C-56. Up the escarpment!
The flawed agenda and language shortcomings discussed above (C-54, C-55) do not constitute a benign neglect. The problems here are serious. Metaphorically, human behavior has been, and still is, an eddying current below the (0: S-P) escarpment of inadequate methods of minding attributable to an inadequate realization of the Nature of Things (III; App. XI, App. XII).
A long persisting eddying, constantly fed by streams of observed particulars. For how long? Suppose we could measure human history in terms of evolutional-developmental years (E-D years)– a construct akin to physics’ “light years.” Then the duration of this eddying and the height of the escarpment we need to climb would be equal to the span of human history from the cognition-communication symbiosis event (App. III) to now.
And then, if we can make it up the escarpment, there remains a burden of problems from solutions (0: Ps), some of them incurred by the use of inadequate minding technology (App. VII) in the solving of previous problems.
How are we to proceed? The clues are there to be seen. We saw that the dynamic, symbiotic interdependence of cognition and communication, expressed via languages, made compositional change via minding feasible. Something like that has to happen for language (qua technology) and behavior’s structure of process, so that composing can work most effectively. But there are all those E-D years of behavioral neglect to overcome, where the duality of behavioral and entity materialities (App. XI) has been pretty much buried by an overemphasis on entities, particulars and order – the BPO bias (C-38, C-39). As though humans have been hopping through history on one leg (to use a moving capacity to describe our minding capability).
The needed fusion of language and behavior is not going to come about with our current realization – i.e., understanding and development — of them, or by neglect of the symbiotic interdependency of cognition and communication of which they must be in consequence, or in neglect of the Nature of Things’ general persisting conditions and their functional demands on behavioral entities.
The several kinds of problems elaborated in the quality-of-life discussion (0: Sp, S-P, Ps, P) help give some indication of our challenge here if we look at the kinds of problems associated with (the many) languages in use. Elementary education gives priority to Sp, to solutions that have to be repeated, as in the 3R’s adoptions of language(s) in use. Problems that arise from solutions, Ps, plague languages in use and engage our attention: definition, explication, translation between languages, correct usage, communication accidents – sometimes identified as “communication problems,” etc. Ameliorative efforts (e.g., Esperanto) and efficiency efforts (e.g., artificial intelligence) raise problems of their own. What is largely missing is attention to S-P problems – i.e., to the deficiencies of languages in consequence of their biased invention. The Sp and Ps problems are a drag on our getting to the unsolved problems, P, and not just in regard to language. The S-P problem, left unattended, poses a huge barrier and if not overcome consigns us to a dismal fate of our own making.
The way forward begins with a way up the escarpment (App. XII).
(c) 2012 R.F. Carter
A long persisting eddying, constantly fed by streams of observed particulars. For how long? Suppose we could measure human history in terms of evolutional-developmental years (E-D years)– a construct akin to physics’ “light years.” Then the duration of this eddying and the height of the escarpment we need to climb would be equal to the span of human history from the cognition-communication symbiosis event (App. III) to now.
And then, if we can make it up the escarpment, there remains a burden of problems from solutions (0: Ps), some of them incurred by the use of inadequate minding technology (App. VII) in the solving of previous problems.
How are we to proceed? The clues are there to be seen. We saw that the dynamic, symbiotic interdependence of cognition and communication, expressed via languages, made compositional change via minding feasible. Something like that has to happen for language (qua technology) and behavior’s structure of process, so that composing can work most effectively. But there are all those E-D years of behavioral neglect to overcome, where the duality of behavioral and entity materialities (App. XI) has been pretty much buried by an overemphasis on entities, particulars and order – the BPO bias (C-38, C-39). As though humans have been hopping through history on one leg (to use a moving capacity to describe our minding capability).
The needed fusion of language and behavior is not going to come about with our current realization – i.e., understanding and development — of them, or by neglect of the symbiotic interdependency of cognition and communication of which they must be in consequence, or in neglect of the Nature of Things’ general persisting conditions and their functional demands on behavioral entities.
The several kinds of problems elaborated in the quality-of-life discussion (0: Sp, S-P, Ps, P) help give some indication of our challenge here if we look at the kinds of problems associated with (the many) languages in use. Elementary education gives priority to Sp, to solutions that have to be repeated, as in the 3R’s adoptions of language(s) in use. Problems that arise from solutions, Ps, plague languages in use and engage our attention: definition, explication, translation between languages, correct usage, communication accidents – sometimes identified as “communication problems,” etc. Ameliorative efforts (e.g., Esperanto) and efficiency efforts (e.g., artificial intelligence) raise problems of their own. What is largely missing is attention to S-P problems – i.e., to the deficiencies of languages in consequence of their biased invention. The Sp and Ps problems are a drag on our getting to the unsolved problems, P, and not just in regard to language. The S-P problem, left unattended, poses a huge barrier and if not overcome consigns us to a dismal fate of our own making.
The way forward begins with a way up the escarpment (App. XII).
(c) 2012 R.F. Carter
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