Kaballah and the Zohar?

[water]

Invert Nexus,

The problem with any evolution, esp. the one of thought is this:
We say that something, a certain ability or skill exists when we see products of this ability or skill, for this is how we can recognize the ability or skill in the first place.

But, if we agree on the holistic explanation of progress and that it happens explosion-like (not a slope, but notches) -- then we can assume that certain abilities were there in some form even before products testifying of this ability were made.

Meaning that the ability of syntactical thinking could be there for a long time, even before protolanguage was there. It is just that certain other developments also had to happen before the syntactical ability finally could show.

I'm saying that it is likely that several abilities developed in tandem, and they didn't all show at once, in the same explosion.

Meaning that the development from animism to magic to religion to science was not nearly as linear as we could deduce based on external evidence.

Say there was ability A, latent in the state of protolanguage, then syntactical language evolved, then ability A was able to show as animism.

I can imagine a complex multitude of latent abilities, that developed in latent ways, influencing those that showed explicitly, and only later on was it that those latent abilites surfaced.
I can imagine that writing (ie. the desire to write something down, to make fix and transmittable signs) would be such an ability, latent through many stages, or sometimes showing up in a non-typical form (body decorations).

Hm.

 

[gendanken]

Getting this out of the way-

Vert goes:

And, it's possible that you brought this on yourself by mentioning Spidergoat's name earlier

Wrong

Backrack to first page. Third post, June 18th... and the spiritual little bitch went:
"Kush meer in tuchis, shikse. I've got an ass-dollar for you in there somewhere (so you don't think I'm cheap)."- spidergoat.
Yes, I'm being childish but he started it. I only finish what pukes start.
===========

Prime numbers:
There does not seem to be any reason for their mysticism other than their untouchabality pointed out by others. Pythagoras, I'm sure you already know, built a whole religion around numbers and prohibited their being recorded- a practice which furthers the awe attached to anything since it aggravates its untouchability.
Yet I'm put in mind of the dodocoheadron (sp?)- its a 12 sided gemoetric shape practically deified by Pythagoreans and tied to the cosmos. It means nothing to me and its lost its favor since we no longer have use for it and since we already know the mechanisms of our univese, this demotes the dodocohedron (sp?) from its pedastal. There 9 planets, an asteoried belt, and gigantic sun spinning us around in a gravitational ballad, not a dodochadreon.

There are plenty other 'weird' numbers like primes as well: hyperreals, surreals, charmed numbers- even one called a 'narcissist number', where if you take the number apart, each digit to some power is that number.
Example: 153= 1^3+ 5^3 +3^3
Neat, huh?
You'll find more in the last post, labeled gendanken:
http://sciforums.com/showthread.php?t=23975

What I'm saying here is that since we don't use these type numbers, they are quite simply curiosites so they fall out of favor or keep to the background as...useless. Prime numbers, however, are a mainstay. Yet, are noble. Untouchable. How snobby to not allow oneself be parted in the middle by just anybody. All other numbers are whores.
Getting carried away here, but I'm sure you see where I'm going with this.
There is simply no reason to suppose there is a brain center specialized in weeding out prime numbers until the brain has some idea of their 'specialness' by their being pointed out by others. Those twins are not born with the ability to point out prime numbers until told what they are.
Narcisstic numbers were nothing to me until they were pointed out and the headnoise became part obssession for finding more of them.
See?

We can also consider this breathtaking possibilty- that we are all in possession of latent abilities that can literally make us savants if we turned them on. There is reason to believe that the frontal lobes-those very lobes that makes us the wonders we are with our intellect and morality and civility- are impediemnts, and deep inside the rest of the brain harbors powerful talents that are kept locked away by these logical lopes or swept under its cortical rug.

Ok- when I talk like this, I want you to think of these rational lobes as straight jackets. And below lies a powerful madness the autistic is intimately in tune with.

For example: for something as simple as seeing, there are things so complex and intricate going on backstage it makes the fanciest computer look like mule cart. Unbeknownest to us, there is something like a powerful savant inside taking the flipped image from the retina, calculating its distance, shape, and meaning, estimating subtle diffenreces betewen BOTH retina and still manage to continue filling in analytical data while all the time keeping the image whole and motile.
No cgi or computer program compares to this.
In face recognition, there is countless nuance in the eyes, brows, lips- each tied to a memory stored away holographically and accessed in nanoseconds.
Autists are more in tune with this complexity it seems- hence their manic attentions to detail and their brilliance in it.

