Is Language the basis of the human soul?

[Iamme]

I have strange thoughts that just pop into my head at random, sometimes. On my way into town today, I wondered how a rabbit decides to do what it does. You see, I live around a bunch of rabbits. They are first 'here'...and then they decide to go 'there'.

When a rabbit is in one location, and then moves to another location...what caused it to do so? Think about this once.

Imagine yourself out in a yard. There you are. Just sitting there. Then, you move to another yard. or, you see another rabbit, and go follow it. Why? What made you move?

This is what would happen, if it was you: You would tell yourself, "Hey, I think I will go over there. Maybe there is better eating over there." Or, if you saw a female rabbit in your line of sight, You might say, "Oh wow. Check that out. Here I come!"

But a rabbit does not talk. It may not even think in such a way as to refer to it's own self as a self, nor call itself *I*. By not associating it's actions with a language...why does such a creature do what it does? And what dictates that it be here one moment and decide? to go somewhere else?

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The grand essentials to happiness in this life are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for-Joseph Addison

[Iamme]

As a follow up to my thread starting question...it's also worthy to note that in the Bible, it is claimed that God is also 'the Word". 'And the word was with God. And the Word *was* God.'

It's like they knew back then, that you had to have language, and language of commands, to accomplish anything. All of creation supposedly sprang out of God's commands.

Whether you believe this or not, is for another topic. But I brought it up, just to show how there seems to be this association behind 'mind' (and in this case, supreme mind), and language.

[Phil]

Originally posted by Iamme
As a follow up to my thread starting question...it's also worthy to note that in the Bible, it is claimed that God is also 'the Word". 'And the word was with God. And the Word *was* God.'

It's like they knew back then, that you had to have language, and language of commands, to accomplish anything. All of creation supposedly sprang out of God's commands.

Whether you believe this or not, is for another topic. But I brought it up, just to show how there seems to be this association behind 'mind' (and in this case, supreme mind), and language.
I don't think it is for another topic. Without belief in a god and a related creation story, your question is meaningless, since nonbelievers tend to look at evolution of survival mechanisms as the foundation for language. One of the reasons we're a successful species is because we have highly developed communication techniques, one of which is language. You can answer any one of your questions by looking into linguistics and this area of evolution.

If you're looking for evidence of some god (soul)/language connection, you're in for a long and, dare I say, fruitless search.

[Darwin]

Interesting question.I do not have much to add to it,but if you want to study this in depth,then neuroethology might be your pick (as far as science goes).
These days,human language is one of those few things to separate us from the rest of animal kingdom.
However,to be accurate,it is not all that brave to doubt whether chimpanzee i.e. could speak,should their anatomy allow it (neuroanatomy not being the case).The best so far,are a few,if imperfect words.

[Pyrian]

Just because a rabbit can't link a concept to a word doesn't mean that it does not have that concept in its head.

[Iamme]

Pyrian---Can you add more? Specifically, how is this mechanism carried out?

I think a lot of people, when it comes to animal behavior, will say the resons why animals do ANYthing that they do, comes from 'instinct'. That word too easily masks the mechanisms at work. I want to learn more about this. I think it is fascinating.

I am now trying to think back to when I was 2 or 3 years old, when I didn't know a lot of language, and trying to remember what i did, and why. As a child, I think we observe a lot what others are doing and we mimick it. I can't remember though, what I said to myself to get me to do whatever it was that I was trying to do.

When I pooped in my pants, I think that just happened, with not a lot of great thought.:D But, with smiley faces aside...maybe I'm onto something here. Maybe this very action of pooping in ones pants shows that we didn't possess the learned vocabulary necessary to communicate our needs to others. And because we not only couldn't communicate it...but couldn't even think what this function was, because we hadn't learned what it was called, or what it is exactly...the bowel movement would just occur. And then, we might get a queer look on our face,due to the sensation we were experiencing.

[EdipisReks]

you are totally ignoring the fact that non verbal communication occurs. babies have no problem conveying what is happening or what they want with crying; it is simply the adults who don't understand. seems to me that the babies don't need words to understand the concepts of "i'm hungry".

[Yahweh]

Originally posted by Iamme
I have strange thoughts that just pop into my head at random, sometimes. On my way into town today, I wondered how a rabbit decides to do what it does. You see, I live around a bunch of rabbits. They are first 'here'...and then they decide to go 'there'.

When a rabbit is in one location, and then moves to another location...what caused it to do so? Think about this once.

Imagine yourself out in a yard. There you are. Just sitting there. Then, you move to another yard. or, you see another rabbit, and go follow it. Why? What made you move?

This is what would happen, if it was you: You would tell yourself, "Hey, I think I will go over there. Maybe there is better eating over there." Or, if you saw a female rabbit in your line of sight, You might say, "Oh wow. Check that out. Here I come!"

But a rabbit does not talk. It may not even think in such a way as to refer to it's own self as a self, nor call itself *I*. By not associating it's actions with a language...why does such a creature do what it does? And what dictates that it be here one moment and decide? to go somewhere else?
I think you are overanalyzing exactly how much "thought" goes into any given action. I'm typing this right now, I'm doing minimal thought, aside from recognizing words, vaguely being aware of spelling, not much more thought than the words that are passing through my head. I'm not saying "move finger a bit, place it at coordinate X,Y,Z". When I walk somewhere, I dont do much thought at all. It seems to me concept comes before language.

If someone never learned language, he wont be incapable of employing some kind of mechanism to communicate a concept. Take crying babies for example, they let you know full and well that they need a bottle. Given a person who has never been exposed to language, it would be absurd to believe that he has no way of controlling his actions.

[Pyrian]

Iamme:
Pyrian---Can you add more? Specifically, how is this mechanism carried out?Oh, wow, Iamme, I only wish I could.

I feel so close sometimes... A concept seems to be built on a base of empirical observations, with other concepts filling up rungs into a hierarchy leading up to the concept itself. The process of reason seems to be fundamentally composed of analyses of consequences. Learning - the creation of concept structures - takes place in several discrete ways, and can be shown to not really "take" until an analysis of consequences can be applied to the new concept. Instinct fits largely into a separate layer of predetermined concepts and motives - motives being distinct from higher concepts (essentially being empirical observations in their own right), often needing a set of lower concepts (in many cases not apparently conscious) to function but concepts can be built on top of them.

Analysis of consequences isn't difficult if the data structure it operates on is well constructed (e.g. chess programs). Fuzzy logic can solve some of the problems of unknowable and effectively infinite possibilities.

If I can just nail down the data structure and the learning process, I think I could make a fundamentally intelligent software.

Oh, well, not likely to happen (by me), really, but fun to think about. :cool: