Language, art, and the origins of creativity

<p>Phil: "Maybe it's like listening to a song in a language that you don't understand but you somehow know what the song is. Something that goes beyond the signified ( what is being sung about ) and the signifier ( the language in which it is sung )."</p>

<p>Right, but maybe the same idea can be expressed by saying the same of an Eggleston photograph. That contained within a particular work, or within his body of work, is something that goes beyond the signified.</p>

<p>It doesn't have to be an Eggleston. I was acknowledging your having made a point with your reference to music, me then closing that last comment of mine by bringing the discussion back to photographs and meaning.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>"Fred raises is an objection to the characterization of a physical photograph as a single visual representation of a moment frozen in time. That characterization is at best awkward, Fred's objection I judge as a valid objection".</p>

<p>But it is, in linear time, that is what we have to except as our current perceptions. Yes, that moment can be read in many different ways....and perhaps, as just a snapshot with no before or after; a story of the imagination. Regardless, the photograph is a frozen moment in time ...your smiling mother, the invoked memory will always be there... that special smile.</p>

<p>A smile frozen in time</p>

<p>Just a bit off topic regarding self awareness which makes us so special.</p>

<p>www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2270977<br /> <br /> I watched a BBC documentry where a mother elephant, who could not feed her child due to a draught, stood by him until he eventually died. She was surrounded by a pride of lions who could have easily killed her but she would not move until she did everything in her power to revive him.....she was prepared to sacrifice her life for a hope...<br /><br /> Are we really so special?</p><div></div>

<p>Phil: "But the more we try to describe this pre-language meaning the further we are away from it."</p>

<p><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Van-gogh-shoes.jpg">https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/64/Van-gogh-shoes.jpg</a><br /> Caption for that picture "A painting that reveals (<em>alethe</em>) a whole world. Heidegger mentions this particular work of Van Gogh's in "The Origin of the Work of Art"." <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aletheia">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aletheia</a></p>

<p>A photo of Eggleston's that 'reveals' (<em>alethe</em>) a whole world: <a href="http://aphelis.net/william-eggleston-photographs-1-los-alamos-project/">http://aphelis.net/william-eggleston-photographs-1-los-alamos-project/</a></p>

<p>So let's say that both the Van Gogh boots and Eggleston's 'woman's hair style' each reveal a whole world. A world in a moment. The words "A world in a moment" is an interpretation of a meaning. Before I wrote those words (E-Language) those words were in my I-Language. That is to say, before I expressed those words, those words were present in my internal language. Those words were produced by my translating my sense of meaning into words, a conscious process involving I-Work. Before I translated, meaning was present. Let's say that meaning was present as an object existing in my mind. I could sense that object's presence before I could put it in words. Preceding a sense of a meaning I was 'thinking' entirely pre-consciously. In proper time order: 1) preceding my sense of a meaning being presented to me was a mental process whose operations aren't observable. 2) Emerging within me formed a sense of a meaning being present. 3) I used I-Language to translate that meaning into words. 4) I then wrote those words down, expressed them using E-Language.</p>

<p>As to 1 and 2, I can postulate more. A thing, a meaning object, presented to my consciousness. I could sense it. I could sense it because it had energy. I could sense its energy. Physical objects have energy. So one corollary might be that meanings are pre-conscious 'physical mental objects' that contain energy. We sense that 'meaning object' as an energy. Let's propose that our brains have a physical mental sense previously unrecognized as a physical sense. [Why would we recognize that sense, we just use it all the time without being aware that we are using a sense organ. We can't see it, it's a mental organ not directly observable as a physical structure the ways our eyes are observable as a physical structure.] So we have a mental sense organ operating within the brain as a sense organ and that organ senses <em>as an object</em> the energy contained in a <em>meaning</em> object. We don't then have five physical senses, we have six. Do we really have a previously unidentified physical mental sense of meaning? I theorize that we do. I've 'discovered' it. Like any other fool I give a newly discovered physical structure my name, term it, Wood's Organ. (Oh sure, I know we all have such an organ, I just think it an historical tradition that allows me to give it my name.) I theorize the existence of that 'sense of meaning' and state that it is a physical sense just as are physical 'a sense of touch, taste, smell, sight, sound'. It is a physical sense because the brain is physical. [This writing is my published claim to that discovery, that claim subject to verification as 'an original idea' by an examination of the historical record of ideas.] Once I become dimly conscious that my 'sense of meaning' organ has sensed that an idea has formed in the pre-conscious, I am charged to work out a translation of that idea into I-Language, doing so with my own energy, that is, with the general, finite mental energy available to me. So I perform the translation into I-Language yet at the same time experience that an interpretable idea contains energy, that energy released post translation, replacing the mental energy that it took to translate the idea from a vague semi-consciousness. The translation took work, but I am rewarded by a return of mental energy. What I do with that energy is up to me. I can express the translated idea, the idea translated into the words of my I-Language into E-Language, the language of expression and communication. Or I can form a set of instructions in I-Language that then become a 'thought that guides action'. Move my feet or move my tongue, either way it's up to me how I use that return of energy by the 'meaning object'.</p>

<p>A theorized sense of meaning, defined as a physical capacity to sense a meaning object as an elemental product of thought, allows us to explain other phenomenon. For example, when we interpret a dream correctly, we experience an "Ah Ha!" moment that is the physical release of energy contained in the thought object, the meaning.</p>

<p>So Phil, I haven't addressed your observation of how descriptions move a described object further away from us. It's an interesting observation, something fundamentally interesting or puzzling about that phenomenon.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Allen - 'Are we really so special?'</p>

<p>I'm attempting to state that we're not within the framework of natural philosophy, within the framework of science. There are other frameworks that express the same idea, that we're not so specia,l with equal effect.</p>

<p>I should add that I theorize that an idea pre-consciously is a mental visual representation, a picture that is a relation of motions and bodies with a underlying physical structure we know virtually nothing about.</p>

<p>I also recognize that from that theory of a 'physical 'sense of meaning' organ, logic can demonstrate that consciousness is a fundamental phenomenon in an organism just as bodies and motions are a fundamental phenomenon. A sense of an organism's 'self' is a fundamental operand in primitive thought. Bodies and motions external to the organism can't be meaningfully processed except when processed in relation to the 'self' that any organism represents. Consequently, at least a proto-consciousness is present in organisms that are motile, capable of directing their own actions. Without a proto-consciousness, an organism couldn't distinguish between its motions and the motions of other bodes and motions.</p>

