Would it follow that, although we believe we live in a spatially 3D universe (ignoring the ten dimensions of Superstring Theory), the fact that some things appear illogical is evidence that in fact we are living in a spatially 4D universe. — RussellA

That's how I see it. I claim tentatively that when logical narrative runs aground in paradox, said paradox, being a higher-order dimension in collapsed state at a given matrix of expanded dimensions, acts as signpost to a higher order matrix of expanded dimensions.

As Tarski showed, language is semantically closed, so even logic is limited by a self-referentiality. — RussellA

Yes. Language tends to impart analytical truth to it declarations. Origin boundary-ontology, even in the case of God, depends upon analytical truth.

Consciousness eludes definition as it eludes reification.

It is unfortunately common today for mainstream media to put their audience into a certain emotional frame of mind using only those facts that support their point of view. — RussellA

Partisan punditry boils down to money. Spinning narratives that glorify consumers is the stock in trade of the snake oil salesperson. If you plausibly cast buyers in heroic mode, they'll throw their money at you.

Similarly in the philosophical aspect of metaphysical dualistic oppositions, where an hierarchy is established that privileges one thing over another. — RussellA

this assumes A and not A are external to each other. But in reality, this is never possible. — RussellA

Yeah. Dualism overflows with forking oppositions: on/off; yes/no; open/closed etc. The seminal genius of George Boole is indisputable. His Boolean algebra supports the entire IT industry, BUT the Einstein_Bohr debate, in my understanding, has been won by Bohr.

If A is a proposition, can A ever be free of the proposition not A...The truth and meaning of of proposition A "I am in Paris" must include all those propositions not A. — RussellA

This is important.

Quantum mechanics is reality. My guess is that the strangeness of it is due in part to the contortion of its dimensions when it's viewed through the lens of Boolean Logic, which is intrinsically three-dimensional.

Perhaps Quantum mechanics is not strange when viewed through Bohrian Logic.

Speculation - Bohrian Logic inserts into the on/off switch the undecidable, or superposition as follows:

[on]/\[on=off]/\[off].

Bohrian Logic, I'm guessing, is intrinsically four-dimensional. That kicks non-contradiction to the curb.

Quantum computing is here; with this one quantum-leap insertion (superposition) into Bohrian Logic, it's not enough to say quantum computing renders Boolean encryption obsolete.

A four-dimensional universe renders our three-dimensional universe liminal, which is fascinating!

Physicists Leonard Susskind & Gerardus t'Hooft have a notion of our three-dimensional universe as being intrinsically holographic with a real part (material) and a cognitive (imaginary?) part (information).

Well now, suppose our three-dimensional, holographic reality is a boundary to a higher four-dimensional
reality with an inherent logic that transcends spacetime! What does that do to Boolean Logic? Aha! The perplexing strangeness of quantum mechanics.

What I want to do is exactly what you said should be done. Yes, entertaining and engaging. — Athena

One big step towards good teaching is to perform instruction rather than to talk instruction.

The way to perform instruction is to become an actor in the classroom. This is a way of saying the teacher must personalize the lessons she intends to share with students. More often than not, the life of the person teaching, in the here and now, is more interesting than the subject matter to be conveyed. A teacher teaching physics is more interesting with more impact if she's living as a physicist than if she's just reciting details of the laws of physics.

All public speaking is theater and the living person before us speaking is more intrinsically interesting if she be vivid with life and dynamical with grace in action. This compared to stark information leaves no contest. Let me add that vivacity and charm are blanched by ignorance and illogic and thus the actor-as-teacher spews no bogus content.

Logic is intrinsic in the world and logic begins in the space-time of the world. — RussellA

This is what a good teacher makes her students experience and feel directly and naturally. No facts and figures hammered into memory, just a direct experience of life as something dynamic revealing itself moment to moment to those paying attention. Life long learners emerge from such classroom experiences because authentic education is half a step from entertainment.

A successful life is one that maintains child's play from cradle to grave.

The US is in a crisis because of bad reasoning and I am arguing we can use math and grammar to improve the reasoning of the masses. — Athena

If only you were a teacher.

:up:

Under any language (Fortran, French, English), you will need to adhere to a logical based semantics for coherence, but the form can vary among types of languages. That is, logic is not a language, but a component of language, whereas Fortran is a type of language. — Hanover

Do we read symbolic language as we read verbal language? Is a logical narrative, like a verbal narrative, a continuity of signs that must be decoded and understood?

Can one language be a component of another language?

