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Re: [xmca] The "Semantics" of Vowels and Consonants?



Dear Mike Cole:
The sound of the voiced "M" is mmmmmmmmmm, commonly uttered to express pleasure, as in the reaction to something good tasting. The name of the letter is a peripheral issue.

		J.G.


On Oct 12, 2010, at 6:44 PM, mike cole wrote:

David and Joseph.

A question. The alphabetic character, M, may represent a phoneme. But can
one say the letter M without there being two phonemes there?
mike

On Tue, Oct 12, 2010 at 4:26 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:

I just want to pick up on ONE aspect of this (very long and almost
completely unsourced) document, and try to source it, because it's a truism
in our field that none of us can stand alone.

Even if this were not true in an epistemological sense (there is only so much brilliance a lone genius is capable of) it would be absolutey true in a publishing sense (a long document is unpublishable without a long list of
references, preferably including all of its potential reviewers).

It's this:

"The vocal sounds express/communicate states of the emotions first and foremost, and as an afterthought, so to speak, they are used to refer to things. They communicate emotion by moving the auditory apparatus of the hearer in a manner analogous to the movements of the vocal apparatus of the speaker, thereby creating in the hearer an emotion analogous to the emotion present in the speaker. Just as the touch of the hands conveys the intent of the toucher, so the vocal motion of the vocalizer creates in the hearer an
emotional state analogous to that of the vocalizer."

This is the "reception through production" theory of speech perception that was popular in the 1980s. It does have BIG advantages over passive theories of reception that preceded it(for one thing, it's much more parsimonious; the same system can be used for receiving speech and for transmitting it).

 There are really TWO variations of this theory:

a) The "motor" theory, associated with Alvin Liberman and the Haskins
Laboratories. This theory relies on the idea of "articulatory gestures". By recognizing the kinds of "articulatory gestures" required by particular
sounds, the hearer, through an act of empathy with the speaker, asks
himself/herself "What would I be saying if I were making gestures like that
in this situation?"

b) The "analysis by synthesis" theory, associated with Chomsky and Halle at MIT. This theory relies on pure unempbodied ACOUSTIC knowledge rather than articulatory gestures. By recognizing the acoustic patterns (see the theory of "distinctive features" laid out in Chomsky and Halle, The Sound Patterns of English), the hearer through an act of empathy with the speaker, asks himself/herself "What would I be saying if I were making gestures like that
in this situation?"

I think that BOTH of these variants of the theory have in common a
recognition that in perception we get a lot more than we hear; people do NOT
rely on the stream of vowels and consonants as their sole source of
information. Perception is a supreme act of what Bruner calls "going beyond
the information given".

Contrary to this, all theories of perception which are based on an analogy with the ALPHABET assume that the stream of vowels and consonants really
does carry the information (or, as Joseph Gilbert puts it, emotion).

In Vygotsky's time, this theory was advocated by the brilliant futurist poet Khlebnikov, who wrote quite extensively on the "emotional valence" of particular phonemes, and constructed whole poems on this association (e.g. "Zangezi", which was composed after a long series of experiments on the
"semantics" of individual phonemes). As you can imagine, they don't
translate very well!

David Kellogg
Seoul National University of Education


--- On Mon, 10/11/10, Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com> wrote:


From: Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>
Subject: Re: [xmca] The Genetic Belly Button and the Functional Belly
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Date: Monday, October 11, 2010, 11:03 PM


                                                                1

                     Language Creates Culture

Language functions, in human society, as the generator of culture. By
the effects on
us of the sounds we utter, we inform ourselves of the effects on us of the
things which
make up our world. Since the only sense of the meaning of any thing is one
and the same
as the effect on us of the thing, and since we relate to our world through our words, language informs us of the meanings of things. This informing
takes place when we use vocal sounds as words to refer to things.

We exist in a vacuous condition vis-à-vis any objective knowing the ultimate meaning of anything. We do not know the ultimate affect on us of
anything. If we operated by instinct, our choices would not depend on
knowing, as our choices do. In this culls context, we are informed by the affects on us of the sounds of our words of the affects on us of the things
to which our words refer.

In the vacuum of outer space, a ship can be propelled by the constant, subtle force of an ion drive. In the outer space of our cluelessness as to the meaning of anything, we are informed of that meaning by the affect on us
of the sounds of our words.

Spoken language is sound made by the body and used to refer to, to signify, things. We must thoroughly understand the basis of language in order to understand anything else about language. Why do we use certain words to signify certain things? Why are there similarities and differences among the various languages in how sound is used to refer to things? Is there a correlation between and among emotional states and vocal sounds? These and other questions must be answered if we are to know how language
works.

We are born into a language-using group and learn the meanings of the
things that
make up our world simply by learning our group’s language.

We have a distinct and unique reaction to each vocal sound just as we
do to
each facial expression and postural position. All forms of body language,
postural, facial
and vocal, are expressions of states of our internal goings-on, are born of
those feeling/emotional states. and recreate these states by resonant
entrainment.

The languages we humans speak currently are the results of the experiential contributions of our ancestors. However they, (our distant relatives), felt about whatever they had words for, we now feel again in the present moment, when we utter the words they originally uttered. Therefore language functions somewhat as a seed: the experience of past peoples was represented in the words they spoke and now, when we voice those words, we
re-experience what they did.

    Language is institutionalized perception. How we, as a society,
perceive our world, is
                                                    2

determined by the the affects on us of our vocal sounds, (a form of body
language), we use to refer to the things that make it up.

Our actions are determined by our perceptions. If we want to change the way we act we must change the way we perceive our world. And we can change
how we perceive our world by changing how we refer to the things that
constitute our world.

    The feelings/emotions of actors on stage and of all of us, are
communicated by our actions. The way someone moves tells us much about how they feel. Our face conveys extensive and subtle information about our emotional state. The sounds of our voices carry emotional content. And, although we normally are not aware of it, the articulate vocal sounds, (the sounds of our vowels and consonants), are loaded with information about our emotional goings-on. The information that comes from the articulate sounds of our words rather than from the emotional overlay we place on them due to our transitory emotional states, is the same no matter what moods we may be
experiencing while we speak. That aspect of information conveyance is
institutionalized/standardized. The tone of voice, cadence, and volume dynamics can be unique to each situation without altering the fundamental
referential communication.

One can experience the effect on ourselves of the various vocal sounds by, while in a sensitive, receptive mode, saying those sounds out loud and sensing their effects. I have done that and have, it seems, discovered their
meanings. You can do that also. Doing so oneself will give one a more
complete sense of the effects of vocal utterances than one could experience by reading what someone else has written about the effects of the vocal
sounds on the emotions.

This covert function of language must be brought to light in order for us to be able to understand the importance of recreating culture. We must understand that our behavior, as a society, is fundamentally linked to our
culture, which is a result of our language.

    We do not objectively know the ultimate meaning of anything and
consequently experience our sense of the meanings of things from the effects
on us of our words.

    These familiar phrases suggest a perception, perhaps a mystical
perception, of the importance of the spoken word.

    The final word.

    What’s the word?

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word
was God.

The tongue is the rudder of the soul. It is not what passes into our
lips that defiles us but
                                                    3

every untoward utterance that proceeds out of our mouths.

Words, as sounds, affect us subliminally, supplying us with a feeling for whatever we name. It is that feeling that we experience from the sounds
of our words that supplies us with a subliminal consensus for our
world-view.

We cannot realistically expect humans to act in a way contradictory to their culture’s bias. Marx’s economic/social theory was used as a rallying
standard to
enable regime change. After those individuals who had experienced the
tyranny of the czar had left the scene, the body-politic eventually rejected
collectivism, (the transplanted economic organ). Russian culture is
fundamentally the same as it was when the roots of its present language were established and Russian society naturally reverted to its cultural default mode after the revolution. After a short time, the czar was replaced by the head commissar. Marx held that the economic relationships within society create all other human relations. It seems that culture is the cause of the
nature of human relationships within any society.

The Culture Made Us
Do It
“The unrecognized function of
language”

    As an iceberg exists mostly under the surface of the water which
supports it, the fundamental consequence of language tends to be hidden under the surface of our awareness. Most crucial human activities go on without awareness, for example, all of the bodily functions. Many conscious activities proceed without much deliberate awareness. Once one knows well how to drive a car, much less awareness is needed to operate the vehicle. The subconscious mind supports the same kinds of activities as does the conscious mind, however with less effort. Anything that can be automated, is. Automating essential activities frees the conscious mind to focus on issues about which we feel we need to learn in order to more effectively cope, (those issues that require conscious attention until new behavioral patterns are in place). There is no need to be aware of processes that take place well enough without attention. It is only when a problem arises that
we
humans, in an attempt to solve it, focus our awareness on it. If we are coping well enough without awareness, why be aware? We don’t fix something if it doesn’t seem broken. We don’t reinvent our wheel as long as it’s rolling. However, upon examination, our human condition appears to have been painfully broken for as long as we can recall, and must be repaired. How may
we fix it?

Could it be that our behavior is governed by something that we cannot see, something of which we are not cognizant? Is there anything in our nature that would preclude such a possibility, the possibility that our
behavior may be directed by influences not within the purview of our
everyday consciousness? What could such a force be?