<p>I also recognize that the origins of language as an evolved set of physical mental faculties is closely related to the evolution of cognitive functions. Operation of thought requires operands. A fundamental operand is a name for a body, that is, a thing, a place. What distinguishes our thought, our language from that of our pre-human ancestors is that we can name a person as a body (as in bodies and motions). That's because we evolved to be self-aware. More importantly, we can name ourselves as an object of thought. We can objectify our self. We can do so because we are self-aware, self-awareness a trait of our species. The evolution of our supposedly unique language involves 1) the propagation both of physical structures within our kind, and 2) a propagation of a singular idea among our species. That idea is that our awareness of self can be given a name. Once named, we can then think about our self as an object. The creative period of human activity beginning with the appearance of art objects marks the period of time within which our species propagated amongst its members the idea of a self that could be named. </p>

<p>Also that a physical mental structure that evolved as a physical container of 'object' operands is a physical structure that <em>as</em> a physical structure is an inheritable structure, the idea of object given a physical placeholder, the idea of object, a body, corpus as in bodies and motion, an inherited form, and inherited idea physically. Motions, verbs, also a discrete set of relations between a body and a motion, a stored procedure with associations. Hence cognition originally, prototypically was thought in direct action in relation to a proto-sense of an organism being a body distinct from other bodies and the motions of other bodies. So motions, as information about the environment of an organism, as a discrete set of stored procedures, that set built to be housed in a container: that verb container is also a physical structure, inheritable, containing specific information about the external environment in which an organism lived. Consequently, DNA also encodes information about an organism's environment, not just about itself. The field of epigenetics is beginning to explore that topic.</p>

<p>"physical mental faculties is closely related to the evolution of cognitive functions"</p>

<p>All I know is that when my dog is sitting on the sofa and hears the front door opening.....he soon shifts his arse. He does not need Latin or to understand a Verb to work this out. A natural cognitive function for him:)</p>

<p>It is, just like when my dog sits by his bowl. His act of sitting expresses a meaning, a thought.</p>

<p>Toto to?</p>

<p><strong>Dorothy</strong>: Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?<br /><strong>Glinda</strong>: You don't need to be helped any longer. You've always had the power to go back to Kansas.<br /><strong>Dorothy</strong>: I have?<br /><strong>Scarecrow</strong>: Then why didn't you tell her before?<br /><strong>Glinda</strong>: She wouldn't have believed me. She had to learn it for herself.<br /><strong>Scarecrow</strong>: What have you learned, Dorothy?<br /><strong>Dorothy</strong>: Well, I—I think that it, that it wasn't enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em — and it's that — if I ever go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard. Because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?<br /><strong>Glinda</strong>: That's all it is!<br /><strong>Scarecrow</strong>: But that's so easy! I should've thought of it for you -<br /><strong>Tin Man</strong>: I should have felt it in my heart -<br /><strong>Glinda</strong>: No, she had to find it out for herself. Now those magic slippers will take you home in two seconds!<br /><strong>Dorothy</strong>: Oh! Toto too?<br /><strong>Glinda</strong>: Toto too.<br /><strong>Dorothy</strong>: Now?<br /><strong>Glinda</strong>: Whenever you wish.<br /> ...<br /><strong>Glinda</strong>: Then close your eyes and tap your heels together three times. And think to yourself, 'There's no place like home'.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/wizard-of-oz-the/views.html">http://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/wizard-of-oz-the/views.html</a></p>

<p>That's a poetic expression of a new paradigm for nature revered. It's mantra "Toto too."</p>

<p>Or nature's remonstrance to humans: "Have I not from thy eyes that gentleness, does my lack of words that gentleness from thee conceal? Does not my own language to thee my gentleness reveal?"</p>

<p>Jeez, just think. I feed him, keep him warm, take him out for regular excise, clean his shit...lots of affection.</p>

<p>Hey, he has never done a days work in his life just some tail wagging....did someone say something about evolutionary functions?</p>

<p>The bottom line life adapts to survive and will evolve to survive. Why are we so naïve to think that another species, given a evolutionary need, could/would not evolve to have the same cognitive functions as our species...indeed we were only one of a number of little monkeys which had cognitive functions...we were the lucky ones,yes, lucky.</p>

<p>Back to the future Professor Hawkins(not alone) is very concerned that artificial intelligence will replace humanity in evolutionary terms. Perhaps we will then become the wagging tail pet to please our masters...the evolutionary programmed prerogative to survive.</p>