You may be on to something. Let us test it. When I was a child I wanted to fly and I had no idea why that was not possible so I kept jumping off high things hoping to fly. Is that logical thinking? — Athena

How high did you climb before jumping off?

My claim animal instincts are consistent with reason doesn't imply natural preclusion of irrational thinking and behavior.

Recognition of animal reasoning does not promote human devolution.

What did you think when I offered ways of appeasing a god? — Athena

Do you think desire to appease an all-powerful aggressor irrational?

I wish everyone would watch this video. It explains why most of our thinking is not logical but reactionary like an animal perceiving and reacting. — Athena

When you put your hand onto something hot and it burns you, you yank your hand away. Many call this a reflex without conscious thought. I call it high speed, low res processing, or gross thinking. If I throw a rock into a burning fireplace, it doesn't jump out in pain. No processing, thus no logical processing. I say all processing is logical. This is to say cognitive processing is bound up in continuity and acts accordingly. If a bug tries to fly into my eyeball, I jack-knife away in the continuity of action/reaction. All logic is action/reaction; in parallel, all cognitive processing is, likewise, action/reaction. When my reflexes keep me from burning up, or being blinded, these actions make sense, don't they? When a beast is getting cornered and it either attacks or flees, that makes sense doesn't it? Our reflexes aren't always correct? Are they ever irrational?

...I don't think we should take this so far as thinking animals are as logical as humans,... — Athena

I, RusselA, Janus, Alkis Piskas and others don't disagree with you. We never have. None of us claims animal reasoning is equal to human reasoning. We're just saying the divide between animal/human isn't no-reason versus reason. Instead, we're saying the divide is between low-res reason versus high- res reason.

I think our problem is our definition of logic and I wish others were here to discuss what is logic and do animals have logical thinking? — Athena

Interesting question. What I've worked out for myself, so far, is that logic, basically, is continuity parsed. Whole into parts via analysis and, in reverse, parts reconnected according to strict rules of valid continuity back to whole.

Are the instincts of humans and animals logical? I hope so. If I have survival instincts (and I do) I certainly hope they're viable and thus logical. The difference, as I say, lies between low res(olution) cognition i.e., instinct and high res(olution) cognition i.e., rationation.

We humans want to learn logic to better plan for the achievement of our sincere goals, and thus for our happiness and fulfillment.

So, I have no problem with saying that animals have their own kinds of languages; languages of sign, though, not of symbol.All symbols are signs, but not all signs are symbols. — Janus

I agree with this. :up:

I pretty much agree with everything you wrote there except the quoted sentence; "linguistic" means "of the tongue", and I would reserve its use for the symbolic languages which are unique to humans. This defines the traditional area of study of linguistics. — Janus

You're right.

I've been using "language" and "linguistic" to convey "intentional communication capable."

If "language," by definition, means verbal expression (and it does), then, by current vocabulary standards, I've been wrong to claim all of the animal kingdom possesses language.

It's well established that "communication" is the word to be used when referring to transfer of information that's non-verbal.

I'm wondering if language_general can work as a term for the intentional, non-verbal communication of animals whereas language_verbal can work as a term for human communication. Communication would apply to both modes of language; vocabulary, syntax, grammar and linguistics would only apply to verbal language.

I make these suggestions because language, in my thinking, conveys intention (appropriate for all of the animal kingdom) whereas "communication," feeling subject neutral, does so to a lesser degree.

Even if all language is communication of information, it doesn't follow that all communication of information is language. It depends on what you mean by "conscious", but there are many kinds of animal that communicate information without language (language, that is, in the linguistic, symbolic sense). — Janus

I put your closing, parenthetical statement in bold because it places you on my side of the aisle re: the debate. Yes. Communication of information is not language in the sense of verbal language that uses symbolic signs and thus requires abstract thought for decoding. Indeed, as I've never seen an animal reading a book, it's safe to say verbal language is exclusive to humans.

Even if all language is communication of information, it doesn't follow that all communication of information is language. — Janus

This claim is a bit more tough to judge. Let me venture the claim that if communication of information is intentional, as, for example, a growling dog warning a postman away from his yard, then it is language, albeit non-verbal language. If, on the other hand, I'm standing at the base of a hill when, suddenly, a boulder dislodges from its position and rolls down the hill and smashes into the ground near my parked car and I race off in my car, having concluded my previous location was unsafe, then that's an example of communication that's not language because there was no intention motivating its occurence.

