Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1998 10:07:31 +0000
From: Bruce Howlett <bhowlett@metz.une.edu.au>
To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
Subject: Re: On Gatherer's behaviourist stance
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Derek,
I have some subjective experience which tends to support the premise that
language is a second stage of the thought process.
BMSDGATH wrote:
> This is a tricky one. Wittgenstein of course, said that there is no
> private language, so your 'interior monologue' (as it is sometimes
> called) would have to be something that is in principle observable and
> comprehensible, except that most of the time you don't exhibit it.
Based on my experience I would refute Wittgenstein. You might recall a
thread about *Milk Bottles and Animal IQ* on the list last December. In
that discussion (in reply to a post by Ton Maas) I said:
<I agree that the educational institutions are very one sided and a lot
of what the system perpetuates is in fact detrimental to a students
education, one reason that I am an EX-teacher. But to elaborate on my
"duplicating the processes" theory, I have long been aware of the
process I execute when learning something. This is probably because I
am one of a small group of people who do not think in language. Hence I
am aware of the translation process which is an advantage when
identifying the source of an experience which led to a comprehension or
understanding of a concept, knowledge object or skill. I then
discovered that a most effective way of teaching a concept, knowledge
object or skill, was to duplicate the process that I had experienced for
the student. This is basically what I call "discovery learning" but
with some carefully arranged clues and directional advice. I'm not sure
how this fits with your feedback and calibration concepts.>
In a private post to Valla Pishva I wrote:
<Valla,
I have always found this difficult to explain because so few people have
had a similar experience. The best analogy is that I am aware of
thoughts as more like three dimensional shapes and not necessarily as
words or even describable in words. This phenomena seems to be peculiar
to people with high spatial perception. I have not done any scientific
research on this, but during ten years of teaching, I frequently asked
students who seemed particularly bright, but who were suffering from a
variety of learning difficulties, if they thought in words. A small
percentage, possibly 5 to 10%, said that they did not.
This discovery convinced me that non-verbal thought processes were not
necessarily a disadvantage, just different. I had considerable success
with helping these disadvantaged students to come to grips with language
by encouraging them to invent multiple ways to interpret their thought
shapes into words. One spectacular result was a student who typically
scored 20 - 30% in tests scoring high 90s.
I have always considered myself to be a rational and very logical person
simply because the logical path seemed obvious. However, had it not
been my fortune to marry an English teacher, my language skills would
probably be very inadequate.
The advantage this unusual thought process gave me in the pedagogy of my
subject was in the awareness of when a concept was clarified or
understood, because I was aware of the moment in time when the
comprehended thought shape was translated into language. This I used in
my teaching strategy to reproduce a series of experiences which led to
comprehension of a concept.>
> I think that Steven Pinker makes a good case against the idea that we
> 'think in' language (in The Language Instinct), so I'd be inclined to
> the view that unvoiced language is behaviour.
I have not read Pinker and will now make a point of doing so. The
implication for memetics is obvious: if the thought (which may or may not be
a meme) is not in *language*, and is in an individual *thought language*
for that person, any thought that IS a meme will not be identifiable until
it is expressed in language or behaviour.
Regards,
Bruce. --
Bruce Howlett. B.A.L., J.P.
Email: bhowlett@metz.une.edu.au
Researching: Management of Change in Organizations: The Culture
Concept
at the University of New England
Armidale NSW 2350
AUSTRALIA
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Derek,
I have some subjective experience which tends to support the premise that language is a second stage of the thought process.
BMSDGATH wrote:
This is a tricky one. Wittgenstein of course, said that there is noBased on my experience I would refute Wittgenstein. You might recall a thread about *Milk Bottles and Animal IQ* on the list last December. In that discussion (in reply to a post by Ton Maas) I said:
private language, so your 'interior monologue' (as it is sometimes
called) would have to be something that is in principle observable and
comprehensible, except that most of the time you don't exhibit it.
<I agree that the educational institutions are very one sided and
a lot
of what the system perpetuates is in fact detrimental to a students
education, one reason that I am an EX-teacher. But to elaborate
on my
"duplicating the processes" theory, I have long been aware of the
process I execute when learning something. This is probably because
I
am one of a small group of people who do not think in language.
Hence I
am aware of the translation process which is an advantage when
identifying the source of an experience which led to a comprehension
or
understanding of a concept, knowledge object or skill. I then
discovered that a most effective way of teaching a concept, knowledge
object or skill, was to duplicate the process that I had experienced
for
the student. This is basically what I call "discovery learning"
but
with some carefully arranged clues and directional advice. I'm
not sure
how this fits with your feedback and calibration concepts.>
In a private post to Valla Pishva I wrote:
<Valla,
I have always found this difficult to explain because so few people
have
had a similar experience. The best analogy is that I am aware
of
thoughts as more like three dimensional shapes and not necessarily
as
words or even describable in words. This phenomena seems to be peculiar
to people with high spatial perception. I have not done any scientific
research on this, but during ten years of teaching, I frequently asked
students who seemed particularly bright, but who were suffering from
a
variety of learning difficulties, if they thought in words. A
small
percentage, possibly 5 to 10%, said that they did not.
This discovery convinced me that non-verbal thought processes were not
necessarily a disadvantage, just different. I had considerable
success
with helping these disadvantaged students to come to grips with language
by encouraging them to invent multiple ways to interpret their thought
shapes into words. One spectacular result was a student who typically
scored 20 - 30% in tests scoring high 90s.
I have always considered myself to be a rational and very logical person
simply because the logical path seemed obvious. However, had
it not
been my fortune to marry an English teacher, my language skills would
probably be very inadequate.
The advantage this unusual thought process gave me in the pedagogy of
my
subject was in the awareness of when a concept was clarified or
understood, because I was aware of the moment in time when the
comprehended thought shape was translated into language. This
I used in
my teaching strategy to reproduce a series of experiences which led
to
comprehension of a concept.>
I think that Steven Pinker makes a good case against the idea that weI have not read Pinker and will now make a point of doing so. The implication for memetics is obvious: if the thought (which may or may not be a meme) is not in *language*, and is in an individual *thought language* for that person, any thought that IS a meme will not be identifiable until it is expressed in language or behaviour.
'think in' language (in The Language Instinct), so I'd be inclined to
the view that unvoiced language is behaviour.
Regards,
Bruce. --