[Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein and "Brain Scripts"
- From: Sean Wilson <whoooo26505@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:22:21 -0700 (PDT)
(reply to Josh)
I would say that your understanding of what I asserted is facile. Asking what a
brain is doing with language is superior to a dictionary, because it is
directly concerned with the central matter. Dictionaries are only for those
with a foreign-language problem. They are only for those who cannot assemble a
brain script for want of not knowing its trigger (the mark or noise). If you
already know how the word "bachelor" plays in the language game, it would do no
good to look it up and say "oh, that's the wrong definition sir." In fact, that
is precisely the most irrelevant behavior. And besides, what dictionary are you
talking about? The one that includes urban slang or catches idiom? Or the one
that speaks the Queen's English? Dictionaries are really only like newspapers
for the language game. Only spectators read the news; players don't have to,
Furthermore, one could imagine one day a dictionary of scripts being authored
so that whenever language was used -- in law or wherever -- its offeror could
bind its utterance to an entry in a processing lexicography rather than a
word-use lexicography (dictionary). That is, imagine the following conversation
between Alpha and Beta regarding the world "motion." (You can use "physical"
too or a host of other words).
Alpha: The desk is still
Beta: No it is not; its particles are in motion
Alpha: What word do you have for when the desk moves?
Beta: its a different kind of motion.
You will note that no issue exists here. Beta means motion as a lexicographical
idea and Alpha means it as a categorical one. When something is
lexicographical, everything is the case, and your brain is only doing inventory
(motion-type A; motion-type B, etc.). When your brain is making categories,
it's distinguishing things that are ostensibly the case. I think this is called
associational reasoning (I forget). So you have one brain hearing the word
"motion" and deploying an inventory sort of processing script while another
deploys an ostensible-association task. In a manner of speaking, they talk past
themselves. (Note that in the scenario, Alpha isn't saying that particles are
not moving. He's not asserting a scientific theory)
Imagine a dictionary of brain script showing in a universal syntax how brains
processes expressions. What would be described are common patters or modalities
of thought described with the same sort of conventions one uses to describe
(program) how computers "think." In fact, we would have to create a universal
script that does this analysis for us. If it were translated and understood, it
might even be thought of as a universal language, sort of in the way that
mathematics is (or symbolic logic could be thought to be). If you don't like
"brain script," call it the book of common syntactical processing.
Now this last notion here might indeed be far afoul of Wittgenstein. But water
does go where it must.
(P.S. -- I don't actually believe this very last idea; I just sort of wonder
about it. On the one hand, It seems to get around the wrong idea that surface
level language should be perfect (rigid) to improve clarification, as Moore and
other analytics thought. Rather, let the surface level stuff be what it is, and
let's work on notations for what can be said to be the processing of sense
"underneath" it. On the other hand, this might be very foolish. But maybe what
could happen is something more reasonable: students take a course in brain
scripts in college, just as they do symbolic logic. And they do it solely for
the training in seeing confusions in language and how cognitive operations
differ. This alone would encourage them to listen with their minds rather than
their ears when they hear something, just as symbolic logic or geometry
improves the way children reason).
Dr. Sean Wilson, Esq.
Assistant Professor
Wright State University
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----- Original Message ----
From: jrstern <jrstern@xxxxxxxxx>
To: wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 9:03:33 PM
Subject: [Wittrs] Re: Wittgenstein and "Brain Scripts"
> One is never to ask what a word means. One only asks what is the brain doing
> with it?
That seems excessively facile.
I ask (rhetorically) again, because I consider it an especially
good response, does Wittgenstein require we discard all dictionaries?
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