Allirght, hands are hurting but if the brain is doing this all on its own, powerfully throbbing beneath a Purtian like conceptual processing layer (frontal lobes) that is the basis for human logic- imagine the possibilities in each of us if this layer were stripped away to make even the dumbest moron a savant. Theoretically.
Autistics then are little more than you with no prefrontal lobes- theorietically.
This is pretty long- still with me?

 

[gendanken]

Oh yeah- wasn't this thread, like, you know, totally about that Kabballah?

 

[invert_nexus]

Yep, still with you. And I agree that the prime behavior is probably learned. They're loved because they cannot be split further and the mind fixates on them. A purity of form. Order.

About the frontal lobes. I'm not sure what brain damage is actually done in savants. Do you? I've never thought about them much until I read Sacks. I've marvelled at them at odd times when they are on display, but never considered the person behind the show. Or the specifics of their brains. I'll have to find a good book about it eventually.

About the thread being "totally" about the Kaballah... I think that collapsed somewhere around the third or fourth post, ain't it? And, I think it is still about the Kaballah in a roundabout way. About the phenomena behind the kaballah (as well as other religious functioning). Are you suggesting we make a new thread? Start from scratch?

Rosa,

I agree. Without archeological evidence we are basically without hope of ever solving this puzzle. And spoken language leaves little evidence of it's passing.

Brain functions and areas forming before the utilization of them (in our way) exists. Yes, in theory, we hijacked areas of our brain that were developed for completely different purposes than we now use them. It's likely, to me, that tool use and body language facilitated the development of our brains. The steps of tool making became more and more complex. Seperated from immediate use. Early man was adept at shaping flints into cutting tools. But, at first they did not keep their tools. They made them for a single purpose and then discarded them. They functioned in much the same way as the bower bird. But, they were exercising their hands. And their hands' mirror within the brain, the parietal lobe. They developed a handedness from their constant tool use and lateralized the brain, increasing efficiency further. The angular gyrus formed so that they might synchronize the steps which they took. It connects the hands, body, vision, and hearing together. And allowed products of all these seperate functions to combine into something... more. A further level of meaning is applied in this area. And, humans are the only animals with an angular gyrus. It (at the risk of one of your logical missteps. You really should start a logic thread. I am unfamiliar with the rules.) must almost certainly be the root of our humanity. Without it, the world becomes very difficult to comprehend. Things are splintered. I am somewhat confused how an angular gyrus can be determined by brain case. It is in the middle of the brain (back of center actually), and I don't see how the brain case can be shown to be with or without it. I've got some other books on the subject that I haven't got to yet, maybe they'll provide the answers.

Syntactical thinking. I was always a bad english student. My understanding of what syntax is is very poor. It's something like subject, object, etc... right? Could you elaborate a bit on syntax for the lingually challenged?

Here's a quote from the Naked Neuron.

Due to their extensive interconnections with the adjacent neocortical areas, inferior parietal [angular gyrus] neurons are able to assimilate and create multiple associations. The inferior region thus acts to increase the capacity for the organization, labeling, and multiple categorization of sensorimotor and conceptual events. One can thus create visual images, somesthetic, or auditory equivalent of objects, actions, feelings, and ideas simultaneously, and can conceptualize a "chair" as a word, visual object, or in regard to sensation, usage, and even price. Similarly, when we see an object such as a chair, we are than able to name it.
The Naked Neuron. pp 180-181.

Is this similar to syntax?

I can imagine a complex multitude of latent abilities, that developed in latent ways, influencing those that showed explicitly, and only later on was it that those latent abilites surfaced.

I agree. But, perhaps they shouldn't be called latent. Latent seems to imply that they are there just not utilized. It's more like the possibility of a function being used in a different, more creative way is there. But not the latent ability itself. I imagine that there are many of these... dualistic functions still exist that haven't been utilized.

I can imagine that writing (ie. the desire to write something down, to make fix and transmittable signs) would be such an ability, latent through many stages, or sometimes showing up in a non-typical form (body decorations).

Here's a good question. Broca's area determines expressive speach. Exner's area depends upon Broca's and translates it into writing. The question is, when and how did Exner's area form? I haven't seen more than a small blurb on it so far. It intrigues me.

