Re: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious Awareness

[Robert Lake <boblake@georgiasouthern.edu>]

Thanks for the Citation David!


On Thu, Oct 28, 2010 at 11:48 PM, David Kellogg <vaughndogblack@yahoo.com>wrote:

> Rod:
>
> Yes, it seems nonaccidental that we say "I feel LIKE my brain is an
> erogenous zone" (for example) but we have say "I think THAT my brain is an
> erogenous zone".  The obvious comparison is indirect reported speech for
> feelings (and thus simile) but more direct forms for thoughts and words (we
> can say "Richard Shweder says, 'my brain is an erogenous zone'").
>
> But Vygotsky considers even the language of the Odyssey to be "lyrically
> colored" and therefore emotional rather than ideational; when Homer says
> "And they lay down by the shelving sea" or "When rosy fingered dawn touched
> the sky" we feel like we know what he means even though we cannot really say
> that what it is.
>
> Of course, in order to really understand this lyrical coloration, you need
> to be able to read hexameters in ancient Greek. But that's the whole point;
> the emotional substratum of language is always there and it never goes away;
> there is no point of entropy where thinking and feeling are completely
> merged.
>
> The photo experiment is described in Volume Four, pp. 193-194, of
> Vygotsky's Cllected Works, in a chapter called "Development of Speech and
> Thinking". Here's the key passage.
>
> “(I)f one and the same picture (let us say, the prisoner in jail) is shown
> to a three-year-old, he will say 'a man, another man, a window, a mug, a
> bench', but for a preschool child it would be 'a man is sitting, another is
> looking out of a window, and a mug is on the bench'. (...) A five-year-old
> establishes a connection between words in a single sentence, and an
> eight-year-old uses complex additional sentences. A theoretical assumption
> arises: can the story about the picture describe the child's thinking? (...)
> We will ask two children not to tell a story, but to perform what the
> picture shows. It develops that the children's play about the picture
> sometimes lasts twenty or thirty minutes, and primarily and most of all in
> the play those relations are captured that are in the picture. (...) The
> child understands very well that the people are in jail: here the complex
> narration about how the people were caught, how they were taken, that one
> looks out
>  the window, and that he wants to be free is added. Here a very complex
> narration is added about how the nanny was fined for not having a ticket on
> the trolley. In a word, we get a typical portrayal of what we see in the
> story of a twelve-year-old. (1997, pp. 193-194)"
>
> We did a whole foreign language replication of this experiment with using a
> video clip (with an added time element) and some second graders and wrote it
> up for MCA, but it was (violently) rejected so we gave up. I still have a
> copy of the paper if you are interested though.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> --- On Wed, 10/27/10, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
> From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious
> Awareness
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, October 27, 2010, 3:55 AM
>
>
> Apologies for missing this, David
>
> I suspect that the relationships between affective metaphor and cognitive
> metaphor are as messy and complicated (or rich and intricate) as any other
> form of (imagined) boundary between thinking and feeling.
>
> When we use a simile I think we invite listeners/readers to colour one
> concept with features of another, often (though not always) in a rather
> generalised way. When we use a metaphor I think there is more of an
> invitation to the listener/reader to haul up associations from the murk of
> personal experience (what does a hot liquid feel like, what does it make me
> feel like). I realise as I write this that I am assuming that there is a
> difference between a person's 'own' 'lived-in' associations with particular
> words/concepts and that person's sense of a 'common' or widely shared set of
> associations (what this can be assumed to mean to other people) - actually
> probably many different sets of 'common' meanings for different subgroups of
> 'other people' (people of my generation, people in my professional field,
> 'kids today', people who have adolescent children .....).
>
> To a degree, our sense of how much like another person we are will depend
> on how well that other person is able to find a fit with our own meanings.
> We can manage an academic conversation with a relative stranger but it won't
> feel the same as a conversation with a relative or with someone who likes us
> enough to bother to remember how we feel about things. For babies it is
> quite easy to differentiate between 'people who like me' and 'people who
> don't know me' because the former engage in a noticeably more
> contingent/reciprocal way (they 'like' me both in the sense of caring about
> me and in the sense of adjusting to me) and this is surely a useful
> distinction to be able to make. For adults it is more complicated because
> there are so many gradations of liking to keep track of (guided by the steer
> from embarrassment when we get it wrong!) but I still think that most of us
> are highly skilled in (unconsciously) picking up cues about the degree to
> which someone
>  is adjusting to us (how much they like us). I also think that our own
> awareness of the adjustments we make when we interact with others forms an
> important part of our knowledge about other people (we can even make these
> adjustments when they are not present so that we can imagine, for example,
> how they would feel about something we are considering suggesting to them).
