Thread:User talk:Armondikov/Cognitive-linguistic mapping essay/reply (5)

OK, I read their stuff, and once again and drawn into the fact that its a bunch of mental masturbatory twatle. The fact is, a "ball" is a "ball" and not a bunch of leather sewn together not because of the word, but long long before that, because of the *intent* of the person using a ball. Non-linguistic people understand what a ball is, what it does, and why it works as a ball without a symbol to represent it.

If their "original" thinking were so dependent on breaking out of out language and symbol options, than no one would ever use a ball for a hammer (me, i've done it), or even better, use a ball for a function within a machine that has nothing even remotely related to it's original function.

And it is true that when I see a baseball, I do think about baseball, but again, studies show that is because of it's function, not because of the word. People who have lost the ability to formulate words due to blows on the head, have shown they are still capable of using tools (anthropologically speaking, not black&Decker) correctly.

Again, you can improve your ability to communicate by playing games like this, or expanding your vocabulary, but you are not improving your ability to think, to argue, or to understand teh world, which is what LW's anticipated thoughts, cached thoughts, and "losing the purpose" suggest. (all of which, are based on crappy linguistic theory, cognitive theory and theory of mind.

When we think, we create our thoughts prelinguistically. To argue that our thoughts are effected by the linguistic codes we use, it a real argument and there are two sides to it (well, far more, like most things). But to argue they are fundamentally changed by our symbols is nonsense. To think that because i assign this thing, the term "baseball", it will infact BE a baseball, and not the 25 other things your mind tosses out to you each time you see it, is equally simplistic.

So when we talk of things far more abstract than baseball, like religion, love, god, truth or struggle, we focus even more on these pre-linguistic thoughts that are more associated with images, feelings, sensations, moments of memory, etc., and not on the code associated with those feelings.

I need to read yours now. But LW always sends me on a rant of "what the hell?"