Craig, I suppose it depends what you mean by a concept. If a concept is a string of words that has meaning, where does that meaning come from? Certainly the words are neutral, just sounds. In my opinion, a concept must trigger an inner reaction that is independent of the words. No doubt similar concepts trigger different reactions in people. Are they then the same concept or different? Language may harness the concept and allow it to multiply from one brain to another, but it would be a vector, without substance. I remember reading a lot of William S. Burroughs many years ago, and his notion of language as a virus. While somewhat paranoid, he did have a point. More recently I read a book by Neil Stephenson (Snow something) with a similar tilt.
Culture seems to be held together by language, I don't think it creates it. But, I am sure there are a lot of definitions of culture that I am unaware of. I'll leave that debate to the anthropologists. There is no doubt in my mind that one can organize appearances into levels, it is yet another thing to say that one creates the other. I think they are more like leaps (to use a little Kierkegaard). Cheers, Mark On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 12:00 PM, <[email protected]> wrote: > [Ham] > > I also don't buy into the notion that concepts are provided by our > culture. > > > . > How about "concepts are provided by our language" & > "language is provided by our culture"? > Craig > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html > Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
