experiments with that hypothesis, adjusting and modifying throughout the process, is, in a sense, being guided by invisible hands, or forces of the cosmos. But it is clearly a source of some greater complexity and deep need to communicate complex and new concepts that prepares such a translator. In terms of ordinary lower level channeling, we find that the spirits of such activities "hail" the channel through whom he or she wishes to speak by appearing before the clairvoyant; or welling up like verbal pressure inside the head begging to be released for the clairaudient. Sometimes the channel falls into unconsciousness and wakes up to find that something or somebody else had been using their organs of speech.

In the same way does the Cosmos at Large, via Reason and Knowledge and a questing spirit planted in a human form "hail" a potential channel/translator of truly higher realities. The words "translate," "transfer" and "transduce" all have the same Latin root. And it is in the role of translator, that we discover that just "plugging in and turning on the machine" is not enough.

Translators must be trained; they must not only know the other language, they must know how to regulate the degree of fidelity with the source text, how to tell what degree and type of fidelity is appropriate in specific use contexts, how to receive and deliver translations, how to find help with terminology, and so on. All of this suggests a long period of training and preparation.

A Translator channel is someone who has studied these things, who knows these things, and who, most importantly, governs their channeling-translating behavior in terms of this knowledge. This knowledge is ideological. It is controlled by Cosmic ideological norms. To know, via reason, what those Cosmic norms prescribe and act upon them is to submit to control by them. To become a translator-channel of truly Higher Cosmic Consciousness is to be hailed as a translator by "invisible hand" of the Universe.

If you want to become a translator-channel, you must submit to the translator's role of learning the language in an expert way; you must submit to being directed by what the Cosmic ideological norms inform you is the true spirit of the source author, and to channel that spirit unchanged into the target language.

Thus it was, with all of these considerations in mind, I finally settled on the board type instrument as being the best mode of dealing with the issues. It is a prosthetic device that allows constant feedback between the algorithm of "machine translation" of the subconscious/ unconscious, and the human interface of the conscious mind which must constantly employ reason for "tuning". This is possible only with a board due to the fact that the "channel" is using both the conscious bypass for reception, while at the same time is able to maintain constant conscious integrity. By being, at all times, in full possession of their own mind and having the ability to observe, control and direct acceptance or rejection of any material or sensation at any time, reason is brought in as part of the algorithm. In other words, used correctly, by an individual who is knowledgeable in the subjects under discussion, as well as the clinically demonstrated realities of "other realms," this is one of the finest tools available for developing contact with the subconscious, the higher self, and/or benevolent entities which wish to make telepathic contact. And that is the key word: telepathic. This type of device allows one to create a "separate line," so to speak, a "switchboard" where a new circuit is established through a minute thread of consciousness without giving up control in anyway.

 

[RflctnOfU]

I would like to add a couple of thoughts to this very provoking topic of conversation. The possible connection with knowledge and being was mentioned. I think that the 'contact' or 'meeting' between the 'outer world' (systematicity and logic of adult reasoning [knowledge] [[personality]]) and 'inner world' (child's empirically rich but disorganized spontaneous concepts [being] [[essence]]) is the center of I-not-in-quotation-marks, with the possibility of the property of attention (which we know is required to learn anything).

A brief quote from a typescript of "Life is Real" by Gurdjieff

[...]For the definition of this property in man which is called "attention", there is, by the way, found also in ancient science the following verbal formulation.
"THE DEGREE OF BLENDING OF THE SAMENESS IN THE PROCESSES OF ONE TOTALITY WITH THE PROCESSES IN OTHER TOTALITIES BY THE IMPULSES OF OBSERVATION AND CONSTATATION"[...]

The ZoPed sounds just like attention in the Gurdjeffian sense.

My $.02

Kris

 

[Novelis]

I aimed to cover all the points made by Bud and RyanX and to answer the questions as fully as my current level of understanding allowed, but I don't really know if I was successful in this endeavor, nor do I really know if it was useful for anyone, or indeed if there is any interest in this subject.

So, I'll just ask directly, should I dive further into this topic?

If that's what you want to do.

Ok, I’ll try my best to not digress from the original topic.

Did it in any way, shall I say, "strike a nerve"?