The ability to produce simple vocal sounds made it’s appearance on the
scene before our
                                                    4

progenitors made words of those sounds. The ability to vocalize
articulately is a prerequisite to the ability to verbalize. Words appeared when our ancient ancestors became cognizant of the relatedness of stimuli to
their own vocal reactions to them. When they began deliberately using
vocalizations to bring to mind things, they made the transition between deriving their sense of the meaning of things by direct experience of the things to deriving a sense of the meaning of things by experiencing the affects of the sounds of the words for the things. This supersession of the
primal world by the linguistic world was the start of culture.

Being able to talk about things was very advantageous to our distant relatives. They could confer and plan. More important, they experienced a common sense of the meaning of the things in their world by using common
symbols with which to refer to them.

    Culture was advantageous to our ancestors in the ancient,
pre-industrial environment. Now our technology provides us with the power to create and reside in an artificial environment, however one made according to the values inherent in our primitive culture. Our culture provides us with marching orders and our technology enables us to march very forcefully.
Are we marching toward the edge of a precipice?

    All action is preceded by a decision to act, be that decision
consciously or subconsciously made. All decisions are based on a
consideration of the consequences of those decisions. These effects on us of the consequences of our actions are the same as and identical with the meanings of those actions. How do we know the meanings of things? How do we know the affects on us of any thing? Do we know the effects on us of things directly as a consequence of our direct experience with them or by indirect experience with them by using and experiencing the words for those things?

    Language is the factory and culture is the product. Culture is an
abstraction and language is the physical mechanism from which it springs. Language is emotionally evocative sounds used to represent things, thereby conveying to us a sense of the affects-on-us/the-meanings-of those things. Our sense of our own role in our culture provides us with our identity and therefore with guidance for our behavior. The cultural values, derived from our ancestors’ experiences long ago, as represented in our language, are instilled in us and direct our behavior today. A body continues in its state of motion unless it is acted upon by an outside force. Human culture will remain fundamentally unchanged unless it is deliberately changed; and that will not happen unless we feel the need to do so and know how to do it.

Culture resides in the subconscious mind. Many others have spoken about the need to change the way we, as a society, think: many have tried, by using means such as meditation, sleep deprivation, psychoactive substances, chanting, philosophical inquiry, etc. to accomplish this change and may have
been successful to a degree. However, it seems they were not able to
lastingly infuse into society at large their newfound vision, due to not
addressing the status quo at the
                                                    5

root/source, which is the culture. Understanding how language functions
makes it possible to change our culture.

                       How did language arise?

How did language arise? Originally, our progenitors’ vocalizing only expressed internal-goings-on/emotion and did not refer to anything external to them. It was advantageous to members of the group to be informed of the
emotional conditions of other members. Much later, when consciousness
developed enough for them to see the connectedness of the sounds uttered to the things the sounds were uttered in reaction to, they realized that they could bring to mind the thought of the things by uttering their associated sounds, (names). The beginning of talking about things was the start of
culture,and the talking about things refocused the talkers’ conscious
attention away from the experience of the emotional reactions to the sounds of the words, and toward thoughts related to the things to which the words referred. While they were busy directing their attention to thoughts related to the things to which the words referred, they were being emotionally affected by the vocal sounds they were making to form their words. So, the
effects of the sounds they were making vocally were experienced
subliminally, while

consciously, they were dealing with the thoughts of the things referred to by their words. The affects-on-us/meanings-of things cannot be proven. All they had and all we have to go on are the effects on us of the things and the effects on us of the sounds of the words that represent the things. While the effects of the things are changeable through time and somewhat unique to each individual, the effects on us of the sounds of the words are relatively consistent and universal. Having nothing else to go on, we accept the effects on us of the vocal sounds of words as revealing/ representing the effects on us of the things referred to by the words. In this way, culture is formed and passed to succeeding generations. Our world views typically come from the sense of the meaning of things as represented by the sounds of our words rather than from the sense of meaning we may gain from the direct
experience of the things themselves.

Do vocal sounds, themselves, communicate? When someone utters a vocal sound, such as a sigh, a growl, a whimper, a scream, etc., do we get a sense of how they are feeling? If so, they are communicating their condition. How does that communication take place? Do we receive information communicated in such a manner consciously, subconsciously or by both ways? What is the means by which an emotion can be conveyed by sound? Can emotion, or anything else be communicated by the articulate sounds of our vowels and consonants, or do only non-articulate vocal sounds convey meaning? If we allow that vocal sounds, simply as sounds, communicate, then is it possible or likely that the vocal sounds we use to make words also communicate as well when used as words? What would be the effect of using inherently emotionally
meaningful sounds as symbols to represent external things? Would the
inherent meaning of the sounds affect our perception of the things
 represented by the sounds?

                                                    6

These considerations may shed light on the issue of the root causes of human behavior. Naturally, those who contemplate our condition and would
improve it if they could, would be attentive to these matters.

All of life’s processes exist as movements. Emotional conditions are patterns of motion. Similar structures, in keeping with the mechanics of resonation, impart, on each other, their movements. Our vocal apparatuses
facilitate our ability to move with each other.

The vibrations made by the body convey the condition of the emotional body to other similar/human emotional bodies, and to some degree, to other animal emotional bodies. The more similar the other body, the more the
condition is transposed. Humans receive each others’ vocal and other
body-language communications more readily than other species receive human communication. Similar structures transmit their resonation/ vibration to
each other more readily than do dissimilar structures.

My quest for understanding of human behavior began long ago. When I was around the age of six, I became increasingly aware that the folkways and formal institutions of our society were lacking in humanity and common sense. I asked myself why this was so. As a child, I attributed the problem to people’s personal psychology and it was not until I was in my late teens that I realized that the cause of the problem is our culture. It was shortly after that that I understood how verbal/vocal communication works. The cause of The Problem seemed and seems to be the culture which is created by the
relationship between vocal sounds and what they, as words, refer to.

Some of the reasoning that preceded this realization was first, that we are not created evil, but rather simply with survival instincts. Second,
that if we were able to act sanely/rationally, we would be doing what
produces the best results for everyone. Third, it must be something we learned, some misinformation, that causes us to behave in ways not in our own self-interest. Fourth, when I considered the question of from where this false information came, I identified as the source, the culture. Later, I realized that we do not, for sure, know the meaning of anything, and that, as far as we know, the only thing constant and predictable about any thing is its name, (the word-sound we produce in order to bring to consciousness whatever thing to which we choose to refer). After a time, I became aware of how the different vocal sounds we produce when we speak words, each create in us a unique effect and how those effects inform us subconsciously of the affect on us, (the meaning), of the thing itself to which the word
sounds refer.

At this time, I also learned that the sequence of sounds of the letters
of our alphabet represents a sequential delineation of
emotional/experiential events. From A to Z, the succession of the sounds of the letters of our alphabet is an example of pattern-projection/ recognition, the pattern, in this case, being the seminal emotional events that humans
experience during their lives, in chronological order.

                                                    7

Emotions happen to us: They seem to come from the “great mystery”, God,
or whatever image we may use to portray a place from which strong and
compelling feelings emanate.

Given, all the vocal sounds that people can make, how would one arrange the sounds sequentially and from what archetype, (model), would the pattern of that sequence come? Even if the originators of the present alphabet deliberately imposed a pattern on their arrangement of the letter- sounds, whatever world view that existed in their minds caused them to feel most comfortable with the sequence of sounds they chose. The sequence they chose must have been agreeable with the story that was represented in their minds by those sounds in that sequence. If one admits that vocal sounds affect us, then how could a story, a sequence of affects, not be told by the sequence in which the sounds exist? Whether or not the originators of any particular alphabet had a conscious reason for arranging the sounds of that alphabet in the sequence in which they appear, subconscious reasons were influencing
their arrangement none the less. Does this story, told by our
alphabet make sense? Does it seem to be an accurate representation of the
main events in a human’s life?

We tend to cling to our culture as if our lives depended on it, as a drowning person might cling to a life preserver. Culture offers an answer, -in this case subconsciously apprehended-, to the question, “What are the meanings of things?” Without culture, there tends to be no consensus about what things mean. Language informs us of the meanings of named things by the affects on us of the sounds of our words. Those who use the same language experience the same sense of the meanings of the things that make up their worlds. That sense emanates from the deep levels of their subconscious and
their final assessment of the meanings of things results from their
processing that deep, culturally caused base sense of meaning through the lens of their perception of their own relationship to the society in which
they live.

For the sake of clarity, let us consider, hypothetically, what the result/s would be of using meaningful sounds to refer to things. Would the meanings of the sounds spill over into the perceived meanings of the things or would the meanings of the things influence the perceived meanings of the sounds? Or would neither influence the other or would they influence each other? Which has a stronger meaning-pressure, the sounds we make with our
voice or the things which, with the sounds, we name?

