/sci/ - Science & Math

>language
>social construct
not science or math

>>11277856
What else could it be? A natural construct? A racial construct? A personal construct?

>>11277856

if language were forgotten how long would it take humanity to recover from a basis of mute feral children?

>>11277856
is the language made up by 1 person or multiple?

>>11277856

>>11277862
>language
>not math

gtf off this board you psued hack and stop bringing down the collective IQ

Chomsky is famous for stating the opposite

A substantial portion of our brain is dedicated to language (storing, processing and producing) so I’d say not entirely.

>>11277856
it is a mental construct, you technically don't need it to be social. all social constructs are first and foremost mental constructs.

>>11277900
What is the opposite for "the language is a social construct"?
The language is not a social construct?
Then what is it?

>>11277917
Language is genetically defined.

>>11277920
The child is born predisposed to learn any language. So the predisposition, the capacity is genetically defined. But not the language itself.

>>11277929
Are languages social constructs?
And
Is language a social construct?
Are different questions

>>11277863

>>11277935
hmm
so you mean language in some platonic sense?
like some ideal imaginary language?
and you're saying that this ideal imaginary language is genetically defined?

>>11277942
I’m not the guy that said it’s genetic but I might as well have since I posted >>11277915

It’s baked into us, but the particulars of each language are obviously socially constructed

>>11277942
Maybe that's the word "I" that is genetically defined. It's analog exists in every language. But I'm not sure.

>>11277863
An anal construct

>>11277980
Or maybe it is math - some ideal imaginary language.
But not everyone is predisposed to learn math.
And it is hard to learn math.
If it was genetically defined, everyone would naturally just "know" all of the math.

>>11277856
it's a hoax. language doesn't actually exist.

This thread is the definition of pretentious.

>>11277994

>>11277995
Welcome to the definition

>>11277995

>>11277995
Are you trying to make us doubt or what? If you doubt, then say what is it you doubt about.
Looks like you are trying to primitively manipulate a limbic system.

>>11278007
>Looks like you are trying to primitively manipulate a limbic system.

>>11277976
I heard that the child is born with too much connections between the neurons and then some of them fade away and some of them become stronger.
I think it's like a matrix of cells in an empty sheet of a copy-book. You can draw some figures on those lines, but at the beginning you have an empty matrix (the word "tabula rasa" comes to mind).

If that's true then I don't get what exactly is baked into us, what exactly is genetically defined.

>>11278024
>tabula rasa
This shit still get repeated?

>>11278029
I'm not sure what are you trying to imply.
What is baked into us? What is genetically defined?

>>11278024
Language processing as a whole is what’s baked into us. The capacity to store all our vocabulary and grammar rules and all other things shared by every language is biological. I assume OP was asking if language as a whole was just something we created on the spot after we developed intelligence or something, when it’s deeply embedded in us

>>11277895
>IQ
more not science or math garbage

>>11278039
Something is biological. Of course it's biological if bio-organism is the hardware we are running on.
Sounds like a tautology. Language is biological because we have brains which are biological.

Ok, let's say we declare some element as "not biological". And then we search that element in the brain. And if we find it, we would say "something in the brain is not biological". But everything you could find in the brain becomes biological by definition simply because it was found in the brain. So what is your point? (if all this makes sense)

>>11278057
The point isn’t “we use our brain for language therefore it’s not a social construct” the point is we have structures in our brain specifically tailored for the storage, processing and production of language and words. Ergo language is not exclusively a social construct

Society is constructed by language, not the other way around, dipshits.

>>11278068
Let's say that there are structures in the brain that generate imagination.
So everything that you could imagine becomes genetically defined and baked into us.
But what is the point of saying this?

- Is money social construct?
- No, the money is baked into us, the money is genetically defined because there are some structures in the brain that work with the idea of money.

You can put something else (some real social construct) instead of money in the previous example and it would work anyway. So what is the point?

>>11278089
Look I’m no neuroscientist so I don’t have all the answers but what I’m saying is language is a _specific_ and _unique _ phenomenon that the human brain accounts for, much like locomotion or sex or the hunger drive. Money is a concept, something not core to the human condition. Language on the other hand is

>>11278073
Maybe it's like a cycle?
Society is constructed by language.
Language is constructed by society.

>>11278039
> I assume OP was asking if language as a whole was just something we created on the spot after we developed intelligence or something, when it’s deeply embedded in us

So the question is what appeared first - language or intelligence, right?

What are possible options:
- the language was first
- the intelligence was first
- the both appeared together at the same time (or in parallel or concurrently? if it makes sense)

Looks like the chicken and an egg problem.

