What is language for?

Who’s asking?

The organism with language, of course.

The frame for understanding an organism, any organism, including

ourselves, is not to build a wall around one example, as if in a lab, and then
study its processes, but to see “the organism in its environment.”

What is the organism doing? Every organism is constantly assessing

its environment for its needs. This assessment is a life/death matter, and
requires that all the senses and intelligence which the organism possesses
be put into use in this vital activity. The organism, whether it be a
nematode, a bee, a monkey, a human being, has to make a choice, given
alternative paths for action, as to which action to take. Go this way and eat;
go the other way and get eaten yourself. The more intelligence the given
organism can gather about the situation BEFORE taking action, the better
that organism’s ability to make the best choice (the one it’s genes designed
it for, leading towards survival of those very genes into the next
generation.)

Gathering intelligence takes intelligence. Nervous systems evolved to

facilitate rapid communication within an organism for movement away or
towards an object in its environment, and the brain evolved further to
centralize this process of gathering data using the body’s nerves. There
would be no need for a brain, the great analyzer, if there were not a body
for it to run, with nerves going from it out to all the systems, skin, muscles,
lungs, heart, bones, to each and every cell of the body and back to brain.

The “systems-monitoring” of the all these bodily processes by the brain

takes place along with the “data gathering” by this same brain of events in
the external world through the senses. What the eyes take in (photons of
light), what the ears record (sound vibrations), what the nose receives
(chemicals exuded from all around), the brain processes eventually
producing a coherent image, or images, by combining both the perception
(the collective of all sense data from the external world) with the physical
states which are occurring within the organism (its current homeostasis).
The image which is made is a combination of the two processes and is not
a passive picture of either, but a “representation” of both, directed towards
the actual situation of the organism undergoing the experience, which
outcome (life or death) the organism is very much interested in. Later,
when, the image becomes a memory, it gets tagged with more or less
significance according to the “experience” of the event as it actually played
out at the time it occurred. Was it (the event as experienced) helpful in the
situation or not? Should the situation (another incident like it) be repeated
or avoided? When the similar-to-the-current-situation memory gets run
through consciousness, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, the body
responds accordingly, and begins to feel again those same fears or desires
or hopes or whatever the emotions were that occurred the last time such an
image presented itself to consciousness. Memories are images with
feelings.

The strategy which gives the organism the capacity to assess

situations before taking action is improved by the development of higher
and higher nervous systems. A rudimentary capacity of an organism to
compare current perception with memory via turning both of them into
representations, and then, by selecting the better representation to run its
behavior, improving its position in the situation, demonstrates the first stage
of intelligence. Intelligence is defined as the ability of an organism to alter
its own behavior for its own benefit. The more intelligence an organism
possesses the better its survival chances. Following this “evolutionary”
logic, the organism that has the most capacity for learning new survival
behaviors will be the most favored organism. However, being smart is not
everything. A hungry lion won’t be waiting around at the water hole for the
arrival of an animal mentally inferior to itself.

Having representations (images) and comparing them for the

purposes of assessment occurs throughout the animal world. We say that
creatures have “mentality” to the extent that they can analyze
representations. Nobody “sees” this mentality, however, but its presence is
assumed due to the neural processing and altered behavior which take
place, both of which CAN be observed. In human beings the same is true:
brain waves can be observed, but thoughts cannot. We know that certain
regions are active when certain operations take place. We know that there
are language centers in the brain, optical centers, short and long term
memory centers, but we cannot “see” seeing, “hear” hearing, “touch”
sensing, and so on. We see, hear and touch objects. The actual
“experience” of seeing (or hearing or sensing) has both a physical and
mental side. The physical side is both observable and testable. The mental
side is neither. With what ruler will you measure an idea or a thought? For
this reason, the language of subjectivity is different from the language of
objectivity, or would be if we would be more precise.

The level of intelligence is based on the level of brain power, of course.

On the most rudimentary level of intelligence (the minimum to be called
such) the representations are rooted in some specific piece of the external
world, or some collective of such pieces, which constitute the experience
(for the organism.) For example, I am looking at the maple tree in my front
garden. Is the experience subjective or objective? The “experience” is
subjective, because it contains the response of the subject (me), but in the
above case the presence of the object is also necessary to cause the
experience (the tree must be actually “there”.) This qualification is important
because it defines a certain kind of experience (the everyday subject/object
encounter.) We want to keep the tree, as we learn about it (which is also an
experience) on the side of the object (both in our thinking and in our
speaking about it,) while the “experience” as experience will be on the side
of the subject (and lets keep the language describing this side of the
experience distinct, too.) While in fact there is no such thing as a pure
object (as Kant and 20th century physics proved forever) it still makes
sense to distinguish, using language carefully, the objective and subjective
worlds. Simply defined: subjective means only I can see it; objective means
anybody can see it. The perception above described, rooted in a specific
piece of the world at a specific time, may be either subjective or objective,
depending on which aspect is under scrutiny, the object, the subject, or
their relation. By the way, the above is not a particularly sophisticated
example of human intelligence. A caterpillar or a bird could have the same
“experience” of a “tree,” as above narrated.