The vocal sounds express/communicate states of the emotions first and foremost, and as an afterthought, so to speak, they are used to refer to things. They communicate emotion by moving the auditory apparatus of the hearer in a manner analogous to the movements of the vocal apparatus of the speaker, thereby creating in the hearer an emotion analogous to the emotion present in the speaker. Just as the touch of the hands conveys the intent of the toucher, so the vocal motion of the vocalizer creates in the hearer an
emotional state analogous to that of the vocalizer.
Just as our becoming-human progenitors were gaining consciousness, (the
ability to
                                                    8

contemplate the consequences of their actions), they were, for the first time, using vocal expressions as words to refer to specific things, not only to express immediate emotional goings-on. Since they vocalized primarily under duress, their words were expressions born of fear rather than of conscious understanding. The mind concentrates on problems, on issues that could potentially be destructive to the perceiver. When this fear- based thinking bias becomes institutionalized in language, the language itself is a source of anxiety. The more we verbalize about any given problem, the more stressed-out we become. This reminds me of an Eskimo method of killing a wolf. They would smear congealed blood on a very sharp knife and set it out, with the blade pointing upward, where wolves frequented. When a wolf licked the blood, it would bleed and lick its own blood not knowing it was bleeding
to death. We are wolfish for knowledge and we pursue it by using our
 main thinking tool, our language.

                       The Unrecognized Role of Language

Culture is the hidden law-of-the-land. We are creatures of culture, and its subjects. Our culture originally enhanced our survivability and, in a
technologically advanced world, may become the instrument of our
destruction. Our culturally motivated ways of relating to one another may have once been viable, although perhaps immoral, and now, with our powerful
ability to cause environmental change, are untenable.

”The release of atom power has changed everything except our way of thinking...the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.” --- Albert Einstein

    I wish to change what is in that “heart”.

The referential function of human language is merely the “tip of the iceberg” of the role of language. Its larger and more profound function is unacknowledged: It is spoken language’s informing us of the meanings of all to which we verbally refer. We are moved in a primal way by the sounds we produce with our voice and, in the absence of any “objective”, absolute information regarding (the affects on us)/(the meanings of) the things of our world, we accept the affects on us of the vocal sounds of our words as representing the affects on us of the things to which our words refer. In this way, we are informed subliminally, simply by learning our language, of the meaning of our world. How else could we, as very young children, have achieved a sense of how we were affected by the numerous things that made up
our world?

This matter is of paramount importance because we act in accordance with how we perceive our world, (with what our world means to us), and our sense of that meaning is derived from the affects upon us of our words. Much of human behavior that is commonly attributed to “human nature” is
actually motivated by cultural nature, which is created by language.
                                                    9

How and what would our society be if we had a culture which instilled in us the values that we would consciously choose to hold? Presently, we simply assimilate the culture in which we are born. Once we understand the mechanism of cultural transmission, we will be able to change our group
program.

However, it seems that many of us may be too timid to venture forth from the false security of our unquestioned and familiar values. Some have expressed to me that language is a product of nature and that to change it deliberately would produce an unnatural result, a Frankenstein culture, the consequences of which would probably be destructive. To those I suggest that we are inherently unable to venture out of the natural realm, as we are
inextricably woven into the web of nature. Furthermore it is entirely
correct and wholesome for us, with the goal of improving our survivability, to choose to correct our culture at its source. Once we see how we may help ourselves, we would be within our progressive evolutionary tradition to use
all our knowledge to do so.
.
Vocal sounds either communicate as vocal sounds or they do not. If we assume that vocal sounds do not communicate, then language only blindly and
unintelligently refers to things. If we assume that vocal sounds do
communicate something, as vocal sounds, then language does more than merely refer to things: it also informs us about the things named. Which is true?
Do any of us believe that our vocal sounds do not express/communicate
anything? If we believe that vocal sounds communicate/express something,
then what is it that they communicate/express? If vocal sounds do
communicate as sounds, do they loose that communicative function when
incorporated into words or do they continue to be expressive when used in
words?

If vocal sounds that constitute words communicate something as sounds, then what effect does the sound of a word exert on our perception of the
thing to which that word refers?

    Many seem to have difficulty accepting the idea that the primary
meanings of vocal sounds, including the sounds of words, are the effects they cause within each of us and not the things to which they refer when uttered as words. Another point that aided me in understanding the function of language is that we really do not know the meaning of anything but rather behave as though our taken-for-granted assumptions are valid only because they have not been held to the light of inquiry. It is only that which
resides in our subconscious and of which we are not conscious and
consequently do not question, that we act as if we “know” for sure. Remember
the caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland? When asked how he managed to
coordinate the movements of all those legs, he became aware of the
previously unconscious process of walking and then could not walk. The only sense of the meanings of things that we dependably share with the others of
our society is
instilled in each of us by the relationship between the sounds of our words and the things to which those words refer. Words are the link between our autonomic, cultural sense of meaning and the things that make up our world. We give things a familiarity by attaching to them sounds created by our body. Our words are related to things because the vocal sounds of our words are related to our reactions to those things. We may not ordinarily
experience an emotional reaction to the things that
                                                    10

make up our world. It is during our seminal moments that we experience
emotional reactions to things.

What meaning, if any, do things have if we are not affected by those things? All meaning is relative. If we were totally unaffected by something, would it be meaningful? How would whatever meaning it may have be perceived? Clearly, what we want to know about something, (anything), is how it affects
us, (what it is?).

After many attempts to share these findings with those in academia,
their lack of understanding, even more their lack of interest in
understanding the ideas I was putting forth , dampened my impulse to reach out to those whom I previously had thought were most likely to understand
these findings.

I figured that what I was saying was challenging on a deep level to most, who would otherwise gain a glimpse of it. My discovery, seems to threaten the sense of security of those who consciously or otherwise treat their culture as an idol. Some of us, especially those of highly exercised intellectual abilities, feel that security is to be had by being able to “explain” the meaning of things. By uttering words, (sounds), about things, what meaning is revealed? Doing so may create the illusion of understanding by seeming to make the named things familiar. But does it, only inform us with the effect/meaning of the sounds of words, or with the meaning of the
things as well? What are the meanings of the things?

It appears that culture is the root of all normal human behavior. We all behave according to our values and assumptions and those derive from our culture. Do our academicians know what culture is, how it relates to the
people who are instilled with it and how it may be changed?

    We are informed subliminally of the meaning of our world by the
language that we speak.

Why is it so difficult for people to understand how language generates culture? What is/are the missing piece/s of information that they need in
order to grasp that concept?

A better way is possible. We need only the vision of this better world, as an everyday experience, in order for us to act in accord with it. The consciousness of how to act in order to create the world we wish must be the status quo, not the rarity that it now is. This changing of the status quo
can be accomplished by changing the culture and changing culture is
accomplished by changing language.

Are we conscious that we are affected by the sounds we make with our voice? We are commonly aware that the quality of singers voices affects us. We know that great orators and actors affect us with their delivery and vocal character. Everyone’s voice affects us. We are aware of the affect of
tone of voice but not of the affect of articulated phonemes per se.
                                                    11

We have no way of knowing the final meaning of anything. We might think we know what a thing will do to us in the immediate future but what about how it will affect us much later? When we become aware of something, we question its meaning and once something is questioned, we never gain a sense of its absolute meaning Only that which remains in the subconscious we do not question. The feelings that well up from our subconscious, in reaction to various things, seems to be true absolutely. Our feelings strongly affect
our train of thought.

The certainty of the uninformed is typically replaced by the wonderment
of the “enlightened”.

Our culture/language supplies us with a sense of knowing the meaning of all things for which we have a name. This sense of the meaning of things helps us to feel secure in the face of an uncertain, threatening world. We gain that sense of knowing the meaning of things simply be having words for things. Our subconscious accepts the affects of the sound of the words as being the affects of the things to which the words refer. The words stand for the things we name with them and replace, subliminally, our perception of the things referred to with our perception of the words themselves. The words are all we have to go on for the sensing of the meaning/ effect of the
things.

Having words inform us of the meanings/effects of things seems to have some advantages compared to being informed of the meanings/effects of things
by direct perception of the things themselves.  All those who use a
particular language have the same basic subliminal sense of the meanings of named things and consequently, are able to participate in the group dynamic of their society. The words for things stay constant through time while how
we are affected directly by things changes. We can share experience,
knowledge and wisdom with words. Without words, our own personal experience would be all we would have and we would not be able to share it. Words
enable abstract thought and planning.

We think, influenced by the feelings of the sounds of words for things
and feel as though we were thinking with the perception of the things
themselves.

Are we conscious that we are affected by the sounds we make with our voice? We are commonly aware that the quality of singers voices affects us. We know that great orators and actors affect us with their delivery and vocal character. Everyone’s voice affects us. We are aware of the affect of
tone of voice but not of the affect of articulated phonemes per se.

