Reflections cont'd (3)

[Mark P. Line]

Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman wrote:
> Mark,
> Why don't you spend a week or two reading Carol Fowler's carefully planned
> and
> executed scientific research on the matter and report back to us?  Start
> with
> her chapter in the latest edition of Handbook of Speech Perception (a
> little
> pricey, sorry, it just came out) and work backward for about the last 25
> years.  Also, take a few grad level proseminars in the psychology of
> perception, memory and cognition regarding the relationship between
> experience
> and mental images.  They do not even have to be graduate level:400-level
> undergraduate courses will do.
>   Also look at the research on Motor Theory, mirror neurons regarding how
> even
> seeing others execute speech and motor actions inform our language
> articulation
> and physical actions.  Any elementary sociological study on the effect of
> television, any baseline study on memory will provide the evidence that
> you
> need. Combine this with a refresher course in research methods, and then
> see
> if you will still be making the same claims in this space. That is not to
> say
> that mental images as those in dreams cannot be creative, as language is
> creative, but we have a creative capacity to build on our experiences.
>   My apologies for losing my patience--but linguists who shoot from the
> hip
> without reading for the background they need are one of my pet peeves.
> --
> Diane Lesley-Neuman, M. Ed.
> Linguistics Department
> Institute for Cognitive Science
> University of Colorado at Boulder
>
>
> Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark at polymathix.com>:
>
>> Interesting response.
>>
>> Does that mean you're not going to try to rebut my point about direct
>> realism being unfalsifiable? I don't blame you, since it's something
>> that
>> I consider unchanged since the days of Thomas Reid and David Hume. I
>> believe that if people in the related fields of psychology,
>> psycholinguistics, speech, hearing and cognitive science had gotten
>> themselves up to speed on ideas that were tried and discarded for good
>> reason in the 18th century, they wouldn't be wasting time and money
>> trying
>> to make them work today.
>>
>>
>> -- Mark
>>
>> P.S. You are in fact preaching to the choir about low scientific
>> standards
>> in linguistics. I was harping on that over thirty years ago, and
>> ultimately left linguistics for a while partly because of the lack of
>> any
>> signs of improvement.
>>
>> P.P.S. Undergraduates know exactly what you're talking about because
>> they've been indoctrinated to your system of beliefs. That's not much of
>> an argument either, is it?
>>
>>
>> Mark P. Line
>> Polymathix
>> San Antonio, TX
>>
>>
>>
>> Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman wrote:
>> > Mark,
>> > People in the related fields of psychology, psycholinguistics, speech
>> and
>> > hearing do it all of the time. Even undergraduates in these fields
>> manage
>> > these research paradigms, execute projects and know exactly what I am
>> > talking about. You simply are not familiar with the literature, and
>> you
>> > are calling things nonsense without reading anything, which is an easy
>> > thing to get away with in linguistics, because of the low scientific
>> > standards in our field.
>> > Linguistics as a field can no longer afford the luxury of remaining
>> > willfully ignorant of research that applies to their theories and
>> their
>> > professional practice, in order to maintain their autonomy in a war
>> over
>> > political turf.  Because this behavior causes us to lose ground
>> > scientifically, and dictates funding priorities of university
>> programs.
>> > Eventually, linguistics programs will lose their standing and
>> > credibility, be unfunded or so underfunded as to lose their autonomy,
>> > because of their intellectually and scientifically backward behavior.
>> > --
>> > Diane Lesley-Neuman, M. Ed.
>> > Linguistics Department
>> > Institute for Cognitive Science
>> > University of Colorado at Boulder
>> >
>> >
>> > Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark at polymathix.com>:
>> >
>> >> Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman wrote:
>> >> > You are calling upon concepts and images built and generated by
>> >> > experience.
>> >>
>> >> That's a pretty hard claim to substantiate, isn't it?
>> >>
>> >> In any event, the point is that it doesn't make much sense that
>> >> perception
>> >> would evolve to work independently of all this magnificent ability to
>> >> construct images of anything on the fly, and that an hypothesis that
>> it
>> >> has done so anyway would be unfalsifiable.
>> >>
>> >> -- Mark
>> >>
>> >> Mark P. Line
>> >> Polymathix
>> >> San Antonio, TX
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> > Quoting "Mark P. Line" <mark at polymathix.com>:
>> >> >
>> >> >> Diane Frances Lesley-Neuman wrote:
>> >> >> > "Reality makes language intelligible.""Language makes reality
>> >> >> > intelligible."
>> >> >> > How about Carol Fowler and Direct Realism?
>> >> >>
>> >> >> I can see images in my mind when I hallucinate, and there's no
>> direct
>> >> >> realism involved. I can see images in my mind when I imagine a
>> scene
>> >> >> with
>> >> >> my eyes closed, and there's no direct realism involved. Why would
>> I
>> >> want
>> >> >> to postulate that there's anything special, much less more direct
>> or
>> >> >> more
>> >> >> realistic, about perception? If direct realists had any *evidence*
>> of
>> >> >> something special, they wouldn't have to postulate it.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >
>> >
>>
>>
>> -- Mark
>>
>> Mark P. Line
>> Polymathix
>> San Antonio, TX
>>
>
>


-- Mark

Mark P. Line
Polymathix
San Antonio, TX