>
> I like the word 'graspture' but for me (and for those who like me enough to
> know what I am like!) simile is less 'violent' than metaphor, a black and
> white diagram of the full colour collision.
>
> I would like to read more about Vygotsky's replication of Stern's
> photograph experiment - something I know nothing about - where can I find
> this?
>
> All the best,
>
> Rod
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: 15 October 2010 04:55
> To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> Subject: [xmca] Simile, Metaphor and the Graspture of Conscious Awareness
>
> Rod:
>
> I agree that there is an AFFECTIVE difference between simile and metaphor.
> Actually, I think that the use of "like" as a preposition is related to the
> use of "like" as a verb; the prepositional form is an objectified version of
> the affective affinity we see in the verbal form. I think that the existence
> of these two quite different forms is a good example of the DIFFERENTIATION
> and PARTITIONING that language brings about in affect (the word
> "articulation" springs to mind in this context).
>
> So I'm very interested in what you say about the "distancing" effect of
> simile. Do you think grammatical metaphor has the same effect of
> distantiation. Does "growth" suggest an objective view when we compare it to
> "grow", because "growth" does not have an identifiable subject or object?
>
> Of course, what Lakoff and Johnson are writing about is not affect but
> COGNITIVE metaphor. The idea is that underlying a whole range of linguistic
> expressions is some kind of non-verbal IMAGE, e.g. "anger is a hot liquid",
> quite independent of its verbal expression. From that perspective, there is
> no difference between simile and metaphor, and there is also no difference
> between metonymy and metaphor (because metonymy is simply a special case of
> a linguistic realization of a cognitive metaphor). All stem from a
> completely undifferentiated, unpartitioned, unarticulated mental equivalence
> (I think it's no accident that almost all of Lakoff's and Johnson's
> cognitive metaphors can be expressed as mathematical equations, although
> none of them are really reversible the way that equations are: we cannot say
> that a hot liquid = anger).
>
> Actually, I didn't say that Piaget believed that children are capable of
> reasoning "What kind of thought would I be expressing if I were making the
> acoustic sounds/articulatory gestures that I am now hearing?" Quite the
> contrary. This belief is the core of the "analysis by synthesis" views of
> speech perception, whether they originate in New Haven (Liberman) or
> Cambridge, MA (Halle). Piaget holds that the child's thinking does not
> achieve the Copernican Revolution of decentration until seven or eight, so
> Liberman or Halle would have to argue for innate mechanisms that "think" in
> a decentred way quite against the child's grain.
>
> Vygotsky has no such problem. The child is a social being from birth, and
> it is some time before children actually differentiate themselves from the
> "Ur-wir", the proto-we. It seems to me that this is completely consistent
> with an ontogenetic "analysis by synthesis"; the child understands because
> the child has not really differentiated speaker from hearer. The occasional
> failures of this type of understanding, in fact, play a not inconsequential
> part in the process of the child's differentiation of "I" from "we", which
> is only expressed, not generated, in the child's use of negation.
>
> Vygotsky mentions his replication of the Stern photograph experiment, where
> a three year old is given a photo and responds with a list of the objects in
> it ("a man", "another man", "a window", "a mug") and a five year old can add
> processes ("the man is sitting" "the other man is looking out the window")
> but only the twelve year old can tell the story of how the men came to be
> sitting in prison. When Vygotsky replicates this, he asks the children to
> ROLE PLAY the picture. Since this forces the kids to add the element of
> time, the five year olds come up with a twenty minute role play that is
> fully as complex as the narrative of the twelve year olds.
>
> When Vygotsky does this, he is trying to show that the idea that young
> children see pictures as a whole and do not differentiate the life stories
> within it is simply wrong. But in interpreting his result, we risk falling
> into a rather Piagetian analysis, which holds that speech is really an
> afterthought and not the cause of the child's thinking, because the child is
> capable of expressing in action so much more than what he can articulate in
> differentiated speech. I think this is part of what is bugging Martin.
>
> Two ways of debugging this occur to me. The first is that if we accept
> Vygotsky's account that verbal thinking (not all thinking) develops from the
> "introvolution" of speech, we have to clearly differentiate between the
> child's UNDERSTANDING of speech in the environment (which is semantic, i.e.
> NOT entirely dependent on a phasal, lexicogrammatical, partitioning of
> speech) and the child's ability to "articulate" (which is).
>
> The second point is that Vygotsky's definition of speech changes. For the
> very young child, speech includes the child's actions and in fact is more
> about the child's gestures and the child's use of the affordances in the
> environment than about vocabulary and grammar. Early speech is dominated by
> indication and nomination; signifying comes later.