If we acknowledge that most behavior is either goal-oriented, or makes some kind of sense, as opposed to being completely random, then I say that all cognitive beings infuse some level of logic into their animation, oftentimes this coupled with intention to signify meaning to other cognitive beings via modulated animation. This is a way of saying being alive and conscious is synonymous with being linguistic.

1) Logic does not need to be introduced. It permeats all things in the human mind. Even before we learn to speak and certainly before learning grammar. — Alkis Piskas

Yes. I agree that the logical operations of the mind enacting goal-oriented behavior begins in toddlers who lack verbal language.

"Introduction," as used in my sentence, refers to a classroom situation wherein students are tasked with bringing a fully conscious mind to learning the reasoning behind the syntax of their native tongue. Learning to speak and write with conscious intention to articulate well-formed sentences, as guided by conscious grammatical manipulation, marks the beginning of conscious logical thought for many, if not all. Aside from prodigies, toddlers don't operate at the cognitive level of verbal expression via conscious intention.

3) Grammar can be used by both speakers and writers, as an automatic process, i.e. without using logic consciously, even if it's structure --because it consists of other elements besides a structure-- is based on logic. — Alkis Piskas

Right. Like many, I've spent much of my life speaking my native tongue by ear, without giving much thought to grammatical manipulation towards best communication.

Now that I'm getting my conscious bearings in the grammar of my native tongue, I see myself paving a path to further study in symbolic logic. I take this to be a general truth for humanity.

And what does that have to do with learning grammar as a path to learning higher-order logic thinking skills? I could be wrong but I think the discussion has confused language with logical thinking. — Athena

At an early point in this conversation - I think before your entrance - some correspondents - now dropped out - attacked my claim that logical thinking does not occur outside of language. From there, the argument went to a possible refutation of my argument via example of animal behavior deemed possible logical thinking outside of language (the crow displacement video). Henceforth, the conversation centered on a debate whether non-humans practice language.

I now have some agreement, I think, to the effect that the entire animal kingdom practices language, logical thought and behavior, whereas humans alone also practice verbal language: spoken and written.

...our schools are not preparing our young to be logical thinkers — Athena

I've been mulling over the question whether logical thinking is taught in the schools. I think I can deduce that some measure of such is being taught because I see no way to teach anything without lessons based in logical thinking. I think it true that lessons in logical thinking need to be much more robust, especially in the primary grades. This would ensure that students immediately set about building a strong foundation for becoming life-long learners in all endeavors.

This has been the goal of formal education since the beginning. That's why primary schools are also known as grammar schools. The problem is not the mission, but the execution of it.

Even if a school caters to low-income students, it can empower such students to success with rigorous grammar lessons because logically thinking students of low income, no less than logically thinking students of high income, can successfully compete in the job market.

Alas, with respect to grammar lessons, mass media entertainments are the enemy.

In summary, both non-human animals and humans communicate using language. Non-human animal language is non-verbal, human language is both non-verbal and verbal. — RussellA

:smile: :up:

If we suppose the opposite, namely, that a human individual sustains damage to the brain's language component, might we suppose such person could still think logically and thus form grammatical utterances in the mind's ear? However, thinking in this way would now be lopped off from the ability to voice aloud these utterances, thus requiring the person to write their communications?
— ucarr

Now you are too focused on language. — Athena

I should have written, "sustains damage to the brain's speech component..."

I think the gist of the argument of RussellA and me (apologies if I misrepresent RussellA) is that language_general has a long run up to language_verbal, which latter requires abstract thinking, such as what you and I are doing when we read and interpret, via abstract thought, the symbolic marks displayed on our computer screens. We're arguing the entire animal kingdom participates in language_general, with various examples given. The crux of our argument is that the boundary line between animal kingdom and humans is not non-language/language but, rather, language_general/language_verbal. Only humans speak, write and read words, which is to say, comprehend abstract symbols that signify specific experiences of the natural world. The animal kingdom does not appear to have the cognitive processing power necessary to navigate symbolic word signifiers abstracted from experiences of the natural world. The animal kingdom is thus non-verbal and non-literate. That's a long way, in our view, from saying the animal kingdom is non-linguistic.

Animals evolved about 750 million years ago, yet human language only began about 30,000 to 100,000 years ago. Was there a magical spark that gave language to humans? It seems more sensible to believe that human language developed from something pre-existing in non-human animals. — RussellA

Since I agree with the above, I think you and I are walking the same path in our journeys through this conversation.

Birds being engineered by evolution sounds remarkably teleological. Were feathers engineered by evolution for flight, or did animals having feathers discover they could fly. — RussellA

With the above, we come to the gnarly question of teleology vis-a-vis natural processes operating on a life-bearing planet.