<p>So if I analogize that to a camera. A camera is a meaning extraction device. It is a meaning receiver. And a camera is a meaning sender. It sends its meanings in the form of a photograph. A photograph is a discrete object. As a discrete object, a photograph is defined by the negative space around it.<br /> <br />Further, take two photographs. Put them on a black cloth, placing them in sequence with the one taken first on the left and the one taken second on the right. The black space surrounding each of the photographs identifies them each as a discrete object. The black space between the photographs doesn't contain information, is black space. That black space between the two photographs is an information-less void existing between two pictured moments in time. Those two moments are visually represented by two separate photographs. Looking from left to right, we see an earlier moment followed by a later moment. The black space between the two photographs is an information gap. There isn't a third photograph to place between the two. No photograph was taken of that moment.<br /> <br />Let's say the first photograph on the black cloth is of an expressionless face. Looking immediately to the right of the first photograph we see the underlying black cloth, it followed by another photograph of the same face. In the second photograph the face was smiling. Our mind wants a meaning. In one moment a face was expressionless. In the next photograph the face was smiling. We account for the black space between them by producing meanings. First meaning: something caused a face to smile. Second meaning: the cause of the smile is unknown. The cause isn't in the second photograph and there is black space between the two photographs. We make an inference to plug the gap. But we don't have enough information to fully describe the cause. We can't immediately picture the cause.<br /> <br />So the first picture is of an object, an expressionless face. That face is the subject of the photograph. Let's call the subject of the photograph 'corpus'. The corpus of a photograph is that which lies witin the borders of a photograph. A photograph is itself a body whose content is the body of the photograph. That content is its subject, the corpus of the photograph. So the second picture has as its corpus a smiling face. The space between the two photographs is a space without a subject, a space without corpus because that space is black, is information-less. We look to that black space and want to find a cause of a smile. We want to create a picture and place it in that black space as a picture of a fully identified cause of a smile. The first photo's corpus is of no expression. The second photo's corpus is of a smile. We look to the black space for a cause of the smile. But there is no information about the cause in that black space.<br /> <br />Let's say you took the two pictures. Let's say you posed the person. You took the two pictures of that person's face. The first picture was a face with no expression. So you told the subject to smile. At the moment the smile formed on the face you snapped the second picture. As the photographer, you know why the face smiled. As a viewer of thsoe two photographs, the moment you said "Say cheese" is the black cloth between the two photographs. As a viewer I can infer that a photographer said "Say cheese." That is to say, I can infer a cause for a smile on a face and create a virtual third picture to put between your two. Inference made, case closed. My virtual snapshot states a relation, a causal link between two pictures. My virtual third picture substitutes for a missing picture. I now have a picture of the cause of the smile. Case closed.<br /> <br />Now let's say there is just one photograph to consider. The corpus of that one photograph is a baseball team. Each team member is a body defined by the negative space around her/him. The photogrpah's corpus is of the moment the picture was taken. Put that photograph on a black cloth. We can infer a moment preceding the pictured moment, we can imagine a vitural photograph of a preceding moment. In a preceding moment, let's picture the team getting gathered together to be photographed. We can also infer a moment following the pictured moment. For example, the team went back to playing ball. Those two inferences are statements about 1) a cause of a moment; and 2) that pictured moment as a cause of subsequent moments. We may be able to make inferences from the corpus of the photograph. That corpus is information about other bodies as they existed in a moment, motion stilled. The negative space around one baseball player defines another player, etc. That's interesting as being bodies within inferencial space, space that both defines a body and implies a relation between the other bodies that together comprise the corpus of the picture. It's interesting because we are prone to fill in those gaps with our inferences. That we're inclined to fill in those gaps is a mystery of the mind.<br /> <br />Let's go back to our example of two side by side pictures placed on top of a black cloth. Between two photographs of the same face lies a gap of inferencial space. The two photographs are of the same face, one expressionless the next with a smile. As a viewer, looking at the two photographs, we notice that there is a relation between them. One captured expressionless moment followed by a blank space followed by a second captured moment that is a picture of a changed facial expression. The blank space between those two pictures now seems significant, is sensed as significant. That black space, now sensed as significant, is inferencial space that encapsulates a meaning. Meaning is concealed in that black space, we can sense it. We turn on our mental inference maker and an inference is made. Meaning is unconcealed, revealed and the meaning is the cause of an effect, the cause of a smile: the photographer said "Say cheese.".<br /> <br />So let's look more closely at our inference making process, the mental process that created an inference. An inference was created from blank space. That inference amounts to our having made a virtual picture whose corpus reveals a cause for an effect. Some examples. A dead man with a bullet wound. Two pictures from which we more or less automatically infer that 'the man was shot dead.' An human infant will look for a hidden cause, that is, if an infant didn't see the hand that moved a ball, it will look for a hand anyway, seeking an explanation for the motion of the ball, a body. In part that's why it's hard to get young children to believe in magic, they naturally look for a hidden hand instead. That search for a cause of motion is said to be instinctive in an infant once a certain age. Instead I say that humans have a mental structure, a brains structure, that is a sense organ that senses meaning. We sense meaning with that organ. Once sensed, we then focus our attention on that black space between two events. Then we form a mental picture of the cause and effect relation sensed to exist in a blank inferencial space. We then connect a cause to an effect by making an inference. <br /> <br />We could instead say that consciousness itself is an organ that senses meaning. But consciousness does other activities too. It doesn't just look for meaning. Yet consciousness can turn its focus to contemplate inferencial space, an expanatory gap. I'm saing that a 'sensed meaning' is a precondition that must exist as a sense impression in order to then prompt consciousness to turn its focus and concentrate on the inferencial space that defines an effect in terms of its cause. Consciousness must be able to sense that an explanatory gap exits before it can turn its attention to it. Consciousness can't turn its attention to an explanatory gap that it doesn't know is there. I'm consequently identifying the operation of a mental sense organ whose sense impressions inform consciousness of the existence of an explanatory gap. A sense of meaning both senses meaning and senses an absence of meaning as an explanatory gap that must be filled. Meanings it senses don't require much of the consciousness that senses those meanings. But a sensed explanatory gap, a sense organ finding no meaning, get's conscious attention just like an action at a distance with no known cause gets our attention right now. I'm saying we have organs that collect information about our the world of sensory information. We have an organ that informs consciousness that world either is making sense right now or isn't making sense right now fundamentally with respect to bodies and motions. It is a function in consciousness, but not just consciousness itself. We have to call it a mental faculty independent of consciousness and that informs consciousness. It's an organ in itself.</p>

<p>As much as meaning, a camera is an action detector, the actions it sees on the one hand, and the actions that can be inferred (and sometimes "seen" as the performance of the photographer) on the other hand. We often consider meaning and give these two kinds of action (the actions of the subjects in the photo and the actions of the photographer) less emphasis. For me, especially as a photographer interested in photographs, the actions behind whatever meaning I may find are quite significant and sometimes actually outweigh meaning.</p>

<p>That makes total sense Fred.</p>

<p>And I almost think that a camera can be analogized to consciousness and that we can do a thought experiment with an imaginary camera to illustrate the operation of a hypothetical component of an imaginary camera. That component analogizes to our hypothetical sense organ that senses meanings and explanatory gaps.</p>

<p>Put a camera on an apparatus. Outfit the camera to detect motion. Provide the camera with mechanisms that will move the camera such that it can focus on a particular body in motion. Once focused, it automatically takes a picture. That picture is an array of interpretable expressions whose content, corpus, can be stored in memory. Program the camera to only focus on significant motions. What's significant? Motions between bodies that are separated by an explanatory gap. So too our hypothesized sense organ operates in consciousness. That organ identifies significances. Bodies and motions related by a known cause are significant, but bodies and motions without a known cause are sensed as deserving conscious attention now.</p>

