Re: language as a cognitive parser
Dale Cyphert (DXC20 who-is-at PSUVM.PSU.EDU)
Sun, 5 May 96 21:38 EDT
Gary... I guess that is the real question: just what IS human thought?
As participants in a logocentric culture we seem to equate that with
language; or at least with some sense that there is a pre-linguist
articulation of ideas that "forms" thoughts, rather like we "form"
words. If "thinking" is limited to the manipulation of these discrete
word-like concepts, then language is real close to the "center". On the
other hand, if language/articulated thought/conceptualization is a
separate thing we do, then it might be 'beside' thinking, or behind it,
or even very FAR from the center. I really don't know, but I'm inclined to thi
nk there is much more to hunches and pattern recognition than we realize.
dale
>dear dale --
>the work that don cunningham and i are now doing with using
>peirce's ten classes of signs as the basis for examining the
>endpoints of any and all acts of inference, including such
>inferences as hunches, satori, and pattern formation, is right
>in line with your ideas. to do so, we have moved away for now
>from an implicit link to language, but language is never far away
>from the center of human thought, is it?
>gary shank
>gshank who-is-at niu.edu