Now I ask myself whether arguing existence of a foundation for modern, human, verbal language that predates humanity contains some flavor of the teleological POV re: evolution.

I'm gawking at the formidable switch at the center of a highly-charged, long-standing debate:

Explanation of phenomena in terms of the purpose they serve Vs explanation of phenomena in terms of the cause by which they arise

As I gawk, I'm reminded of Goethe's claim that interest lies embedded within the switch between conflicting claims, both of which are true. This is a handy guideline for steering a course towards non-binary thinking, another principal inflamed by debate.

I'm also reminded of a super-gnarly concept of my own: origin boundary ontology. It's an attempt to plot a metaphysical course of action touring the terrain of the chicken/egg question.

Just now, I'm leaping over that bog.

How about this question: If a process is logical, is it necessarily teleological? If logic is motion that's ordered and specific, and thus directional rather than random, how can it not have a purpose? From here we move on to asking, "Are natural processes logical, or random collisions? We know from chemistry that two specific elements combine in specific ways? In this situation, does specificity look like intention and purpose?

Even if two specific elements can be proven to have combined by random chance, as in the case of a highway accident wherein a truck carrying chlorine collides with a truck carrying sodium and the result is a flood of sodium chloride spilling across all four lanes. Since the two elements are highly specific in their chemistry, can the production of sodium chloride by accidental collision be legitimately deemed random?

Does earth evolution example natural logic?

Let's suppose a situation of totally random collisions between elements inhabiting a cosmic gas cloud spanning several galaxies worth of volume. The end result, after eons, produces coalescence into a new star. Since the new star will subsequently produce elements that, dispersing, eventually coalesce into planets orbiting the star, thus forming a solar system that, eventually, produces a life-bearing planet, can we assert the counter-intuitive conclusion that randomness sometimes transitions into logic that, in turn, transitions into life and therefore into purpose?

If you can say it, you can think it. — ucarr

When we do not have a word for our thought we can't think that thought, we can not communicate that thought to ourselves or others. — Athena

:smile: Alright. We're on the same page re: grammar_logic_(intentional) communication.

If we suppose a human individual sustains damage to the brain's logical component, might we suppose such person could still make grammatical utterances? However, speaking this way would now be powered by rote memory without comprehension in the manner of a parrot?

If we suppose the opposite, namely, that a human individual sustains damage to the brain's language component, might we suppose such person could still think logically and thus form grammatical utterances in the mind's ear? However, thinking in this way would now be lopped off from the ability to voice aloud these utterances, thus requiring the person to write their communications?

I pose these two situations in an effort to assess the degree of interweave between grammar_logic_(intentional) communication.

If we're looking at a permanent triad of interlinked co-functions, then it feels reasonable to conclude language permeates the entire animal kingdom.

This conclusion leads us to the following comparison:

Language = (intentional) communication via signifiers

Entire Animal Kingdom -- grammar_logic_(intentional) communication via signifiers

Humanity -- grammar_logic_(intentional) communication via signifiers_abstract_(intentional) communication via abstract signifiers

Humanity alone (apparently) possesses sufficient cerebral processing power to decode abstract signifiers, both spoken and written. Only humans can produce objective recordings of experience that, via abstract signifiers, communicate lengthy, complex narratives (books, movies, etc.).

...the lexical layer, eg found in bees. — RussellA

In this context, does lexical layer refer to a range of movements bees can make?

I can understand human language, etc as a by-product of evolution rather than an evolutionary adaptation, in that whilst feathers evolved for warmth, as a by-product could be used for flight. — RussellA

I'm experiencing a natural impulse to balk at construing by-product-of-evolution as being a broadly inclusive, natural phenomenon. In your example of bird feathers being engineered by evolution for warmth, I think of bird legs. They accommodate walking very poorly. It seems to me birds have but minimal adaptation to life upon the ground. Overall bird design, with its wings, weak legs, lack of arms and beak instead of mouth, suggests a life form engineered by evolution for life in the air. If evolution targeted warmth through wing design for birds, it's strangely indirect and inefficient, as a heavy coat for warmth scarcely needs wing design, a specific, aerodynamic form. However, walking on feeble, unarticulated legs, even with a warm coat, offers little promise of survival on the ground. It seems arse backwards to supply wings for slow, wobbly walking, making flightless birds easy pickings for predators. Evolution appears more on point for supplying wings as a survival mechanism through flight.

Do you understand hyohamous... — Athena

Can you provide a definition of "hyohamous"?