>>11278127
They almost certainly developed concurrently, or language after intelligence since an extraordinary amount of our communication comes from body language which is as old as time

>>11278110
Language is core to the human condition. And it's a social construct.
What is the problem with combining the two?

Maybe the intelligence and the language are the same thing?

>>11277856
No, it's a technical construct, because you can't have self awareness without an internal language.

Intricately tied into consciousness and upper brain activity.

>>11277856
language or meaning? Language is a social construct in the sense that it's constructed by society lol. As for meaning, I find it obvious that meaning only requires one being to mean something to, or to create it. Wittgenstein would probably say something like language is a public endeavor, and therefore words need the public to have any meaning.

>>11277891
composition fallacy

>>11278146
> you can't have self awareness without an internal language.
How can you be sure about that? Can you prove it?

>>11278147
Imagine there is a rock on some planet and nobody ever interacted or will interact with it.
Does that rock have a meaning?
I think it does have a meaning obviously. Because it's a rock. Simple as that.

>>11278164
Or let's say it doesn't have a meaning. Then it's a "meaningless rock". Does that make sense?

>>11278146
>because you can't have self awareness without an internal language.

Citation needed

>>11278146
Internal language is not necessary for self-awareness or anything for that matter. Self-awareness also is not necessary for anything. The materialist, i.e. about half of modern scientists, think consciousness and internal questions are a coincidence of existence.
>>11278164
>identity theory
Meaning only exists because it is given. That rock is "a rock" only because you're sat there thinking about it. "The rock" would be null if no one were aware of it, even in thinking about it hypothetically.

>>11278164
Or maybe it doesn't have a meaning because it's not really a "rock", it's just a bunch of molecules.

>>11278166
>Does that make sense?
Yes

>>11278175
If that makes sense then all the rocks are meaningless unless I interact with some rock. When I move on the rock becomes meaningless again.

That's one of interpretations.

>>11278048
>IQ isn't real

>>11278172
>Internal language is not necessary for self-awareness or anything for that matter. Self-awareness also is not necessary for anything.

>>11278172
>"The rock" would be null if no one were aware of it, even in thinking about it hypothetically.
When someone thinks about hypothetical rock, he thinks about another rock, not that never-interacted-with-rock-from-some-distant-planet.
It's like the difference between giving money and thinking, imagining giving money.

>>11278191
I wasn't saying those things don't exist. They're not necessary for the evolution hypothesis to be true.
>>11278202
What's your point? That identity therefore exists objectively? And why can't thinking about the never-interacted-with-rock-from-some-distant-plane, and about a hypothetical rock, be the same thing?

>>11278238
> What's your point? That identity therefore exists objectively?
I don't know, I've been trying to find a counter-argument.
No, really, you can't think about that rock specifically. That doesn't make sense. Or seems to me, at least.

> And why can't thinking about the never-interacted-with-rock-from-some-distant-plane, and about a hypothetical rock, be the same thing?
When you do something, you do everything that can be done? Ok, then you committed all the possible crimes. If that makes sense.

>>11277895
>gtf
>IQ
report all underage posters like this faggot

>>11278398
For what? Can't just report because "I'm pretty sure he's underage because he said 'gtf' and 'IQ'"

>>11278253
So what do we have now? 2 alternatives:
- meaningless rock (becomes meaningful when someone interacts with it and then becomes meaningless again)
- not really a rock, but a bunch of molecules

>>11278412
or both at the same time
or neither of them both
or something else

>>11277917
that its genetic retard

>>11278436
>language is genetic

>>11277856
Is construction of language social?

>>11278436
What do you think about what was said in these posts?

>>11277915
>>11277916
>>11277929
>>11277935
>>11277942
>>11277976
>>11277980
>>11278024
>>11278039
>>11278057
>>11278068
>>11278089
>>11278110
>>11278122
>>11278127
>>11278133
>>11278135
>>11278138
>>11278146
>>11278147
>>11278155
>>11278164
>>11278166
>>11278172
>>11278173
>>11278175
>>11278180
>>11278202
>>11278238
>>11278253
>>11278412
>>11278416

>>11277856
This whole conversation is gay and anyone taking part in it needs to have a large rock thrown at their head.
If you want to talk to each other, it would behoove you to have some sort of common understanding of what a "social construct" even is. Communication faculties are not "socially constructed" in any meaningful sense. All "social" interactions are the result of you as an expression of your genes interacting with the environment. When people say "language is a social construct" what they actually mean is that because the particular pattern that two randomly selected human beings use to communicate is arguably arbitrary (though honestly there really isn't a significant degree of proof in either direction to demonstrate that true or false in any meaningful way) that language as a communication mechanism is effectively arbitrary as well, and as a result proficiencies or lack there of in communication or expression are not inherent to the particular person in any way. This is total bullshitting, and even if it were true that the particulars of language are not directly informed by genetic differences between population groups who use different language families (which is unlikely to be true) that doesn't mean that the "socially constructed" language is in any way divorced from the communication faculties which are a direct result of you as a genetic expression interacting with your environment.