<p>Assuming that explanatory gaps are attractive to an organ that then will focus consciousness' attention to an explanatory gap: let's look at a specific photograph to see how that might work.</p>

<p>Here's a link to one of Phil's galleries: <a href="http://www.philipsweeck.com/selected-work/#/new-page/">http://www.philipsweeck.com/selected-work/#/new-page/</a></p>

<p>The fourth picture in that gallery, three clicks to the right of the first, is a picture of a muzzled dog. The dog wears a muzzle. There's an explanatory gap that exists between two bodies in the photo: the dog and the muzzle. Call it a simple puzzle. My mind zooms in quickly on the dog's head, then goes right to the mouth. I see the muzzle. Explanatory gap. Why is the dog wearing a muzzle? Then the meaning, the cause, is revealed. I infer an answer. The dog bites. I smile. My experience of the photo then gives corpus, body, to the dog. It comes alive in me.</p>

<p>I think these terms, bodies, motions, explanatory gaps all help me to observe my own picture viewing process. I like that picture of the dog because it revealed a meaning to me quickly. I like quick. Some don't. There's more to life than quick after all.</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Well, sure, but at some point in the creation of a narrative, it might as well be a video or a novel. In your example, it sounds like your speaking of a short visual poem.</p>

<p>I thought I should more briefly present a more logical ordering of some of the ideas I earlier expressed in this thread. I do think that photography, language, art, creativity, and creative thought are deeply connected. How? It's a puzzle. Many others are puzzled. One one who comes to mind is Noam Chomsky the linguist. He coauthored this article: <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001934">http://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.1001934</a> . In that article he and his coauthors attempt to explain the appearance of art objects among other artifacts that mark the beginning of our uniquely human experience. It's kind of a technical article. But to better state my own ideas I form this presentation as a response to that article in an attempt to better understand how it is that human language, art, and artistic photography all evolved in humans.<br /><br>

<br>

<br>

The essay <em>How Could Language Have Evolved?</em> is an explanation for a recent and rapid evolutionary emergence of human language. It offers merge “…as the chief bridge between the ancestral and modern states for language.” Suggested is a minor morphological change in the human brain sufficient to support merge as a phenotypic property of humans.<br>

<br>

It follows that the merge property would have chiefly propagated by sexual reproduction. That’s problematic if merge evolved when ancestral humans were many and geographically well disbursed. For example, 1) distance could have impeded propagation; 2) varying rules governing mate selection between ancestral groups could have impeded propagation; and 3) fear and ignorance could have impeded propagation. Nevertheless, sexual propagation of merge is plausible under favorable conditions. I offer a simpler explanation.<br>

<br>

What if the propagation of human modern language was the spread of an idea and was not the spread of a genetic trait? What if symbolic thought was born in ancestral humans by an individual discovering the idea that the then existing innate atoms of UG could be used symbolically? Let’s say that the atoms of a UG were little used by our ancestral population. Our ancestral population would have used those atoms of UG in an animal language, referential and limited. An individual’s discovery of the symbolical use of the atoms of UG analogizes to an Anne Sullivan discovering symbolic word use and then teaching other ancestral humans how to use words symbolically. Our human use of FL would then descends from an original Anne Sullivan bearing an original idea.<br>

<br>

I propose that within the I-Language of an original Anne Sullivan, the idea was born that a word was also a symbol. With the atoms of a UG implemented with symbol, a word is internalized, no longer a mere reference to an object external to the mind. Consequently, our original Anne Sullivan could propagate her discovery by teaching much as our own Anne Sullivan taught words to Hellen Keller. Perhaps many original thinkers and teachers were the chief bridges between the ancestral and modern states for human language. Prehistoric art may have marked human groups as interesting carriers of a new idea. The proliferation of art would then be a marker of the spread of an idea, not a marker of the spread of a genetic trait. <br>

<br>

Note that my view is that a modern UG was long evolved yet underused by ancestral humans. Somewhere, one or more individuals conceived of symbolic word use. That idea spread rapidly. I suspect that a useful evolutionary theory of the origins of language best follows from an evolutionary theory of the origins of thought. Such a theory would be a unification, not a reduction. Summarizing, my view is that modern I-Language and E-Language developed in humans within the constraints of a UG deeply connected to an antecedent computational system, a faculty of thought (FT). Following is a quick sketch of an evolutionary theory of a FT.<br>

<br>

A FT evolved in an organism at an unknown point in time. Two atoms for a FT, for a primitive computational system, are bodies and motions. A body is a discrete object and consequently can be assigned a discrete signifier, an elemental representational object. However, motion is continuous, isn’t discrete. Let’s assume that as a process, a set of motions can be assigned a discrete identifier, that identifier a signifier of what analogizes to a stored procedure of motions. A motion as a stored procedure states a relation between bodies. With bodies and motions assigned discrete signifiers, I argue that a third elemental computational object is logically required in a primitive FT. <br>

<br>

Bodies move in relation to a fixed point and logic compels me to include a fixed point as an elemental signifier in a primitive FT evolved to compute relations between bodies. I identify that fixed point as an organism’s sense of itself as an organism. That sense of itself as a body would be a discrete signifier serving as the third element of a primitive FT, a primitive computational system that logically requires three elemental signifiers to meaningfully computer a relation between bodies and motions against a self-referential fixed point. With body and motion signifiers that are necessarily variable, I postulate that a fixed self-referential point would most meaningfully be a constant in a primitive FT.<br>

<br>

If I’m correct, an evolutionary history of the origins of FT would also be an evolutionary history of consciousness. The simplest theory of consciousness is to just say that consciousness is a fundamental property of organisms, perhaps of nature. More conservatively, consciousness perhaps evolved only as early as did flagella. Either way, our human senses would be six: senses of self, touch, taste, hearing, smell, and sight; where our human sense of self is a fundamental sense of our continuing presence amid perpetual change.<br>