The thing about the ancients methods of writing is that they are non-linear. They are seemingly more right brained. They depend upon area in space rather than area in meaning. Look at the cave art. It's like the drawings I used to do when a kid. It would start out with a small guy in the corner (army men was my thing at the time) and he would be shooting at some other guy. Then tanks would roll in, and next would come air support, etc... All these events were taking place in a temporal flow, but were being translated to the page in a spacial fashion. At the end, you have a smorgasbord of images that someone coming along later would be hard pressed to determine linear flow. Egyptians did much the same with their artwork. And Babylonians used words sparingly on the brick. The words were used as a reminder to the reader about how the story went. What words to place in between the written words. Hebrew had no vowels. As is the same with Arabic, I believe. Older forms of writing depended more upon right brain functions than ours does today. I don't know where I'm going with this... Surely it leads somewhere.


Edit: oh yeah, it's leading towards syntax and grammar. What are your thoughts?

 

[water]

Invert Nexus,

Syntactical thinking. I was always a bad english student. My understanding of what syntax is is very poor. It's something like subject, object, etc... right? Could you elaborate a bit on syntax for the lingually challenged?

Very simply put: syntax is the knowledge of how to make phrases and sentences.

"red apple" -- How do you know that "red" is an attribute to "apple"? Because your syntactical abilities tell you so.
You don't split up the phrase "red apple" into "red", "apple" and see no connection between the two words. You *see*, you *make* connections, and it's because of syntax.

"This morning, a dog bit him." -- Why isn't this "this", "morning", "a", "dog", "bit", "him"?
It's your syntactial abilites that tell you to put these elements into certain meaningful connections. (And then all the stuff we know about subject, object, etc. )

Here's a quote from the Naked Neuron.
/.../
Is this similar to syntax?

I suppose this should be the origin for syntactical thinking.

I agree. But, perhaps they shouldn't be called latent. Latent seems to imply that they are there just not utilized. It's more like the possibility of a function being used in a different, more creative way is there. But not the latent ability itself. I imagine that there are many of these... dualistic functions still exist that haven't been utilized.

I agree, that's a better way to put it.

The thing about the ancients methods of writing is that they are non-linear. They are seemingly more right brained. They depend upon area in space rather than area in meaning. Look at the cave art.

How can we know for sure what they depend on more -- area in space or area in meaning?

The problem is that humans have the ability to contextualize, to infer.
We never write down everything. We *rely on* that the reader has more or less the same knowledge as we. If the reader doesn't have the same knowledge as the writer, a short circuit in communication happens. Če ti jaz nekaj napišem v svojem jeziku, potem ti tega ne razumeš. Do you see what I mean?
Who knows what the old writers and drawers were inferring into those pictures and symbols.

Older forms of writing depended more upon right brain functions than ours does today. I don't know where I'm going with this... Surely it leads somewhere.

Edit: oh yeah, it's leading towards syntax and grammar. What are your thoughts?

The hard thing with syntax is that it is (as opposed to phonology and morphology) not visible. You can learn the dictionary, but you won't be able to speak the language -- you'll lack syntax. Syntax is the invisible glue between words that makes them form proper phrases and sentences.
(However, esp. Indoeuropean languages have basically very similar syntaxes, this is why it is rather easy to learn a foreign language, we usually adapt the new words to sentence patterns we already know from our native language, or the textbooks remind us where the specific differences are.)

The idea I am following is that syntactical thinking is somehow similar to conditioning. In conditioning, the structure is basically: If A, then B. If C, then no B. etc. -- This is fundamental syntax, actually.

Take Pavlov -- the result was: If the dogs heard a certain sound, they started to drool. Some syntax had to go on in the brains of those dogs that connected sound with food/drooling.

We can rewrite all conditioning examples into proper argument forms in informal logic:

A: Right now, I hear that certain sound.
B: So far, I have always got food after that sound.
------------------------------------
C: I will get food now. (I can hardly wait, so I drool.)

As we have mentioned before, we make *errors* in the process of choosing premises and making conclusions -- and those errors are based on previous conditioning.

Conclusion C does by no means follow from premises A and B, but the poor doggie was conditioned to think so.
Same happens to us. And it is this basic syntactical ability that allows us, if C doesn't follow, that we can recognize an error, and if necessary or possible, correct the form of the argument.

Example: One may not die if bitten by a dog, but early humans certainly were dying from being bitten by a snake. Why? The flesh wound is so much smaller than the one you get from a dog bite. How did they figure out that the snake has poison and that this is what kills you?
Syntax, logic -- all mixed with a lot of errors (based on faulty premises), and propped up with irrational (read: magical) explanations.

 

[gendanken]

The ontogony of syntax has been incredibly useful- Rosa, you're a godsend despite our little differences.