When we utter vocal sounds that are simply sounds and not words, we may, more easily, experience consciously, the effects of the sounds, than
when we speak words. When we speak words, we typically experience
consciously the referential function of the words and not the affects on us of the sounds of the words, while we experience the effects of the vocal sounds of words subliminally. Because we experience the one thing, (the referential meanings of the words), consciously, and the other thing, (the
affects on us of the sounds), subconsciously, we
                                                    12

subconsciously interpret the subliminal effects of the vocal sounds as being the effects of the things to which the words refer. The subconscious mind supplies us with the bottom line of the meaning of whatever it is we are considering because we cannot reason with the subconscious mind and we can with the conscious mind. Whatever we are conscious of, we can question and whatever we question becomes uncertain. However we have a language-based subconscious reaction to that which the (meaning-of)/(effect-on- us) is consciously unknown as long as we have a word for it, and that subconscious reaction creates an experience of and hence a sense of knowing the meaning of that which, prior to being named, did not seem to be known. The word, made of sounds of our body, stands in for the unknown thing, the thing
separate from our body. In the absence of any objective sense of the
meanings of things, we rely on our words to provide us with a sense of
knowing,
because knowing relieves us of the stress of anxiety. We are driven into
the perceived safety of our familiar culture, as represented in our
language, by the stress of the fear generated by not knowing. One must be willing to accept the mystery of existence in order to experience, free from
the bias of existing culture.

Considering words to be things in and of themselves, (sounds), and not only a means to refer to things, will enable us to examine them for their inherent meaning. The primary meaning of a word is not the thing which it represents. It is, rather, the affects on us of it’s sounds. We consciously consider the meaning of the word to be the thing to which the word refers and we subconsciously experience the meaning of the word as the effects on us of its sounds. Because we experience, profoundly and consistently, the effects on us of our human vocal sounds while we experience less intimately and less consistently the effects on us of the things to which we refer with words, the emotional effects of the words as sounds overrides the emotional effects of the things named, and informs us of the nature of named things.

In a similar way that explorers laid claim to land in the name of the monarch, we tend to lay claim to that which we name in order to render it
seemingly familiar and known.

    Everything that we perceive subconsciously creates an emotional
reaction that may be experienced consciously and everything that we perceive consciously affects us subconsciously as well. We consciously perceive the sounds of spoken language and we are also affected subconsciously by those same sounds. In the course of verbal communication, we think of the things to which our words refer while subconsciously we are emotionally affected by the sounds of our words. This simultaneous occurrence of the thought of a thing and the subconscious experience of the emotion generated by the sound of the word we use to refer to that thing, subliminally informs us of the affect-on-us ,(the-meaning-of), the thing. In this way, we acquire a sense of the affects-on-us, (the-meanings-of), everything for which we have a word. This is important because our actions in relation to the things that
make up our world are motivated by our perceptions of the meanings of
 those things. Therefore, if we would change, for the better, our
societies’ behavior, we ought to change our languages.
Since spoken language is crucial in determining the course of human
events, it would be
                                                    13

better if we consciously agreed with the subliminal sense of the meanings
of things which is instilled in us by our language.

We humans are not doing so well with our relationships with one another that we should be complacent regarding the improvement of our culture.

People have been attempting to address social and economic challenges ever since there were people. All the religions were attempts to provide a basis for our behavior. Marxism was/is an attempt to remedy social and economic inequality and exploitation. “Hippie” communes were typically instituted to provide healthy social environments. Organized politics and
codified legal systems were/are created, supposedly, to improve our
condition. Why is it unclear whether any of these deliberate social
structures actually made/make our situation better or worse? Could it be that the cause of our malaise is something that is not being recognized by
those who strive to improve our lot? For how many years, for how many
centuries and millennium will we try to fix our broken world by creating laws, religions, political and economic institutions before we decide that doing so does not deal with the source of the problem? Marx’s mistake was
believing that
economics is the foundation upon which all of society’s other institutions are based. It seemed reasonable to him that since life is based upon the biological economics of survival, that economics must be the determining force in society. He did not see that our culture provides us with a sense of the meaning of all recognized things thereby assuaging the fear/ terror that naturally arises as a result of our consciousness of our physical vulnerability and that we tend to protect and defend that culture because of the perceived security which it provides. Once culture is established, it causes the economic and social relationships to be what they are, and they
cannot be lastingly changed without changing the culture.

The culture, created by language forms our values which then strongly
influence the decisions we make consciously and  subconsciously.

                                                             What is
culture?

I define culture as the common fundamental values held by the members of a society. These values derive from our perception of the meanings of, (the affects on us of), the things that make up our world. “Things” are whatever we identify as being distinguishable from other things, which include feelings, thoughts, values, people and ideals. The meanings of things are one with and the same as the affects on us of those things. How
do we acquire our sense of, (the affects on us of)/(the meanings of),
things? Is it from our own individual experiences with things? Is it from what we say to ourselves and to each other about things? If it were based on individual experience, how would we achieve consensus and if we could, why
would all cultures not be pretty much the same?

Most would hold that even within a given society our individual values
are not the same and
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surely the popular view of what our values are, indicated by a cursory survey of our behavior, seems to support that conclusion. When attempting to assess the values that underlie behavior we should consider the influence of
the role that each individual sees themselves as playing within their
culture. Given the same subliminal, fundamental values, individuals within any society tend to behave not only relative to those basic values but also relative to how they perceive themselves, (who they perceive themselves to
be), within their society.

It seems that the cause of the problem of why we do so many seemingly destructive and self-defeating things must be so basic, so fundamental as to escape our awareness. It must be housed in the subconscious mind since all our attempts to address it have been futile. It is that which we don’t consciously know that we subconsciously know that sometimes makes us wonder why we do what we do. Our emotional reactions are influenced by that which
resides in the subconscious just as they are by that of which we are
conscious, and often, we create rationales to explain our behavior, while the actual reasons for the feelings that motivate us may be other than what
we choose to think.

What does every cultural group share within itself that affects its members profoundly and without their conscious knowledge? Where are the hidden rules, by which we live, to be found? Our culture is an artifact, inherited from distant ancestors, formed in an environment vastly different than today. Ways of interacting with one another that may have seemed to work then now appear to be dysfunctional. The primary example is war, which before weapons of mutual destruction, was rationalizable by the victors. But now, with nuclear weapons, would there be any victors? We still think as we did then but we cannot afford to act today as we may have believed we could then. Our technology has evolved tremendously but our culture has not. We are ill-equipped to cope with the situation our technology has enabled us to create. Furthermore, even if war seemed winnable, wouldn’t we prefer peace?

    If we admit that vocal sounds inherently affect us, as do facial
expressions and general body posture, then we may ask how our sense of the
meaning of the things which make up our world is affected by using
inherently meaningful symbols to refer to them. What is the relative
strength of the emotional effects upon us of our symbols compared to the emotional effects of the things to which they refer? Considering that the emotional effects of the things themselves vary with context and is peculiar
of each of us, and that the emotional effects of the vocal symbols is
relatively consistent and universal, can we assume that the meanings of the symbols create the perceived meanings of the things? Is this relationship the same or different within the conscious and subconscious minds? Does our conscious or subconscious mind more strongly influence our behavior? Are our behaviors affected by our subconscious minds even when we are trying to do
what we
 consciously think we should do?

We either are or are not affected by our vocal utterances. I see that
we are. If we were not affected by our vocal utterances, we would not
vocalize. The whole purpose of vocalizing is
                                                    15

communication! And in order to communicate, we must be affected by that
which we use to communicate.

What, we may ask, is communicated by vocalizing? What is communicated when other animals vocalize? It is clear that animals communicate their
instantaneous emotional states by their vocalizations. How is this
communication accomplished? The vibrating of the body of the vocalizer, (sender), causes the body of the receiver to vibrate in sympathy. The
receiver experiences the motions and consequently the emotions of the
sender. This simple process is the foundation of our vocal activity, our verbal activity, (our language), and our culture. Many of us seem to balk at accepting the idea that our lofty retorical proclamations are founded upon such primal processes. If you are one of these, consider that our genetic blueprint is shared, in the majority, by all other vertebrates and largely by all other animals. To those who disparage animals, please be reminded that the Grand Creator authored ALL of everything, not only us and those of
whom we
 approve.

    What are the ingredients that make up the mix of influences that
determine human behavior? Given that we are intelligent enough to appreciate and cherish the truths that are our guiding principles, and given that we are not born self destructive, then for what reason/s did we act as we have?
From where does the false information come that motivates much of our
behavior? “Human nature” does not account for our inhuman actions. The cause
of our destructiveness must exist among the things which we learn.

From what ultimate source do we acquire our information regarding the
meaning of our world? Our culture is that source.

What have we got to go on in order to achieve a sense of the meaning of
our world other than the words we speak?

Do we have a benchmark for establishing the meaning of things? If everything is relative, what is it relative to? We need not look further than ourselves to find that. How could it be otherwise? We look out from our eyes and hear with our ears and think that we can objectively determine the nature of each and every thing that we examine. However, with our survival in the balance, as it inescapably is, how whatever it is that we examine relates to our survival determines what it must mean to us. How we are affected by the things that constitute our world establishes their meaning. The vocal sounds we make express and convey the different emotional effects we experience. Our words are made up of these body-sounds. Therefore, our words convey emotional meaning and inform us of the affects on us of things
for which we have names.

Language exists in both the conscious and the subconscious. We are conscious of the words we speak and of the things to which they refer, while they inform us subconsciously of the effects on us, (the meanings of), those
things to which they refer.
Does it matter what things mean? Does it matter what we think they
mean? Do our actions
                                                    16

relative to them depend on what they mean to us? Do we act in relation to things according to what they mean to us? How do we know the ultimate effect on us of any thing? Is the effect on us of any thing its meaning? How can any thing mean to us anything other than what its effect on us is? How do we
obtain a sense of the meanings of things? Do we get that sense of the
affects-on-us/ the-meanings-of things directly from our own experience with
things or as mediated by language?