Not with me. I understood your answer but I still don't quite fathom your intent concerning this subject.

Just a side note, since writing that post, I realized that I should’ve said: “Strike a chord” instead.

I’m grateful that you took the time to understand what I wrote, and frankly, I feel a bit uncomfortably flattered that you would use the word “fathom” to describe my intent, is that, in fact, what you really mean?

Where could/should I take this study and research? Any suggestions?

Where do you want to take it?

Well, to name the most relevant idea to the topic I started, I’d like to perform a kind of “Vigotskyian discourse analysis” on a few C’s transcripts in order to discover, if possible, what is going on “behind” their words.
This is based on Vygotsky’s observation that what we externalise as speech tends to provide a window into the cognitive/mental/internal landscape of the speaker.

I’m thinking that, using the correct form of discourse analysis, certain insights could be gleamed from the communications, ones that we might have not seen before.

Vygotsky writes in first chapter of his book, “thought and language”:
Quote from: Vygotsky
The study of thought and language is one of the areas of psychology in which a clear understanding of interfunctional relationships is particularly important. As long as we do not understand the interrelation of thought and word, we cannot answer, or even correctly pose, any of the more specific questions in this area.

I hope that the ramifications of what he is saying isn’t lost on anyone, since any question one may ask about psychology and/or linguistics is inextricably bound to the relationship between thought and speech.

The ramifications? When he said: "the interrelation of thought and word" he did not qualify it, so it cannot be addressed. Whose thought? Which thought? What word? the interrelation between thought and word in whose head? In what context? ALL? At all times?

Forgive me for not mentioning the context behind that quote. The above was taken from the introductory chapter to the book, so “The interrelation of thought and word” is the very problem that Vygotsky qualifies in his book, Thought and language.

I recommend reading this book so that you can get a very clear idea of how he tackles this problem, then “the ramifications” (Maybe I should’ve used the word implications?) should speak for itself.

Here is a link to a Wiki page about Vygotsky:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vygotsky

More Specifically, on that link above, it writes:

Thought and Language
Perhaps Vygotsky's most important contribution concerns the inter-relationship of language development and thought. This concept, explored in Vygotsky's book Thought and Language, (alternative translation: Thinking and Speaking) establishes the explicit and profound connection between speech (both silent inner speech and oral language), and the development of mental concepts and cognitive awareness. It should be noted that Vygotsky described inner speech as being qualitatively different from normal (external) speech. Although Vygotsky believed inner speech developed from external speech via a gradual process of internalization, with younger children only really able to "think out loud," he claimed that in its mature form inner speech would be unintelligible to anyone except the thinker, and would not resemble spoken language as we know it (in particular, being greatly compressed). Hence, thought itself develops socially.[3]

An infant learns the meaning of signs through interaction with its main care-givers, e.g., pointing, cries, and gurgles can express what is wanted. How verbal sounds can be used to conduct social interaction is learned through this activity, and the child begins to utilize, build, and develop this faculty, e.g., using names for objects, etc.[3]

Language starts as a tool external to the child used for social interaction. The child guides personal behavior by using this tool in a kind of self-talk or "thinking out loud." Initially, self-talk is very much a tool of social interaction and it tapers to negligible levels when the child is alone or with deaf children. Gradually self-talk is used more as a tool for self-directed and self-regulating behavior. Then, because speaking has been appropriated and internalized, self-talk is no longer present around the time the child starts school. Self-talk "develops along a rising not a declining, curve; it goes through an evolution, not an involution. In the end, it becomes inner speech" (Vygotsky, 1987, pg 57). Inner speech develops through its differentiation from social speech.[3]

Speaking has thus developed along two lines, the line of social communication and the line of inner speech, by which the child mediates and regulates their activity through their thoughts which in turn are mediated by the semiotics (the meaningful signs) of inner speech. This is not to say that thinking cannot take place without language, but rather that it is mediated by it and thus develops to a much higher level of sophistication. Just as the birthday cake as a sign provides much deeper meaning than its physical properties allow, inner speech as signs provides much deeper meaning than the lower psychological functions would otherwise allow.[3]

Inner speech is not comparable in form to external speech. External speech is the process of turning thought into words. Inner speech is the opposite; it is the conversion of speech into inward thought. Inner speech for example contains predicates only. Subjects are superfluous. Words too are used much more economically. One word in inner speech may be so replete with sense to the individual that it would take many words to express it in external speech.