ON TO THE GOOD STUFF.
Now I fully understand what the little man meant by interpreter:

And that righ-hemisphere thinking you talk about is interesting. A human's usual storyteller is on the left side. A prodigious liar. Storyteller extraordinaire. But, this thinking in pictures suggests that they don't use this standard interpreter. Their "true" memory suggests this as well. Yet, somehow it must pass through the left before exiting the mouth. All sorts of implications here.

- vert

Hmm, was just about to say the search for order... That once more implies the intepreter mechanism. But, is it possible that this search for order takes place in more than one location of the brain? Likely. Very likely. In fact almost certainly true. Tricky... Perhaps the difference is that their search for order utilizes more of the right brain functions than the left. Either that or their interpreter mechanism is damaged...

-Vert

Here on my lap is a copy of the "Mind's Past" and, true enough, disappointing.
Nowhere near as refreshingly witty as that brilliant retard Ramachandran who takes one through the heights of literature to the depths of esoteric mythos just to make a trip throught the brain achingly fascinating.
Get the bloody book man, hunt the puke down who checked it out and steal it from him.
Which reminds me, still want to hear about how he amputated an already amputated limb, do you?

First things first before I lose my train of thought here- there is something I think of often called unconsious plaigerism. It happend to Mr. Wallace and Mr. Darwin who's ideas and research were unconsciously leading to the same conclusion; it happend to Newton and Leibniz who had to fight over who in fact invented calculus and countless other instances where inventors are oceans apart thinking the same exact things without ever having even met.
I had no clue about this interpreter mechanism Gazzaniga speaks so highly off when I wrote this:

Gend: Its prevalent in all cases- error to the one making it is truth.
Its the basis of intellect, what good is its growth had there not been labels to work with?
Think of error the world's largest colon and intellect a hookworm inside. It develops parasitically. Objective truth is absurd and unmanagable and in it no civilization would ever happen. Not otherwise.
Which is thrilling to think about- all moral codes with their manicured little notions of good and nobilty are simply sloppy errors the human is parasitic to in his desperation for sanity.
HA.

This "interpreter" just so happens to be located on the left side of our brain, the side we all know as conservative and desperate in its need to categorize data. It just so happens to take in the millions upon millions of automatic processes- I'm using up about a hundred of these automatic processes right now in just writing this that I am completely unaware of: spatially, emotionally, imaginatively orienting what Gendanken is doing to what Invert Nexus or Rosa may be doing in response (perhaps with each other. I can hear the moaning, you know. Kidding)- and what this interpreter just so happens to do is rationalize the input not by thinking of it but reconstructing it and cleaning it off, in a sense, as it were a crime scene:

"...and in doing so makes telling errors of perception, memory and judgement"- Garditezza

Errors in its push for sanity- this, the foundations of religions and mysticism in a matrix of absurdity. Its nice finding your own thoughts in others, always. Blows my fucking mind.
Remember the finger analogy? I told you to make an L with both index fingers and thumbs, then bring them together to make a triangle with a phantom angle on top.
Now look at J Gould:

"

Stephen J. Gould sees language as one of his now famous spandrels-the tapering triangular spaces formed by intersection of two rounded arches at right angles. Just as these spaces are architectural by-products of mounting a dome onto arches, language, he argues, is simply a by-product of having a big brain.

Holy fucking god- while short of saying language is a fiction, this is akin to my stating soul is an illusory by-product of two concrete realities coming together in those curious little fivephallangion L's that made a phantom in their union....
Now where was I?

Ah yes- now I'm lead to believe this interpreter too might be something of a byproduct form self-consciounessness, somthing like its shadow in that if you take it(self-conscsionessness) away, the interpreter vanishes.
No no no- not take it away.
This would mean exiscing the whole prefrontal cortex.
Shine a light on it to cast a shadow! And how does one metaphorically shine a light on it? By paying attention to it by being awake in it.
This is what everyone here has that the autistic does not.
I don't believe there is anthing physically wrong with their brains, I have yet to find any evidence of brain trauma in the autist. All MRI'S show is a variance in activity within the autistic's brain that diffrers with a 'normal' one, but this does not translate to trauma.

I believe simply that their neocortex (or prefrontal lobes) is being bypassed. No light is being shed on it, and so no shadow is cast.
They lack an interpreter, that thing on the left adept at robbing things of truth and detail.
This would expalin why an autistic has
1) no sense of self
2) an incredible fusion with detail

This is getting long- with me?

 

[invert_nexus]

Absolutely. I'm here. Gotta head down and pay some bills in an hour, but I'm here now. Continue, madam.

