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<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;" align="center"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">===========================================<br>
L O W L A N D S - L - 13 January 2009 - Volume 04<span style="color: rgb(102, 102, 102);"><br>
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<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 12pt;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
From: <span class="ep8xu"><span><span style="color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Mark Dreyer</span></span></span><span class="hccdpe"> </span><span class="ldacoc"><<a href="mailto:mrdreyer@lantic.net">mrdreyer@lantic.net</a>></span><br>
Subject: <span class="hccdpe">LL-L "Language programming" 2009.01.12
(06) [E]</span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(91, 16, 148);">Hi, Sandy:</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(91, 16, 148);"> </span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Subject: LL-L
"Language programming"</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">...my assurance that language 'programs' the Mind, to its
possessor's great advantage or otherwise.<br>
<br>
I don't believe it for a moment! Time to motivate your thesis if you can, Mark
:)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">I rather thought I had, in the following passage</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">...For a
modern example, until Einstein developed the concept of a 'Local Frame of
Reference', Classical Newtonian Physics was at a loss to explain phenomena
already subject to observation.<br>
<br>
But what's that got to do with language? The language involved (let's<br>
say German in Einstein's case?) has nothing to do with the concepts.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">I beg to
differ. It has everything to do with language, which after all if it is
anything at all it communicates information. Some languages can communicate
information more exactly than others, inevitably in cases specific to the
speaking community's experience: Jargon & technical language more so than
most. This is the reason, not to cast aspersions at the speakers, why English
has borrowed so extensively, in the perception that their native tongue did not
meet the needs of the new range of experience, & other languages (in
specific cases) did.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">If you were
saying that Newtonian physics couldn't explain the precession<br>
of Mercury's orbit because the explanation couldn't be expressed in<br>
English but Einstein managed to explain it because it could be expressed<br>
in German, then I might agree that language programs the mind. But it's<br>
not the case.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">
An excellent case in point. I had Mercury in mind at the time of writing. Well,
I would rather say that Einstein was constrained to develop an algorithm to
meet the needs of the data, & it was necessarily applicable in English
& German. Such as this becomes part of the 'word hoard' of a tongue, &
one that is so endowed is richer, more capable of communicating useful data,
than one that does not. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">
Bantu languages, for example, had no native term for the wheel, weaving,
masonry & much besides. This sort of thing is a material hurdle to
technical progress. The Great Missionary Moffat who translated the Bible into
Setswana reported he was repeatedly set back by conceptual lacunae such as
this. How can one, without the patient technical education of an entire
generation, simply report Jehu's wild charioteering to another whose entire
exposure to beasts of burden is limited to an ox towing a wooden sled over
rough ground? Or Queen Jesebel's defenestration to people who live in
huts? This sort of thing in a language without the necessary words! So you invent
a word: Meaningless, without diligently teaching & demonstrating to
enough teachers to carry the concept accurately across to the rest. To this day
a pastor in Setswana is 'Morutisi' - (teacher). A man who cannot communicate a
need in his native language is seriously obstructed in any effort to broadcast
a solution. Cultural diffusion doesn't happen rapidly or smoothly, if it
happens at all.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">(About
Bushmen & counting)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">I didn't
write any of that! Nor would I have, even ultimately.<br>
Especially not the bit about being wrong :)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Ha! So you
say! Erm, beg pardon. I took it raw off the letter, & should
have directed it specifically to the writer, not to you... Did I?<br>
<br>
It seems obvious enough that there's some sort of nonsense going on<br>
behind the idea of human beings who can't count past three. I suspect it<br>
was just European colonials trying to say the natives are inferior.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">D'accord</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
You don't need language in order to count. Perhaps you need a language<br>
of some sort (even if it's only the language of sticks and notches) to<br>
_communicate_ numbers, but you don't need language to employ numbers as<br>
a concept if you're a lone hunter.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">True:
However on this continent the term for a lone hunter is 'meat'; with a bow, a
spear or a rifle in some cases. You hunt in a pack because your
competition does, & because your prey congregates for its own safety in
troops, sometimes of thousands. We have a sick joke 'round here; "What do
you call the gummy stuff under an elephant's toenails?"</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">"Lone
hunter."</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br>
I think much of this idea of language "programming the mind" is about<br>
the way people tend to inflate the importance of their own subject in<br>
their minds. Mathematicians tend to think that maths is everything and<br>
everything is maths, geographers tend to think similarly about geography<br>
(I know this because I've had this discussion with a geographer!) and<br>
linguists tend to think language is everything.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Well, isn't
it? Heh, heh heh. If you think language doesn't program the mind, try translating
- try translating poetry - try a psalm - from one language to another. I don't
doubt that with any example you'll come to a hard stop trying to pass a phrase
accurately across the hedge of teeth. My touch-stone is Hebrew. Even those to
whom Hebrew is not a native tongue, (even poor speakers like me) get frustrated
trying to carry even <strong><span style="font-family: Arial;">mundane</span></strong>
information over to another language.<br>
<br>
Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">BTW It may
be the elevation & the thin atmosphere of our Highveld, but not a few of
European stock with young eyes can see & are on record as having seen from
here the four moons of Jupiter with the unaided eye.<br>
<br>
Yes, as I said, I wouldn't have seen this as unlikely. I suspect that given
good atmosphere and youthful eyesight you could also see the crescent of Venus.
I thought I could when I was a teenager, though others assured me I must be
imagining it!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">Mark</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;">I'd be more
inclined to believe you. In my early youth that was the only way I could point
it out (that was before I learned it was always nearer the Sun than any other
visable planet).</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Mark</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br>
</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">The Bushmen
I know can certainly count beyond three. Their system is decimal as I can
understand. We all have ten fingers, but their numeral terminology goes up to
twenty. Well we have toes also. Beyond that they go up in multiples of men
under the same system. What I can't understand is the development in the
Middle-East of numerology in base 12 & base 60.<br>
<br>
I missed this bit but had meant to answer it.<br>
Bases 12 and 60 have a mathematical motivation much more
sensible than finger and toe counts, because the most difficult of the four
basic mathematical operations is division and 12 can be divided evenly by more
numbers than ten.<br>
Twelve divides by 2, 3, 4 and 6, as opposed to 10 dividing
by just 2 and 5. I think the existence of base 60 does suggest this as the
motivation, because it's as if someone thought about the fact that five was
excluded from division in base 12, but multiply 12 by five and get base 60:
then you can divide by all integers up to 6.<br>
Of course this many numerals begins to put a strain on the
memory, otherwise they'd surely have included 7 by using base 420 :)</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Mark</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Ja,
I know this, but have felt all along that so sophisticated a race as the
Chaldeans, or whoever, will have been well aware that not everything in
business or astrology will conveniently fall into halves, thirds or for
that matter even fifths. Far better a system that simply facilitates
division by any number. Well, we had to wait until the fifteenth century
for the Arabs to pass on a Hindu system that does the trick.</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Thanks
for your response</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Yrs,</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: black;">Mark</span><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial;"><br style="">
<br style="">
</span></p>