From: Wade T.Smith (wade_smith@harvard.edu)
Date: Thu 31 Oct 2002 - 03:47:50 GMT
On Wednesday, October 30, 2002, at 05:28 , joedees@bellsouth.net wrote:
> Now,
> the capacity for language in general may be hard-wired in humans, but
> the capacity for English, Chinese, Tagalog or Urdu is not, because
> these are created, not inherited, specificities.
Like the spider's web is different when stretched from tree branches to
rocks, or from fence posts to grasses, the capacity for English, or
Chinese, are specifics of the environment and humans' responses to it.
> I'll bet you thought of that answer before you typed it, and that fact
> in
> and of itself negates your stance.
Interestingly enough, I do not completely think of things before I write
them (and I suspect no-one does), but, am constantly re-arranging and
conditioning my words as I type, making efforts to perform at each
finger movement. Writing is a performance like any other, and things
happen that I have no control over, or that demand effort and change in
each instant. No, my stance is not negated by any experiential
examination of performance or cognition that I have ever encountered,
rather it is amplified by my own experience of myself and by my
investigations of nature and what knowledge I have of the investigations
of others. I would not be championing it with such gusto if I, myself,
were not heuristically involved with it.
> Specific cultures are not hard-wired human nature
The ability for culture _is_ hard-wired human nature, and _specific_
cultures are products of environment. Just like spider webs, and
language, and music, and, yes, childhood songs.
> And BTW,
> even hard-wired behaviors are hard-wired in those brians [sic] you
> insist
> upon avoiding;
Again, and again, and again, I _am not_ ignoring _anything_ in or about
the brain.
- Wade
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