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A mockingbird of what? We invented language as a communication and survival tool. What would we be mocking? The world?

by goatlover 4y ago

russdill 4y ago
A human raised without language does not invent it on their own.
- tialaramex 4y ago
  For ethical reasons we can't do this as a controlled experiment but actually I believe the assumption is that humans not exposed to language will spontaneously produce a proto-language. A subsequent generation of humans exposed only to the proto-language would refine that into a full blown language with a proper grammar and so on. Profoundly deaf children in deprived areas with no exposure to whatever local sign language is dominant will sign spontaneously, and their parents, who have a language the child can't use, will learn rudimentary signs from the child. Again ethical considerations forbid experimenting on such children.
runnerup 4y ago
Each other, mostly. But yes also our environment. Most humans’ social/conversational speech appears to be little more than a Markov chain. From schoolchildren to restaurant workers to office workers…there’s generally accepted call-and-response chains which for some groups form 90+% of the communication. And that’s not counting the nonverbal communication, most of which is as original as breathing. Even people who spend their lives practicing nonverbal communication still mostly just pattern match in the moment using a wider variety of postures, facial expressions, and gestures than the average person. Even the seemingly original discussion in the final 10% is also almost entirely copied from others. I myself only come up with about one truly creative thing per month, it seems like. Usually it’s a micro optimization like “oh this workflow in my kitchen can be improved with a hook to hang that here.” Or rearranging some furniture better. Sometimes it’s a good business idea. But it’s usually just a very small step forward from the current state of things, no grand plan for multi-stage changes. Most days I do the same things as some previous day, with just a tiny bit of random walk in my routine and assess whether the small changes were any better.

A mockingbird of what? We invented language as a communication and survival tool. What would we be mocking? The world?

russdill 4y ago

A human raised without language does not invent it on their own.

tialaramex 4y ago
For ethical reasons we can't do this as a controlled experiment but actually I believe the assumption is that humans not exposed to language will spontaneously produce a proto-language. A subsequent generation of humans exposed only to the proto-language would refine that into a full blown language with a proper grammar and so on. Profoundly deaf children in deprived areas with no exposure to whatever local sign language is dominant will sign spontaneously, and their parents, who have a language the child can't use, will learn rudimentary signs from the child. Again ethical considerations forbid experimenting on such children.

runnerup 4y ago

Each other, mostly. But yes also our environment. Most humans’ social/conversational speech appears to be little more than a Markov chain. From schoolchildren to restaurant workers to office workers…there’s generally accepted call-and-response chains which for some groups form 90+% of the communication. And that’s not counting the nonverbal communication, most of which is as original as breathing. Even people who spend their lives practicing nonverbal communication still mostly just pattern match in the moment using a wider variety of postures, facial expressions, and gestures than the average person. Even the seemingly original discussion in the final 10% is also almost entirely copied from others. I myself only come up with about one truly creative thing per month, it seems like. Usually it’s a micro optimization like “oh this workflow in my kitchen can be improved with a hook to hang that here.” Or rearranging some furniture better. Sometimes it’s a good business idea. But it’s usually just a very small step forward from the current state of things, no grand plan for multi-stage changes. Most days I do the same things as some previous day, with just a tiny bit of random walk in my routine and assess whether the small changes were any better.