Make me think maybe "liberation" in some east meditation practice is partly rewiring language to induce altered state of consciousness... Maybe it's as or more important than meditation in some way. Don't know. But I wonder for some time on that matter.
Awesome endeavor. There are two big questions that you will need to eventually answer: how functionally fixed is our brain and how fixed is our linguistic system? And these are, of course, potentially mutually dependent. Have we evolved to communicate a certain way or is our current mode of communication (and at least linguistic thinking) an artifact that is malleable?
My own view is that however language got here, it's an extraordinarily rich and complex structure that is not likely to be replicated in completely different ways. The LLMs have shown us how much the inherent structure in the existing corpus of language matters (it's the whole thing!) so even if we tried to learn radically new forms of language, I very much doubt they will reach anything like the computational power of natural languages. That's like asking a kid doing a science fair project with some spare parts to recreate a nuclear submarine. That being said, we might be bale to glom on to the existing richness of lanagueg and insert additional 'words', like smells, that can bootstrap off of the existing structure. I personally believe that is a more fruitful avenie to explore. But most importantly, keep exploring!
But yes, for now I do believe the mind and linguistic system are much more malleable than we usually assume.
I have many ideas about this whole thing. But trying to build and implement them into a specific practice like the olfactory language helps me make sense of them more.
We'll have to save the discussion for an upcoming Polymath Salon!
Make me think maybe "liberation" in some east meditation practice is partly rewiring language to induce altered state of consciousness... Maybe it's as or more important than meditation in some way. Don't know. But I wonder for some time on that matter.
Awesome endeavor. There are two big questions that you will need to eventually answer: how functionally fixed is our brain and how fixed is our linguistic system? And these are, of course, potentially mutually dependent. Have we evolved to communicate a certain way or is our current mode of communication (and at least linguistic thinking) an artifact that is malleable?
My own view is that however language got here, it's an extraordinarily rich and complex structure that is not likely to be replicated in completely different ways. The LLMs have shown us how much the inherent structure in the existing corpus of language matters (it's the whole thing!) so even if we tried to learn radically new forms of language, I very much doubt they will reach anything like the computational power of natural languages. That's like asking a kid doing a science fair project with some spare parts to recreate a nuclear submarine. That being said, we might be bale to glom on to the existing richness of lanagueg and insert additional 'words', like smells, that can bootstrap off of the existing structure. I personally believe that is a more fruitful avenie to explore. But most importantly, keep exploring!
But yes, for now I do believe the mind and linguistic system are much more malleable than we usually assume.
I have many ideas about this whole thing. But trying to build and implement them into a specific practice like the olfactory language helps me make sense of them more.
We'll have to save the discussion for an upcoming Polymath Salon!
professor barenholtz is lowkey cooking fr
Is there any unaltered state?
We're always altering states! I'll be talking about how we form a sense of continuity between changing states in a future post.
You might consider my 3 posts on How Language Works. They address some of your concerns. https://howardhertz.substack.com/p/how-does-language-work?r=18ndhf
This looks cool. I'll give it a read!
Sensory deprivation and advances in emotional literacy or comprehension. Personal anecdote to share about this at some point.
Re today’s AugLab meeting: “the medium is the message” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message