Being a human with cognitive abilities does not necessarily mean thinking conceptionally and only that ability separates humans from the rest of the animals. — Athena

So, in your view, mental manipulation of abstract concepts is the marker distinguishing humans within animal kingdom.

However, brain damage can also prevent us from having the ability to reason, so reasoning is more than having language. — Athena

Are you suggesting, with the above, that negative effect on reasoning can sometimes occur without negative effect on language?

IE, human language is not of a different kind to animal communication, but rather, human language has built on what already pre-existed. — RussellA

:up:

The gist of my argument herein comes down to the following pithy claim:

logic = motion + intent

The scope of this claim is broadly inclusive. It begs the question of how the academic disciplines are inter-related.

Let me address this question.

My arguments have lead me to an all is motion point of view. I know this is a trap baited by the lure of panacea found. Let me protect my ego with a strong dose of skepticism towards ultimate Eureka! moments.

All is NOT motion. I know. I’m digressing, as usual for my mind, a rambling forager. Alright, but just a quick moment for this:

The sciences examine motion existentially; the arts and humanities examine motion qualitatively. In short, the former measures things; the latter munches on those measurements. There. That’s how I address the begged question of how the academic disciplines are inter-related under the rubric of,

logic = motion + intent

So now, if you be cognitive individual, you practice motion + intent. Speaking in the vernacular, we call this finding food, shelter & fire. Following closely upon the tail of the basic three come the secondary three: finding love, family & community. The lotus in the garden of the magic seven is, finally, finding cosmos, which means, colloquially, practicing unselfish love for others.

All cognitive individuals possess language because, as you know, all cognitive beings seek the magic seven listed above and, as you know, none of the above happen outside of language games.

Language and its inherent logic are cerebration of motion, which is intelligence.

Consciousness and its emergent property, intelligence, are the two greatest creations of our universe.

So now, as you might surmise, I speak to the great, cosmic love-in: The Big Bang Animation, an all-inclusive universal narrative. This narrative, the voice of God, operates so broadly inclusively, it easily contains, even if paradoxically, our community of theists_atheists. That’s right. Theism & atheism are sub-divisions of one source, the universal narrative. I digress.

The Big Bang Tango, universal background radiation, headwaters the lines-of-force motion that cognitive individuals are sourced from and bound unto.

Well now, the night is late, the campfire bright and the claim uttered: We are motion!

Chatter, anyone? Some chatter before bedtime?

“We are motion? What is motion?”
“No! E-motion. We are E-motion.”
“Now wait a minute. I think –"

Hello, Athena,

Animals can not know logos because they do not have the complex language as humans have complex languages that can express reasoning. — Athena

Animals do not have gods and neither did early man because a god is a concept, and is not manifested in nature. — Athena

What about pets? Out of the whole animal kingdom, about 150 species can be domesticated for life alongside humans in friendship.

We're told humans have dominion over animals. Maybe pets receive God's presence through humans? When a pet takes instruction from human to do a good deed, or when a pet, on its own initiative, does a good deed, such as save an endangered human, is that not a pet_God connection?

What I'd really like here, I suppose, is to help avoid a descent into pseudo-science. Linguistics, like any other science, has certain principles that ought to be recognized. — Baden

Speculation Vs Scholarship > Your cautionary alert is appropriate and good. Of course we rabble come to public forums to cluck cluck like roosters having a little bit of fun. Maybe more a than a few hot breezes circulating the public houses have prevented more than a few wars, no?

↪ucarr

Maybe try to be a little more focused? My problem has always been what appears to be yours: profundity. You or I might be smart, but it is difficult to write profoundly all the time. I find that I get the best product if I stay down to earth and then expand on what I'm writing.
20 hours ago — ToothyMaw

I agree with this. It's good advice. Plain English is the best approach and I'm working on it.

Anyone who wants to label me profound is welcome to do so, as I consider it high praise. Thank-you.

If, by chance, by profundity you mean obscurity, then yes. That's a profound fault, as it means my attempts at communication are failing fundamentally.

Even so, intuitive leaps are a permanent part of my mental landscape. Even as I work towards plain speaking, I accept this part of myself. Moreover, folks (including me) are always complaining about narratives that aren't simple as pie. As for writing populist philosophy, that's a tall order, but striving for the impossible is an item on my to do list.