[3]

It is important for me to say that, basically, Vygotsky uses “the word and its meaning” as a UNIT that bares all the sum of its parts for analysis, rather than using elements, which, as he says, when parts are investigated in isolation, it tends to go wrong, since every psychic process is inextricably bound to all others.

What is that supposed to mean exactly? Is this UNIT supposed to exist independently of an individual? A word and its meaning only exists "as a unit" in someone's mind, right? Meanings, themselves, cannot exist apart from someone who understands a given word. IOW, words don't have meanings. People have meanings for words - in their heads. That's why feedback is often needed to ensure understanding. Is Vygotsky trying to say something other than that?

I’m quite certain that I didn’t make myself very clear, so let me try to explain my point more plainly.

Vygotsky is not talking about a word and its definitional meaning, which, as you describe quite rightly, exists only in our heads. He is describing the meaning of words, in the sense of the psychological structure that the word assumes in the mind and its relationship with thought.

That is what he means by a “unit”, as in, a words’ meaning and its relationship with thought.

He was criticising the work of previous linguists, including the work of Piaget, for not analysing words in this unified way, and instead splitting up verbal thought into elements and researching them in isolation.

Below is a segment of the book that describes what I was trying to convey:

Two essentially different modes of analysis are possible in the study of psychological structures. It seems to us that one of them is responsible for all the failures that have beset former investigators of the old problem, which we are about the tackle in our turn, and that the other is the only correct way to approach it.

The first method analyses complex psychological wholes into elements. It may be compared to the chemical analysis of water into hydrogen and oxygen, neither of which possesses the properties of the whole and each of which possesses properties not present in the whole.

The student applying this method in looking for the explanation of some property of water – why it extinguishes fire, for example – will find to his surprise that hydrogen burns and oxygen sustains fire.

These discoveries will not help him much in solving the problem. Psychology winds up in the same kind of dead end when it analyses verbal thought into its components, thought and word, and studies them in isolation from each other. In the course of analysis, the original properties of verbal thought have disappeared. Nothing is left to the investigator but to search out the mechanical interaction of the two elements in the hope of reconstructing, in a purely speculative way, the vanished properties of the whole.

In essence, this type of analysis, which leads us to products in which the properties of the whole are lost, may not be called analysis in the proper sense of this word. It is generalisation, rather than analysis.

The chemical formula for water is equally applicable to the water in the great ocean and to the water in a raindrop. That is why by analysing water into its elements we shall get its most general characteristics rather than the individually specific.

This type of analysis provides no adequate basis for the study of the multiform concrete relations between thought and language that arise in the course of the development and functioning of verbal thought in its various aspects. Instead of enabling us to examine and explain specific instances and phrases, and to determine concrete regularities in the course of events, this method produces generalities pertaining to all speech and all thought. It leads us, moreover, into serious errors by ignoring the unitary nature of the process under study. The living union of sound and meaning that we call the word is broken up into two parts, which are assumed to be held together merely by mechanical associative connections.

Psychology, which aims at a study of complex holistic systems, must replace the method of analysis into elements with the method of analysis into UNITS. What is the unit of verbal thought that is further unanalysable and yet retains the properties of the whole? We believe that such a unit can be found in the internal aspect of the word, in WORD MEANING.

Few investigators of this internal aspect of speech have been undertaken so far. Word meaning has been lost in the ocean of all other aspects of consciousness, in the same way as phonetic properties detached from meaning have been lost among the other characteristics of vocalisation. Contemporary psychology has nothing to say about the specificity of human vocalisation, and concomitantly it has no specific ideas regarding word meaning, ideas that would distinguish it from the rest of cognitive functions. Such a state of affairs was characteristic of the old associationistic psychology, and it remains a sign of contemporary Gestalt psychology. In the word we recognised only its external side. Yet it is in the internal aspect, in word meaning, that thought and speech unite into verbal thought.

