solitude

[reasonvemotion]

My point is this.

A closed mind is a stagnant mind.

[chaz wyman]

My point is this.

A closed mind is a stagnant mind.

Then your point is not well made.
Dawkins mind is not completely closed, but there are limits.

[The Voice of Time]

A mind needs input. Solitude only works if you have something to process and you are capable of reflecting on it (as opposed to procedural processing, which is only reusing old solutions). Input doesn't have to be other humans however, but you have to be able to use language even in solitude, or else you'd loose slowly but certainly your capacity for understanding the world of words, and your mind would, I think, not work properly in processing the world in such a use as comes handy when you sooner or later is forced back into the world of Others.

[chaz wyman]

A mind needs input. Solitude only works if you have something to process and you are capable of reflecting on it (as opposed to procedural processing, which is only reusing old solutions). Input doesn't have to be other humans however, but you have to be able to use language even in solitude, or else you'd loose slowly but certainly your capacity for understanding the world of words, and your mind would, I think, not work properly in processing the world in such a use as comes handy when you sooner or later is forced back into the world of Others.

I tend to agree, but I think you overstate the condition of lack of linguistic input causing the loss of linguistic ability.
It is true that feral children, if found too late, having never had language never fully gain the ability to use it - those speech centres being re-used for other purposes. But once the brain is conditioned to language there is no evidence to say - as far as I know - that humans will ever loose that ability.
Is it not a skill like riding a bike - once learned never forgotten.

[duszek]

But do you really need language so much ?

Robinson communicated with Freitag (or Friday ?) without words mainly. Non-verbal communication is much more essential.

(I never read the book though.)

[chaz wyman]

But do you really need language so much ?

Robinson communicated with Freitag (or Friday ?) without words mainly. Non-verbal communication is much more essential.

(I never read the book though.)

It's a fiction, loosely based on a real person that spent 4 years stranded. I do not think he had a friend.

[The Voice of Time]

A mind needs input. Solitude only works if you have something to process and you are capable of reflecting on it (as opposed to procedural processing, which is only reusing old solutions). Input doesn't have to be other humans however, but you have to be able to use language even in solitude, or else you'd loose slowly but certainly your capacity for understanding the world of words, and your mind would, I think, not work properly in processing the world in such a use as comes handy when you sooner or later is forced back into the world of Others.

I tend to agree, but I think you overstate the condition of lack of linguistic input causing the loss of linguistic ability.
It is true that feral children, if found too late, having never had language never fully gain the ability to use it - those speech centres being re-used for other purposes. But once the brain is conditioned to language there is no evidence to say - as far as I know - that humans will ever loose that ability.
Is it not a skill like riding a bike - once learned never forgotten.

it's not like riding a bike, because riding a bike is motor-skill. Language is not just motor, it is not just pronunciation and moving of lips and all that. Language is defining and structuring our brain. If one doesn't continuously develop it, the brain doesn't develop sufficient social skills, as well as it forgets, and although it can with rather ease relearn what it has forgotten. Relearning what it has never learned (and which rest of society learned in the process, like understanding internet language and sms-language) can be difficult, and slow, and maybe even so hard it impairs the person for a long time or for the rest of their lives.

Consider a person who has been gone for 50 years, leaving at age 20, and returns today, not understanding or being able to relate to anybody in the streets. Looking inside the bus all you'll see almost is people clicking their smart phones or listening to music or browsing or writing on their laptops and tablets. The city has become the ultimate hell of ignoring others, such a person would feel that everybody knew something he didn't (like formal and informal rules of the workings of society, including the use, especially the efficient use, of facilities and equipment), but didn't want to talk to him at the same time or were able to explain to him all at once how this city had become what it is.

Language is not just about speaking and hearing, the motor skills, but also about the capability for and efficient use of information of different types and of different realms. Think about all the information we *know* about our computers for instance but which is not known from just looking at it. It is a long learning process, much of it, not so much to get started as what you learn after having gotten started. There's a reason why we call this the Age of Information, and it's a train it's easy to get dumped from if you don't stick to it, and information has creped into very many aspects of our lives, and continues to do so, making the train not just run faster, but farther also.

[chaz wyman]

A mind needs input. Solitude only works if you have something to process and you are capable of reflecting on it (as opposed to procedural processing, which is only reusing old solutions). Input doesn't have to be other humans however, but you have to be able to use language even in solitude, or else you'd loose slowly but certainly your capacity for understanding the world of words, and your mind would, I think, not work properly in processing the world in such a use as comes handy when you sooner or later is forced back into the world of Others.