>
> In the same way, metaphor comes first, because the child has to be able to
> accept that a gesture can "stand for" an object, and a word can "stand for"
> the idealized relationship between gesture and object. Similes are a kind of
> violent graspture of the conscious awareness of metaphor. So to speak.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
>
> --- On Wed, 10/13/10, Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> wrote:
>
>
> From: Rod Parker-Rees <R.Parker-Rees@plymouth.ac.uk>
> Subject: RE: [xmca] The "Semantics" of Vowels and Consonants?
> To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 1:08 AM
>
>
> So many ideas to respond to and so little time!
>
> Isn't it more likely that our associations between 'mmm' and baby related
> concepts may be more to do with the fact that this is one of the first
> recognisable sounds produced by babies? Mamas, Moms, mothers and mummies all
> over the world have reason to like the idea that these first sounds refer to
> them (fathers are left with papa or dada). But how things may have begun is
> always only a part of the story - layers upon layers of cultural
> associations and connotations are wrapped around the infant word as it is
> used in particular kinds of situations and contexts.
>
> A Carol pointed out, phonemes are category labels rather than names of
> 'things' - a way of splitting the infinite variations of sound into a
> limited number of chunks. After the age of about 9 months we begin to
> actively filter our perception of speech sounds to privilege meaningful
> distinctions in the languages used around us so there are probably many more
> SPEECH sounds than any one of us thinks there are because we think only of
> the sounds we are still able to discriminate.
>
> Where J.G. differs from David's version of Piaget's view, that 'You have to
> imagine what you would be thinking if you were making the noises that you
> are hearing', he seems to me to be closer to Reddy's 'second person
> perspective' which has been aired here in the past - babies don't have to
> 'imagine' or 'think' - they have only to engage or respond.
>
> Also, while there may be some very general, physiological, associative
> principles in the affective force of sounds (large, grande, enorme versus
> little, teensy weensy, petit, piccolo for example, and associations with
> 'squeak' and 'roar') there is also space for enormous variation in the
> effect that words have when they are spoken in different ways by people with
> different kinds of voice and by people in different moods (you really can
> hear the difference between someone reciting letter of the alphabet while
> smiling or while frowning).
>
> Here's an experiment - download the transcript of Vikram Ramachandran's
> lecture 'Phantoms in the brain' from
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/print/radio4/reith2003/lecture1.shtml?print
>
> Read the first paragraph or two before you click on the 'listen' button and
> then compare the experience of your reading and hearing Ramachandran's voice
> (all of the lectures from this series are still well worth listening to).
>
> Sounds and words may 'have' some power of signification, whether because of
> their/our physiological properties or because of the layers of association
> they have accumulated (some of which may be forgotten by or unknown to most
> of us) but this is a thin, diagrammatic sort of meaning. It is when they are
> performed by a speaker (or singer) that they can serve as an interface,
> allowing us to hear through them and engage with/respond to the life of
> another person.
>
> So - apologies for my thin, diagrammatic contribution.
>
> All the best,
>
> Rod
>
> P.S. I still think there is a significant affective distinction between the
> effect of a simile and the effect of a metaphor - a simile announces itself
> while a metaphor can get to you more immediately.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu [mailto:xmca-bounces@weber.ucsd.edu] On
> Behalf Of David Kellogg
> Sent: 13 October 2010 06:58
> To: Culture ActivityeXtended Mind
> Subject: Re: [xmca] The "Semantics" of Vowels and Consonants?
>
> We can see that J.G. really does believe that vowels and consonants are
> semantic, just as Khlebnikov did. Leonard Bernstein, in his Harvard Lectures
> on the "Semantics of Music" had a very similar theory about "mmm";
> associating it with nursing, nipples, and micturation. It's the kind of
> thing that the "perceptionists" that Vygotsky criticizes in "Psychology of
> Art" believed.
>
> Of course, there is some evidence to support this; we often find that
> "milk" and "mammary glands" and "mothers" and "mommas" are associated with
> the first bilabial sounds that babies make: Korean, Chinese, Arabic, Tibetan
> and many other languages can provide us with examples, and it's easy to
> imagine a world where babies are responsible for teaching mothers Motherese
> as an international language. It's our world, more or less.
>
> But there are many languages, including English, where the /m/ sound is
> associated with NEGATIVES: "malady", "malevolent", "malefactor", etc. Worse,
> there are certain "things" or even "emotions" which by their very nature
> cannot be directly expressed in a vowel or a consonant.
>
> Consider the number "zero" or the grammatical category of negation. It's
> really NOT possible (IMpossible, to use an "em") to express something that
> does not exist by something that does exist in a direct, iconic manner.
> Something that exists, exists. It doesn't not exist. The only way for it to
> mean something that does not exist is indirectly, that is, symbolically.
