I guess you're not going to watch the video that I posted the link for that shows that contradicts your previous post, and pretty much everything else you've said, but that's your problem, not mine. — Harry Hindu
I've shown that language ain't "just a tool" as you claim. If we are looking for something that explains the mental chasm between social animal and encultured human, then language accounts for that. — apokrisis
Yeah. After he learnt language. So proves my point. — apokrisis
No. It is impossible to have a meaningful conversation when I keep refering to avideo that you and Apo refuse to watch. You are ignoring the previous post to you where I askex you a question that you refuse to answer. That is what makes it impossible to have a meaningful conversation with you.It's very difficult having any sort of a meaningful discussion with you when you keep oscillating back and fort between the stances that your thesis does and doesn't contradict your interlocutor's thesis — Pierre-Normand
No. It is impossible to have a meaningful conversation when I keep refering to avideo that you and Apo refuse to watch. — Harry Hindu
What I have denied is that you become self-aware, or conscious, after leraning language. — Harry Hindu
No, it proves that he can refer to his self in the past, — Harry Hindu
Yet you can't even respond to a whole post or answer questions posed to you in posts.I watched the whole video before posting my first comment in this thread, thanked you for the reference, and commented on it. I even transcribed a bit from the video in my first paragraph. I also acquired Susan Shaller's book A Man Without Words (2nd ed. University of California Press, 2012), which provides a much fuller account than the short documentary, and read about one third, so far. I also read the useful critical comments on Wikipedia (The talk page also is worth looking at). Apo also referenced a blog article discussing Ildefonso's case. — Pierre-Normand
No. Didn't I say animals were conscious and that self-awareness comes in degrees that is the result of brain structure? For you, consciousness is either on or off and language is the switch.So are you saying animals aren’t conscious then? You can’t have it both ways. — apokrisis
He describes his pre-linguistic past as him being stupid. I already went over this. You can create a narrative when you realize that you have some idea that others don't (you realize that you are separate) AND you have a symbol system to relay that idea (language, hand gestures and facial expressions, etc.). Language is just a more complex form of symbol system.But it is his post linguistic past which he refers to in that video segment. And I’ve already cited the telling way he describes his pre linguistic past. — apokrisis
He describes his pre-linguistic past as him being stupid. — Harry Hindu
Yet you can't even respond to a whole post or answer questions posed to you in posts. — Harry Hindu
Again, if you go back and re-read my previous post, you will see that I made the argument that learning a language is just another experience we have that changes us. Every time we acquire knowledge of some sort it changes us (our selves), and if we have a complex system of communication then we can create new words to refer to those new things, just like how languages have evolved to reflect our new knowledge. Think about the change humanity went through in how it viewed itself when we realized the Earth wasn't the center of the universe and that we weren't separate from animals.
Let me ask you PN, what is the thing that was there that changed? — Harry Hindu
the case of (pre-linguistic and pre-tamed) Helen Keller... — Pierre-Normand
This culture isn't merely a possession but also a way of being; and the inhabiting of a symbolically mediated culture is a very specific way of being. — Pierre-Normand
So the drama of her finger-spelling "awakening" was overplayed. — apokrisis
So, she may have been rather more like Ildefonso (and less like Victor, the feral child) than habitually portrayed. — Pierre-Normand
When did I ever shrug my shoulders and say "there's no big deal"? Now you're just putting words in my mouth, creating a straw-man where there is none.So your own cite says the difference was like night and day. And yet you want to shrug your shoulders and say there's no big deal. Language is just a more complex form of symbol system. — apokrisis
No, it isn't. You're making things more complicated and not even getting at anything I have said. I am talking about the self. You are talking about animals, the human race as a whole, etc. Go back and read the OP. You're performing all these unnecessary mental gymnastics just to avoid answering the question I asked you.This is actually a quite difficult question. — Pierre-Normand
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