Our experimental, as well as theoretical analysis, suggests that both Gestalt psychology and association psychology have been looking for the intrinsic nature of word meaning in the wrong directions. A word does not refer to a single object, but to a group or a class of objects. Each word is therefore already a generalisation. Generalisation is a verbal act of thought and reflects reality in quite another way than sensation and perception reflects it. Such a qualitative difference is implied in the proposition that there is a dialectical leap not only between total absence of consciousness (in inanimate matter) and sensation but also between sensation and thought. There is every reason to suppose that the qualitative distinction between sensation sensation and thought is the presence in the latter of a generalised reflection of reality, which is also the essence of word meaning; and consequently that meaning is an act of thought in the full sense of the term. But at the same time, meaning is a inalienable part of word as such, and thus is belongs in the realm of language as much as in the realm of thought. A word without meaning is an empty sound, no longer a part of human speech. Since word meaning is both thought and speech, we find in it the unit of verbal thought we are looking for. Clearly, then, the method to follow in our exploration of the nature of verbal thought is semantic analysis – the study of the development, the functioning, and the structure of this unit, which contains thought and speech interrelated.

I hope I have helped elucidate that particular point for you.

When I wrote the part that you questioned, I intended it to be a side note for the quote whereby Vygotsky was explaining the method of which he uses for analysis.

I didn’t see the potential confusion when I tried to explain the method in one little paragraph, I apologise for my rashness, laziness and lack of consideration.

In other words, I felt that the point that I quoted from his book above (Thought and speech, The problem and the approach, Page 4) was tantamount to the statement he makes below.

[quote author=Vygotsky]The unity of consciousness and the interrelation of all psychological functions were, it is true, accepted by all; the single functions were assumed to operate inseparably, in a uninterrupted connection with one another. But this unity of consciousness was usually taken as a postulate, rather than as a subject of study. Moreover, in the old psychology the unchallengeable premise of unity was combined with a set of tacit assumptions that nullified it for all practical purposes. It was taken for granted that the relation between two given functions never varied; that perception, for example, was always connected in an identical way with attention, memory with perception, thought with memory.[/quote]

I hope that my meaning is a little clearer now.

In my current working hypothesis, I’d say that this field of study touches upon just about everything that involves language, as our every thought is expressed with, and even stems from language.

Really? "our every thought"?

It would appear so, yes. I thought this would be apparent (!) maybe I am not understanding something, so could you explain when this would not be the case?

It might for some, I suppose. I can think in terms of processes and energy flows and identify relationships via visualization.

It might for some? Who are you referring to, exactly?

I think words and language are only needed when one thinks in terms of categories and desires to communicate verbally and in written form in a linear manner.

Are you certain about this?

Thoughts and concepts are, themselves, abbreviated forms of vast networks of words, aren’t they?

At such a time, for life and survival, categories can be a matter of pragmatism.

I think we are fundamentally talking about different things, so can I trouble you to explain to me exactly what you mean?

They are certainly useful for the internal dialog that keeps us 'doing' the world.

When you say “internal dialog”, do you mean inner speech?

Inner speech is not comparable in form to external speech. External speech is the process of turning thought into words. Inner speech is the opposite; it is the conversion of speech into inward thought. Inner speech for example contains predicates only. Subjects are superfluous. Words too are used much more economically. One word in inner speech may be so replete with sense to the individual that it would take many words to express it in external speech.

It seems to me that this “internal dialog” (inner speech) that you refer to cannot be avoided, by anyone.

Have we not been raised in an insane, ponerized culture?

Yes, and it appears to me that understanding the specificity of our condition, in terms of psycholinguistics, might be useful.

Driving that insanity is a slavery to words.[/quote]

How so? This is not a rhetorical question, I really would like to hear how you think this is so.

Because language is so very useful to human progress, a central objective of education is to develop language usage; but the process goes too far, osit. Language is near universally taught in such a manner that it ceases to be merely a tool for communication, but becomes a straight-jacket on the thinking process and thinking progress. This extends until most of us cannot think outside the mass of words circulating in our consciousness.

I think you are speaking very generally, and I would agree with you, if only I could be certain that you aren’t making any oversimplifications and overgeneralisations.

I would like to discover, in essence, the specificity of what you are describing, so we aren’t in disagreement here.

That is, we become just as addicted to language as we do with any other behavior. We become the servants of our local language structures instead of the masters of language.

Yes, and what are the details behind that? How far off being “masters of language” are we? That’s what I’m interested in.

We cannot close our study without mentioning the perspectives that our investigation opens up. This is even more momentous a problem than that of thinking; what I mean is the problem of consciousness. We studied the inward aspects of speech, which were as unknown to science as the other side of the moon.

We tried to establish the connection between word and object, word and reality.

This has already been done and with the appropriate empirical demonstration in General Semantics, and in the work of any of the great logicians like Peter Abelard, Lewis Carroll and Charles Sanders Peirce, osit. Why reinvent the wheel?

I am not familiar with these works, so I cannot assert in absolute certainty that he is not reinventing the wheel, but the quote above was from the summarising chapter of Vygotsky’s book, after the specific problem that he deals with has been investigated very comprehensively.

I must apologise for not making it clear where in the book that quote was from, as it seems to have lead you to forming conclusions about the work before you’ve read the main body of text.

If the C’s are using are our human language as a medium of their “thoughts”, which, as Vygotsky puts it, is “old as consciousness itself” and “is a direct expression of the historical nature of human consciousness”, then NOT ONLY are the C’s transmissions, the work Laura and the team do, and indeed the work of all of us here that are working on ourselves and our various researches, SIMPLY a search for answers, but therein lies the microcosm, behind our every word, of the True nature of human consciousness.

So you are thinking that the words, themselves, hold the secret (as microcosms) of understanding the nature of human consciousness?

No, I am saying that the discourse on SOTT, the forum, cassiopaea.org, the site map and anything else inspired by such works, when viewed as a whole, are an indication of what we are striving for, which, in its essence, shows that there is hope for us to really strive for something worth while.

I am saying that THIS is a reflection of human consciousness, what it could be.

Having someone explicate how the process of developing words into experiential concepts, and how that can be consciously directed for teaching and learning (I read this several days ago and have been chewing on it a little) definitely shed some light on some part of the process the C's may use in communicating.

Thank you for taking the time to chew over it, I hope to expand upon it more in the future.

The C's also recently said something about how the words (?) or maybe it was names (?) they choose have a much deeper meaning and manifestation. This connection that you are making could perhaps be a step in the direction of developing deeper understanding. (???)

I don’t know about that, but it is clear that the C’s have left clues that are, at times, far too subtle and complex to figure out until we have reached a certain level of perceptivity and awareness, so could the study I’ve outlined above (The Vygotskian discourse analysis) get one to such a stage?

Dunno until one tries, I guess…


There is a second part to this post that I am still deliberating over, as there have been other comments that have sparked off other schemas related to this subject.

Please stand by…

 

[Buddy]

Hi Novelis. Well thought out post. Wow, has it been 3 months? I can't say that I even feel the same about this subject as I did then, though I'm not sure what's changed.

Since you took the time to think through and type out all this, I'll honor that effort by doing my best to address your questions, although I can't promise that I'll completely satisfy your curiosity. :)

I’m grateful that you took the time to understand what I wrote, and frankly, I feel a bit uncomfortably flattered that you would use the word “fathom” to describe my intent, is that, in fact, what you really mean?

What I was thinking was that I saw what (to me) was an essentially simple subject morphing into a sea of complexity and I couldn't determine if the complexity was superficial or deeply connected enough to relate to Ontology or perhaps the metaphysical aspects of reality. I simply couldn't see how deeply you were going with this and whether I wanted to follow.

In my current working hypothesis, I’d say that this field of study touches upon just about everything that involves language, as our every thought is expressed with, and even stems from language.

Really? "our every thought"?

It would appear so, yes. I thought this would be apparent (!) maybe I am not understanding something, so could you explain when this would not be the case?

See below.

It might for some, I suppose. I can think in terms of processes and energy flows and identify relationships via visualization.

It might for some? Who are you referring to, exactly?

I suppose I am referring to anyone restricted to word/symbol-based thinking. Other ways of thought (am I using the word "thought" too loosely?) involve a more visual, 3D model-making type, where you would need to see and explore relationships between people and items in a non-linear way in order to arrive at a plan or solution. Examples include doing logistics for a trade show or being a senior coordinator (or dispatcher) for a trucking company, or being a computer software developer using design patterns instead of an object-oriented approach...stuff like that.