Of all forms of body language, (vocalization, facial expression and overall body posture), only one of them,vocalization, is commonly used to represent things other than conditions of the emotional body. Our general posture is very communicative of our physical-emotional state without our deliberate intent and is sometimes used deliberately to convey the same.
Facial expression can be more finely communicative of our state of
being/feeling than is general body posture. Vocalization, while being
profoundly expressive/communicative, is, by civilized people, ordinarily exclusively reserved for uttering words. While we are not aware of the affect upon ourselves of the phones we utter, we are aware of the effect upon ourselves of the emotional embellishments we add to them. Often, we consciously add emotional content to our words in order to embellish their referential meaning. Since we are busy, often consciously, processing the
referential meaning of
our words, we are unaware of the emotional impact of the sounds that make them up. Each distinct articulate vocal sound affects us in its own unique way. Understanding this is crucial to understanding the workings of the
culture-creating function of language.

We not only refer to things with our words. More profoundly, we inform ourselves of the very meaning of those things simply by using a word, (a vocal sound), to refer to them. This information as to the affects upon us, (the meanings of), the things which make up our world, constitutes our culture. Culture is information, (in-formation). Since we are not aware of the nature of this information, it exists in our subconscious minds. We act according to a subconscious program put in place by our language. If we understand how we receive information regarding the meaning or our world, we can change that information so that it agrees with what we believe to be the nature of our world. Our culture was passed down, from long ago; from before electronics, before motorized transport and the printing press. If we were
to deliberately create our language today, would we create the one we
currently use? If so or if not, why? Would we know how to create a
 language that conveys the meanings of things that are their actual
meanings? If we would know, how would we know? If not, why not?

    That which affects us profoundly and constantly must be in close
proximity. Things right in front of us are often overlooked when we search for that which affects us powerfully. We tend to assume that if the causes of major difficulties were so close to us, it would be obvious and we would have discovered them by now. Let us reexamine our major influences to look
for what causes us to behave as we do.

Our species, is plenty smart enough to understand why our saints and prophets are correct when they exhort us to be “good”. We create secular
laws that mirror our religious tenants and are
                                                    17

sensitive to any critique of our behavior. Our feelings of guilt seem to be well developed. Why then do we act as we do; making war against one another
and engaging in all kinds of destructive activity?

I have heard many claim that it is simply “human nature” to act in destructive ways. Those who believe that, feel that there is nothing to be done to correct our human malaise other than punishment. Evil ones must be trimmed back, like a noxious and thorny vine. I do not subscribe to that depressing idea and know that the truth of the matter is that we humans are inherently survival oriented and will learn whatever seems as though it will further our survival. It is because of our native intelligence coupled with our survival desire that we voluntarily stretch our consciousness in order
to glimpse a better way for ourselves to carry on.

What are the forces that influence our behavior? What we believe to be good and correct does not, it seems, by itself, determine our actions. Do we not fully believe that what seems to be right to us is truly right? Or is there some other influence that informs us of what the world and all the
things and concepts and people in it mean to us, something else that
influences our perception of how we must behave in order to survive?

Our behavior is related to how we are affected by the things that make up our world. We behave in relation to the various things that fill our awareness, according to how they affect our survivability, (how we PERCEIVE that they affect our survivability). We perceive the world directly through personal contact with it and indirectly through contact with that which represents the world to us, (our language). Language represents the world by labeling everything about which we speak, with sounds made by our bodies.
Those vocal sounds are part and parcel of states of our emotions. Our
preverbal progenitors and our children when young, make vocal sounds in
reaction to various environmental stimuli. Those emotive sounds are
intuitively made sense of by all who hear them. We sense the vocalizations
and they make sense to us. The vocal sounds are made by a body in an
emotional state and cause that state to be reproduced in the emotional body
of the hearer
of those sounds. The sending body vibrates and the receiving body vibrates similarly. An emotionally linked vibrational pattern is spread from the originator of the vocal sound-vibration to whoever’s auditory apparatus is
moved by it. The transmittance of the vibrational pattern is the
transmission of the emotion. We are emotionally affected by the emotions of
others.

Language is an institution, a standardized way we move our bodies, specifically our vocal apparatuses, our ears, central nervous system and emotions, in relation to the various things that make up our world. In
relation to a book, we who speak English, utter the sound, “book”. In
relation to a book, a Spanish-speaking person utters the sound, “ libro”. These two different sounds move us in different ways, giving us a different
experience of that which refers to and represents that object and
consequently, of the thing referred to. The primal meaning of a word is the
effect the sound of it creates within us. The secondary, more distant
meaning of a word is that to which it refers. The secondary meaning is what
we commonly accept as being the one and only meaning. We are
                                                    18

generally not aware of the primary meaning, because we are affected by the vocal sounds of our words subliminally and by the secondary, referential, meaning of words consciously. Awareness of the primary meanings of vocal sounds was superseded by the awareness of the secondary, - referential-,
meaning of vocal sounds used as words.

To understand the functionality, the “nuts and bolts”, of language, is to free ourselves of domination by culture, to be the masters of culture rather than its subjects. We have been inextricably attached to culture, for
better or for worse, ever since our use of language began. Now we can
intentionally create a language/culture that informs us as we would like to be informed, of the effects on us, (the meanings of), all the things we
name.

Certainly we agree that we are affected by the sounds we utter. What
then is the
consequence of referring to all the things to which we refer, (all the things that make up our conscious world), with inherently meaningful sounds? If we were able to refer to things with “meaningless” symbols, then all we would be conveying is the thought of the thing. When we refer to things with
inherently meaningful symbols, we are also informing ourselves of the
meanings of the things to which we are referring. Is there such a thing as a meaningless symbol? Is anything meaningless? In order to perceive anything, including a symbol, that symbol must register upon our senses and in order to register upon our senses, the sensed thing must affect us. No effect on
us, equals no perception by us. Whatever the affect on us is, is the
fundamental meaning of the sensed thing. When we refer to things, we are primarily being affected by the symbol which we use to do the referring and secondarily by the memory, if there is a memory, of the thing to which we are referring. When we refer to something with which we have no direct experience, we have only the symbol, (word), to affect us and thus to inform
us.

If there is a discrete connection between a vocal sound and a thing, and a connection likewise between a particular vocal sound and a specific effect on the emotions, then there is a connection between the effect on us
of the sound and the thing to which that sound, (word), refers.

We are aware that sound has an effect and that the word is sound and that the word has an effect and that the word refers to a thing. Are we aware that, for all intents and purposes, the effect seems to be the thing. How we are affected by a thing, our perception of a thing, is accepted subliminally as being the meaning of the thing. Our actions relative to the things in our world, are related to the perceived meanings of those things.

We feel the feelings generated by the sounds of our words at the same time as we are deliberately focusing on the things to which the words refer. As a consequence, we associate particular vocal-sound-generated feelings with particular things. The thing does not define the feeling. Rather, the
feeling defines the thing. The feeling of the word determines what is
accepted subliminally as the meaning of the thing. The word enables us to experience feelings of the meanings of things not present, and unknown by
direct experience. It establishes a sense of
                                                    19

consensus which wells up from the subconscious minds among the speakers of
a given language.

All throughout human history, language has been playing this role of consensus creator based on the information we derive from the sounds of our words regarding the-affects-on-us/the-meanings-of, the things that make up our worlds. If we would rather live in a culture of our own creation than in
just any one in which we happened to be born, we might consider
experimenting with cultural change through language renewal.

I have been asked what I hope to achieve with this information. My desire is that we become aware of the forces that affect us so that we may be able to change the circumstances that exist to circumstances that we
would prefer.

Because of the inherent shortcomings inherent in existing languages, although words can be used in a kindly manner to help get us back on track when we lose our way, they cannot, in and of themselves, guide anyone who is determined to see things in a certain way. Only the willing can be helped.
How can we help people to be willing?

I observe that culture is the prosthetic subconscious of society, that which we who live in a particular society share with one another and have in common. It has to do with our world-view. Our world view is formed by what things mean to us. How do we obtain our sense of the meaning of our world? Do we share that sense with the others in our group or is it individual to each of us? Is it a conscious, subconscious or unconscious sense, or more
than one of them?

When I discovered that the sounds of words convey a sense of meaning, I realized that I had found the answers to these questions. We are informed subliminally of the meaning of our world by the language that we speak.

Having words inform us of the meanings/effects of things seems to have some advantages compared to being informed of the meanings/effects of things
by direct perception of the things themselves.  All those who use a
particular language have the same basic subliminal sense of the meanings of named things and consequently, are able to participate in the group dynamic of their society. The words for things stay constant through time while how
we are affected directly by things changes. We can share experience,
knowledge and wisdom with words. Without words, our own personal experience would be all we would have and we would not be able to share it. Words
enable abstract thought and planning.

We think, influenced by the feelings of the sounds of words for things
and feel as though we were thinking with the perception of the things
themselves.

