Tuesday, 7 September 2010
A Giant Grammatical Vampire Squid is sucking generative power from the brain of humankind?
We speak our language in a very peculiar way: we invent the proposition we speak. This is the generativity skill Chomsky proposed to describe the algorithmic richness of natural languages. We are so inventful, that no two identical proposition have ever been uttered.Or at least this is a famous quote of the Chomsky's generative grammar. After the first astonished seconds, they clarify that very similar propositions are spoken constantly, but it's mathematically rare to utter the precise sentence more than twice and not just you: in the total history of the language you speak. You can feel uncomfortable with this thesis, but the chomskyan revolution did the same in linguistic as Einstein did in physics ( odd to say but I still think that Einstein is underestimated...).
Now in the ages of speed of light distribution of content, we are experiencing a bottleneck of production: we are overwhelmed by replication of content, but consuming is outnumbering creation. What are the consequences on our generative grammar? Some scenarios then:
1 Proposition changes with the context, so grammar is not a system of internal relations. This is good, in grammatical terms it means that even when you replicate a concept, you generate its semiotic surroundings, so the proper utterance is the compound, always different. Chomsky will hate it: you should admit something like extended grammatical minds.
Heretical.
2 Humankind is close to a grammatical apocalypse: in order to be meaningful again, grammar will bend our semiotic “spacetime”. We'd pretend to say the same, but the internal grammatical relations will “twist” the identity: if you say the same proposition twice, it will change autonomously the internal relations with the linguistic system. You say the same, but its meaning is different. This is the fall of main stream: no one will be able to follow a trend because even chasing the same, will be actually chasing something else.
Alternative.
3 We lost control of our mastering a language (idiolect): our brain has been sucked by a vampire grammatical squid ! If you can't say the same proposition twice in the same language, but you're saying twice the same proposition, then you're changing the language. This is by far very acceptable. At the end, you can say every one is speaking is own language, just very similar to the other mates with a similar dialect. The problem of this convergence is that you could start to speak different variation of your own same language: in different times you will speak different dialect of the main version. Technically speaking you'll destroy the concept of native speaker of at least our own language (idiolect). Everything stays the same, but no one is understanding.
Incomprehensible.
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Self Interpreting System: living beings are stories that narrate themselves
Image you're an instance of state of things. Image you're occurrence is purely random. Image you're a mess. Image your bloody, chaotic, disfigured state of being is actually making sense as it's able to sustain itself. God blessing! Seriously, it helpful to have the concept of a allmighty player of permutations like God, in order to understand the mere casuality of being a self-organizing system. From a MiddleEast(Sinaian)-Mediterreanian(Roman-Vatican-Empire-mafia) point of view, being able of making it without any help from hyerarchical superior entities is pure metaphysics!
Now you're a self-organizing system:really good my boy! Ok, in order to stay stayed, you need to counterbalance thermodynamics; it's a real pain in the ass, I know. Amogst the Tughs you could have found in physics, that's pretty bad. But in the series of self-organizing systems, only the ones able to handle their own energetic trade (metabolism) AND to impose the replication of their scheme of action, can pass to level two: living beings. The difference? Just this: if you don't pass your misguided scheme of action, not matter how good, it will dissolve. Further on, passing scheme of action is passible of misquotation, misinterpretation, code-deception, that is: mutations. So if you're passing your scheme, the bastards new generation can actually improve it. I can't believe it!
Ok buddy, now you're a self-organizing system, you improve (if you're lucky)(well in billions of years, because we're speaking, you have been lucky...). So you can detect state of things: you represent. In order to handle interaction between you and the world, you need to have a map of the place, yuo need to get the bearings. Represent. Map your bloody environment. Good. So now you're able to preserve yourself, to hand it down through generation AS a representing scheme of action. Congratulations pal:you're a true organism now!
So what you do? Well you pass your scheme of action (partially encoded in your DNA: sorry mate, but developmental systems theory in biology thinks that the scheme to replicate a whole organism is encoded in DNA and the contingent situations generated by the environment; that is to say: the scheme is all over there: DNA, temperature, other organisms you're parasitizing and you're parasitized). Ok scheme of action, that is: representation. I'm representing myself right? Pretty much. DNA (and environment) are reading themselves in order to execute the processes leading to the proper actuation: DNA (and uncle environment) is interpreting himself in order to perform himself as the scheme of action leading to the self-organizing system we know (and love).
Sometimes I miss religious explications: it's so blatantly naïve it's moving you to make an effort. Another item in my collection of turtles.
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