With language a higher order level of relationship to the external world

is attained, which no other animal other than ourselves has reached. With
the appearance of the symbol, the subject/object discussion becomes
irrelevant. By definition, a symbol stands for another thing which it is not.
The symbol needs no existential, natural, or typical relationship to its object
in order to work as a symbol. In fact, the further removed the symbol is
from a natural connection to its object, the easier its work. This is precisely
what language is. The grunts and groans of language are “symbols” for the
ideas which are communicated between the language speakers. This can
be demonstrated by using the same word as above, “tree.” Think about it:
the word tree is a noise. The noise evokes in your consciousness a trunk,
limbs, leaves, and so forth, but no particular tree of your experience (or
maybe it does, but that’s not the point.) The symbol (the noise) works for
any tree. The same for the written word, here demonstrated by the letters in
parenthesis, “tree.” By means of this symbolizing, I can re-arrange the
entire physical world, before acting on it. I can say to the logger (ignoring
the caterpillars, birds and other creatures around) “Cut down trees on lot #3
with fat trunks and deliver them to mill for sawing into lumber.” The logger,
thinking of his profit (well being) goes into operation. The fat trees in the log
lot are severed at the base and delivered swiftly to the mill. The wealth of
all involved (land owner, logger, trucker, mill operator, lumber yard workers,
carpenter, home buyer) is increased as a result. The caterpillar and bird
loose out, but their well being is not at issue in this example (If it were a
similar kind of operation of “re-arranging of the physical world,” which
language accomplishes so well, could have produced a sanctuary instead
of a log lot.)

The answer to the question, “what is language for?” is answered by

showing what the organism (the one asking the question) is doing with
language. Language furthers the ability to gather intelligence about a
situation at hand prior to action in that situation. The ability to gather
information (compare one representation to another) is the first part of the
intelligence gathering. The second part, the one humans are especially
fitted for, is symbolic manipulation. Notice that I did not say “symbolic
processing,” a term used (incorrectly) by computer programmers.
Processing is a word better reserved for organic changes. Processing
describes chemical reactions, nerve patterns, homeostatic adjustments,
and such things. Processing is NOT something minds do. Minds think.
Minds, assessing their contents, run the ideas through operations to spit
out solutions, or possible solutions, BEFORE action. And by mind I do not
mean some “thing” in or about the brain. Mind means the mental operations
of an organism on the level of representations, ideas, concepts and such
“things.” These are not physical “things” (not nerve clusters, though they
depend on certain nerve clusters being fired up) but mental entities:
coherent plans for action which are put in place BEFORE the action. A
better word may be “program.” An idea is a program for action, either for
ourselves or for other language speakers, who “get” the idea and put it into
action.

Language is an advanced development of the mental capacity of an

organism to bracket the world before acting on it in order to re-arrange this
world to its liking. This is as natural an operation as there is in Evolution.

However, it is incumbent upon us (who are talking and writing about it)
to remember that mental operations and physical processes are, though
related, of a different order of being in Nature, and thus warrant a different
lingo. We “observe” the processes of Nature, but we only “witness” the
operations of our own minds. In the world of Nature we can demonstrate
proofs which have objective, universally recognizable and verifiable truth.
For truths about the world of subjective experience we must rely on the
description of internal states of others given to us through gestures, facial
expressions, and other behaviors, but mainly through language. An
objective fact wins its truth whether any particular observer acknowledges it
or doesn’t. A “subjective” fact is considered true only when we are
convinced that the internal state of the other coincides with our own internal
state evoked by the same language. We have a situation where the
different states of mind of the two people (or however many are listening)
are mediated by noises (spoken words) which are symbols of mental
states. How do we know that the mental states represented by the words
are identical in each subject? We don’t.

The best we can do is approximate, and keep checking our

interpretations with each other. The gap between certainty in objective
matters and certainty in subjective matters is significant. In objective
matters we can have all the confidence in the world that the things we think
we know will be confirmed by others. In subjective matters such confidence
is unwarranted. The gains in knowledge of internal experiences do not
come about by proofs, by reference to external objects, but such
knowledge issues from the sorting out of the meaning of words, ideas,
principles, concepts and other such entities, in discussions with others who
are doing the same. The mental structures we eventually call knowledge,
using words, are built up piece by piece (idea by idea), and gain solidity
and recognition in the consent shared among the speakers and listeners
that the words reflect the ideas and vice versa, and they are true.

The appreciation of the distinction between how nature works and how
the mind operates would be much improved if scientists were more careful
in their language. A common example is the way the word information is
used by many scientists to describe natural processes. Information is not
in Nature, but is something minds make out of data. Data gains significance
when it “becomes” information for us. But to the tree with its tree rings, or
the cell with its dna, the processes they undergo are not information, or for
information. They are simply processes (summer and winter growth in the
tree; making of proteins with dna) which we, using our minds, make into
information. It is not an accurate perception of what is taking place in the
tree to see it as an information producing entity, as if the tree (and the rest
of Nature) exists, somehow, for us, and not in and for itself.

The study, naming and measuring of objects in the physical world is

one thing; the study, naming and sorting out of the mental entities which fill
our consciousness is another. Nature (including the brain) has “processes,”
process which can be observed; minds have “operations,” operations which
cannot be observed, but which must be “experienced” by each user.
Different realms; different lingoes. We are the ones doing the measuring,
the talking about the measuring, the listening, the talking about that, and it
makes all the sense in the world to name the things that we are doing
correctly to reflect the correct understanding of the things we study.

Dan Duncan Spring, 2009