And, I take it you never looked at the split-brain link I gave then? Shame, shame. From reading the Naked Neuron, I have determined that the other link I gave (Inside the Brain) is full of shit. It seemed to be indepth, but erroneous with it's details . I've been meaning to bring it up, but it seems you don't investigate links anyway. The split brain site is good though (I think.) There was also two other books mentioned on it. They might be more detailed than The Mind's Past. Especially the Two Sides of Perception.

I probably should have dove into the Mind's Past before the Naked Neuron. Would have been a quicker read and would have led to the interpreter mechanism which I've been going on about so much.

Interesting about the autists. No physical damage, you say? They must be wired different, but that doesn't necesarily mean damage, does it?

Which reminds me, still want to hear about how he amputated an already amputated limb, do you?

Of course.

 

[gendanken]

Absolutely. I'm here. Gotta head down and pay some bills in an hour, but I'm here now. Continue, madam.

Fucker.

And, I take it you never looked at the split-brain link I gave then?

And I take you never quite grasped the astonishing idea that we could all be made atustics, have you?

Of course not. As for your links, I clicked on the damn thing from work (at night)- nothing. In the lab, I clicked on it once and it took forever, so I lost interest. Most of what it said in the intro paragraphs were things I already knew.
I take you over links, as I do anyone.

No physical damage, you say?

No, but there are cases where poeple have become autistic like post trauma.
More on this later. Things are piling up.

(fuck you for leaving)(puerco)

 

[invert_nexus]

And I take you never quite grasped the astonishing idea that we could all be made atustics, have you?

No, I think I understand that this is a possibility. I don't know enough about the disorder to pass judgement on it one way or the other. But, what you say makes sense.

I take you over links, as I do anyone.

*blush* Oh wait, she said anyone... Whore...

(fuck you for leaving)(puerco)

I won't be gone long. I'm not going to work, I'm going to pay bills. Otherwise, I might get my power shut off. I always procrastinate these things.

 

[water]

Stephen J. Gould sees language as one of his now famous spandrels-the tapering triangular spaces formed by intersection of two rounded arches at right angles. Just as these spaces are architectural by-products of mounting a dome onto arches, language, he argues, is simply a by-product of having a big brain.

While were at it:

One:
It is something like an agreement now that for language to develop, you need a large enough group of organisms of the same social species, have them live together, and they will develop language. What language they will develop, depends on their brain abilities, physiological specifics etc.

The grand example of this are the deaf-mute children in Nicaragua who have developed their own proper sign language.

It was 1979 when the Sandinists took over, issued new reforms, incuding those for schooling deaf-mute children. Up to then, these children have lived with their families, communicating with the hearing with a few commonly used signs or gestures (state of protolanguage). Then, they were brought together in a school. The teachers have failed to teach them the Spanish sign language -- the deaf-mute children wouldn't learn that sign language; instead, they communicated in a language of their own.
This language was then analyzed by linguists, and they discovered it was a proper grammatical language.
Nowadays, the deaf-mute learn this sign language in schools, a writing has also been developed.


Two:
Robots developing language among themselves. I don't know much about these experiments that Luc Steels did -- so anyone more adept in this, please bring your input!

The experiment was thus: Steels took several simple computers, gave them a realistic sound generator, a memory and a program for pattern recognition. -- And they learned to speak!


Three:
To conclude: In order to make language, you need a group of *social* organisms, equipped with a *capable* brain -- and they develop language.
Which means that language is a socio-cognitive phenomenon.

Which means that language makes full sense only when in society.

Hm. That last one seems bold -- but yes: Language makes sense only when used in some sort of *dialogue*.

And dialogue, some argue, is the basics both of society as well as the basics of having an individual self. (For a sense of self is possible only if there is a sense of other at the same time.)

 

[water]

"Kush meer in tuchis, shikse."

What does this mean? I love the sound of it (at least the way I imagine it could sound; I suppose it's Jiddish).

 

[invert_nexus]

Sounds Yiddish. Tuchis... Ass? Shikse... I've heard of this, but not sure what it means. Non-jew insult? Kiss my ass, bitch?

Edit:

Kush meer in toches † Kiss my ass. note: Basically telling someone to get lost, but in a humerous yet slightly rude way

shikse (noun) a ditzy, generally busty, female. note: Pronounciation is closer to SHIK-suh. This is the kind of word grandmothers use to describe the blonde boy-toys that their teenage grandsons want to date. Generally insulting to a woman's mental abilities. As in, "You're dating ***HER***?? That shikse?? You want I should plotz?"

 

[water]

The ontogony of syntax has been incredibly useful- Rosa, you're a godsend despite our little differences.

You know I never understand you very well. You say things to me that no one else does.

