[comp.society.women] Logic and Language

skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (10/30/88)

Some languages are more logical than others.

Some languages are more restrictive than others.

In the West, since the Englightenment, we have _tended_ to praise
perspicuity in language.  That is, we have generally said that some-
thing which is well-written has a clear connection between one idea
and one word.  This attitude toward good writing (exemplified by
John Locke, Adam Smith, and many handbooks on good writing) assumes
that the world has categories which can be easily separated.

[On a side note, I have often wondered if the French feminists feel
particularly alienated from language because France still has that
institution which says what is and is not appropriate French.  It
is much more in the enlightenment than we are.  With the possible
exception of the symbolists, the history of French attitudes toward
language doesn't really have a strong romantic movement.]

In other words, language is not inherently logical, but the
Western attitude toward language has been that it would be nice if
it were.

-Trish

rsp@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Steve Price) (11/01/88)

In article <5688@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> skyler@ecsvax.uncecs.edu writes:
>In other words, language is not inherently logical, but the
>Western attitude toward language has been that it would be nice if
>it were.
>
Trish's comment reminds me of some linquistic history I had in graduate
school, where I was amused to learn how (male, English) self-appointed linquists
and grammarians of the "Enlightment" were embarrassed at the lack of 
mathematical rigour in English.  So they "laid down the law" with such
little gems as "Two negatives make a positive".  Therefore, as you've
all been taught, "I ain't got no money" means "I have money".

The fact that Chaucer, Shakespeare, Marlowe, et al employed double 
negatives was no proper justification to these guardians of logic in
language.  If 1,000 years of usage and the finest writers of English established
double negatives, why usage and writers were all wrong.

The fact is that in English double, triple, and higher orders of negatives
are used for emphasis.  It has always been so and continues to be so.
English is not Algebra -- for which both mathematicans and linquists can be
grateful.

By the way, since "ain't" ain't a word, "I ain't got no money" parses to
"I got no money" and the double negative disappears.  You can have your logic
and eat it too!

Steve Price
pacbell!pbody!rsp
(415_823-1951

djk@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Doris J. Karlson) (11/01/88)

I recently heard of a study (I heard this form a couple of sources,
one of which was the SF Chronicle) where the brains of males and
females were disected and compared.  They found that the bundle of
fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is consistantly
and significantly thicker in females than in males.  Since the left
brain supposedly controls the language and logical functions and the
right side supposedly controls the emotions, they theorized that this
greater connectivity enables women to combine the two realms of
thought more than men.

The article also mentioned a study where men and women were placed in
conferences where some negotiating took place.  Later, they were asked
to summarize the outcome.  The men would remember that "Mr. X agreed
to the proposal", whereas the women would convey that "Mr. X
*reluctantly* agreed to the proposal".  Thus strengthening the
proposition that women are not only aware of the logical facts of the
meeting, but also of the emotions.

Perhaps this explains why women express their emotions more readily
than men do.  To express an emotion, which originates on the right
side of the brain, some information would have to be passed to the
left brain where a sentence can be formed.  This could also explain
why women are more likely to act on their intuition (and the phrase "a
woman's intuition").  For whatever reason, there is a stigma in our
society against making decisions based on any information that isn't
completely logical.  So when women voice concerns about emotional
issues, they are offen dismissed as being illogical.

These findings suggest that it is not the case that women are "alien
to the world of logic", but that women can express both logical and
non-logical ideas.  (Non-logical does not imply illogical.)  And men
are less capable of expressing non-logical ideas.


-Doris Karlson

@hamlet.bitnet:tan@devvax.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Greer H. Tan) (11/03/88)

In article <5719@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> you write:
>I recently heard of a study (I heard this form a couple of sources,
>one of which was the SF Chronicle) where the brains of males and
>females were disected and compared.  They found that the bundle of
>fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is consistantly
>and significantly thicker in females than in males.  Since the left
>brain supposedly controls the language and logical functions and the
>right side supposedly controls the emotions, they theorized that this
>greater connectivity enables women to combine the two realms of
>thought more than men.
>
How recent were these articles published?  How widely spread/ or rather
how visible was this discovery made?  It seems to me, a discovery like
this would really cause quite an uproar in society ... a biological
proof of the difference between men's and women's way of thought? ...
I mean ... that is what we've been trying to fight all along, right?  That
there is no intellectual difference between men and women other than
our biological functions ... a discovery like this seems to say, there
*is* a difference in the brains of men and women and therefore we *do*
think differently.

