[Marxism-Thaxis] Martin Gardner - RIP
Another great one passes. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24gardner.html?hpw Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant Voted #1 Oil Gas Stock PDGO Why investors think Paradigm Oil Gas is the next BIG oil player http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL3141/4bfa680faa6e42194st03vuc ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin ofDiscrete Infinity
On 5/22/10, Carrol Cox cb...@ilstu.edu wrote: As usual, I'm just breaking into the middle of a thread, and I do not know who CeJ is quoting here, but I wholly agree with CeJ on this. The idea of learning how to make a wheel from stories rather than directly from another wheelwright is nothing short of bizarre. ^^ CB: Calling it bizarre is bizarre, with your grunts and snorts version of early human communication. You are out of your gourd. Were they cavemen , too. You read too many cartoons. Of course , the wheelwright uses stories to teach how to build a wheel. Duh. ^^^ That in any case was never the purpose of stories, ancient or modern. They are indeed crucial to human society, more crucial than wheelmaking perhaps, but not because they have the sort of utilitariand use claimed here. CeJ's army anecdote is telling: even skills that _can_ more or less be abstracted into a technical manual (and only in the last couple centuries has that been common) cannot often be mastered without an instructor to _show_ one how to do it. And many skills cannot be so abstracted. Frying eggs, for example: My grandmother could serve soft eggs with the yolks broken ans pread out over much of the white. Now she had the advantage of fresh eggs, but still. One can now buy 'organic' eggs with greatly improved taste, and the yolk does hold better -- but I have tried vainly to recover her skill -- and I doubt very much that a 1000 stories could help much. One has to do it under the practiced eye of someone who has the skill. Browse through any good cookbook. You will find the recipes divide rather neatly into those which guarantee the same produce each time by merely repeating the instructions and those which at crucial points demand some kind of personal sense (gained only through another person who has it or through constaant trial and error, not by following instructinss. And a much greater proportion of pre-modern skills were of the frutying-an-egg rather than mix-these-ingredients-in this-exact-proportion type. In principle, perhaps, someone could have learned how to make pottery on a wheel from some ditty passed down, but I doubt it very much. And no one coulld ever master handmade pottery from a manual. One hint to what (for 'primitive' peoples: i.e. say 30k b.p.) is given by the lady in the play who said how can I know what I think till I see what I say. The 'wisdom' not the technology of the tribe belongs in stories. They would define who they were by the stories they told of where they came from. Carrol CeJ wrote: And stories are exactly it. In a story can be passed on to unborn generations how to make a wheel, how to make a stone axe, or the habits of predators and prey , how to organize a hunt or gathering socially ( brothers relate based on kinship in the hunt or in the defense against a predator, say). Chimps don't have stories like that. Having a wheel or a stone axe is a big adaptive advantage over whomever you might be competing with. The wheel or how to make a stone axe may be invented by some chimp genius, but if there is no way to pass it on When I was in the Army I knew guys who could not read an Army manual if their life depended on it, and yet you could blindfold them and they could take apart, clean, and re-assemble an M2 Browning machine gun. They didn't get this sort of skill because stories of their dead ancestors were passed down and accumulated over thousands of years. They got such dexterity (and lack of literacy) growing up in places like Lynchburg, VA, taking apart cars in their backyards. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin ofDiscrete Infinity
Carrol's vulgar materialist image of wheelwrights as only workers of the hand, and not of the brain, talking to their apprentices, showing them how to make wheels by dumb-speechless gestures and mime, silent imitation, leads to stupid versions of workers as mindless bodies performing like robots. On 5/24/10, c b cb31...@gmail.com wrote: On 5/22/10, Carrol Cox cb...@ilstu.edu wrote: As usual, I'm just breaking into the middle of a thread, and I do not know who CeJ is quoting here, but I wholly agree with CeJ on this. The idea of learning how to make a wheel from stories rather than directly from another wheelwright is nothing short of bizarre. ^^ CB: Calling it bizarre is bizarre, with your grunts and snorts version of early human communication. You are out of your gourd. Were they cavemen , too. You read too many cartoons. Of course , the wheelwright uses stories to teach how to build a wheel. Duh. ^^^ That in any case was never the purpose of stories, ancient or modern. They are indeed crucial to human society, more crucial than wheelmaking perhaps, but not because they have the sort of utilitariand use claimed here. ^ CB: Wrong. Songs had big time utilitarian use in very ancient times. ^^^ CeJ's army anecdote is telling: even skills that _can_ more or less be abstracted into a technical manual (and only in the last couple centuries has that been common) cannot often be mastered without an instructor to _show_ one how to do it. And many skills cannot be so abstracted. Frying eggs, for example: My grandmother could serve soft eggs with the yolks broken ans pread out over much of the white. Now she had the advantage of fresh eggs, but still. One can now buy 'organic' eggs with greatly improved taste, and the yolk does hold better -- but I have tried vainly to recover her skill -- and I doubt very much that a 1000 stories could help much. One has to do it under the practiced eye of someone who has the skill. Browse through any good cookbook. You will find the recipes divide rather neatly into those which guarantee the same produce each time by merely repeating the instructions and those which at crucial points demand some kind of personal sense (gained only through another person who has it or through constaant trial and error, not by following instructinss. And a much greater proportion of pre-modern skills were of the frutying-an-egg rather than mix-these-ingredients-in this-exact-proportion type. In principle, perhaps, someone could have learned how to make pottery on a wheel from some ditty passed down, but I doubt it very much. And no one coulld ever master handmade pottery from a manual. One hint to what (for 'primitive' peoples: i.e. say 30k b.p.) is given by the lady in the play who said how can I know what I think till I see what I say. The 'wisdom' not the technology of the tribe belongs in stories. They would define who they were by the stories they