The sentence "come here" doesn't contain any preposition, yet signifies a spatio-temporal relation.
— RussellA

Yes, and can form a "complete thought" due to the fact that it fulfils at minimum the necessary requirements of a clause, i. e. it contains a verb and everything necessary for the verb in its syntactical context (its complements). And a clause whether singularly acting as a sentence or doing so in conjunction with other clauses, forms the most important semantic building block of language. Here again, the verb is central, and prepositions peripheral. — Baden

"Come here," being a command, contains the implied subject "you." If we're stretching definitions here, then I say that a better characterization is the claim that the verb "come" is a complement of the implied subject "you," as it makes (an implied) claim about the subject: you are a conscious individual who can obey my command.

The main point, however, is that "come here" is only a complete thought because of both the verb and the subject. Verb_Subject is the building block of grammar, unless you can cite a language that lacks one or both of these.

As to the peripheral status of prepositions, can you cite a language that never signifies spatial and temporal relationships between nouns? RussellA's Chinese quote (somehow) signifies the preposition; I suppose it's implied.

I'm trying to follow along here a little, but I don't understand any of this. What could logic have to do with spacetime, for instance? The OP speculates people are introduced to logic through language, and thus logic and language are irreducible. They then must have developed alongside each other from some proto-language, and for some reason this means that spacetime is the ultimate conjunction between ... ? — ToothyMaw

Yeah. My attempt at reasoning herein lies sprawled across a long block chain of (supposedly) connected ideas. See below where Hallucinogen does an excellent job of compacting the block chain into a short paragraph, with links to articles that elaborate.

The nature of spacetime must ultimately be language, since language is the most general algebraic structure. For something to obey rules it's got to conform to the rules of language otherwise it's unintelligible. In spacetime you've got objects, these correspond to nouns, you've got time, which correspond to verbs and functions and you've got space which is prepositional. There isn't anything in spacetime that isn't describable in language. Notice how all attempts to unify the sciences involve trying to boil them all down to one language within a unified grammar. The thoughts we model reality with must also be continuous with that reality and continuity implies shared structure. In the CTMU this is called the metaformal system and it couples that which you describe the universe with that which structures it.

https://ctmucommunity.org/wiki/Principle_of_Linguistic_Reducibility
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTIv4GiDGOk - language of spacetime
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXvUyrhAaN8 - reality is a language — Hallucinogen

That's animal communication not language. Conveying information is not a high enough bar for language.
— Baden

What is language for if not conveying information ? — RussellA

Exactly. No conscious individual in possession of information needful of communication exits without simultaneous possession of language.

:smile: :up: :100:

...if we are to take it that language evolved over time, we ought to make conceptual room for a theorised primitive proto-language. — Baden

Okay. Here's your recognition of upwardly developmental language across a continuum.

there is no serious consideration given in academic linguistics to incorporating crow behaviour or tea-making behaviour under even the broadest umbrella understanding of language. — Baden

lin·guis·tics | liNGˈɡwistiks |
plural noun [treated as singular]
the scientific study of language and its structure, including the study of morphology, syntax, phonetics, and semantics.

__The Apple Dictionary

One of the foundational reasons I'm making my claims herein is the desire to make the following change to the above definition,

the scientific study of ^ verbal ^ language

So, yes. In reference to the non-homo sapiens animal kingdom, language is more properly the study of psychology than academic linguistics.

I don't know whether ucarr is saying that logic or language came first. — RussellA

I think language and logic are contemporaneous co-functions. I intuit this because, in my experience, a healthy, functional brain cannot long operate illogically. Environmental forces soon put illogical behavior in check along the axis of survival. The purposeful individual, being conscious, must proceed under guidance of some degree of foundational common sense, otherwise death. There is no viable intent apart from a foundation within logic. Translated broadly, this means an individual must move about with purpose within his-her environment. Within the crucible of survival, logic and language are forged jointly as co-equals. As such, both logic and language emerge as non-random animation.

Homo sapiens differs from the rest of the animal kingdom not in terms of a quantum leap forward from non-language to language, but rather from non-verbal langue to verbal langue.

In its broadest generality, langue_logic is motion organized by need_intent_purpose.

It's the degree of supportable abstraction that separates non-verbal langue from verbal langue. The animal kingdom, although linguistic, is non-verbal, therefore non-literate. It uses the language of purposeful animation within the immediate context of personally physicalized expression of intent. Unlike homo sapiens, it cannot record complex, intricate motion-with-intent as a continuity of abstract signification i.e., a book. It cannot take a book and, via internalized motion (which is a good definition of the operation of intellect) reanimate, via the imagination, complex signification of same.

I'm trying to articulate supporting arguments for (2) claims : a) grammar introduces all speakers to logic; b) spacetime is the ultimate conjunction.