<br>

Note that I am presently considering some evidence that support those ideas. Some evidence is in visual thinking and some is in animal language. A third area of evidence is dreaming. I regard a dream as a time series of visually expressed ideas. More formally, a dream is comprised of set of discrete mental visual representations that is a collection of discrete interpretable expressions – visuals - arranged in time order. Note that I suspect our night dreams to be mental visual products of a FT. Dreams contain ideas that reveal when we consciously translate dream imagery into I-Language. An algorithm for translating a dream into words may give insights into how a semi-conscious or pre-conscious thought gets translated into I-Language.</p>

<p>I agree Phil, and expand that to say that if life is to be about something, then it has to be about something that both precedes and supersedes words. The problem is two, which I'll express in borrowed poetry (the bard)</p>

<p> </p>

<blockquote>

<p>The parrot says to the human: "Have I not from your eyes that gentleness, does my lack of words from you that gentleness yet conceal?"</p>

<p>And the human says to the parrot: "Have I not from your eyes that gentleness, does my use of words from you that gentleness yet conceal?"</p>

<p>Poetically stated, those two resolve into:</p>

<p>Parrot and human together say: "I have now from your eyes that gentleness and in my eyes your gentleness doest reveal."</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Poetically, that is a reconciliation of humans to nature. Without such a unification I fear that as a species we won't survive. So in the language not of poetry, but of the language of natural philosophy, science, I attempt such a unified theory. It is a theory of language, thought, art and hence, of photography. Here it is in its most current draft, in form of an imaginary letter to Noam Chomsky.</p>

<p>Dear Dr. Chomsky:<br>

<br>

You mentioned in a talk that you were aware of but one plausible explanation for a recent and rapid evolutionary emergence of human language. I offer an alternative explanation. I begin with a short summary of an essay you coauthored, mention some problems suggested by that thesis, offer a less problematic explanation, explore a germ of a theory of language and thought unification, point to bodies of evidence supporting that theory, and conclude with a request of you.<br>

<br>

The essay <em>How Could Language Have Evolved?</em> presents an explanation for a recent and rapid evolutionary emergence of human language. It offers merge “…as the chief bridge between the ancestral and modern states for language.” Suggested is a minor morphological change in the human brain sufficient to support merge as a phenotypic property of humans.<br>

<br>

It follows that merge propagated by sexual reproduction. There are impediments to sexual propagation if merge evolved when ancestral humans were many and geographically well disbursed. Those impediments include distance, fear, ignorance, and possibly diverse mate selection rules in ancestral groups. Nevertheless, sexual propagation of merge is plausible under favorable conditions. However, I offer an explanation with fewer impediments to the propagation of a newly emerged human language.<br>

<br>

What if the propagation of modern human language was the spread of an idea and not the spread of a genetic trait? What if symbolic thought was born in ancestral humans by an individual’s discovery that a sign didn’t just stand for a thing, was instead a symbol for a thing? If so, an alternative view emerges, stated in the following. <br>

<br>

Our human use of language descends from an original Anne Sullivan with an original idea, descends from an individual’s recognition that phonology <em>was</em> symbology. Prior to that discovery, ancestral human language was an animal language, a sign language, referential and limited. With words recognized as symbols, words are internalized and are no longer a mere reference to an object external to the mind. Consequently, an Anne Sullivan could teach others. Ancestral humans were only blind until an Ann Sullivan taught them to see with words. Many original thinkers and teachers could have been the chief bridges between ancestral and modern states for human language. Prehistoric art may have marked human groups as interesting carriers of a new and teachable idea. The proliferation of art would then be a marker of the spread of an idea, not a marker of the spread of a genetic trait. <br>

<br>

If plausible, that view describes an ancestral human brain sufficiently evolved to support merge. By that view, merge is not required to be a newly evolved phenotypic property of humans. From that view, a newly conceived use for an existing merge made ancestral humans into conceptual thinkers. <br>

<br>

If more than plausible, that view suggests as productive the idea that an ancestral human faculty for language was not inherently limited. From that proposition, I can derive a germ of a theory unifying thought and language that I feel has to be true, but am not yet confident enough to say is true. My theory identifies a minimum of three elemental discrete operands required of a biological computational system. Those three elements are a body, a motion, and a constant fixed point of reference. From those three elemental operands come a meaningful calculation of bodies and motions in a frame of reference that includes an organism as a fixed point. That calculation is at root a remembered set of an organism’s responses to sensory data, a set being a discrete object containing continuous data. Played backwards, that set contains instructions that guide an organism’s subsequent reactions to stimuli and manifest in an organism’s motions relative to other bodies.<br>

<br>

A logically required constant fixed point of reference, as a fundamental in a biological computational system, identifies an organism’s sense of itself as a fundamental constant. Implied is that Hume’s solution to the identity problem was wrong. Instead, an organism’s sense of continuing presence is required of an evolved organic computational system. Natural selection requires such a system to usefully compute relations between bodies. Intuitively, most useful to an organism are computations of bodies and motions performed against a constant fixed point of reference that is the organism’s sense of itself. Consequently, human physical senses include six: a senses of self, touch, smell, taste, hearing, and sight. Consciousness becomes by that theory either a precondition for thought, or evolved along with thought, or both. Conscious focus may be directed by a related sense of discrepancy that’s part of a faculty of thought. Also implicit in such a theory is the notion that an organism’s DNA would encoded information about relations external to the organism, a logical physical basis for the existence of inherited ideas. At least logically. Fortunately, there is evidence supporting the theory that organisms think and that some of their ideas are in part inherited action sets.<br>

<br>

One body of evidence is found in introspective observations of visual thought. Not a few introspecting humans report that they think in pictures. Interesting is the question of how those individuals translate visual thought into worded internal language. A related body of evidence is the mental phenomenon of dreaming. Dreaming has been empirically demonstrated to be visual thought, see for example, C. G. Jung and others. It isn’t reasonable to suggest that dreaming began with emergent human language because non-human animals also dream. Therefore, it is reasonable to asset that our ancestral humans also dreamt because we know that some more primitive non-human animals dream. Consequently, ancestral humans thought, albeit not fully. Most thought occurs in the unconscious, and I suggest that dreams are largely overlooked as evidence of the mostly unconscious mechanisms by which thought operates. Also implicit in the theory is some mechanism whereby an organism’s sense of continuing presence is suspended for sleep and recovered from sleep in a mental process evidenced by REM sleep and dreaming. Dreaming may be a phenomenon associated with reacquainting an organism’s sense of itself with circumstances existent immediately prior to the coming of sleep. Another body of evidence comes from the investigations of language in animals. Particularly interesting are studies of parrot ability to use human words in their internal language, arguably confirming parrot cognition, an interesting question being how does a parrot translate between borrowed human words and its internal language. Another body of evidence is perhaps to be found in the field of epigenetics, a field still in its infancy.<br>

