Animals play. I was reading an article about how they play, and as intriguing as the material was, I couldn't help but shake my head a little. Really, how long is it going to be before we start to recognize officially that animals think and feel? That they behave in ways incredibly similar to humans for a reason? Despite the fact that animals and humans have many of the same behaviors and make similar choices in many everyday activities, when will humanity start to accept en masse that we're not that different from other species?
Yes, there are certain ways in which we are more advanced; I'm going to try to figure out how to replicate those types of advantages and see if it's feasible, so I definitely acknowledge that they're there. But the physiological difference between us and other animals isn't that great.
Consider this: most of the evolution of humanity has happened in the absence of strong natural selection. The most severe selective forces are intraspecific. What changed between the time that we were living in grassy plains and now is not biological - it is artificial, the development of society and the refinement of our memetic makeup. This is evidenced by the fact that peoples from all around the world are capable of learning and doing essentially the same things, despite long times of separation between many of those different cultures. (Saying otherwise is considered racist.) It is unreasonable to assume that the subtle genetic differences between us and animals are anything more than a point beyond a threshold, to which we and they are both very close.
Sure, we can communicate how our consciousness works to other people and we have thus mapped out through literature, philosophy, religion, etc. a huge amount of human consciousness. But imagine we hadn't had those opportunities to explore ourselves and share the discoveries with others. Imagine we just didn't have language, and picture yourself as an outsider, documenting the behavior of humanity. Humans would behave in exactly the same way that nonhuman animals do, which would still be remarkably complex and interesting, but we would not have nearly the same constructs that we do now. There would not nearly be the same kind of intercommunication between different groups/tribes/villages, and life would be so much simpler. We would be directly comparable to animals in that the information required to make more complex material and social structures would not exist. But we would still have the intelligence necessary to do all of it - all we would need is to break the threshold of speech. The motivations would be the same, but we wouldn't have the same systems of realizing those desires, and the same systems of regulation that restrains many of our natural urges.
Truly, language is the key to obtaining society. Humans are not so unique by having it that one cannot imagine other species joining our elite club of personhood. How to obtain language is the gaping hole in my argument. What that capacity comprises in the brain and physiology of the throat, mouth, and nose is beyond me. Hopefully we can learn more about these capacities by doing some research into birds that can allegedly speak, identifying the physiological and neurological features that allow them to do this, then comparing and contrasting them with humans' own speech tools. Then, in combination with the genetic technologies that are already undoubtedly being developed for use in gene therapy, genetic engineering, and all the other great things that increase the human lifespan, we will be able to share the gift of language with our Earthly neighbors and make an incredibly cosmopolitan society.
Saturday, March 3, 2012
Monday, February 27, 2012
Ode to my Universe
The sun never sets, the sun never rises. Our world spins endlessly around as we all try to find our places, never to touch the immutable and still. Not one person will ever find their true place, as the place they inhabit will never stay the same. Among other things, truly living is having a place in the no-place of all places. Being vigorously alive requires us to interact with our world as if it is brand new with every spin of the planet, with every flick of the light switch.
The Universe is my home and my deity. The world is my bedroom, and all matter my pillow. My nightstand is the black night sky, where I place my astral headphones. I listen, I feel, and I sense what passes by me. My inner voice communes with my environment, and my mind acts as diplomat between the world and the true me. I have few values; my values are my passions. I befriend people from all walks of life. I love and respect everybody and everything, even the people I aggressively hate. I resonate with everything genuine and alive, especially those who are different from me. I try to be like everybody in their best ways, which makes me unique. Nobody knows who I know, or what I know about who I know, so nobody can become what is me.
Tonight, I will sleep. Tonight, I will wake up. Tonight I will spend years, I will become wise, I will laugh, I will ingrain myself into the Universe until I can feel my roots spread across its entirety. As I owe everything to the Universe, I will join it.
The Universe is my home and my deity. The world is my bedroom, and all matter my pillow. My nightstand is the black night sky, where I place my astral headphones. I listen, I feel, and I sense what passes by me. My inner voice communes with my environment, and my mind acts as diplomat between the world and the true me. I have few values; my values are my passions. I befriend people from all walks of life. I love and respect everybody and everything, even the people I aggressively hate. I resonate with everything genuine and alive, especially those who are different from me. I try to be like everybody in their best ways, which makes me unique. Nobody knows who I know, or what I know about who I know, so nobody can become what is me.