My conceptualization of logic is based on this premise: logic is a synonym for continuity and, moreover, logical operations (such as language) are concerned with the parsing of continuity. Logical operations, therefore, express themselves as systematic analyses of a whole for the sake of manipulation-with-intention. This said manipulation, ultimately, must gravitate back to its source. Analysis always has a gravitational orientation back to its source, the whole. Language, viewed thus, expresses itself as a systematically modulated medium of derivatives in search of a whole.

Let me illustrate with a parallel. When a prism parses the visible light spectrum into a rainbow of colors, white light, the whole, gets parsed into a language, as it were, of color derivatives in search of the whole from whence they came.

All of this is to say that the grammar of language, no matter how cognitive & cerebral, remains rooted in the physicality of spacetime.

Now I can present my foundational premise: logic = continuity = (literal, physical) motion.

As a general statement about logic (and therefore about language), I claim that it is a concomitant of motion.

Of course my above claim is subject to cogent refutation.

Baden, RussellA and alan1000 have made responses of essential importance.

So, American Sign Language, for example, is a perfectly valid language but me making a cup of tea or physically showing you how to do that, more analogical to your crow example, is not. — Baden

Our views differ in terms of the quantum vs. the continuum. Baden says the boundary between linguistic and non-linguistic is quantum; I say it is continuum.

There are two main theories as to how language evolved. Either i) as an evolutionary adaptation or ii) a by-product of evolution and not a specific adaptation. — RussellA

Is the human brain hard-wired for language, or did it reconfigure itself for language in response to environmental prompts? Since the entire animal kingdom encounters environmental prompts, I lean towards believing the high-cognition version of language that is human is hard-wired.

I think he (ucarr) would agree that the perception of logical connection is essentially non-verbal, and language follows later as an attempt to communicate the logical connection to others. — alan1000

Yes. Language arises directly from the physical environment of animation, and remains rooted there, no matter how refined into abstract cerebration it becomes.

I quote these important observations of correspondents in order to acknowledge their impact upon my arguments which, given the cogency of the observations, must presently remain tentative.

Causal understanding of water displacement by a crow

It seems that the crow is using cognition. If the crow has no language, then it is using cognition outside of language. — RussellA

I infer you've concluded the video shows no practice of language by the crow.

In this context, I note that language is expanded in scope to include all of the sensory forms of signification (sight, sound, touch, taste, smell). — ucarr

If you can say it, you can think it — ucarr

With my two above quotes of myself I lay foundation for making the claim that a broadly inclusive definition of language allows language production via the five senses. Bearing this in mind, I claim the crow understands and practices the visual language of water displacement towards making the desired object reachable.

From the evidence of the crow's purposeful behavior, I infer the claimed visual language was learned through observation. The visual objects within the frame are the syntax of the visual language and the displacement effect (with acquisition of desired object) is the semantics of the visual language.

In making my claim, I'm stretching the common usage of "language" in an effort to make it suitable as evidence and support.

I argue that my use of the stretch is not pettifogging and foolish because it's of a piece with claiming that language is not limited to verbal practitioners. I claim, instead, that the distribution of language capacity is not binary: humans linguistic; remainder (of animal kingdom) non-linguistic. The distribution of language practice comprises a range that possesses no sharp and distinct boundary between linguistic and non-linguistic. From here I proceed to claiming perception_cognition_language are not discreet.

You might argue the crow had no intention to communicate a method for acquiring the desired object via water displacement, and thus makes no practice of language on behalf of the observer. I acknowledge the range of language practice has discernible levels of sophistication, especially as it pertains to intentional communication.

...logic is not a language, but a component of language... — Hanover

Logic, then, being an attribute of language, stands subordinate to language. This feels intuitively like something useful to my argument, but, first, I must ask how symbolic logic can stand alone (which it can) without being its own language?

Language and formal logic are no more synonyms than language and fortran. — Joshs

As I see the above, it's not a refutation, but rather, a call for greater precision. Suppose I revise my claim to say, "grammar, the inferential platform and medium of language, is synonymous with logic"?

Language is a human extension of perceptual interaction with the world, and is continuous with perception, which is already conceptual and cognitive prior to the learning of a language. — Joshs

Let's look at a piece of what you've written above.

...perceptual_already conceptual and cognitive prior to_language. — Joshs

Let's look at definitions of three of your important words.

con·cept | ˈkänˌsept |
noun
an abstract idea; a general notion: structuralism is a difficult concept | the concept of justice.