<br>

Dr. Chomsky, would you offer to me a quick opinion of my view and related theory? If I have caused you any trouble in writing to you I sincerely apologize. However I think you particularly well equipped to work out how exactly those three elemental operands, if those three are logically required, engage merge. I have some misgivings about my own logical faculty.<br>

Sincerely yours.<br /><br>

<br>

So Phil, I agree that creative expression does involve shutting down the words. We can't though. Unless we can find the words to all use to get us out of words and into an animistic experience of nature, not as a marvel, but as nature itself.<br /></p>

 

<p>So I've been developing a new idea, developing a new picture now for three weeks. My creative process is the creation in me of an idea. That creative process is on display here for anyone to see. Like are your photographs visible on Photo.net for all of us to see. What I can't see is your creative process on display as nakedly as I have in public nakedly struggled to create. Did I produce anything of value? Is it science, art, or complete nonsense?</p>

<p>Photographers put a lens over their minds eye and compose a picture. That picture isn't art if it isn't shared. Science too is a conversation. Who can participate in scientific conversations? There are rules for admittance into that conversation, just as there are rules for admittance into a conversation of art.</p>

<p>So my view and theory expressed in all the above posts seem to me to be utter nonsense. I just can't make it work. It's crap. I'm crap. But wait. This might work. Does this work?!</p>

<p>Tattersoll et al essentially says: The sudden appearance of a minor morphological change in the human brain was sufficient to support human language as a physical property, a phenotypic property, of humans.<br>

<br />That is an Origins Story for our species, Chomsky says it is the only plausible evolutionary story that explains our distinctly human minds.<br /><br>

<br>

Here is CG Jung's Origins story for our distinctly human minds from Memories, Dreams, Reflections. I'll give a link, not the full quote. <a href="https://discovervedanta.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/carl-jungs-experience-in-africa/">https://discovervedanta.wordpress.com/2012/04/16/carl-jungs-experience-in-africa/</a> Here is a small part of that linked quote:<br /></p>

<blockquote>

<p> </p>

 

<p >This was the stillness of the eternal beginning, the world as it had always been, in the state of non-being; for until then no one had been present to know that it was this world. I walked away from my companions until I had put them out of sight, and savored the feeling of being entirely alone. There I was now, the first human being to recognize that this was the world, but who did not know that in this moment he had first really created it.</p>

</blockquote>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >Why it's the same Origins story. <br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p >Tattersoll: Ancestral humans: language was just Object and Verb, expressed in pointing and sound.<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p >Jung: Ancestral human language was just Object and Verb, expressed in pointing and sound.<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p >Tattersoll: Modern human language is instead symbolic words, now: Subject Verb Object<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p >Jung: the modern human mind now has itself as a Subject alongside Verb and Object.<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > Is this the same origins story.</p>

<p > </p>

<p >From mythology another origins story:<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >Pandora</p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >She was told to never open the jar, but owing to her insatiable woman's curiosity, Pandora just cracked the lid. Out from the jar flew every trouble known to humanity. Strife, sickness, toil, and myriad other ills escaped to afflict men and women forever more. Pandora managed to trap one last spirit in the jar as she shut the lid, a timid sprite named Hope.</p>

<p > </p>

<p ><br /><br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >But Jung ascribes human consciousness to our cognitive faculties generally without specifying a specific evolutionary mechanism under whose operation consciousness as a biological property could emerge. Tattersall ascribes saltation as the evolutionary mechanism that produced a physical mental structure allowing human language to develop.<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p >Is saltation producing a physical trait the correct mechanism? I don't think so. Sexual propagation of a single trait is kinda difficult given our contentiousness as a species. Not impossible, just unlikely. <br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >But Jung could be describing the interior of the first person to become self-aware. Sounds so mystical, but Tattersall describes the same event as the sudden emergence of human language as a physical structure in the brain. Folks like physical structures, organs, generally. So Jung described a sudden emergence. Tattersall describes a sudden emergence. Jung doesn't specify a specific evolutionary mechanism. Tattersall does. But I think Tattersall may be wrong to tie the emergence of language to the emergence of a new structure in the brain. It's not like he can point to that structure and he acknowledges that no one can and that nevertheless, it's the only way anyone has plausibly tried to specifically account for our human origin in evolution.<br /></p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >I say an idea spread, that I exists, I am a Subject in Subject Verb Object. Words are symbols, not signs. No special physical structure in the brain needs to be identified. Ideas propagate by teaching. But what specific evolutionary mechanism explains a gradual evolution of consciousness? With Tattersall it was a suddenly appearing new structure in the brain. Jung sounds so WOO without a gradual evolutionary mechanism to buttress his placing the origins of consciousness in gradual evolution.</p>

<p > </p>

<p > </p>

<p >So I propose that a gradual evolutionary mechanism for consciousness's evolution is implicit in the laws of relative motion. Two objects are just buzzing incoherence to each other without one setting itself as a fixed point in a frame of reference. Until then, there isn't any data, just noise. An organism's sense of itself is implicit for the physical laws of motion to be evolutionarily useful past a certain point of complexity in an organism. At that point, consciousness evolves as a fundamental property of life because of the operation of the law of relative motion. As far as I can tell that is a logically sound proposition for which bodies of evidence exist. Dogma can't argue with the laws of Physics, with the logic supported by sufficient evidence. </p>

<p > </p>

<p >It only took 40,000 or so words to get there. To develop that picture. And I may be wrong. It may still be nonsense. But that picture of idea can be tested. And about all the time it took me: I can't say to myself that it was a total waste of 40,000 words. I won't say that to myself ever.</p>

<p > <br>

<br>

<br>

<br>

"</p>

<p> </p>

<p>Phil I don’t believe <em>The Art Instinct</em> (Denis Dutton ) has been mentioned. <br>