>
> We had a related problem in class. The kids are playing a game with cards,
> where they are supposed to ask "Can you swim?" and if the responder answers
> "Yes, I can" (because there is a sign on the back of the card indicating
> "yes") the child is allowed to keep the card.
>
> But the teacher has to begin by explaining what the cards mean. And the
> problem is that the card shows an actual child swimming, not a child who
> "can" swim. So the solution is a process of what Robert Lake would call
> metaphor, of having something stand for something else (e.g. "one minus one
> EQUALS zero").
>
> T: Look (indicating the card)! She is swimming. She's swimming. So...she
> can swim. Now...(indicating himself). I am not swimming. I'm teaching,
> right? BUT...I can swim. Can you swim?
> S: Yes.
> T: Good. Can she swim? Can he swim? Ask her. Ask him. How many swimmers in
> this group? How many swimmers in our class?
>
> You can see that the way the teacher handles the problem of presenting
> POTENTIAL rather than ACTUAL swimming is to TRANSFER the meaning to another
> situation; to have the card stand for something else.
>
> I guess I would simply call this process semiosis, and that's why I think
> that it is part of language development at every single point, bar none.
> Every form of semiosis, without exception, is a form of metaphor, because
> the creation of a sign is precisely the creation of something that stands
> for something else that is not itself.
>
> BUT...phonemes really do not exist, except as abstractions (in fact, I
> think they do not even exist as abstractions except for people who are
> literate). They are like the spaces that we IMAGINE we hear (but do not
> actually hear, except in quite special circumstances) between words. Since
> they don't exist, they can stand for other things that don't exist. As Lear
> says, "Nothing will come from nothing". He forgot to add that this nothing
> gives us everything!
>
> Never mind. Let's notice the form of Mike's question. He doesn't ask
> whether phonemes exist or not. He simply asks whether one can produce a
> particular sound (the example he gives is only an example; it's the letter
> "em") without there being more than one phoneme "there". Where? In the mind,
> of course.
>
> The simple, snotty answer is YES, because phonemes ONLY have psychological
> reality (and even then only in the minds of literate people, not in the
> minds of illiterates and children).
>
> So there are as many sounds as you think there are: no more and no less,
> and if you go "mmmmmmm" as J.G. suggests and ask how many sounds your hearer
> hears, he or she will probably say "one". We can easily find people who will
> say the same thing about the letter "em" in almost any first grade class.
>
> But the complex answer is much more interesting. It seems to me that
> consonants DEPEND on vowels in a way that is not reciprocally true. You CAN
> pronounce the sound "a" without any vowel, and "a" is in fact a word (and
> one of the most common words in our language).
>
> At the morphological level, we see the same non-reciprocal dependency
> relation: In the word "reworked", both "re-" and "-ed" depend on "work" for
> their meaning, but not vice versa. Which can also be seen at the level of
> relative clauses.
>
> In an exchange (which is where I think J.G. really needs to look for the
> emotional fountainhead of his semantic system) we find that we can have an
> initiate ("Who are you?") without a response, but a response without an
> initiate is not a response at all.
>
> Why? As far as I know, non-human systems of communication (e.g. bird calls,
> whale songs, computer coding) do not have this kind of non-symmetrical
> dependency at any level at all. It's one word = one emotion, more or less
> like the extremely impoverished view of language that J.G. presents in his
> paper.
>
> It seems to me that non-symmetrical dependency is an essential resource for
> making a very finite group of phenomena potentially stand for a potentially
> infinite one (as is polysemy, or as Robert Lake says, "metaphor").
>
> This super-productivity is what allows human languages to SIGNIFY rather
> than simply SIGNAL. But of course this superproductivity brings with it
> developmental crises, too.
>
> I have one other comment on the "reception by production" theories that
> Joseph Gilbert, Liberman, and Chomsky and Halle are putting forward. ALL of
> these theories assume a kind of RECIPROCITY, an act of EMPATHY, a
> DECENTRATION that Piaget rules out until the child is at least seven years
> old. You have to imagine what you would be thinking if you were making the
> noises that you are hearing. So if Piaget is right, children should not be
> able to learn to speak until they are seven or eight.
>
> David Kellogg
> Seoul National University of Education
>
> --- On Tue, 10/12/10, Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com> wrote:
>
>
> From: Joseph Gilbert <joeg4us@roadrunner.com>
> Subject: Re: [xmca] The "Semantics" of Vowels and Consonants?
> To: lchcmike@gmail.com, "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <
> xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
> Date: Tuesday, October 12, 2010, 9:55 PM
>
>
> 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
> >>                                                     14
> >>
> >> 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
> >>
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