While the concept of instinct is so general as to mean almost anything, — Joshs
In other words , there is a ‘rational’ logic of grammar , and this rationality is the product of an innate structure syntactically organizing words into sentences . In this way, Pinker and Chomsky are heirs of Enlightenment Rationalism. Chomsky has said as much himself. — Joshs
My quote from Lakoff was intended to show that embodied approaches to language tend to reject Pinker’s claim that innate grammar structures exist. They say there is no language instinct , but rather innate capacities for complex cognition , out of which language emerged in different ways in different cultures. — Joshs
I find it hard to understand what the nuances of difference are between 'innate capacities for complex cognition' and an 'innate , and therefore universal , computational module'. Sounds like different language for a similar phenomenon. — Tom Storm
An innate language module of the Chomskian sort specifies a particular way of organizing grammar prior to and completely independent of social interaction. Lakoff’s innate capacities for cognition do not dictate any particular syntactic or semantic patterns of language. Those are completely determined by interaction. — Joshs
It understands the language of pictures, in which black pictures refer to unlit events and colourful ones to lit events. Whereas a zombie, however it deals with what it sees, is like the Chinese room in failing to appreciate the reference of symbols (here pictorial) to actual things. — bongo fury
I have a friend who has no minds eye. She does not see visual mental images. She didn't even realize this herself until she was in her 60s. Next time I talk to her, I ask about what that experience is like. — T Clark
I have a friend who has no minds eye. She does not see visual mental images. — T Clark
I saw very little in "The Language Instinct" that dealt with language as a rational process. I don't see that the fact the grammar is structured is the same as saying it is rational — T Clark
Does she see mental images of the things in front of her? — bongo fury
This is simply the way that ‘rational’ has been used when it comes to framing the debate between innatism and behaviorism. — Joshs
It amazed me when I read she didn’t realize herself until she was in her sixties! — javi2541997
What is the source of the quote you provided? — T Clark
You don't believe that there are innate mechanisms that make acquisition of language possible? Doesn't the fact that there is only a limited time in childhood during which people can learn language, indicate there is probably an innate mechanism for learning it? — T Clark
I also like to use Wikipedia as a reference. But as it happens with dictionaries too, sometimes they give us circularity. Here, mind -> mental -> mind. Because what you get from any dictionary and from Wiki itself when you look for the term "mental" is "of or relating to the mind"!The mind is the set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena.
-- Wikipedia — T Clark
Main sentence/verb is missing ...So, mental processes, mental faculties, mental phenomena - emotion, thought, memory, perception, learning, imagination, instinct, attention, pain, motivation, language, action, decision making, maintaining bodily processes. — T Clark
Neither experience nor consciousness are mental processes. They are not "phenomena", as the definition, you, yourself, have brought says (Re: "The mind is the set of faculties responsible for mental phenomena.")One mental process I intentionally left off the list is experience/consciousness. — T Clark
The big accident was then that a serial constraint on hierarchical motor planning could be turned into a new level of semiotic encoding. — apokrisis
Isn’t the notion of semiotic encoding an atemporal
concept? — Joshs
If we begin with a pattern, an ensemble of elements organized with a particular relationship one to another, and observe this pattern transform itself as a new whole from one moment to the next such that each new configuration is similar but not identical to the previous pattern ( and each element has also changed its sense and role with respect to the ensemble), can this be considered a semiotic process? — Joshs
I guess if you've never had it, you never know you don't. I'll ask her. — T Clark
Doesn't it depend on what you mean by "mental Image"? I can visualize quite complex structures and maps, but it is not like staring at an actual static picture or map or an actual object. How is it for you? — Janus
Yes, she sees fine, but her memory and imagination do not include visual images. — T Clark
Also, ask her to describe a route, say out of the house to the nearest post box?
And what happens if she were to draw (the post box, say) from memory? — bongo fury
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