<br>

From Dutton’s Ted Talk “Experience of beauty is one of the ways evolution has of arousing and sustaining interest or fascination even obsession in order to encourage us toward making the most adaptive decisions for survival and reproduction. Beauty is nature's way of acting at a distance so to speak.”<br>

<br>

I hadn’t heard that some think Homo erectus/Homo ergaster were doing art when making Acheulean hand axes 1.4 million years or so ago. (Dutton - A hand axe in a pointed leaf or teardrop form, the cutting edges of which show no evidence of wear on their delicate blade edges; some too big to use for butchering, hand axes of meticulous workmanship.) From Wikipedia: some say they had social significance and “One theory goes further and suggests that some special hand-axes were made and displayed by males in search of mate, using a large, well-made hand-axe to demonstrate that they possessed sufficient strength and skill to pass on to their offspring. Once they had attracted a female at a group gathering, it is suggested that they would discard their axes, perhaps explaining why so many are found together.” <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheulean">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acheulean</a> Dutton insists that hair styling is also art, illustrating hair styling with a cartoon of a <em>H.</em><em>erectus</em> female sporting an alluring hair-do.<br>

<br>

So with irony I say: For Dutton, a Homo erectus man attracted females with a well-made, socially significant axe; and a Homo erectus woman got her mate with a well styled hair-do. Once a male and female <em>H. erectus</em> found each other in the crowd, the female discarded the male’s useless hand axe. That ritual discard was to inform all in the group that she had been claimed. Then the female, presumably, let down her hair. Even today human brides still ritually discard useless flowers presented to her by her groom, an echo of a time honored tradition originating in H. erectus. Still, some H. erectus women probably just went for a bad boy instead of for a H. erectus male who well made a hand axe.<br>

<br>

So I have a problem with reducing art to its function, where Dutton doesn’t seem to be bothered by calling art derived from survival and reproduction. I also have a problem with reducing everything to Eros and Thanatos. By such reductions we end up with everything explained, or if not explained, soon to be explained. There is some satisfaction in having a theory of everything, just as did the scholastics seem satisfied to explain everything by sympathies and antipathies. Galileo exposed scholastics as nonsensical. And Newton showed that a complete explanation for bodies and motions would forever be beyond our grasp. I agree with Chomsky so characterizing Newton’s sense of things: <a href="

and transcript <a href="https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwkIlurJlCI-aHNqb2Zjb3FwcVE/edit?pli=1">https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BwkIlurJlCI-aHNqb2Zjb3FwcVE/edit?pli=1</a><br>

<br>

My problem with Dutton calling art as derived is the same problem I have calling consciousness derived from natural selection. Sure, Darwin goes a long way in explaining my lived experience. But Darwin doesn’t go so far as to explain why there is a me that has a lived experience, even in the Darwinian views on consciousness explored by Antonio Damasio of USC: <a href="

, another Ted Talk. There he places consciousness, our sense of self, in our brain stem.<br>

<br>

Damasio does identify a protoself even in a single celled organism. He may in his book say why, but I haven’t read it. I attempt to say why in the following consideration of a single celled organism:<br>

<br>

An organism is a body in motion existing in an environment that is external to it. That environment is comprised of bodies and motions. The laws of motion tell us that the motions of two or more bodies are determined relative to a fixed point of reference, a rest frame. I propose that for an organism, the most meaningful rest frame would be its sense of itself as a body. I reason that without an organism’s sense of itself as a rest frame, the motions of that organism would forever be a “blooming, buzzing confusion”. Consequently, no adaptive motion would be possible without an organism’s proto sense of itself as a rest frame against which to measure its own motion relative to the bodies and motions external to it. Therefore, I propose that an organism’s sense of itself as a rest frame is a fundamental for its adaptive motion. Consequently, an organism’s proto sense of itself is as fundamental as the bodies and motions external to that organism. <br>

<br>

What I can’t go on to say is that consciousness is a prerequisite for life. I can put consciousness in evolution because Galileo said so by implication. Yet I can’t identify consciousness in the initial state of an organism, nor in the initial state of the universe. I don’t see how it might ever be ‘placed’ there. Nor can we ever hope to explain, as Newton comprehended, what matter is fundamentally.</p>

<p>Phil - "No amount of words could say anything about the nature of thinking or about what it <em>is</em> and what is <em>it</em>."</p>

<p>Well, my words say that Dutton anthropomorphizes and I think that says a lot about his thinking, that is, it is anthropomorphic thinking.</p>

<p>I've also pointed to the science that produced a significant finding: thought is largely unconscious.</p>

<p>I've also pointed to science as having come to an understanding of dreams as interpretable visually expressed meanings, as raw products of unconscious thought.</p>

<p>I've also pointed to the phenomenon of conscious visual thinking, i.e, Dr. Temple Grandin.</p>

<p>I've also pointed to scientific evidence that, despite the claims of ancient eastern religions and more recent Western Philosophers like David Hume, a sense of self isn't imaginary.</p>

<p>I've also pointed to a body of evidence that suggests that animals think.</p>

<p>But since to you, none of that illumination on the topic of thought would matter at all because you hold to a foregone conclusion, namely, that no one else's words could ever be illuminative about "...the nature of thinking or about what it <em>is</em> and what is <em>it</em>." </p>

<p>The problem I suppose with a common language from which to discuss these things is that a common language removes a lot of wiggle room from foregone conclusions announced from an internal dialog. With that and endless quibbling about what a frozen moment is, I've lost whatever enthusiasm I had here. </p>

<p> </p>

<p>Charles W "What I can’t go on to say is that consciousness is a prerequisite for life."<br>

<br>

Now I think I can say that. Define self-awareness as a sense of one's own existence as in: I am the same person today as I was when I was five. That sense of our own existence doesn't change; it is permanent, fixed. Everything changes around it. But whether I am happy or sad, it is still the same unchanged me I sense as the object of things that make me happy and things that make me sad. But it is the same me. Things change all around me, things change all within me: but that sense of a continuous me feels the same today as when I was five. Call that particular sense of self a fundamental in organisms and that's an answer to Hume's personal identity essay. Why a fundamental in organisms? Organisms require a sense of of their own existence as separate and distinct from other objects in order for an organism's behavior to be advantaged behavior in evolution. Otherwise all is a blooming, buzzing confusion. A sense of self-existence is a prerequisite for life. Then where did it come from, that sense of one's own existence? From objects that aren't organisms.<br>