 

[water]

Smooth Operator,

Thanks. How did you translate that? Sheesh, I wold like to know some Jiddish. The insults are just juicy.

And, while we're at words -- and seemingly on topic: 'zohar' -- I laugh everytime I see this word, because there is a word in Croatian, 'žohar' (a z with a ˇ on top, in case it doesn't show), and that means 'rat'. So, for me, it's "Kaballah and the Rat". Heh.

 

[gendanken]

Rosa:

You know I never understand you very well. You say things to me that no one else does.

The fuck?

?


Considering the Nicaraguan deaf mutes and their syntactical language, the artistry of conversation seems possible only in species with an angular gyrus- its a fold found in the parietal tissue of the parietal lobes and its uniquely common to the human species.
Vervet monkeys happen to have their own coded language but its only symbolic and one dimensional. Koko, we all know, can use symbols but anyone can see she lacks grammar and people exaggerate her skill anway.
Its the syntactical attributes of human language that I find strangely fascinating- a dog burying a bone is a only burying a bone, he is not thinking of the priciples of ownership that are his when he buries it (Stuart Chase)
And I highly, highly dobut Steels' robots can converse with each other- I can write a small Java program that can make it look as if the screen is talking to you but its rigid, lacking all the wonderful flexibilty of the human tounge.

Vert:

No, I think I understand that this is a possibility. I don't know enough about the disorder to pass judgement on it one way or the other. But, what you say makes sense.

I wish it made so much sense that it were entirely possible.
Imagine going to the clinic, undergoing some fancy operation, and coming out a savant.
Or by sticking a carpet needle through your own skull could magically make one a savant by turning something off in the neocortex.

By the way, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the biggest turd in this shithole man calls institutionalized religion (including Kaballah and Zen). Its a ditch swollen with ignorance and cowards slowly killing the life in their children:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/3181637.stm

Interesting about the autists. No physical damage, you say? They must be wired different, but that doesn't necesarily mean damage, does it?

Actually, don't let me mislead you. There are theories concerning phsycal damage in autism.
But a theory is only a theory, and there are thousands of them each with an opposing theory adamantly disagreeing with it.
OOOHhhh.
There is one that links those MMR vaccines with the condition, and there is another one blaming testoestore since boys are something like 5-10 times likelier to 'suffer' from autism.
Bogus.

Anyway, before I lose msyelf. I go:

Which reminds me, still want to hear about how he amputated an already amputated limb, do you?

and he went:

Of course.

Right so:

So a man comes in complaining that despite the years that have passed since his accident, he still feels as if the hand from the arm they amputed 3 years ago is balled up in a fist and digging its nails in his palm, but lo! the dilemma: No arm, no cure.
What's a man to with such excrutiating phantom pain?
He tried psychiatry, pain killers, distraction- nothing worked.
Enter Ramachandran.
Our brilliant retard notices the left arm is culprit- this means the right brain is harboring the phantom pain and exaggerating it in the limb's absense.
So he makes a box with 2 holes in it, and on the inside he places a mirror on the left side, so that when the man looks into the box, he will look towards his left side.
Ramachandran has the man stick his right arm in one hole and has him also stick the nub of his shoulder that lacks a limb near the other hole as well.
The man now looks into the box and something fascinating happens. His eyes are presented with an illusion. With his right arm reflected on the mirror, his brain perceives two arms- and this, to his brain, is absurd.
After a few minutes the most amazing thing heppens- this phantom limb pain that has plagued this man for years........goes away. *snap* just like that, and the man was in tears.

Sayz Ramachandran:
"The experiment suggest that when Phillip's right parietal lobe was presented with conflicting signals- as in visual feedback tellling him that his arm is moving again while his muscles are telling him the arm is not there- his mind resorted to a form of denial. The only way his beleaguered brain could deal with this bizarre sensory conflict was to say
'BAH!! To hell with that! There is no arm!' "

...and so the man, by tricking his brain, was able to lose the limb and its horrible phantom pain. And this only reinforces the fact that our human brain can only maintain sanity with errors. See?
Ramachandran became the first doctor in history to ever amputate.... an already amputated limb.

Neat, huh?

 

[gendanken]

shikse (noun) a ditzy, generally busty, female. note: Pronounciation is closer to SHIK-suh. This is the kind of word grandmothers use to describe the blonde boy-toys that their teenage grandsons want to date. Generally insulting to a woman's mental abilities. As in, "You're dating ***HER***?? That shikse?? You want I should plotz?"

Ah.