I think words and language are only needed when one thinks in terms of categories and desires to communicate verbally and in written form in a linear manner.

Are you certain about this?

Pretty much. And why not? :) Wouldn't the alternative imply no escape from the internal dialog/inner speech that keeps a person somewhat disconnected from direct contact with their own sensory data?

At such a time, for life and survival, categories can be a matter of pragmatism.

I think we are fundamentally talking about different things, so can I trouble you to explain to me exactly what you mean?

It means when we need to be practical/pragmatic towards survival issues there is no time to worry about de-training ourselves out of a static, noun-based perspective in order to enhance our experience and knowledge of life - we have to get to work and speak the way everyone understands, as long as it gets the desirable results. Of course, nouns aren't the only categories, but that's what I was thinking at the time.

When survival pressure is off, we can consider facts like: in Yoga, Buddhism, the Vedic traditions - even esoteric traditions such as with "The Fool" (for example), there is the idea of the "chattering mind", or "false ego", which drowns out true perceptions with its unending, robotic dissections of the past and fantasies about the future. By moving attention out of the present moment, and filling itself with sterile and circular variations on the same closed and limited themes, the chattering mind prevents people having true consciousness of what is really going on in their lives.

They are certainly useful for the internal dialog that keeps us 'doing' the world.

When you say “internal dialog”, do you mean inner speech?

Yeah, if by 'inner speech' you mean the ceaseless (for some people) internal dialog that is both vocal and subvocal in the intellectual as well as embedded in the moving centers.

Driving that insanity is a slavery to words.

How so? This is not a rhetorical question, I really would like to hear how you think this is so.

Those who can't see the hypnotic trance states in themselves and others can be dominated, subjugated, and controlled by words - essentially enslaved and asleep. Example:

Al Siebert's book: "Peaking Out: How my Mind Broke Free from the Delusions of Psychiatry" presents a description of how psychiatric-speak operates and its consequences. Siebert was awarded a fellowship for post-doctoral psychiatric training at the Menninger Foundation. He dared to question "incontestable psychiatric dogma" and outlined some breakthrough ideas to his "psychiatrist teachers."

They were not amused. They had him committed to a psychiatric hospital as a mental patient. The book includes a narrative of Siebert's real-life experiences as an institutionalized mental patient. It also tells how Siebert saw through the delusional belief system which controls the minds of psychiatrists. A key quote:

"Then their white coats, the diplomas, their titles are cues that keep them in a hypnotic-like trance. Their perceptions of others, the special language they use, the labels they give to patients -- all are programmed responses, just like with cult members."

After Siebert left the psychiatric ward and the Menninger Foundation, he had a tremendous peak experience - the kind of peak experience described by psychologist Abraham Maslow. As Siebert was driving south out of Topeka, he suddenly had the feeling that for the first time in his life he was totally free.

He writes, "It was glorious! It was a new feeling. Up until then my mind had been controlled by illusions and I hadn't known it. I started yelling, 'I'm free! I'm free! My mind is totally free! I can feel it!' I shouted as loud as I could, 'My mind is freeeeeeee!" [Siebert's emphasis]

Freeing our minds from illusions and delusional belief systems can be one of the most liberating things we can experience. It can also be one of the most powerful things we can experience, OSIT.

Because language is so very useful to human progress, a central objective of education is to develop language usage; but the process goes too far, osit. Language is near universally taught in such a manner that it ceases to be merely a tool for communication, but becomes a straight-jacket on the thinking process and thinking progress. This extends until most of us cannot think outside the mass of words circulating in our consciousness.

I think you are speaking very generally, and I would agree with you, if only I could be certain that you aren’t making any oversimplifications and overgeneralisations.

I would like to discover, in essence, the specificity of what you are describing, so we aren’t in disagreement here.

OK, just read about 'newsspeak' as described by George Orwell in 1984. Or perhaps any of these:

"It is illusions and words that have influenced the mind of the crowd, and especially words - words which are as powerful as they are chimeral, and whose astonishing sway we shall shortly demonstrate," wrote Gustave le Bon in his classic The Crowd, a century ago.