Tonight, I will sleep. Tonight, I will wake up. Tonight I will spend years, I will become wise, I will laugh, I will ingrain myself into the Universe until I can feel my roots spread across its entirety. As I owe everything to the Universe, I will join it.
Thursday, February 2, 2012
Phonemes, in General
(housekeeping) So, after a few weeks of classes, I've settled into my new semester. I think I've also got a pretty good routine that will keep me going throughout the semester. Actually, I'm almost bored with the amount of work that I have in my classes. I may be in class or commuting the majority of the day, but I still feel really good most of the time - in health and in spirit. That's probably a sign that I'm doing the right things. Having so much going on in my life keeps me engaged, getting my gears turning in linguistics and neuropsychology. I'm starting to put a few pieces together for my master plan:
In general, I'm trying to figure out how I can apply human linguistic analysis to a non-human model. There is much variation in human languages, but they follow certain general principles in many cases. All the same, those principles are not laws, and language can work in many fundamentally different ways. Just two years ago, linguists discovered a completely new sound producible by the human vocal apparatus (can't find specifics).
+
"Some of the click-using languages of Africa had more than 100 phonemes, while Hawaii, New Zealand Maori and other Polynesian languages had only 13.
English had 45 phonemes." (Michael Field)
+
People can discriminate between multitudes of sounds unrelated to language, and gaining the ability to identify individual sounds is as simple as being a baby. Most learning of language comes passively, as humans adapt to fit the sound structures they observe in their lives into their brain as a language. Well, as a specific language. Any baby can learn any language, so the ability to learn language is pretty nonspecific to which language is being learned.
The hypothesis that I have so far is this: identifying and recreating the genetic structure of the brain that allows for language should equal to finding a general function of the brain as opposed to a hyper specific one. That makes things more feasible. It may also make things more difficult - if it is hard to isolate which genetic structures code for the language system, say because it's too interrelated to other complex pathways, then it will be a nightmare trying to elucidate the mechanisms responsible for language.
(this is almost a hypothesis about my undergraduate education as opposed to what research needs to be done. I don't really know what is known by science, so I don't know how much of the above questions are redundant with textbooks about this stuff.)
One more important hypothesis I have is that, for whatever language a nonhuman animal used, it would most likely be comprehensible by humans if it could be divided into phonemes. Likewise, if the same cognitive capacity for language that humans have were to be hardwired into the brain of a nonhuman animal, then they would be able to interpret any comprehensible, structured set of phonemes that humans could produce.
In general, I'm trying to figure out how I can apply human linguistic analysis to a non-human model. There is much variation in human languages, but they follow certain general principles in many cases. All the same, those principles are not laws, and language can work in many fundamentally different ways. Just two years ago, linguists discovered a completely new sound producible by the human vocal apparatus (can't find specifics).
+
"Some of the click-using languages of Africa had more than 100 phonemes, while Hawaii, New Zealand Maori and other Polynesian languages had only 13.
English had 45 phonemes." (Michael Field)
+
People can discriminate between multitudes of sounds unrelated to language, and gaining the ability to identify individual sounds is as simple as being a baby. Most learning of language comes passively, as humans adapt to fit the sound structures they observe in their lives into their brain as a language. Well, as a specific language. Any baby can learn any language, so the ability to learn language is pretty nonspecific to which language is being learned.
The hypothesis that I have so far is this: identifying and recreating the genetic structure of the brain that allows for language should equal to finding a general function of the brain as opposed to a hyper specific one. That makes things more feasible. It may also make things more difficult - if it is hard to isolate which genetic structures code for the language system, say because it's too interrelated to other complex pathways, then it will be a nightmare trying to elucidate the mechanisms responsible for language.
(this is almost a hypothesis about my undergraduate education as opposed to what research needs to be done. I don't really know what is known by science, so I don't know how much of the above questions are redundant with textbooks about this stuff.)
One more important hypothesis I have is that, for whatever language a nonhuman animal used, it would most likely be comprehensible by humans if it could be divided into phonemes. Likewise, if the same cognitive capacity for language that humans have were to be hardwired into the brain of a nonhuman animal, then they would be able to interpret any comprehensible, structured set of phonemes that humans could produce.