SO! The maggot was calling me a busty, blonde idiot kissing his goaty ass was he?
I dare the little boy to show his face here again, I'm going to be hanging him by the balls with a kabballah bracelet fucking gimp.

 

[water]

Considering the Nicaraguan deaf mutes and their syntactical language, the artistry of conversation seems possible only in species with an angular gyrus- its a fold found in the parietal tissue of the parietal lobes and its uniquely common to the human species.

Yes, that's the thing. Other species, including Steels' robots, can come up only with a protolanguage.
The question is how to come from protolanguage to syntactical language.


Just a tidbit on the uniqueness of humans: the "Walkie-talkie theory".
Upright and walking on two legs. Humans are the only ones that can do more strides with one breath. Quadripeds, and other primates, do one breath, one stride. (But the article doesn't say anything about running. Hm.) A human can do a row of hahahaha's in one breath, while a chimpanzee must take a breath after each ha.
There are just so many physiological predispositions needed to make language!


I have a question: When did Ramachandran do that famous "amputation"?

 

[gendanken]

Rosa:

When did Ramachandran do that famous "amputation"?

I forget when, I no longer have the book with me but only the notes I took of it. No date.

Its the cleverest thing I've ever read in my life apart from the equivalence theory and Schrodinger's cat.

The question is how to come from protolanguage to syntactical language.

The asnwer seems to be a magical chunk of cortical tissue called the angular gyrus.
A human is not just an ape with language though- so to think its that simple sounds wrong.

Just a tidbit on the uniqueness of humans: the "Walkie-talkie theory".
Upright and walking on two legs. Humans are the only ones that can do more strides with one breath. Quadripeds, and other primates, do one breath, one stride. (But the article doesn't say anything about running. Hm.) A human can do a row of hahahaha's in one breath, while a chimpanzee must take a breath after each ha.
There are just so many physiological predispositions needed to make language!

HA!
Our how about the aquatic ape theory: that we are bald mammals because the epoch we spent as water monkies dissovled the hair on our body with only the female's hair growing long because the baby needed something to cling on to as she carried him across the water.
The hairless breast was now useless!
So many theories and theories and theories- is it any wonder mankind is the craziest fuck on this planet?

 

[invert_nexus]

Smooth Operator,

Thanks. How did you translate that? Sheesh, I wold like to know some Jiddish. The insults are just juicy.

Heh, private joke. Someone around here thinks I'm a "Smooth" operator. Sarcastic emphasis on the "smooth" I believe.

Google search. Found the <a href="http://www.notam02.no/~hcholm/altlang/ht/Yiddish.html">Alternative Yiddish Dictionary</a>. Doesn't seem to have many words really.

plotz (verb) fall down dead right now. note Usage: "oy, after all that shopping I'm about to plotz" Or "Ham and cheese sandwiches? If your grandfather weren't already dead, he'd plotz." Also see shikse for usage.

And, while we're at words -- and seemingly on topic: 'zohar' -- I laugh everytime I see this word, because there is a word in Croatian, 'žohar' (a z with a ˇ on top, in case it doesn't show), and that means 'rat'. So, for me, it's "Kaballah and the Rat". Heh.

Heh, languages are fun. :-D When I read the Zohar Encyclopedia, I got the idea that Zohar was a guy that wrote the thing. I think I connected him with Zoroaster or something.

...the artistry of conversation seems possible only in species with an angular gyrus- its a fold found in the parietal tissue of the parietal lobes and its uniquely common to the human species.

You know, sometimes I wonder... I was going on about the angular gyrus a while back.

The angular gyrus formed so that they might synchronize the steps which they took. It connects the hands, body, vision, and hearing together. And allowed products of all these seperate functions to combine into something... more. A further level of meaning is applied in this area. And, humans are the only animals with an angular gyrus. It (at the risk of one of your logical missteps. You really should start a logic thread. I am unfamiliar with the rules.) must almost certainly be the root of our humanity. Without it, the world becomes very difficult to comprehend. Things are splintered. I am somewhat confused how an angular gyrus can be determined by brain case. It is in the middle of the brain (back of center actually), and I don't see how the brain case can be shown to be with or without it. I've got some other books on the subject that I haven't got to yet, maybe they'll provide the answers.

Just a few posts up. I think I mentioned it a few times in the Other Eyes thread, as well. Ah well. Can't have it all, I suppose.

My angular gyrus knowledge comes from the Naked Neuron, so far. So, you know all that I know already. Any ideas on the studying brain cases part?