In The Second Sin, Thomas Szasz wrote, "Man is the animal that speaks. Understanding language is the key to understanding man; and the control of language, to the control of man."

Alfred Korzybski, founder of General Semantics indicated that, "Those who control symbols control humanity."

"Language creates spooks that get into our heads and hypnotize us."
Robert Anton Wilson, Introduction to The Tree of Lies (by Christopher S. Hyatt. Ph.D.)

"It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head."
Sally Kempton

"The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
Steve Biko

"If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual."
Frank Herbert, 'The Dosadi Experiment'

It seems likely that the principal software used in the human brain consists of words, metaphors, disguised metaphors, and linguistic structures in general. The Sapir-Whorf-Korzybski Hypothesis, in anthropology, holds that a change in language can alter our perception of the cosmos. A revision of language structure, in particular, can alter the brain as dramatically as a psychedelic. In our metaphor, if we change the software, the computer operates in a new way.

How far off being “masters of language” are we? That’s what I’m interested in.

Just taking a guess, I'd say we'd become “masters of language” in the same way that we'd become "masters of the option" in Sufi lore: as soon as we become conscious of all the actual (not imaginary) possibilities.


Thank you. :)

 

[Leo40]

I think that the main problem with communicating is the use of words because
each word we use has meaning to the individual using it based on experience/being
which of course is different from any other individual.
The different quality of words tend to limit our thinking.
There are many reasons and I only list a few that I can think of and
encourage others to complete the list.
Conditioning (language is the main instrument for programming).
Emotional ballast (some words act as triggers for emotions)
Concept limiting (this happens most frequently to people who had
(to suffer academic training)
These are the main ones. The following example may clarify my thinking:
Let's consider the word "gravity" as used in physics instruction.
This word is definitely "concept limiting". Everybody invariably thinks of
attraction, i.e.being held to the earth so we don't fly off.
Now consider the word as it is used by the C's.
In their explanation it is not a force but more of substrate that is essentially
neutral and "binds everything in existence".
Using this idea and Gurdjeff's three forces we see
Electricity = active
Magnetism = negative
Gravity = neutral
This is a subjective interpretation that needs to be explored.
One thing is becoming clear in the recent study of cosmology:
the universe is largely constructed by electrical/magnetic forces and
gravity is the substrate in which this occurs.
(Scott, D., The Electric Sky: A Challenge to the Myth of Modern Astronomy)
This is to me the reason to achieve colinearity so everybody agrees on the meaning of the word used.
As the knowledgebase expands the wordmeaning also has to expand.

 

[Skyfarmr]

Now consider the word as it is used by the C's.
In their explanation it is not a force but more of substrate that is essentially
neutral and "binds everything in existence".
Using this idea and Gurdjeff's three forces we see
Electricity = active
Magnetism = negative
Gravity = neutral
This is a subjective interpretation that needs to be explored.
One thing is becoming clear in the recent study of cosmology:
the universe is largely constructed by electrical/magnetic forces and
gravity is the substrate in which this occurs.

Pardon me, but isn't Gurdjieff's three forces Active, Passive and the Neutralizing?

After "exploring" this idea objectively, and reveiwing G, it would seem to me that all 3 forces , all active in the Absolute, could also be part of the "whole" in a world of the second order.
Gurdjieff (from ISOTM):
" ...the Absolute, as well as in everything else, three forces are active:....But since by its very nature
everything in the absolute constitutes one whole the three forces also constitute one whole."

but maybe in this world(3D) Electricity, Magnetism, and Gravity each exhibit the three forces within there own "sphere".
For example Electricity can be active, inactive or neutralized
Magnetism can be positive, negative or neutralized
Gravity can be positive, negative or "zero"(in the physics sense of "being held to the Earth so we don't fly off")

I think that the main problem with communicating is the use of words because
each word we use has meaning to the individual using it based on experience/being
which of course is different from any other individual.
The different quality of words tend to limit our thinking.
There are many reasons and I only list a few that I can think of and
encourage others to complete the list.
Conditioning (language is the main instrument for programming).
Emotional ballast (some words act as triggers for emotions)
Concept limiting (this happens most frequently to people who had
(to suffer academic training)