>>11278416
It's rockness comes entirely from someone knowing it's a rock. It is a bunch of molecules for exactly the same reason. That's just another possible description of its identity. That idiot wasn't getting away with anything above and beyond this philosophy nonsense by defining the rock as a collection of smaller stuff.

Further, I don't think that identity ever goes away until absolutely 0 beings exist who know what a rock is. This is all extrapolated bullshit from the fact a rock is a rock only in your mind when you think it's a rock. Google something like "philosophy identity" and "ship of theseus" if you want to read something further.

>>11278454
Shut up.

>>11278473
>It's rockness comes entirely from someone knowing it's a rock.
So there are rocks with rockness and rocks without rockness?

>It is a bunch of molecules for exactly the same reason.
Ok, what do we have: bunch of molecules with "bunch-of-moleculesness" and bunch of molecules without "bunch-of-moleculesness". Does that make sense? I'm not sure.

>Further, I don't think that identity ever goes away until absolutely 0 beings exist who know what a rock is.
So every rock is a rock with rockness regardless of anyone knowing about it, right?

>This is all extrapolated bullshit from the fact a rock is a rock only in your mind when you think it's a rock.
If it's only in my mind, then there are rocks without rockness, I'm confused.

>Google something like "philosophy identity" and "ship of theseus" if you want to read something further.
So there's no such thing as a "ship of theseus", right? Only the parts that the imaginary "ship" is made of. Ok, let me read the article.

>>11278533
Consider the possibility that you're not tripping me up or finding fault in my logic, but that you're just asking a whole plethora of stupid questions.

>>11278542
You are making me ask those questions. Like imagine some algorithm that if you say "A" it generates a sequence of items "A-1", "A-2", "A-3", ... "A-100".

You said "B", "C" and you got "B-1", "B-2", "B-3", ... "B-100", "C-1", "C-2", "C-3", ..., "C-100".

So what are you surprised about? And what is the problem?

>>11278583
And of course there is a possibility that you are contradicting yourself and you know it or don't know it.

>>11278594
I'm not sure because there is a possibility that I didn't get some nuances of english language.

>>11277856
>Is language a social construct?

yes.

>>11278122
Correct. The internet and society needed to agree that they are separate constructs that wish to merge language for simplicity and efficiency purposes.

Welcome everyone, to 4chan-English.

I'm not a linguist or anything but it's starting to amaze me how we are able to communicate any idea to each other when the meaning of words is so up to interpretations and reliant on intellectual honesty.
For example the whole gender debate strikes me as a purely semantics debate and you see how the flexible nature of language can be abused cause one side claims since there is a tiny bit of overlap on the edges between two categories, it means those two categories do not exist and it's all a continuum.
How can you even solve issues like this through discourse? It just feels like the meanings and definitions get culturally enforced and they become the new "truths". It's not like math where it's like "according to my calculations 1+1 is 2".

>>11278190
its not but genetically determined immutable unequally distributed cognitive traits like general intelligence are, desu

>>11278745
Hello, fellow ascendant Time God that gifts all Teaching for Free.

How ya doing? Heavy shit, amirite? Anyway, this is just me giving you a pat on the back for coming back once to show me, "HOWZAT?!"

>Translation, "How was that possible?"

ass

>>11278915
Is the nominative explanation for the majority of things when humans are unable to gender their argument.

e.g. this shitpost is the shittest example of a shitshow that I've ever shat on.

>>11277856

It's like asking if languages existed before societies came to be. And then it comes back to your definition of a language.
If grunts can constitute a language, then no, but if you require more complex rules and vocabulary which can express things like abstract ideas, then yes, becayse it is learned.


I know this is a simplistic answer that's most likely wrong, but I only thought about this for a few minutes, will think more then come back.

Tesla - Light, Sound, Sanskrit
https://videos.utahgunexchange.com/watch/tesla-light-sound-sanskrit_uI3uwzTuznKZWS2.html

Elder Futhark – The Secrets Of The Runes
http://esotericawakening.com/elder-futhark-the-secrets-of-the-runes

>>11277866
You're assuming language has inherent meaning. It doesn't. Languages are literally memes. New language will develop faster than you think.