By the way, ladies and gentlemen, I present you with the biggest turd in this shithole man calls institutionalized religion (including Kaballah and Zen). Its a ditch swollen with ignorance and cowards slowly killing the life in their children:

Not the first time such has happened, I'm sure. Gonna exorcise those autistic spirits away, ladies and gentleman! Step right up! And the worst thing is? You know they weren't punished as severely as they should have been.

I wish it made so much sense that it were entirely possible.
Imagine going to the clinic, undergoing some fancy operation, and coming out a savant.
Or by sticking a carpet needle through your own skull could magically make one a savant by turning something off in the neocortex.

Ok, it's entirely possible. Not much difference between the two, though. I use them almost interchangeably. I do in fact find it probable that such could be done. You've mentioned physical trauma causing these effects. There you go. If physical trauma could do it, then voila. The question is will they be autistic or autistic savants? My landlord's kid is autistic. But his "trick" is stealing things and hiding them in the couch. And pissing all over himself. I wonder if he doesn't have some skill locked inside that he hasn't reached. His old man's a real cocky asshole who is undoubtably shamed of having a "retard" for a son. Another thing he does is wander around jiggling door knobs. He came in my apartment once when the landlord came by wanting to vent about assholes at his "real" job. The kid went straight for the bathroom and seemed to get a big thrill out of raising and lowering the toilet seat.

Funny, I mentioned earlier I have no experience with autists and here there's one that is around my apartment occasionally. It's different in real life than in books, isn't it? The urge to ridicule rises in the presence of such a one. It takes a real empathic person to get beyond and see anything else. Although, if he had picked up my guitar and started playing the moonlight sonata perfectly, it probably would have been a different matter entirely. It's been awhile since he's been around. I could hardly play guitar at the time of the toilet seat incident.

By the way, I wonder if trepanation might be another recourse?

There is one that links those MMR vaccines with the condition, and there is another one blaming testoestore since boys are something like 5-10 times likelier to 'suffer' from autism.

Yeah, I think I've heard that one.


About the Ramachandra amputation: I think I've heard of that, come to think of it. Little nuggets buried away from the light. I'm full of them.

So, the man's proprioception (superior parietal) was acting up on him. Visual recourse was required to repair the error. Such as the case of the disembodied woman, she had to use her real eyes to replace her body's eyes.

Speaking of proprioception, I've heard that guys are able to masturbate using their phantom arm sometimes. Powerful phantom.

Yes, that's the thing. Other species, including Steels' robots, can come up only with a protolanguage.
The question is how to come from protolanguage to syntactical language.

Was it even protolanguage? Or just the appearance of protolanguage? I suppose it's a tough call to decide what it might be. It's said that gorillas have a rough protolanguage. They vocalize differently depending upon circumstances. But, it seems to be a solo act for the most part. The other gorillas aren't really interested. It takes the beating on the chest and ritual dance to draw their attention.

What exactly is a protolanguage? Is it coming up with specific vocalizations for specific objects? But lacking in syntax and grammar? That would probably rule out protolanguage for all animals, wouldn't it? Except possibly dolpins. I wonder about the robots, did they have names for things? Or "emotions"? Or actions?

Upright and walking on two legs. Humans are the only ones that can do more strides with one breath. Quadripeds, and other primates, do one breath, one stride.

Sure about that? I was just reading that the shift from reptile to therapsid gave the ability to breathe continuously while walking. A lizard has to stop every now and again to draw breath. I suppose the difference here is that the mammal doesn't have to stop, but is limited to one breath per stride. Interesting. I should look into that.

Our how about the aquatic ape theory...

Don't forget the webbed fingers and toes we have. And the layer of "blubber". It is an interesting tale, but most likely false.


By the way, I remember in the other language thread you did long ago, you mentioned the belief that language is somehow inborn. I found this in the Naked Neuron.

In his book Syntactic Structures, Noam Chomsky argues that all human beings are endowed with an innate ability to acquire language as they are born able to speak in the same fashion, albeit according to the tongue of their culture, environment, and parents. They possess all the rules which govern how language is spoken, and they process and express language in accordance with these temporal-sequential motoric rules which we know as grammar.
p. 247

You read Chomsky's book? Seems the answer to your dilemma is that although we all speak different languages, as babies we exercise the same method of acquiring language. The baby talk is the same. The same parietal lobe structures are found in all humans and thus grammar is similar. Then, it is weeded down to the fewer structures that are used in each particular language. We are capable of using thousands of phonemes, but language is generally limited from 12 to 60 phonemes.

 

[water]

What is language?



I mean, we are talking about language here so much -- but we haven't defined it yet. So, what is your definition of language?