I understood that Gurdjieff encouraged the application of the three forces when we practice observing ourselves, which to me would include analyzing our word choices(conditioning), observing their(words) effect on ourselves(emotional ballast) and questioning the status quo (concept limiting); all three of these are practiced quite religiously (as in: Life is Religion-type-religiously) on this forum, offering many checks and balances to encourage a semblance of clarity in communication, leading to great discussions... like the one going on in this thread. ;D

 

[Novelis]

Hello, It’s been a while I know, but I have been thinking a lot about exactly how to respond – with no avail – due to the other areas that have been touched upon by others, and I will open up separate discussions about these different areas.

Number one:

After working with spirit attachment issues, I had a lot of questions. As I have already said, there was an open possibility in my mind that such "spirits" were merely fragments of the personality of an individual, sort of like little broken off circuits in the brain running in repetitive loops, created by trauma or stress. Perhaps an individual, when faced with a difficulty, entered a narcissistic state of fantasy, created a "dream," which was imprinted in the memory of the brain.

If they then emerged from this state back into dealing with their reality, but not having dealt with the issue itself, it might become locked away in a sort of cerebral file drawer, sitting there, waiting to be triggered by the electricity or neurochemicals of the brain in some random unconscious scan.

The same could be said for so-called past life memories; they were merely self-created memory files generated in a state of narcissistic withdrawal due to stress. Such neurological files could then be downloaded and read by using the conscious bypass method of either automatism or simply allowing the conscious mind to "step aside" as in trance channeling. For that matter, simple psychotherapy could be considered channeling in these terms. Conscious channeling is more problematic because it suggests a definite pathological condition in which spirit attachment or multiple personality may play a part. In such cases, the "alter" ego, as either an alternate personality or an actual attached entity, is strong and well entrenched enough to establish a far stronger hold on the body of the host than those which can only manifest via automatism or trance.

As it happens, I have some interesting research about how memory is “stored”, which could shed some light on how traumatic memories manifest themselves, but then, I am only highlighting this because I am in disagreement with the metaphor of memory being “stored” away like the brain is some sort of a “file cabinet”, and when a memory occurs, it is “retrieved” in its whole from this “storage space”:

If they then emerged from this state back into dealing with their reality, but not having dealt with the issue itself, it might become locked away in a sort of cerebral file drawer, sitting there, waiting to be triggered by the electricity or neurochemicals of the brain in some random unconscious scan.

But, then, this is a separate topic, or more of a digression, which I will discuss in another post.

Number two:

Because language is so very useful to human progress, a central objective of education is to develop language usage; but the process goes too far, osit.

Language is near universally taught in such a manner that it ceases to be merely a tool for communication, but becomes a straight-jacket on the thinking process and thinking progress. This extends until most of us cannot think outside the mass of words circulating in our consciousness.

I previously asked for an elaboration upon what you said:

I think you are speaking very generally, and I would agree with you, if only I could be certain that you aren’t making any oversimplifications and overgeneralisations.

I would like to discover, in essence, the specificity of what you are describing, so we aren’t in disagreement here.

To which you made some very insightful comments that I am in full agreement with, and I thank you for that, but nevertheless, I was left with a sense of uncertainty and couldn’t clarify what, exactly, you know about the subjects you touched upon, namely:

Because language is so very useful to human progress, a central objective of education is to develop language usage; but the process goes too far, osit.

This “process” that you say goes too far, what do you know about it, in practical, scientific terms?

You used the word, perhaps liberally, “education”, which denotes (To me) a practical and pragmatic process, a down to earth “system” that can be scientifically quantified, explained, and held to account under terms like pedagogy, educational psychology and methodology.

I suppose I was looking for a way to delve into these topics, so, in retrospect, I shouldn’t have asked you for the “essence” of your comments, but rather what your comments mean in pragmatic terms.

However, I realise that this “whopper” of a topic perhaps deserves a thread, nay, a whole separate section of the forum in order to untangle this mess that is our “educational system”, what’s wrong with it, what good has it produced, etc.

Therefore, that will also not be the focus of this post.

...