told of where they came from. Carrol CeJ wrote: And stories are exactly it. In a story can be passed on to unborn generations how to make a wheel, how to make a stone axe, or the habits of predators and prey , how to organize a hunt or gathering socially ( brothers relate based on kinship in the hunt or in the defense against a predator, say). Chimps don't have stories like that. Having a wheel or a stone axe is a big adaptive advantage over whomever you might be competing with. The wheel or how to make a stone axe may be invented by some chimp genius, but if there is no way to pass it on When I was in the Army I knew guys who could not read an Army manual if their life depended on it, and yet you could blindfold them and they could take apart, clean, and re-assemble an M2 Browning machine gun. They didn't get this sort of skill because stories of their dead ancestors were passed down and accumulated over thousands of years. They got such dexterity (and lack of literacy) growing up in places like Lynchburg, VA, taking apart cars in their backyards. CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Nature Conservancy's ties to BP
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052302164.html Nature Conservancy faces potential backlash from ties with BP By Joe Stephens Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, May 23, 2010; 12:30 PM In the days after the immensity of the spill in the Gulf of Mexico became clear, some Nature Conservancy supporters took to the organization's web site to vent their anger. The first thing I did was sell my shares in BP, not wanting anything to do with a company that is so careless, wrote one. Another added: I would like to force all the BP executives, the secretaries and the shareholders out to the shore to mop up oil and wash the birds. Reagan De Leon of Hawaii called for a boycott of everything BP has their hands in. What De Leon didn't know was that the Nature Conservancy lists BP as one of its business partners. The organization also has given BP a seat on its International Leadership Council and has accepted nearly $10 million in cash and land contributions from BP and affiliated corporations over the years. Oh, wow, De Leon said when told of the depth of the relationship between the nonprofit she loves and the company she hates. That's kind of disturbing. The Conservancy, already scrambling to shield oyster beds in the region from the spill, now faces a different problem: a potential backlash as its supporters learn that the giant oil company and the world's largest environmental organization long ago forged a relationship that has lent BP an Earth-friendly image and helped the Conservancy pursue causes it holds dear. Indeed, the crude emanating from BP's well threatens to befoul a number of such alliances that have formed between energy conglomerates and environmental non-profits. At least one conservation group acknowledges that it is reassessing its ties to the oil company, with an eye toward protecting its reputation. This is going to be a real test for charities such as the Nature Conservancy, said Dean Zerbe, a lawyer who investigated the Conservancy's relations with its donors when he worked for the Senate Finance Committee. This not only stains BP but, if they don't respond properly, it also stains those who have been benefiting from their money and their support. Some purists believe environmental organizations should keep a healthy distance from certain kinds of corporations, particularly those such as BP, whose core mission poses risks to the environment. They argue that the BP spill shows the downside to what they view as deals with the devil. On the other side are self-described pragmatists, such as the Conservancy, who see partnering with global corporations as the best way to bring about large-scale change. Anyone serious about doing conservation in this region must engage these companies, so they are not just part of the problem but so they can be part of the effort to restore this incredible ecosystem, Conservancy Chief Executive Mark Tercek wrote on his group's web site after criticism from a Conservancy supporter The Arlington-based Conservancy has made no secret of its relationship with BP, just one of many it has forged with multi-national corporations. The Conservancy's web site identifies BP as a member of its Leadership Council. BP has been a major contributor to a Conservancy project aimed at protecting Bolivian forests. In 2006, BP gave the organization 655 acres in York County, Va., where a state wildlife management area is planned. In Colorado and Wyoming, the Conservancy has worked with BP to limit environmental damage from natural gas drilling. Until recently, the Conservancy and other environmental groups worked alongside BP in a coalition that lobbied Congress on climate change issues. And an employee of BP Exploration serves as an unpaid Conservancy trustee in Alaska. We are getting some important and very tangible outcomes as a result of our work with the company, said Conservancy spokesman Jim Petterson. Reassessing Relationships The Conservancy has long positioned itself as the leader of a non-confrontational arm of the environmental movement, and that position has helped the charity attract tens of millions of dollars a year in contributions. A number have come from companies whose work takes a toll on the environment, including those engaged in logging, homebuilding and power generation. Conservancy officials say their approach has allowed them to change company practices from within, leverage the influence of the companies and protect ecosystems that are under the companies' control. They stress that contributions from BP and other large corporations constitute only a portion of the organization's total revenue, which now exceeds a half billion dollars a year. And the Conservancy is far from the only environmental nonprofit with ties to BP. Conservation International has accepted $2 million in donations from BP over the years and partnered with the company on a number of projects, including one examining oil extraction
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Martin Gardner - RIP
Say it ain't so. I discovered Martin Gardner in the *Mathematical Games* column of /Scientific American/, having innocently bought it off the newsstand because of my boyhood interest in science. I think the issue I bought was June or July 1967. And then I was hooked. I also read some of his other stuff, most memorably /Fads and Fallacies in the Name of Science/. My name was published in one issue for my solution of some problem involving Baker's Solitaire. Names were omitted though, when said article was reprinted in one of Gardner's anthologies. On 05/24/2010 07:49 AM, farmela...@juno.com wrote: Another great one passes. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/us/24gardner.html?hpw Jim Farmelant http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Live From Arizona!