Friday, January 20, 2012
Stress Relief
[This entry is primarily therapeutic, so don't bother reading it. BUT this Sunday, I'll share some interesting information - I have a few things I learned about linguistics that I want to document.]
Well, I've been busy. I should get this boring stuff off my chest for one last time so I can stop telling people the same story over and over. I have a bad habit of talking about the nitty-gritty details of my life in extensive detail, and it frankly resembles the kind of incessantness that irks me. Still, there's no way I'm completely ridding myself of the need to tell stories, so I'll tell the story but keep it short.
:
In trying to exceed the credit limit, I corroborated with some old teachers, put together an argument, and e-mailed the dean of first-year students. She refused to hear my argument on the assumptive grounds that freshmen are incapable of transitioning to college work in less than a year. Well, I don't party, I don't really spend much time having fun when I have work to do, and I am good at reading and thinking on my own. In other words, I'm already a college student. I'm frankly -
(Okay, that's not short. ~author set.rant=0)
- I sent an e-mail tonight to another dean to try to get more comprehensive advice and to get communication going between me and the other parties I've involved. Now I wait.
(That's better.)
I bought my books today, too, which meant I spent almost no time at home. I've done this all week, pretty much of my own volition. I find it's quite fun to meander around the Rutgers campus, studying wherever I please, meeting up with friends all over the place. Makes me feel like my home is bigger than ever. Forget the provincial confines of my room, I have two cities to lounge about, including free transportation!
The greatest advantage to never going home is that I get to really spend time working. Last semester, I swear, two ten minute bus rides to and from my dorm take up an hour in college time. Significant drag. As long as I find places in which I enjoy studying, I'll be good to hit the ground running. I found one place in the Busch student center, and that'll probably be my number one study lounge. Of course, there's always Alexander library before linguistics, and my double single whenever I'm home. In my experience, it's best to have one desk for the computer and one desk for the work. Or at least don't keep the computer where you work. Or just get rid of the computer, which is half of my strategy. No more Skyrim means I work (out - but not really).
Overall, I'm trying out stress management strategies that seem to be working. Besides having great friends that I can hang out with, my favorite strategies so far are organizing my desk and planning out when I do all of my work for all of my classes, as well as when I get to do fun stuff like blog and mix. It gives me less to worry about. ...Well, at least it will once I have the ability to make that schedule. Not knowing what my classes are like makes it a wee bit harder to do that. Oh well :/
But really, I do have some interesting things to compile for an entry this weekend. Note to self - don't forget it.
Well, I've been busy. I should get this boring stuff off my chest for one last time so I can stop telling people the same story over and over. I have a bad habit of talking about the nitty-gritty details of my life in extensive detail, and it frankly resembles the kind of incessantness that irks me. Still, there's no way I'm completely ridding myself of the need to tell stories, so I'll tell the story but keep it short.
:
In trying to exceed the credit limit, I corroborated with some old teachers, put together an argument, and e-mailed the dean of first-year students. She refused to hear my argument on the assumptive grounds that freshmen are incapable of transitioning to college work in less than a year. Well, I don't party, I don't really spend much time having fun when I have work to do, and I am good at reading and thinking on my own. In other words, I'm already a college student. I'm frankly -
(Okay, that's not short. ~author set.rant=0)
- I sent an e-mail tonight to another dean to try to get more comprehensive advice and to get communication going between me and the other parties I've involved. Now I wait.
(That's better.)
I bought my books today, too, which meant I spent almost no time at home. I've done this all week, pretty much of my own volition. I find it's quite fun to meander around the Rutgers campus, studying wherever I please, meeting up with friends all over the place. Makes me feel like my home is bigger than ever. Forget the provincial confines of my room, I have two cities to lounge about, including free transportation!
The greatest advantage to never going home is that I get to really spend time working. Last semester, I swear, two ten minute bus rides to and from my dorm take up an hour in college time. Significant drag. As long as I find places in which I enjoy studying, I'll be good to hit the ground running. I found one place in the Busch student center, and that'll probably be my number one study lounge. Of course, there's always Alexander library before linguistics, and my double single whenever I'm home. In my experience, it's best to have one desk for the computer and one desk for the work. Or at least don't keep the computer where you work. Or just get rid of the computer, which is half of my strategy. No more Skyrim means I work (out - but not really).