>>11277866
>>11277863
Language would develop from babies without the input of a preexisting language so long as you have more than 1. If you have 1 then it will not get the input to develop language, it can understand concepts and speak but it's grammatical faculty will not have developed. Or maybe it wouldn't and biologically we are reliant on passing on language to each generation and if this is broken it has a chance of not returning. I don't believe this though. You put two humans together and they'll naturally socialise, and from the socialising a language will be born because a medium is needed.

It's probable that the phonology of such a language will be far more complicated than any in existence today, because it's being built on their sporadic behaviour as babies and not yet subject to the refinement of generations and sound changes. The grammar would also be pretty alien but it's really hard to say which direction it'd go. Honestly might just be a fluke of the environment and their behaviour, that is it could go anywhere (from nothing) but wouldn't resemble any language today (because they are a chain of hundreds of thousands of years). You probably wouldn't have too many affixes which are often used to form new words (un-, -ness, -ise, etc.) instead each would be a separate root with little or no derivation. It's grammar would be highly irregular too as the complexity of literally just making stuff up to communicate as you go along produces a language that is very hard to capture in neat rules.

>>11277917
>>11277920
>>11278436
There are absolutely limits to language and almost certainly an underlying brain faculty that handles it separately. Some even say it's, in a straightforward biological sense, just taking an innate language in the brain and applying learned limitations to it or perhaps configurations.

>>11277980
It doesn't. Pronouns don't exist in most languages by your European-language understanding of them. In most language they're just nouns conventionally used with person. That's why they change a lot (from generations and regions), and more importantly have a lot of semantic information. 'I' in English is little different to conjugating a verb for 1st person singular, it's entirely grammatical rather than semantic. This is not so for the various Japanese or Indonesian 'pronouns' that can be conventionally used as 1stperson singular 'pronouns'. These 'pronouns' act exactly like any other noun. Whereas they're distinct in other languages (such as English). Some of this semantic content remains in or resurfaces in formal/informal distinctions.

>>11278533
Fine. Try not to fall into the "He has an answer for everything; HE must be the one that's wrong here," lol
>So there are rocks with rockness and rocks without rockness?
Rockness coming entirely from the mind does not imply anything objective, i.e. neither that there are rocks without rockness, nor even rocks with rockness. And rocks without rockness is entirely nonsensical, i.e. them being "rocks" is their rockness. Identity is subjective.
>Ok, what do we have: bunch of molecules with "bunch-of-moleculesness" and bunch of molecules without "bunch-of-moleculesness". Does that make sense? I'm not sure.
I'm still convinced everything forward is an attempt at an argumentum ad absurdum. Ya, when one chooses to define anything, e.g. p is q, you could say you have pness and qness, but this seems to make things arbitrarily linguistically complicated.
>So every rock is a rock with rockness regardless of anyone knowing about it, right?
...no. At the least, if at least one person knows about "it," the rock has rockness, i.e. I don't think it need be directly observed. Whether is does or doesn't need to be directly observed doesn't seem to be of any consequence.
>If it's only in my mind, then there are rocks without rockness, I'm confused.
Assumes rocks can still somehow exist without rockness. What I've been trying to say is that rocks and rockness are equivalent, i.e. there are no "rocks" without rockness. When they're rockness isn't assigned by some mind, they cease to exist as "rocks." The only thing this could imply about noumenal or objective reality is that there, things aren't categorized into things and don't have names.
>So there's no such thing as a "ship of theseus", right?
That problem presupposes there is such a thing, and is merely concerned with under what conditions is ship of theseusness not maintained. About this problem, I think the "new" ship is the ship of theseus only if someone thinks it is.
>but what if someone disagrees
>>>/elsewhere/