>The article also mentioned a study where men and women were placed in
>conferences where some negotiating took place.  Later, they were asked
>to summarize the outcome.  The men would remember that "Mr. X agreed
>to the proposal", whereas the women would convey that "Mr. X
>*reluctantly* agreed to the proposal".  Thus strengthening the
>proposition that women are not only aware of the logical facts of the
>meeting, but also of the emotions.
>
>Perhaps this explains why women express their emotions more readily
>than men do.  To express an emotion, which originates on the right
>side of the brain, some information would have to be passed to the
>left brain where a sentence can be formed.  This could also explain
>why women are more likely to act on their intuition (and the phrase "a
>woman's intuition").  For whatever reason, there is a stigma in our
>society against making decisions based on any information that isn't
>completely logical.  So when women voice concerns about emotional
>issues, they are offen dismissed as being illogical.
>
>These findings suggest that it is not the case that women are "alien
>to the world of logic", but that women can express both logical and
>non-logical ideas.  (Non-logical does not imply illogical.)  And men
>are less capable of expressing non-logical ideas.
>
>
>-Doris Karlson

What Doris says would be the logical conclusion and actually, I think it
explains a lot.  I've often been amazed at the consistency of thought and
action of the men that I know.  The more educated, the more consistent,
though this relationship (of consistency and education) doesn't apply
to women.  Does this mean that less educated men may have higher conductivity
between their left and right brain too?  Women on the other hand ... as
far as behavioral reaction in a situation ... really don't seem to differ
regardless of their educational background ... where, it seems that there
is a difference among men ... has anyone else found this to be true?  Does
this imply that perhaps it is the learning process that narrows the
communication between logic and emotion in men?

Society probably still needs to be convinced that women *can* think as
logically as men as well as think more non-logic than men (I mean,
that means that a woman's brain might have greater capabilities than
a man's ... is the world ready for that?)

Now this is what I wonder ... men dominated through history because
on the whole, they tend to be physically stronger and since primitive
time, their strength was the beginning of their reign.  However, brut
now-a-days is thought of more as the polar opposite of having brains,
so wouldn't it make more sense for society to believe that women have
more intelligence and men have more brawn?  I mean, I think most people
would be shocked to find out that Lou Feragno (sp?) or Arnold Schwartzneger
had a PhD in Quantum Physics or something, right?

-Greer Tan

rsp@pbhyf.PacBell.COM (Steve Price) (11/03/88)

In article <5719@ecsvax.uncecs.edu> djk@ernie.Berkeley.EDU (Doris J. Karlson) writes:
>I recently heard of a study (I heard this form a couple of sources,
>one of which was the SF Chronicle) where the brains of males and
>females were disected and compared.  They found that the bundle of
>fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is consistantly
>and significantly thicker in females than in males.  Since the left
>brain supposedly controls the language and logical functions and the
>right side supposedly controls the emotions, they theorized that this
>greater connectivity enables women to combine the two realms of
>thought more than men.

I would really like to know the exact sources of this information so
I could read it for myself.  I am sceptical of such claims -- claims 
that purport to show gross mechanical underpinnings for subtle behavioral 
characteristics of people.

There is an implied assertion beneath the claim:  Human emotional and 
mental states are the direct result of given biomedical, chemical and 
physical, biological subsystems.  This is the mechanistic scientific
model derived from Newtonian classical physics and Cartesian dualism,
which posits a split between "mind" and "body".

Increasingly the mechanical model is being revised and challenged.
Those interested in the topic should read "The Turning Point: Science,
Society and the Rising Culture" by Fritjof Capra (A Bantam New Age Book).

I do have some questions about the claim that male and females have different
brain "wiring":

1) Why has this never been noticed before?  Has no one looked for male/female
   brain differences?

2) Are these differences so pronounced as to be predictive?  That is, can I 
   be confident that my wife's hemispherical connections are greater than 
   mine?  

3) What controls were used?  Are the cadavers sampled of same race, weight,
   age, height, social/economic class, nutritional background, etc?  In other 
   words, how sure can we be that any differences are GENDER differences?