Overall, I'm trying out stress management strategies that seem to be working. Besides having great friends that I can hang out with, my favorite strategies so far are organizing my desk and planning out when I do all of my work for all of my classes, as well as when I get to do fun stuff like blog and mix. It gives me less to worry about. ...Well, at least it will once I have the ability to make that schedule. Not knowing what my classes are like makes it a wee bit harder to do that. Oh well :/
But really, I do have some interesting things to compile for an entry this weekend. Note to self - don't forget it.
Sunday, January 8, 2012
Speed Reading (in a sense)
A little tidbit about language processing.
There has been proposed a simple modular pathway between sensory input (shapes on a page, sound waves in the air). That's the modular processing model, which I'm going to skip over here. On to the more complete interactive processing model, which is informed by the actual architecture of the brain and specific studies:
When you read something, the shapes you see are translated from visual information into concepts. In lexical decision (choosing a word that matches visual input), this is bottom-to-top processing. Basically, when interpreting information, you have to choose a word from your mental dictionary, and the process begins with a prime (first letter & last letter, it would seem).
Simultaneously, there are synapses that send information from the conceptual level to narrow down what word you're perceiving. This way, you don't have to see every letter, or even every word, when you read something.
In other words, one way to save time when perceiving language is essentially to lessen the amount of information that you actually take in, and to increase the amount of higher level processing that contributes to lexical decision. Cool, right? More association cortex, less direct processing.
This could have implications. Do people read faster because they read less? Who learns better, the people who read slower and take in more information, or people who read faster and depend more on their association cortex?
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Lens of Existentialism
What is success? What is happiness? What makes a good person?
According to the existentialists, one man alone can answer these questions: you. You - who, because of masculine hegemony in the English language, are assumed to be a man - are the only one who can define good happy success.
For you. Good happy success for me is something completely different. I have a completely unique definition of good happy success that no other can replicate: to have and ethically fulfill a life mission.
So I have a life goal. I aim to do whatever is in my power to enable non-human animals to communicate with humans through language, or vice versa.
Next comes the fulfillment. There might be a few roadblocks. But those roadblocks mean nothing more than that my life won't be boring. As I begin my quest into linguistic neurogenetics, I think I should outline what I now believe to be all of the major roadblocks. I kind of want to make a time capsule of my naïveté.
1. Other species are physiologically incapable of using language.
2. Animals are neurologically incapable of using language.
3. Nobody wants talking animals around.
4. It's unethical to change too much of the physiology or neurology of another species.
If I cannot knock down these four pillars, then I will be forced to give up and find a new career. Or, find one in the first place, because I don't know what career I'm headed towards even with this mission.
Well, at least I know what I'm majoring in: genetics, linguistics, and psychology. That'll be super easy, doing three majors. It'll be like taking one major, but instead it'll be three. Same difference.
Now that that's taken care of... time to sit down to read about language from the perspective of a cognitive neuroscience textbook, and thus formally begin. With a cup of Sleepytime.
According to the existentialists, one man alone can answer these questions: you. You - who, because of masculine hegemony in the English language, are assumed to be a man - are the only one who can define good happy success.
For you. Good happy success for me is something completely different. I have a completely unique definition of good happy success that no other can replicate: to have and ethically fulfill a life mission.
So I have a life goal. I aim to do whatever is in my power to enable non-human animals to communicate with humans through language, or vice versa.
Next comes the fulfillment. There might be a few roadblocks. But those roadblocks mean nothing more than that my life won't be boring. As I begin my quest into linguistic neurogenetics, I think I should outline what I now believe to be all of the major roadblocks. I kind of want to make a time capsule of my naïveté.
1. Other species are physiologically incapable of using language.
2. Animals are neurologically incapable of using language.
3. Nobody wants talking animals around.
4. It's unethical to change too much of the physiology or neurology of another species.
If I cannot knock down these four pillars, then I will be forced to give up and find a new career. Or, find one in the first place, because I don't know what career I'm headed towards even with this mission.
Well, at least I know what I'm majoring in: genetics, linguistics, and psychology. That'll be super easy, doing three majors. It'll be like taking one major, but instead it'll be three. Same difference.
Now that that's taken care of... time to sit down to read about language from the perspective of a cognitive neuroscience textbook, and thus formally begin. With a cup of Sleepytime.
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