I tend to agree, but I think you overstate the condition of lack of linguistic input causing the loss of linguistic ability.
It is true that feral children, if found too late, having never had language never fully gain the ability to use it - those speech centres being re-used for other purposes. But once the brain is conditioned to language there is no evidence to say - as far as I know - that humans will ever loose that ability.
Is it not a skill like riding a bike - once learned never forgotten.

it's not like riding a bike, because riding a bike is motor-skill. Language is not just motor, it is not just pronunciation and moving of lips and all that. Language is defining and structuring our brain. If one doesn't continuously develop it, the brain doesn't develop sufficient social skills, as well as it forgets, and although it can with rather ease relearn what it has forgotten. Relearning what it has never learned (and which rest of society learned in the process, like understanding internet language and sms-language) can be difficult, and slow, and maybe even so hard it impairs the person for a long time or for the rest of their lives.

Consider a person who has been gone for 50 years, leaving at age 20, and returns today, not understanding or being able to relate to anybody in the streets. Looking inside the bus all you'll see almost is people clicking their smart phones or listening to music or browsing or writing on their laptops and tablets. The city has become the ultimate hell of ignoring others, such a person would feel that everybody knew something he didn't (like formal and informal rules of the workings of society, including the use, especially the efficient use, of facilities and equipment), but didn't want to talk to him at the same time or were able to explain to him all at once how this city had become what it is.

Language is not just about speaking and hearing, the motor skills, but also about the capability for and efficient use of information of different types and of different realms. Think about all the information we *know* about our computers for instance but which is not known from just looking at it. It is a long learning process, much of it, not so much to get started as what you learn after having gotten started. There's a reason why we call this the Age of Information, and it's a train it's easy to get dumped from if you don't stick to it, and information has creped into very many aspects of our lives, and continues to do so, making the train not just run faster, but farther also.

All the evidence is against you. Whilst I agree that you can go rusty, adults never loose language once learned. Examples of long term incarceration have never resulted in loss of language.
The motor-skill objection is also false. At heart all skills are cerebral - riding a bike, or speaking.

[The Voice of Time]

All the evidence is against you. Whilst I agree that you can go rusty, adults never loose language once learned. Examples of long term incarceration have never resulted in loss of language.
The motor-skill objection is also false. At heart all skills are cerebral - riding a bike, or speaking.

What? What evidence are you talking about? Did you read anything of what I said? Were you half-asleep or something?

What I said about motor-skill is that biking is motor-skill, but that only a small amount of modern language is motorized, most of it is information processing, which follows a different form of learning and especially because it is very situational to the world we live in today.

[SpheresOfBalance]

Science can neither prove nor disprove evolution any more than it can creation. Certainly there are no human eyewitness accounts of either.

You forgot the word "currently," as if you have a working crystal ball and can see the future.

Science can, currently, neither prove nor disprove evolution any more than it can creation. Certainly there are no human eyewitness accounts of either. But one day we may come to know otherwise.

[SpheresOfBalance]

My point is this.

A closed mind is a stagnant mind.

Here let us argue, I say that in fact you are a gay purple unicorn, that eats nuts and bolts for breakfast. I have at least several books of proof that I am correct. Let us begin! If in fact one has read all my books, and addressed each and every point with their argument, why would one then take their valuable time to do it all again, in front of an audience, if not only to publically humiliate? I'm sure, a noble cause, by some standards.

[SpheresOfBalance]

A mind needs input. Solitude only works if you have something to process and you are capable of reflecting on it (as opposed to procedural processing, which is only reusing old solutions). Input doesn't have to be other humans however, but you have to be able to use language even in solitude, or else you'd loose slowly but certainly your capacity for understanding the world of words, and your mind would, I think, not work properly in processing the world in such a use as comes handy when you sooner or later is forced back into the world of Others.

I think that in order to believe that current linguistic methods are somehow superior to that which may exist in their absence, should only be judged by understanding the current state of the human condition and it's affects on the human condition, obviously oblivious during the conditioning, as viewed from a single biospheric perspective; that which is the absolute truth giver, of the actual human condition. Only in the solitude contained in oneself surrounded by nature, can one begin to understand my point.

[chaz wyman]

All the evidence is against you. Whilst I agree that you can go rusty, adults never loose language once learned. Examples of long term incarceration have never resulted in loss of language.
The motor-skill objection is also false. At heart all skills are cerebral - riding a bike, or speaking.

What? What evidence are you talking about? Did you read anything of what I said? Were you half-asleep or something?

What I said about motor-skill is that biking is motor-skill, but that only a small amount of modern language is motorized, most of it is information processing, which follows a different form of learning and especially because it is very situational to the world we live in today.

Biking requires information processing, the lay of the land, road signs, use of gears and where and when to steer.

Langauge is also a motor skill;it requires the brain, and motor nerves to move the throat tongue and lips.
It's like you didn't read what I said.

Your distinction is completely bogus. People never learn their language skills even when incarcerated for decades.