Are we conscious that we are affected by the sounds we make with our voice? We are commonly aware that the quality of singers voices affects us.
We know that great orators and actors
                                                    20

affect us with their delivery and vocal character. Everyone’s voice affects us. We are aware of the affect of tone of voice but not of the affect of
articulated phonemes per se.

    When we make word-free sounds with our voice, we more readily
experience the effects of those sounds than when we utter words. We
generally do not sense the effects of those sounds when we verbalize because our attention is redirected from the affects on us of the vocal sounds to comprehending what the words represent. The primary affects upon us of the sounds of our words remain, on a subliminal level, when we use our vocal sounds as words. Using the sounds as words directs our attention to the things to which the words refer. We are affected by sounds of our words
whether we make them simply as vocal sounds or as words.


                How We Are Affected By Our Culture
                          And How We Can Change It?



The behavioral choices we make, be they deliberately or subliminally
driven. are informed by our perception of ourselves in context to our
perception of the world, -by the affects on us of the things that make up our world. We achieve a sense of how we are affected by the world more as a result of our language than as a result of our own nonlinguistic experience. Is that sense due to the actual firsthand effect of things on each of us individually? How do-we/can- we know what the ultimate effect of anything is
upon us, either as an individual or as a society? Do we even know the
meaning of life? How can we know the ultimate effect on us of anything if we do not know the purpose/goal of life? A particular way we are affected is either desirable or not, as that effect relates to that large purpose, and who among us knows that purpose and is able to show others, by proof, what it is? We seem to share, with other “reasonable” people, what we think is a commonsense view of life, but there is so much room for different
choices. On what basis do we make our choices?

    In the vacuum created by the questioning mind, we have only our
conventional wisdom, residing subliminally, as represented by our culture, to inform us. The more we question, the more we realize that we do not know. How can we act not knowing what things mean? We must have something to go on, a given, on which to base our choices. That given is our language. The sounds we use to refer to the various things we refer vocally to, seem to enable us to experience a feeling of the effect/meaning of the named things. We have nothing else to rely on, as individuals and more-so as a group, since our common language provides us with a common frame of reference.

Vocal sounds themselves, whether they are within words or simply as sounds, are richly meaningful in the sense that they affect our emotional state. Vocalizing communicates states of our organism. Each particular vocal
sound communicates/conveys a particular state. When we use
                                                    21

these vocal sounds, each with its own effect/meaning, to refer to
particular things, as we do when we speak with words, we bestow meaning upon the things to which we vocally refer, things that we would otherwise not perceive as we do if not for their names. The sounds of our language are by,
for and of our body/emotions/feelings, while the things we name are
relatively removed from our immediate experience. Naming things seems to render them understandable. This sense of knowing is created by associating
our familiar body-made vocal sounds with them.

The perceived meaning-strength of our verbal utterances is greater than the perceived meaning-strength of the things named by them and thus, the
affect on us of the sounds of our words pushes aside and replaces the
affects on us of the things themselves. The symbol not only represents the symbolized in our consciousness, more profoundly, the effect of the symbol, (in this case, the word), on us subliminally, takes the place of the effect on us of the symbolized: the map replaces the territory. As we are beings who manipulate symbols to gain understanding, we live in a world of our own
making, not because of deliberate design, but rather by the nature of
language/culture.

In a world prior to the proliferation of technology, using language enhanced our survivability. However, in a world in which we are surrounded by the results of our own efforts, (our artifacts), as we are now, our language/culture may be a major cause of our difficulties. Culture is a living artifact, representing the mentality of our ancestors and instilling
that mentality, (that world-view), in us.

I believe that once we understand the mechanism of culture, we will
choose to create culture deliberately.

Some say that existing culture is natural and that to tinker with it would be risky and probably harmful. I say that we cannot afford to fear to experiment with new ways of seeing our world. After all, we are not in such a favorable position relative to our prognosis for survival as a species, -precisely because of the effect on us of our culture-, that we should adopt a passive attitude regarding our culture. “If we do not change our direction
we will end up where we are headed.”

The meaning of any thing is the same as its affect on us and its affect on us is its meaning. It is the effect of a thing that we perceive and that perceiving informs us of the existence of the thing. It is only that which
affects us that we perceive, and it is that effect on us that is its
meaning. It defies logic and experience to hold that we are unaffected by our vocal sounds, either used as words or not. If we accept the premise that we are affected by our vocal sounds, that our vocal sounds communicate, we
might ask ourselves what the affects upon us of those sounds are.

The sounds of words do not cease to be things themselves, when they are used in words to represent other things. On the scale of the evolution of the human species, the use of vocal sounds to represent things is a relatively recent development. Prior to that, our forbears’ vocalizing
simply expressed immediate body-mind states.
                                                    22

We are affected subconsciously by the sound/sounds of any given word in the same way as our forbears were affected by the things that now the word represents. They reacted to things: the vocal part of that reaction later became words and we who use/hear those words, react to the sounds of those
words as they reacted to those things. Experiencing the word replaces
experiencing the thing the word represents. Culture is instilled in us in that way. The word acts as a transmitter of experience. The experience that caused the sounds to be uttered is represented in those who hear those sounds/words subsequently. By this means, our forbears’ experience of things
becomes our experience of those things.

Thus, we are at once, informed and defined by our language/ culture. Our culture is the real status quo, the actual law of the land. It rules us from our subconscious minds, beyond the reach of our deliberative processes. Since we cannot, in the final analysis, prove anything at all, it is by default that the values, the unquestioned assumptions, which reside in the
subconscious mind, form our foundation.

Furthermore, while our own experiences are unique to each of us, it is our culturally/ linguistically created experiences that we share as a group. To be a part of the group, one must adopt the group’s consensus experience as one’s own. To be conventionally understood, one must speak the mother
tongue.

Similar to an iceberg. the preponderance of the import of language occurs beneath the surface of awareness. One must consider the role of the subconscious mind in order to grasp the true function of language. Language is based on sound, sound made with the human voice. The sounds we produce
vocally communicate our emotional conditions.

When we vibrate that part of our body, specifically evolved as a
vibration-making apparatus, (their vocal apparatuses), we show others what is going on with us, we cause others specialized vibration- receiving body parts, (the auditory apparatus), to vibrate in kind. The motion of the auditory apparatus mimics the motion of the vocal apparatus. After being vibrated by an other’s voice, we are able to reproduce those vocal sounds.

When we hear someone speak, at the same time that we are trying to understand what is being said, (what is meant by any particular words), our emotions/feelings are being informed by the effects on us of the sounds of
the words we hear. We do not need to consciously try to apprehend the
meanings/ effects of the vocal sounds themselves to perceive them. The meanings are the affects on us of the sounds. We do need to consciously try to understand the meanings/referential functions, of the words. Because of that, the focus of our conscious attention is removed from the effect of our vocal sounds and placed upon the relationship between the words and the things they signify. That type of meaning is peculiar to each language and is not necessarily intuitive unless one has adopted the world-view of that
language.

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As for the demand that the claim that vocal sounds are communicative, be proven; there is not a demand for proof that facial expression and body posture in general are communicative. Why does no one dispute the second claim while establishment linguists deny that vocal sounds convey meaning? Is it because they are so caught up with considerations of the referential function of words that they cannot experience the effects on themselves of the sounds that make up the words? Does it not stand to reason that vocal sounds must affect us? Is it not true that everything that we perceive affects us and that it is precisely that effect which we perceive? Can there be perception without being affected? And the meaning of anything must, in the final analysis, be simply its effect within us. Though one may agree
that we are affected by vocal sounds,  one may not agree that we are
affected emotionally by vocal sounds. We are accustomed to not reacting
 emotionally overtly to our vocal sounds.

What is language doing to us, that we don’t know about? What do these sounds that come forth from our bodies mean? What does anything mean? Is finding what anything means the same as discovering how it affects us? Is the meaning the same as the emotional/body effect? Could it be anything other than that? How do we know how anything emotionally affects us? Do things affect us? Are we emotionally affected by the sounds we produce
vocally? If so, how are we affected? Are we emotionally affected more
strongly by the sounds we vocally produce or by the things in our
environment? Where do emotional reactions come from; the conscious or the
subconscious, or both?

    Do we obtain a sense of the meaning of a thing from deliberative
thinking about it or from our subconscious reaction to our mental process regarding it? Emotions well up from the depths of our occult minds. Once we become aware of our reactions to a thing, we can question the reason for the reaction and reinform ourselves about how the thing affects us. With new information, our emotional reaction changes. What do the very words we use to describe a thing to ourselves do to our sense of the meaning of the
thing? When we compare the thing in question to other things not in
question, we are not really discovering its meaning. We are rather, assuming that the meaning of the things we use to clarify the meaning of our subject, are themselves clearly meaningful. What if they are not? Is it possible for them to be not? The only thing in this scenario of which we do not question the meaning is the sounds of the words we use to refer to the things. And,
 we normally, do not even consider our vocal sounds to be meaningful.
Because their affect on us is through our subconscious, we are not aware of it and thus are affected more unalterably than if we were aware of the fact
that we are being affected by the sounds of our words.

Although logically, it is impossible for us to not be affected by our vocal sounds, we do not dwell on that phenomenon and do not consider it an issue of moment. Supposing we are affected by vocal sounds: what would that mean? Would our perception of the things we refer to verbally be influenced? Would our sense of the meaning of named things be determined by the vocal
sounds we use to refer to those things?