• Philosophy an idea or mental picture of a group or class of objects formed by combining all their aspects.

cog·ni·tion | ˌkäɡˈniSH(ə)n |
noun
the mental action or process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
• a result of this; a perception, sensation, notion, or intuition.

per·cep·tion | pərˈsepSH(ə)n |
noun
the ability to see, hear, or become aware of something through the senses: the normal limits to human perception.


__The Apple Dictionary

Do you deny that perception and abstraction are opposites?

Do you deny that perception does not imply knowledge?

Do you deny that the pre-language period of a toddler invokes the hard problem of communicating what it's like to be an experiencing individual with an innate POV?*

*Toddlers intentionally modulate their cries, grunts, moans, chuckles etc. in service to parents trying to decipher the wants and needs generated by their child's innate POV. This, I claim, exemplifies the child's linguistification of the crude "words" listed above.

How does the child, untaught, know how to modulate his crude "words" into intelligible signifiers? I claim such knowledge derives from the child's hard-wired, deep-speech aptitude, articulated by Chomsky.

If you claim that deep speech aptitude in pre-language toddlers shows that perception is conceptual and cognitive prior to language, then I claim that it simultaneously shows that its power of linguistification establishes perception, cognition and language as not discreet and thus temporal priority goes out the window.

'To deliberately inflict and prolong, willfully ignore or derive pleasure from suffering' is my quick & dirty idea of evil. — 180 Proof

Your definition, as I see it, exemplifies anti-empathy.

Is not the genre of Dystopian Sci-Fi essentially nationalistic?
— ucarr

Is it? — Tom Storm

The citizen of civil society maintains a dual interest: a) individual interest; b) group interest. The two interests stand locked within a yin-yang of creative conflict and, as such, are the rich ground of drama. Dystopian Sci-Fi examines the decline into toxicity of an empire_civilization under the adverse influence of a systemic imbalance between the individual interest & the group interest. Usually, it's a case of the individual interest overbearing the group interest such that a consortium of power brokers enslaves the masses to a system of values that upholds & enhances their power while condemning multitudes to servile self-denial & misery. Metropolis examples this configuration. The opposite configuration, not as common, has the masses imposing their benighted will upon a lone wolf alarmist whose narrative of impending doom they scoff at & dismiss. Superman examples this configuration.

Not sure why complaining came up or even matters. I dislike Marvel films for their shrill, derivative banality. The point is that they are not Eisenstein or Lang. But this is a matter of personal taste. — Tom Storm

the fascism is in the aesthetics, the fetishisation of weapons, uniforms and the body beautiful, posed and choreographed mawkishly the way Leni Riefenstahl posed her Nazi superheroes. — Tom Storm

I this isn't a complaint against the narcissism & overweening of fascism, then I don't know the meaning of the words.

Consider this. Not to think about Herrmann doesn't mean he isn't a primary reason for the film's success, as Hitchcock himself felt. The genius in a score is that it is felt and often remains undetected... — Tom Storm

The issue here is determination which is more foundational: a) the audio-visual narrative; b) the musical narrative. While it's true both narratives can stand alone as satisfying artistic experiences, when examining the merits of a movie, an audio-visual narrative whose themes & plot points are enhanced by the score, clearly, the audio-visual narrative is the principal & the score is the subordinate. Being that it occupies a support role, it's merely appropriate that the score's impact be mostly subliminal. Therefore, in this context, being subliminal is not a good yardstick for being sublime.

It's not power as such; the fascism is in the aesthetics, the fetishisation of weapons, uniforms and the body beautiful, posed and choreographed mawkishly the way Leni Riefenstahl posed her Nazi superheroes... — Tom Storm

Human nature being such as it is, what with the individual intimately concerned with issues of power and, moreover, each individual, living within a civil society compartmentalized by specialization, also interested in the power of the group, allowance must be made for the celebration (if not exaltation) of state power within the arts & entertainment.

The people's will to power will be honored. The aesthetics of fascism is power in another mode: the fetishizing of weapons (predominantly phallic), the pageantry of full military dress, the dash & storm of athletic soldiers, these attributes are the golden gleam of martial might. They are the essence of the rhetoric-cum-propaganda that wins the hearts & minds of the masses.

These glorifications within the arts date from Homer to Tolstoy to Riefenstahl. Regarding toxic hero-worship of warfare, I measure culpability of Nietzsche greater than that of Riefenstahl.

Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkim & Lang's Metropolis are celebrated classics. Well, both pictures have nationalism folded into their aesthetics. Has anyone complained about this?

Is not the genre of Dystopian Sci-Fi essentially nationalistic?