Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id IAA19344 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Wed, 1 May 2002 08:08:43 +0100 X-Originating-IP: [137.110.248.206] From: "Grant Callaghan" <grantc4@hotmail.com> To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Subject: Re: future language Date: Wed, 01 May 2002 00:02:49 -0700 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: <LAW2-F66HJj8a5wY5vM00007474@hotmail.com> X-OriginalArrivalTime: 01 May 2002 07:02:51.0359 (UTC) FILETIME=[3578A6F0:01C1F0DE] Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
>--- Grant Callaghan <grantc4@hotmail.com> wrote:
> > I foresee something like what you are talking about, but it's
> > probably too
> > far out for this list. As we use our technology to alter our bodies
> > and
> > augment our senses, I believe will be able one day to connect
> > directly to
> > our brains and communicate on the level from which language is
> > created on a daily basis.
>
>And what exactly level is that? We do not have some sort of "machine
>language" level of our minds, as far as I know. The process of thinking
>itself uses language to "finalize" the product and make it into
>non-system specific information that can then be passed on to others.
>If you just send a bunch of neural impulses to some other brain, I bet
>that you won't transmitt *any* information at all...
>
>
> > All words are approximations of a complex idea that
> > springs
> > first from the mind and then is translated into a system of sounds.
>
>Again, as far as we know, this process uses mental symbols that are
>very much part of what language itself is.
>
> > The
> > sounds it is translated into belong to a culture, which is what
> > separates
> > languages into vessels of culture. But when we can make a connection
>
> > directly to a place like the amigdala and transmit the complete
> > thought from
> > one mind to another over something like the internet, languages as we
> > know
> > them will fade away completely just as individual languages are doing
> > now.
>
>Amigdala has a lot to do with specific emotions that we are
>experiencing, but this is first time ever that I hear that thoughts
>themselves are created/reside there. I suppose that your meaning was
>that when we find the place where thoughts reside, then we can
>transmitt them to other people without the intervening "medium" of
>vocal language? (I might be understanding you incorrectly, in which
>case I apologize for misinterpretation)
>What if thought process is actually holographic? What if thought can
>not be separated from the "medium" without using some sort of language?
>What if thoughts can not even exist at certain levels of complexity
>*without* a language as a medium?
>
> > Thought is the universal language, in my mind, and the technology for
>
> > transmitting it is being developed in laboratories all over the
> > world.
>
>Why do you think that the specific thoughts themselves could be
>recognisible as thoughts to different minds? Why do you think that
>mental symbols are universal across the species, and not in actuality
>culturaly determined?
>
> > The
> > language we "speak" then will be the language of pure thought and
> > ideas.
>
>IMO, it is still going to be *a language*. Actually, it might be a
>number of different, optimised languages. To a certain extent this is
>what we are doing right now, too. You use math symbolism to express and
>transmit ideas that are cumbersome/non-expressible in our normal day to
>day language. You use visual language (of cinema, for example) to
>transmit and express whole ranges of emotions and important stories in
>a very information-dense format. Etc...
>
> >
> > But, like I said above, that may be too far in the future for the
> > thinkers
> > here. The wave of technology that is rolling over us and changing
> > the way
> > we interact with each other at ever increasing speeds is bound to
> > make
> > language as we know it too cumbersome to handle the amount of data we
> > will
> > have to deal with. When the very air is filled with bits of dust
> > that
> > measure and transmit things like the temperature, moisture, proximity
> > of
> > people, and things we can't even imagine today, it will take
> > augmentation of
> > our senses and our brains to collect, analyze, and share all of the
> > data
> > coming at us from our senses, the sensors and other people.
>
>I actually agree with you there. This is going to change our minds in a
>profoundly revolutionary jump. Part of this augmentation of our minds,
>IMO, are the new optimised languages for specific data subsets that we
>don't have to cope with, right now.
>
> > We've almost reached a stage where the future borders on
> > being
> > impossible to predict. But, then, it always was, wasn't it?
> >
> > Grant
>
>Well, no, it wasn't, but that's just a quibble. The main survival
>advantage that a specific culture/language set gives to a group animal
>like we are, is the capability of prediction. Why does some tribal
>language have thousands of words for medical propertis of different
>herbs? Because this increases their chance of predicting what will
>happen if you actually use those plants to try and heal someone. Same
>thing with everything else, from traditional mythology up to religions
>and science. We have an obsession with knowing the future, a very real,
>biologicaly driven obsession. This is why we expend so much effort to
>find new ways of doing it...:)
>
>
It's been my observation over these past 70 and more years that most of the
predictions of the future made in my lifetime were more wrong than right.
Grant
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