                                                    24

We all talk of culture. What do we mean by “culture”? In the New World Dictionary of the American Language, the definition number 6 of culture, is: ”The ideas, customs, skills, arts, etc. of a given people in a given period; civilization.” I define culture as, “The values/assumptions that are shared
by the users/practitioners  of any given language.”

The history of the human race is basically, the record of intracultural and intercultural “chemistry”. We have been, for the most part, passive
recipients of whatever paradigm was dealt us by our cultures. Like
passengers on a great ship, our fates were sealed by the course charted in advance by the directives mandated by our culture. Wouldn’t we rather be active participants in shaping our destiny? We can be if we understand how culture works. It is a simple and natural phenomena, and although we created it, we do not understand it. Until we do, we will be incidental and directed actors in a script not of our choosing. Just as understanding our biology liberates us from the chains of previously immutable law, so too, knowing what culture is and consequently, how to alter it, will free us from the
destiny of carrying out the plan set in motion by the emergence of
language/culture.

We will invest in becoming aware of our culture when we realize the
necessity of
doing so. When we know that we cannot go on indefinitely with our current flight plan, unaware, on autopilot, we will look for a new understanding of
our human behavior.

Through the years, centuries and millennia, our culture has served us in whatever way it has, for better or for worse. It seems that we now need to acknowledge that we are, “up against it”, and that we need to change our ways. Before technology and industrialization, we did not feel the heat of our cultural impasse nearly as much as we now do. The power to alter our environment given to us by our technology has brought the issue of our
inappropriate behavior to the forefront. The results of our cultural
inadequacy is right in our faces. However, we have not yet, as a society, identified the source of our problem. We have not yet realized how we are possessed by our culture or even what culture is. We sometimes question why we act in ways so antithetical to our professed beliefs/values. We go to
church on Sunday and are back in the lurch on Monday. Our saints and
prophets tell us The Truth and we nod our heads in agreement. Yet we
continue to
behave as we have, in ways characteristic of our culture, not in ways representative of our professed beliefs and values. This contradiction and dissonance between what we believe consciously and what seems to be truly motivating our behavior is the cause of much confusion and angst. We are passive recipients of the hands dealt us by our culture not the masters of our destiny. Let us become conscious of the nature of the relationship
between ourselves and our culture.

How can any of us experience the effect on our emotions of the vocal
sounds we utter/hear? I accomplished that by saying the sounds of our
language, using the alphabet as a sequential guide, and sensitizing myself
to the emotional effect of each sound in turn.

                                                    25

Our progenitors used to live in whatever shelters, such as caves or
rock overhangs, they
found already existing. Then they learned to make shelters where and when they wished. We have, until now, lived within and according to whatever culture in which we happened to be born. We can now attempt to make our culture one that instills in us the values we consciously hold, rather than
the values we inherited from our distant ancestors.

    When I was in school, I was taught that culture is things like
classical music, opera, the fine arts, classic literature and theater. I sensed that culture was far deeper than that, that culture existed in each of us, deeply ingrained in our minds. Not until I discovered the mechanics of language did I clearly realize what culture is, what it does to us and
how it does it.

    Before I discovered how language works, I did not understand what
culture is. The two, language and culture, are identical twins, each with a different name and apparent mission but with the same dna. Culture is an abstraction and language is the physical mechanism from whence it springs. Language uses emotionally evocative sounds to represent things, thereby suggesting the meanings of those things. The sense of the meaning of things derived from words, accompanied by our sense of self identity, directs us as to how to behave in relation to those things. The values etched in our culture by language long ago are instilled in us and direct our behavior
today.

A body continues in its state of motion unless it is acted on by an outside force. Human culture remains fundamentally unchanged unless it is
changed by those who sense a need to change it.

    The subconscious mind is where culture resides within us. Culture
resides without us in language. Culture remains unexamined and unchanged within the subconscious mind until we see a need to change it. Many others have spoken about the need to change the way we, as a society, think: some
have tried, by using means, such as meditation, sleep deprivation,
psychoactive substances and chanting to accomplish this change and have been more or less able to do so for themselves. However, it seems they were not able to lastingly infuse society at large with their newly found vision, due to not addressing this issue from the root. One must understand a process before one can intentionally and deliberately alter it. Understanding the
“nuts and bolts” of language makes it possible to change our culture.

The idea that we are strongly influenced by a force invisible to us is strange and tends to be unsettling. The glue that binds us together as a society is so much an ingrained part of our lives, that we do not perceive it as a force. It operates automatically and therefore requires no attention in order to function as the organizing premise of society. The question of whether we approve of its values almost never arises. Rather, we act as
automatons, driven by the invisible program instilled in us with the
learning of our language. Just as features of our physical bodies evolve by natural processes, so culture evolves by natural processes without our conscious collaboration. Culture has served us tolerably well through most
of our species’ history. However, since the emergence of
                                                    26

mechanization, the contradictions between our professed values and our way
of life have become
increasingly obvious. This is due to the magnifying effect of technology on the impact of human actions. What we do today affects our shared environment far more than our actions did prior to industrial technology, while our culture is basically the same as it was then, before industrialization. This forces upon us the issue of the correctness of the values that underlie our assumptions about the nature of reality. We can no longer afford to forge
ahead with no awareness of the reasons for our choices.

The tension caused by the contradiction between our professed beliefs and the beliefs implied/expressed by our actions is caused by the isolation from our conscious apprehension of the source of the values or even of the
values that drive our actions. Our conscious beliefs derive from our
intellectual workings while our actions are driven by our cultural
conditioning, which resides in our subconscious minds. We all have different beliefs, depending on what mental roads we have traveled and we who share a given language, all have the same underlying, subliminal values. How we translate these common values into actions depends on our perception of what character we are, in the script of our society. In the script we are born into, we act the role we see ourselves as plausibly and convincingly being able to play. One’s assumed role in society must seem plausible to one given
one’s assessment of oneself.

Our understanding of culture is vastly more incomplete than is our understanding of mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology or even psychology
and sociology.  The radio-telescope, electron microscope and other
information gathering tools continue to enable us to conceive of that which we previously could grasp only metaphysically. We can likewise increase our awareness of the machinations of human culture by focusing our attention on it and bringing to bear, in our quest for understanding, whatever relevant knowledge we may have. If we widely saw that culture impacts our everyday life to the extent to which it does, we would feel a powerful motivation to discover its inner workings. Language is the body whose physics we must
comprehend in order to understand the workings of culture.

The vocal sounds our pre-linguistic progenitors made conveyed feeling and emotion. We still make sounds and they convey feeling and emotion now as they did then. Using them as words, to refer to things, does not cause them to cease conveying emotion. The stronger affect on us of the sounds of words
than the effect on us of the things which words label, the consensus
regarding the meaning of things that words provide members of a group who speak a common language and a constancy of the sense of the meanings of things we name, all contribute to our subconscious acceptance of the affects on us of the sounds of words as representing the affects on us of the things which words represent. When we use words, we feel we have a sort of firsthand experience with the things named. This experience with the verbal representation of things named provides us with a sense of their meaning. The sound, which is rich with emotional affect, by default, informs us of the emotion associated with the thing. We associate the sound of a word for a thing with the thing; so we associate the effect of the sound as a
thing, with the effect of the thing, for it is
                                                    27

the effect of a thing and only the effect of a thing that lets us know that the thing is there and what it means. We have nothing else common, constant, and which affects us more strongly when the named thing itself is not there in front of us, and even when it is, than the sounds of words, (the sounds of our voice). The affects on us of the sounds of our own voice takes the place of the affects on us of the things themselves. We make our world familiar and handleable by using our bodily sounds to represent the things we encounter. We intuitively understand the meanings/effects of our vocal sounds while we do not as readily understand the affects on us of the things
in our world. Our vocal sounds are of by and for us while the
world-out-there is much less familiar and more difficult to relate to
intuitively.

    The sounds that a musical instrument makes are a result of the
materials and construction of the instrument. When something vibrates, it makes sounds according to its physical structure. Whatever is doing the vibrating is what sounds. Mothers sing sweet lullabies to babies, not pirate drinking songs. Why? Because the sounds the mother makes cause the baby to vibrate in a similar manner. Entrainment is a word that may be used to describe this phenomena. There is the driver and the driven. The mother is the driver and the baby is the driven. The mother establishes a pattern of motion and the baby assumes motion in that pattern. If one wishes to calm
another, one speaks calmly. Elemental states are being
transmitted/communicated by the mother to the baby. Are elemental states communicated by phonemes? Is there a relationship between the vocal sounds we make and our emotive/feeling states? Do our vocal sounds correlate to our
feelings/emotions?
Are vocal sounds meaningful? Do they cause an effect in us? As a form of
body language, are vocal sounds meaningful, as facial expressions are
meaningful?

