<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.2900.2722" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Sorry I missed the beginning of this conversation. Where can I get more
information about Gerald's theory?</DIV>
<DIV>Linda Bender<SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2> </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=687582617-13102005></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Just
to give you a general idea, below I have copied a few paragraphs out of the
introduction to "The Child's Secret of Learning." (published August,
2005)</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>Gerald
van Koeverden</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black"><FONT face="Times New Roman"><SPAN
class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2> " </FONT></SPAN>What is the child’s secret? The majority of
linguists are so dumbstruck by the enormity of the task of learning one’s first
language they have virtually washed their hands of the question and passed it on
to the biologists! They assert that it must be innate. Already, geneticists are
working on the idea that language originates in the genes, as though humans are
programmed with the right genetic “software” at conception and just need time to
mature and ripen with age.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns =
"urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><FONT color=#000000><FONT face="Times New Roman">Is
learning then only the gradual actualization of this software? What about all
our other skills like driving a car, writing poetry, or using a computer? How
did we learn them? Since the linguists have failed to discover the origin of
language in consciousness, it is up to the philosopher to at least ask the right
questions before abandoning the idea altogether. Through exploring the basic
structure and dynamics of language, can we rediscover it as the resolution of a
creative synthesis? Can it be shown that learning our first language, like any
other skill, is a personal work of art emerging from the interaction
of <SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2> brain</FONT></SPAN> and body as one integrating unit, in making one
“common sense” of the world?</FONT></FONT><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT
face=Arial><FONT size=2><SPAN class=687582617-13102005> <FONT
face="Times New Roman" color=#000000
size=3>"</FONT></SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=687582617-13102005></SPAN></FONT></FONT></FONT></SPAN> </P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt"><FONT color=#0000ff><FONT face=Arial><FONT size=2><SPAN
class=687582617-13102005> </SPAN><o:p></o:p></FONT></FONT></FONT></SPAN></P></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=687582617-13102005>
<DIV dir=ltr align=left>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black"><SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff size=2> " </FONT></SPAN>In <B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Part A</B>, we begin by exploring our
personal experience of everyday skills like driving a car, singing a song, and
doing arithmetic, before going on to the dynamics of insight in playing bingo
and the art of racing dune buggies. Then we can incorporate both emotions and
physics into our understanding of learning to type. This leads naturally into
the first chapter of <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Part B</B> on some
reflections about the nature of language as garnered through learning a second
one, and then two chapters on how a child even develops his or her first
language.<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; COLOR: black">With these basic images down, the reader
can move into <B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Part C</B>—the theoretical
part describing the functioning of our “operating system.” I have rooted this
quarrelsome quartet squarely in both the emotional and thinking centers of the
brain to catch all the inputs from the sensory organs as well as enable it to
motor into action. The artist is the “antenna” of the system, reveling in the
whole kaleidoscope of perceived and felt sensation. The theorist processes the
artist’s raw perceptions originating ideas, which in turn allows the empiricist
to be able to conceive the world and all the things in it. Finally, it is up to
the idealist—the “transmitter”—to choose the right purpose to bring them all
together and do something.<SPAN style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </SPAN>Instead
of there being only one type of creativity, we have
“four-into-one.”<o:p></o:p></SPAN></P>
<P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt; TEXT-INDENT: 0.5in"><SPAN
style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt">But having dissected the person into four parts of a
cycle, it is then difficult to see how all four can be active in one person at
once. That is why I developed a metaphor earlier in <B
style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal">Part B</B> on language. The basic sentence
provides us with an ideal framework. The artist’s spontaneous emotion fits the
felt energy of the “verb.” The theorist—our deep thinker—perceives the ideas for
the “subject” in which the empiricist can dwell to conceive and study her
“objects.” To complete it, the idealist provides the right intentions for the
“subject” as the agent of the action to motivate her to fulfillment in the right
aspirations for her “objective.” (For the sake of literary convenience, I have
made the artist and theorist male, and the empiricist and idealist female
throughout the book.) This basic structure and dynamics of the sentence is very
flexible. As young children, we invented it through struggling to make one
common sense out of the quartet of our operating system. As adults, we use it as
a template to accommodate all four characters separately, in various
combinations, or all four at once!<SPAN class=687582617-13102005><FONT
face=Arial color=#0000ff
size=2> " </FONT></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN></P></DIV></DIV></BODY></HTML>