doug@dhw68k.cts.com (Doug Salot) (03/10/88)
In article Cliff Joslyn writes: >In article Sarge Gerbode writes: >>Whereas for most of us, words are primarily aural, perhaps, for many they >>cannot be, viz: the congenitally deaf. The word "verbal" would carry the >>meaning better, I think. > >Excellent point. Perhaps some deaf person can give us phenomenological >insight into their primary thought modality. > While I'm not deaf, it seems to me that thinking should be quite independent of the speech modality. In fact, I propose that virtually any type of communicated language serves as a thought-damper! There are currently discussions going on in sci.bio, sci.med, sci.psychology, comp.edu, and here in sci.lang that all skirt around the question of the nature of intelligence, so I'm cross- posting this in the hopes that we can converge on a solution. All follow-ups are directed to sci.psychology (since this doesn't seem to have much linguistic content, and it's a bit premature to discuss this at the physiological level. However, relevant tangents are free to diverge). There are several issues here. Why can humans speak, but animals cannot (from comp.ai, "Why can't my cat talk?"). What is intelligence? Is the ability to communicate a neccessary precondition of intelligence? Does it follow from intelligence? What is it that differentiates smart and stupid people (or animals?)? How can we best exploit the intelligence mechanisms in education? Without much conscious data (not to say that data might have consiousness, but that's a viable topic in itself!), I hypothesise that some people are smarter than others because they have a more efficient network structure, often with a genetic basis, but that within the limits of the number of neurons available and perceptual experience, everyone has the potential to think any thought ever thunk (sic)! I believe that language nets can be tickled by thought, and can be used to help develop/direct thoughts but mostly as a venue to invoke past experiences. Spoken language is much too combersome as a computational tool, and it is clearly beneficial to design languages that are more operationally-oriented. I think that conciousness is sequential and usefull primarily as a blackboard where a train of thought can be followed and directed, but "thoughts" are the colescence of other nets working in parallel. Wow, is this psychobabble or what?! I'm sure there's nothing new here, who can I read who has better articulated these thoughts? Here are some random anecdotes to consider: Spoken/written speech is linear (except for some of the formants at the phonetic level). Sign Language has many aspects of speech communicated in parallel. I've never met a stupid mathematician. Nothing's more computationally powerful than a stupid Turing machine. PET scans show more brain activity in lower IQ subjects than that in higher IQ subjects. Do deaf people sign in their sleep? Do blind people "visualize" abstract ideas? Do humans really think? Is thinking anything more than a combination of Pavlovian events? Do you know people who couldn't pass the Turing test of intelligence!? I'm getting out of here! - Doug -- Doug "" Salot = doug@dhw86k.cts.com = {trwrb,hplabs}!felix!dhw68k!feedme!doug BIRTHRIGHT PARTY | "To the moon, Alice" - Kent CAMPAIGN SLUGANS? | "Got anth in my panth for the man from Xanth"