All animals that breathe make sounds when they breathe. The air passing into and out of the body makes sounds and those sounds are formed and shaped by whatever the condition of the body is. Think of The Star Wars character, Darth Vader, as he breathes. How communicative is the way he breathes! One
may ask how does the sound of breathing communicate and what does it
communicate? If simply breathing communicates, then does vocalizing
communicate? Do the sounds that we produce, in order to form our words, communicate? If they do, then what is it that they communicate? There are some vocal sounds to which one may feel a reaction, such as the sound of the letter, “R”, or that of the “M”, or the “A”, or “E”, etc.. Are any vocal
sounds meaningful to you?

Supposing that all the sounds we make communicate; would our feelings
about a thing be affected by what the sounds we use to refer to it
communicate to us? Many linguists and others maintain that the sounds we make when we speak, in and of themselves, have no meaning. By saying that they have no meaning one is holding that they do not communicate. But if Darth Vader’s breathing communicates, which it obviously does, then even breathing is meaningful, its meaning being the affect it causes in us. One may say that the affect on us of the sounds of breathing is an emotional affect and therefore has no meaning per se. At this point one would be separating the concept of emotional affect from the concept of meaning. If
emotional affect is not meaningful, what
                                                    28

is? One may say that the meanings of words are the things to which they
refer. If this were true, we
would have no clue of the meaning of any thing. We would know what the sounds of the words mean in terms of the things but we would have no sense of what the things mean. We need to know what the things mean: we already subconsciously know what the sounds of the words mean. And, can a sound mean
a thing? Or does a sound have meaning of its own? Does the thing have
meaning of its own? It seems likely that vocal sounds have effects/ meanings and it seems questionable that things have particular meanings. After all, it is how any thing affects us that is its meaning. The way a thing affects us changes through time and is different for different folks, whereas the affects on us of the sounds of our own voices is the same through time and for all of us. However, if on the other hand, we derive our sense of the meaning of a thing from the sounds of the word for it, we do have a definite sense of its meaning because we are naturally affected emotionally by those
 sounds.

On one hand, we are affected deeply by the sounds made by our bodies and on the other hand, we are not consistently and uniformly affected by the things that make up our world. When the two things are associated with one another, the one with the strongest affect-pressure defines the one with the
lesser affect-pressure.

No one that I have spoken with about the subject maintains that the
sounds we make with our voices are non-communicative. Rather, people
commonly report that they feel clearly affected in particular ways by
different vocal sounds and a thread of commonality runs through their
reports. So, if we know that we are affected by our voice sounds, why do we deny that we may be affected by the sounds of our words and that how we are affected by the sounds of our words may influence our perceptions of
the things we name?´

There are conscious processes and subconscious processes And processes can migrate from one realm to the other. Driving a car or playing a piano are examples. When we talk, we are conscious of the things we are talking about. When we vocalize non-verbally, we are conscious of the sounds of our voice and, if we are on the lookout for it, we may be aware of the effects
on us of those sounds.

What we suppose to be the reasons why we act as we do may not be the real or sole reasons. The quest for psychological self-discovery is about becoming aware of the real reasons for our behavior. Many of us use our rational minds to create plausible explanations for our behavior. Some of us who are more dedicated to the truth of the matter rather than to simply defending whatever we may do, use the rational mind to examine our behavior in the light of understanding. In the ultimate shakedown, do we really know why we do what we do? Can we prove it to anyone else: can we prove it to ourselves? Looking at what influences us seems to be useful in ascertaining exactly what motivates us. Since we are all about survival, whatever affects our survivability, obviously affects our behavior. Our relationship with our caregivers, if we are dependent on another, with our employer, if we are
working for someone else, with the legal
                                                    29

structures, if we live in civilization, with our perception of the affect
on us of our actions, whether that
perception is conscious or subconscious, and with our sense of morality, if we are so disposed, are all important to us. Whatever bears on our survival
and metasurvival influences our behavior.

How do we ascertain the affects on us, (the meanings of), the myriad of things that make up our world? It is impossible to think our way through the question of how we will be affected by all the various choices we may make, as a chess player attempts to do. We would need to know the ultimate affect on us of all things and all actions relative to those things. This is not possible, at least for now. In the absence of any definitive proof of the meaning of anything, we feel the need to know what exactly things are, what each thing is. The final word on this issue is THE WORD itself. The word for a thing is what we have to go on for sensing what the thing means to us. Since the effect on us of a thing and the meaning for us of that thing are one and the same, and since the actual sound of the word affects us deeply, reliably and in the same way as it affects everyone else, we lean on this
word-sound-affect thingy to inform us of what any particular
thing means for us. It is the collection of word sounds called language that creates human culture. We have a world full of things, of which we know naught; and we have sounds we make with our body, the affects of which we
experience subconsciously.

    Spoken language tends to be quite stable through time and hence,
culture is likewise stable.

We can sense the meaning of things only in those ways that we can be affected by things. In order to sense, one must be affected. If one is not affected, one does not sense. In how many different ways can one be affected by things? How would we determine that? In how many different ways can we be affected by the sounds we make with our voice? How would we determine that? The way we are affected by things is different with different people and at different times with each person. The ways we are affected by our voices is the same for all people and at all times with each person. The effects on us of our voices is the currency we use in order to determine the effects on os of all other things. As we are affected by the sounds of any given word for any given thing is how we assume we are affected by that thing. The word acts as a kind of magical window through which we peer in order to seemingly gain a glimpse of the true nature of whatever it is we are considering. When we consider a thing, we have the thing itself in front of us. It is alien to us. It does not talk. It does not tell us what it is. It just exists mysteriously. However, we do have the word for the thing. The word speaks to us in our own language. It moves us literally with the motions of our bodies. And we are affected deeply by its presence. Which one informs us of the affect on us of any given thing, the thing itself or the word for the thing? The word is the handle we use to get a feeling of the meaning of the thing. We derive a sense of the meaning of any thing by
hearing the word for that thing.

This sense of meaning we acquire from our language is not based on absolute knowledge of the ultimate affect on we humans of any thing. It is a product of our own particular language and different from the sense one
acquires from using another language.


   30

So, what does this matter? If our only sense of the meanings of things derives from our language, then what we subliminally assume to be the givens of our world are bestowed upon us, as a people, by our language. This sense
of what our world means informs our decisions, be they consciously or
subconsciously motivated, for underlying all conscious considerations is whatever resides in our subconscious. The contents of the subconscious sends compelling feelings and emotions which drive behavior, behavior which we
rationalize by explaining why we do what we do.  If one disobeys the
emotional promptings/demands of one’s subconscious, one experiences a sense of disassociation and consequently anxiety. Anxiety is disabling and we strongly tend to avoid it. Therefore, we are held hostage by the contents of our subconscious minds. Our culture, which is the product of our language, is the most influential factor among those that contribute to the values
 we have stored beneath the surface of our awarenesses.
    We humans live in a sea of mystery. Non-cognitive creatures are
informed of the import of the varied situations they encounter by their instincts, whereas we are mainly informed by culture. This provides us with greater adaptability and also creates the risk of us “falling off the apple cart” of the sense of knowing provided by culture. Culture is somewhat like
an overcoat which we can remove, and instincts are more like fur,
(permanent). If we remove our cultural coat we are then without our familiar input of information as to the meanings of the things that make up our world. Without our common culture, (a product of our common language), we have only our individual experiences, and nothing to provide a basis for society. Nonverbal species have instincts to guide their social behavior. Humans have culture. Xenophobia is a result of identification with the familiar. In the hustle and bustle of everyday life, most humans have little
time to
question and to seek answers. We are geared up for a competitive, rat-racy way of life, in which “wars and rumors of war” are commonplace. We simply
absorb our culture and then act out our role in it.

                               How Do We Know Anything?

    We know when we need to pee. We know when we are hungry, tired or
attracted to a potential mate. How do we know these fundamental things? We FEEL them. We don’t wonder if they are true or ponder how we know them. We just know. How could we prove that any of the things that we feel actually exist? We would not be able to prove their existence or the existence of any other given. We go by what is there. Our feelings inform us of how we are affected by whatever it is that is there that affects us. The subconscious rational mind accepts our feelings as givens and operates according to them
as starting premises.

While our beliefs are in relation to our feelings, also our feelings are in relation to our beliefs. That is why we, as humans, are capable of heinous acts, acts that a non-idological person would recoil from. Whatever
beliefs we adopt are part of the lens through which we gaze when we
interpret more primary things. If we dare to abandon our beliefs and to
simply allow ourselves to perceive our world as it is, without being
interpreted according to beliefs, we then feel it as it is. If we realize that we really do not know what anything means separate from how we feel it is, that its ultimate meaning is a mystery, then we are able to perceive it
without the intermediation of our
                                                    31

cultural conditioning.
Since we react emotionally to the emotive processes of others, to the sights and sounds of others’ emotional goings-on, the sounds of others’ words, as well as the sounds of our own words, affect us emotionally. We are affected by human vocal sounds as sounds separate from words and as components of words. When we use vocal sounds as words, the affects on us of the sounds stand as representing the affects on us of the things which we
label with those words. The affect on us of the sounds of the word,
“walrus”, is accepted by us as revealing the affect on us of the thing, “walrus”. The effect of the word replaces the effect of the thing; the material is superseded by the abstract; the map replaces the territory. In this way, we become creatures of our culture. Spoken language uses emotional
feelings to represent the various things in our world.

    Ever since language started, it has been informing us of h
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