<br>

As to objects that aren't organisms: Begin with the observation that it is a measurement that causes the collapse of the wave function, an observer making a measurement. From that observation, Erwin Schrödinger offered: "I–I in the widest meaning of the word–am the person, if any, who controls the ‘motion of the atoms’ according to the Laws of Nature." How? Eugene Wigner conjectured that consciousness' observations created the world of lived experience, conscious minds. He offered that some ethereal mind-consciousness bridged the world of quantum mechanics to the world of general relativity. What I offer is that elemental particles, the super small, have a sense of their own existence. So the fundamental building blocks of nature have a sense of their own existence and that sense of themselves is what makes the world of our lived experience real. The subjectivity of each elemental building blocks of matter is a fundamental property of matter, rooting the observer in matter itself, not rooting the observer in some cosmic conscious mind.</p>

<p>So. That all leads to the question: Is your camera self-aware?<br>

</p>

<p>Probably a better summary of the idea that camera's are self-aware:</p>

<p>From the transcript a <a href="

Chalmers Ted Talk</a> "How do you explain consciousness?": "Consciousness also is what makes life worth living. If we weren't conscious, nothing in our lives would have meaning or value. But at the same time, it's the most mysterious phenomenon in the universe. Why are we conscious? Why do we have these inner movies? Why aren't we just robots who process all this input, produce all that output, without experiencing the inner movie at all? Right now, nobody knows the answers to those questions. I'm going to suggest that to integrate consciousness into science, some radical ideas may be needed."</p>

<p>I agree radical ideas may be needed. Here goes.</p>

<p>CONSCIOUSNESS DESCRIBED</p>

<p>Directly examining my own consciousness, I describe it: Consciousness in me is my field of awareness at whose center lies my sense of my own existence. It is I - I who senses my own existence - who is aware that I am the subject of my experiences. It is I who senses my own existence who experiences a stream of conscious content that includes my self-awareness.</p>

<p>QUALITATIVE PROPERTIES</p>

<p>What is it like, my sense of my own existence? First, I sense myself as unique, as separate and distinct from others. Second, that unique self is always recognizable to me as being 'me'. About my sense of my own existence I can say "Except for my experiences, I'm the same me today that I was when I was five"; and I can say of it "Be me happy or sad, it is the same me." That self-recognizing me is tacitly and explicitly present in my lived experience.</p>

<p>I can say nothing more about what that core sense of my own existence is like. I can say what my lived experience is like. From the vantage point of my core sense of my own existence, everything else is in flux. Experience notwithstanding, at core I sense myself as being the same 'me' today that I was yesterday.</p>

<p>FIXED POINT CONSCIOUSNESS</p>

<p>I use the term 'fixed point consciousness' to convey my sense of having a recognizable, permanent 'me', a 'self-sensing' self at the center of consciousness that articulates within my lived experience. David Hume termed that sense of self as his sense of his own continuing presence in the world. Others refer to it as a fixed, permanent sense of one's self as separate and distinct from everything else, a permanent, separate and distinct self that is continuously recognizable as one's self regardless of time and place. Regarding time and place, I noted above that my core sense of self articulates tacitly and explicitly through my lived experience and that my core sense of self is present among all the other objects that comprise my stream of consciousness / lived experience.</p>

<p>By direct observation I identify but three qualitative properties of fixed point consciousness: 1) Differentiated from all else, separate and unique; 2) Continuous, always feels itself to be the same self regardless of time and place; and 3) Articulated throughout my lived experience tacitly and explicitly. I assume that others observe those three properties when observing their own fixed point consciousness.</p>

<p>DAVID CHALMERS' HARD QUESTION OF CONSCIOUSNESS REPHRASED</p>

<p>With fixed point consciousness identified and described qualitatively, I'll use the term fixed point consciousness to rephrase the hard question of consciousness. Why does consciousness have a sense of its own existence at its core? Why does fixed point consciousness exist in Nature? We understand we need to sense our environment to live. But why would we also sense our own existence? Why should we have a sense of self at all, why should there be fixed point consciousness, a 'me' that senses its own existence?</p>

<p>To address that question I propose that fixed point consciousness is a fundamental in organisms.</p>

<p>FIXED POINT CONSCIOUSNESS A FUNDAMENTAL IN ORGANISMS</p>

<p>Why a fundamental in organisms? An organism is a living body moving relative to other bodies where those other bodies are also in motion. I propose that without a sense of its own existence as a fixed point relative to other bodies in motion, an organism would not exhibit evolutionarily advantaged behavior. I argue that an organism would not exhibit evolutionarily advantaged behavior absent a sense of its own existence because absent that sense of a self with physical boundaries, an organism's behaviors would be "... one great blooming, buzzing confusion" (William James). In my view, James with his phrase blooming, buzzing confusion described a hypothetical world where the physical laws of relative motion don't allow in a reference frame a fixed point from which to measure relative motion. In my view, fixed point consciousness is the fixed point in an organism which makes possible its computations of relative motion and brings meaning (position and momentum) to an organism's behaviors. In my view, an organism's fixed point consciousness is an organism's fixed point in a reference frame against which the positions and motions of itself and other sensed objects are measured. (See Note 1)</p>

<p>I want to stress that as I argue it, fixed point consciousness is common to all organisms and can't have resulted from complexity because organisms without a brain also display evolutionarily advantaged behavior. (See Note 2) Although I functionally describe fixed point consciousness in an organism, I do not argue that fixed point consciousness arose from evolution. Instead I argue that fixed point consciousness is a precondition for evolutionarily advantaged behavior in organisms and I am consequently proposing that fixed point consciousness is not in its origins solely a product of biologicals, is a fundamental in organisms not derived from anything else.</p>

<p>Where then did the first evolutionarily advantaged organisms get fixed point consciousness?</p>

<p>The same place cameras get it.</p>

<p>Your thoughts?</p>

<p>Phil, point taken.</p>