4) If there are differences are they differences that make a difference?
   How can we assert that a given size of hemispherical connections in a 
   brain result in given emotional/logical patterns?

5) What has been done in this experiment to avoid reductionism -- attributing
   subtle and complex effects to simple causes? (We can at least pretend
   that science does not proceed like a presidental campaign.)

Steve Price
pacbell!pbody!rsp
(415)823-1951

rberlin@birdland.Sun.COM (Rich Berlin) (11/03/88)

On the subject of brain "wiring", anybody have statistics on the
occurrence of epilepsy in each sex?  With different "bandwidth" between
the hemispheres, I would expect the sexes to show a notable asymmetry.

-- Rich

jeffl@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Jeff Lichtman) (11/03/88)

> I recently heard of a study where the brains of males and
> females were disected and compared.  They found that the bundle of
> fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is consistantly
> and significantly thicker in females than in males.  Since the left
> brain supposedly controls the language and logical functions and the
> right side supposedly controls the emotions, they theorized that this
> greater connectivity enables women to combine the two realms of
> thought more than men.

The split-brain theory has been largely debunked.  The original evidence
came from people who had a type of epilepsy which could be controlled
by severing the corpus callosum, the tissue that connects the two brain
hemispheres.  People who had undergone this operation could function
normally most of the time, but some experiments showed that their brain
function was split.  For example, they could name objects that they held
in their right hands, but could not name the same objects held in their
left hands (the nerve bundles cross over, so left-hand sensations go to
the right side of the brain).

Of course, most of us don't have rare forms of epilepsy and haven't had
our brain hemispheres separated.  Experiments on people with "normal"
brains have not been able to uncover a difference in function between the
two hemispheres.  It seems likely that logic and language are not physically
separated from pattern recognition and emotion, as had previously been
supposed.
-- 
Jeff Lichtman at Sybase
{mtxinu,pacbell}!sybase!jeffl
"Saints should always be judged guilty until they are proved innocent..."

chase@orc.olivetti.com (David Chase) (11/03/88)

> They found that the bundle of fibers that connects the two
> hemispheres of the brain is consistantly and significantly
> thicker in females than in males.  Since the left brain
> supposedly controls the language and logical functions and the
> right side supposedly controls the emotions, they theorized ...

At the risk of being called a grump, I'm skeptical that this
explains why women "express their emotions" to a greater degree
than men.  I'm not sure if there's anything about thought that
can be measured that isn't subject to cultural conditioning*,
but I wouldn't start with "emotional expression".  The right-hand
side of the brain certainly controls more than just emotions.
Also, any  "correlation" between the size of the nerve fiber bundle
and whatever could be just as bogus as the correlation between
brain size and intelligence.  Still, it would be interesting to
know what purpose (if any) the thicker bundle serves.  

* haven't there been claims that if someone is raised in a world of
vertical stripes then that person becomes more attuned to the nuances
of vertical stripes?  This could be a factoid too, of course; I think
I read it in some book on Whorf.

David

jeff%aiva.edinburgh.ac.uk@NSS.Cs.Ucl.AC.UK (Jeff Dalton) (11/10/88)

>> I recently heard of a study where the brains of males and
>> females were disected and compared.  They found that the bundle of
>> fibers that connects the two hemispheres of the brain is consistantly
>> and significantly thicker in females than in males.

There is a long history of claims that real or illusory anatomical
differences between males and females account for behavioral differences.
This one might be construed as showing that females have the advantage,
but in the past to opposite has generally been the case: it was claimed
that such anatomical differences showed that men were inherently
superior.  More recently, (late 70's, say), there were claims that
differences in brain lateralization showed why women were better at
secretarial skills while men were better at factory work (or something
of that sort).  There may have been a few "surprises" -- some tasks
normally associatyed with men at which women ought to be better --
but most current gender roles were supposedly confirmed.

Within the last week or so, I read somewhere (probably in the Guardian)
that there were more men at the extremes of intelligence while women
were grouped closer to the average.  An obvious conclusion to draw is
that this explains why most great accomplishments are accomplished by
men.

On closer examination, such conclusions have generally been found
to be unjustified.  All such reports should be taken with numerous
grains of salt.