>>11278533
Fine. Try not to fall into the "He has an answer for everything; HE must be the one that's wrong here," lol
>So there are rocks with rockness and rocks without rockness?
Rockness coming entirely from the mind does not imply anything objective, i.e. neither that there are rocks without rockness, nor even rocks with rockness. And rocks without rockness is entirely nonsensical, i.e. them being "rocks" is their rockness. Identity is subjective.
>Ok, what do we have: bunch of molecules with "bunch-of-moleculesness" and bunch of molecules without "bunch-of-moleculesness". Does that make sense? I'm not sure.
I'm still convinced everything forward is an attempt at an argumentum ad absurdum. Ya, when one chooses to define anything, e.g. p is q, you could say you have pness and qness, but this seems to make things arbitrarily linguistically complicated.
>So every rock is a rock with rockness regardless of anyone knowing about it, right?
...no. At the least, if at least one person knows about "it," the rock has rockness, i.e. I don't think it need be directly observed. Whether it does or doesn't need be directly observed doesn't seem to be of any consequence.
>If it's only in my mind, then there are rocks without rockness, I'm confused.
You're assuming rocks can still somehow exist without rockness. What I've been trying to say is that rocks and rockness are equivalent, i.e. there are no "rocks" without rockness. When they're rockness isn't assigned by some mind, they cease to exist as "rocks." The only thing this could imply about noumenal or objective reality is that there, things aren't categorized into things and don't have names.
>So there's no such thing as a "ship of theseus", right?
That problem presupposes there is such a thing, and is merely concerned with under what conditions ship of theseusness is not maintained. About this problem, I think the "new" ship is the ship of theseus only if someone thinks it is.
>but what if someone disagrees
>>>/elsewhere/

>>11278533
Try not to fall into the "He has an answer for everything; HE must be the one that's wrong here," lol
>So there are rocks with rockness and rocks without rockness?
Rockness coming entirely from the mind does not imply anything objective, i.e. neither that there are rocks without rockness, nor even necessarily rocks with rockness. And rocks without rockness is entirely nonsensical, i.e. them being "rocks" is their rockness. Identity is subjective.
>Ok, what do we have: bunch of molecules with "bunch-of-moleculesness" and bunch of molecules without "bunch-of-moleculesness". Does that make sense? I'm not sure.
I'm still convinced everything forward is an attempt at an argumentum ad absurdum. Ya, when one chooses to define anything, e.g. p is q, you could say you have pness and qness, but this seems to make things arbitrarily linguistically complicated.
>So every rock is a rock with rockness regardless of anyone knowing about it, right?
...no. At the least, if at least one person knows about "it," the rock has rockness, i.e. I don't think it need be directly observed. Whether it does or doesn't need be directly observed doesn't seem to be of any consequence.
>If it's only in my mind, then there are rocks without rockness, I'm confused.
You assume rocks can still somehow exist without rockness. What I've been trying to say is that rocks and rockness are equivalent, i.e. there are no "rocks" without rockness. When they're rockness isn't assigned by some mind, they cease to exist as "rocks." The only thing this could imply about noumenal or objective reality is that there, things aren't categorized into things and don't have names.
>So there's no such thing as a "ship of theseus", right?
That problem presupposes there is such a thing, and is merely concerned with under what conditions ship of theseusness is not maintained. About this problem, I think the "new" ship is the ship of theseus only if someone thinks it is.
>but what if someone disagrees
>>>/elsewhere/

>>11277891
This is why you drop acid so you can be free from language thought for some hours.

ass

>>11280264
Is the nominative explanation for the majority of things when humans are unable to gender their argument.

e.g. this shitpost is the shittest example of a shitshow that I've ever shat on.

>Signed ~Always-Always, PayMeOnlyInOrWithMemeMagic~

THE REEEEEMIIIIIX!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_aKuVAtYgv4

>>11277916
Read Wittgenstein. Private languages aren't real.

>>11280277
>Signed ~Always-Always, PayMeOnlyInOrWithMemeMagic~

>>11278454
didn't read.
Stopped at
>and anyone taking part in it needs to have a large rock thrown at their head.
then continues to take part in it.
what a faggot

>>11278122
It's more noticeable now with social media and new crossroads. I've noticed how Tijuana (a city close to the border) is changing because of its integration of English-speaking people. They've been creating more gentrified areas filled with English posters and everything, further integrating another society into this majority Spanish-speaking city.

>>11279342
>Or maybe it wouldn't and biologically we are reliant on passing on language to each generation and if this is broken it has a chance of not returning.

i think this is the case. it would take many, many generations to recover. your language structure is impressed upon you during development. eventually a language would emerge out of necessity and the desire to communicate complex thoughts and ideas, but this sort of emergence is a completely different process.

>>11279342
>It's grammar would be highly irregular too as the complexity of literally just making stuff up to communicate as you go along produces a language that is very hard to capture in neat rules.

i'd have guessed the opposite. a new language without any "legacy cruft".

ASS

butteboy is ready for school

>>11277863
> A natural construct
Yes. It is hardwired into the human mind. Something to do with evolutionary psychology.

>>11282803
>evolutionary psychology.
Combining two bullshit fields doesn't make the bullshit cancel out.

ass

>>11283627
U FRONTIN' SON?!

>>11278038

Racists accuse people of believing in 'MuH tAbUlA rAsA' for, ironically, countering with the arguments of nurture