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Where else could language really come from besides appearing more or less spontaneously in the mind? All thought is like this. Is there a level of consciousnes

Where else could language really come from besides appearing more or less spontaneously in the mind? All thought is like this. Is there a level of consciousness prior to language that willfully assembles the next word out of more subtle mind stuff? There would be an infinite regress here.

siavosh 2y ago
I agree. In different traditions, it's this realization that there is no separate assembler of thoughts/words (to your point, the problem of who is the assembler of the assembler?) that is a key insight.
mocha_nate 2y ago
Exactly. In order to say a thought *wasn’t spontaneous* would mean that you thought something BEFORE you thought it.
- siavosh 2y ago
  You could even go further -- all actions are spontaneous...life is spontaneous.
  - MonkeyClub 2y ago
    Interestingly, it was this line of thinking that once upon a time led to the rejection of the idea of free will: a thought is caused by another, and that by another yet, and so on, so there is no free thought or deliberation. From that perspective, it was mentioned in this Russell Ackoff talk that recently emerged on HN: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yGN5DBpW93g https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yGN5DBpW93g
lmm 2y ago
> Is there a level of consciousness prior to language that willfully assembles the next word out of more subtle mind stuff? There would be an infinite regress here. What? No, it's not infinite. Thoughts are more fundamental than language, you can absolutely have a thought and then struggle to express it in language (indeed this is a pretty common experience). For an experienced writer or speaker the translation from thought to language may be so smooth as to almost disappear (to the point they may not even be conscious of it), but it's still happening.
- aradox66 2y ago
  Ok great! So where does the pre-language thought come from? Does that one spontaneously appear, or is it too assembled from even more subtle mind stuff by a conscious agent? Once in possession of a pre-language thought, how does a conscious agent craft it into language? Does it open an internal dictionary and find the best fit? Are the dictionary entries appearing spontaneously or are they too conjured agentically somehow? You can't keep going asserting a conscious, agentic process at every level. At some point you have to concede that what is available to a conscious agent is being offered by totally unconscious, "spontaneous" processes
  - lmm 2y ago
    Thoughts appear spontaneously (at least some of the time) as far as one's consciousness is concerned, sure. But language and sentences don't. That's all I'm claiming.

siavosh 2y ago

I agree. In different traditions, it's this realization that there is no separate assembler of thoughts/words (to your point, the problem of who is the assembler of the assembler?) that is a key insight.

mocha_nate 2y ago

Exactly. In order to say a thought *wasn’t spontaneous* would mean that you thought something BEFORE you thought it.

siavosh 2y ago
You could even go further -- all actions are spontaneous...life is spontaneous.
- MonkeyClub 2y ago
  Interestingly, it was this line of thinking that once upon a time led to the rejection of the idea of free will: a thought is caused by another, and that by another yet, and so on, so there is no free thought or deliberation. From that perspective, it was mentioned in this Russell Ackoff talk that recently emerged on HN: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yGN5DBpW93g https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yGN5DBpW93g

lmm 2y ago

> Is there a level of consciousness prior to language that willfully assembles the next word out of more subtle mind stuff? There would be an infinite regress here. What? No, it's not infinite. Thoughts are more fundamental than language, you can absolutely have a thought and then struggle to express it in language (indeed this is a pretty common experience). For an experienced writer or speaker the translation from thought to language may be so smooth as to almost disappear (to the point they may not even be conscious of it), but it's still happening.

aradox66 2y ago
Ok great! So where does the pre-language thought come from? Does that one spontaneously appear, or is it too assembled from even more subtle mind stuff by a conscious agent? Once in possession of a pre-language thought, how does a conscious agent craft it into language? Does it open an internal dictionary and find the best fit? Are the dictionary entries appearing spontaneously or are they too conjured agentically somehow? You can't keep going asserting a conscious, agentic process at every level. At some point you have to concede that what is available to a conscious agent is being offered by totally unconscious, "spontaneous" processes
- lmm 2y ago
  Thoughts appear spontaneously (at least some of the time) as far as one's consciousness is concerned, sure. But language and sentences don't. That's all I'm claiming.