Live From Arizona! Monday, May 24 7 PM 5920 Second Ave., Detroit You are invited to a meeting to organize in support of the movement to repeal the racist Arizona Senate Bill 1070 that criminalizes immigrant communities and communities of color in Arizona. The meeting will focus on organizing demonstrations at the Arizona Diamondbacks v. Tigers games at Comerica Park, June 18, 19, 20, in support of the national movement to Boycot Arizona. Also on the agenda will be the recently announced plans to introduce a racist Arizona-style anti-mmigrant law in Michigan and organizing the movement to oppose this measure. At the meeting, there will be a live-feed from Tucson activists in the forefront of the immigrant rights movement in Arizona. who will discuss activities in that state and the importance in building the movement to stop SB 1070 and similar bills around the US. Below is a press release from activists in Tucson, Arizona. Meeting and actions co-sponsored by the MECAWI, Latinos Unidos, Moratorium NOW! Coalition, and FIST-Detroit. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin ofDiscrete Infinity
What is truly bizarre is lumping an advanced technology--the wheel-- with the most primitive of technologies--the stone ax. On May 24, 2010, at 8:32 AM, c b wrote: Carrol's vulgar materialist image of wheelwrights as only workers of the hand, and not of the brain, talking to their apprentices, showing them how to make wheels by dumb-speechless gestures and mime, silent imitation... On 5/22/10, Carrol Cox cb...@ilstu.edu wrote: The idea of learning how to make a wheel from stories rather than directly from another wheelwright is nothing short of bizarre. ^^ CB: Calling it bizarre is bizarre, with your grunts and snorts version of early human communication. CeJ wrote: And stories are exactly it. In a story can be passed on to unborn generations how to make a wheel... Having a wheel or a stone axe is a big adaptive advantage over whomever you might be competing with. The wheel or how to make a stone axe may be invented by some chimp genius, but if there is no way to pass it on Shane Mage This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, kindling in measures and going out in measures. Herakleitos of Ephesos ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
Re: [Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural OriginofDiscrete Infinity
Shane Mage wrote: What is truly bizarre is lumping an advanced technology--the wheel-- with the most primitive of technologies--the stone ax. I was thinking of the wheel in terms not of wagons but of pottery. That is I assume that the really important 'early' use of the wheel was the potter's wheel But you would still be correct. Wheelmade pottery was a sophisticated technological development, while the stone ax is pre-homo s. I'm too fond of the word bizarre and should learn to control my use of it, since the wrod more often conuses than develops conversation. Carrol ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Origin of language
Origin of language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language The origin of language, known in linguistics as glottogony[1] refers to the acquisition of the human ability to use language at some point during the Paleolithic. The main difficulty of the question stems from the fact that it concerns a development in deep prehistory which left no direct fossil traces and for which no comparable processes can be observed today.[2] The time range under discussion in this context extends from the phylogenetic separation of Homo and Pan some 5 million years ago to the emergence of full behavioral modernity some 50,000 years ago. The evolution of fully modern human language requires the development of the vocal tract used for speech production and the cognitive abilities required to produce linguistic utterances. The debate surrounds the timeline, sequence and order of developments associated with this. It is mostly undisputed that pre-human australopithecines did not have communication systems significantly different from those found in great apes in general, but scholarly opinions vary as to the developments since the appearance of Homo some 2.5 million years ago. Some scholars assume the development of primitive language-like systems (proto-language) as early as Homo habilis, while others place the development of primitive symbolic communication only with Homo erectus (1.8 million years ago) or Homo heidelbergensis (0.6 million years ago) and the development of language proper with Homo sapiens sapiens less than 100,000 years ago. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity
CeJ jannuzi at gmail.com Sorry still not convinced that 20th century anthropology explains very much about the origins, development (both species and individual) of language etc. I advocate a wholesale rejection of 'differential' structuralism in order to tackle the issues. You say for example aboriginal societies have huge stores of native flora and fauna--something that has been observed again and again, and something conservationists now value when they go in to 'environmental impact studies', etc. But how arbitrarily symbolic is the SYSTEM of classification here? It is largely determined by three living generations interacting with their environment in order to survive. It's practical knowledge got through hands-on experience and interaction with living members of their society, not dead ancestors. CJ CB: No. The body of knowledge is not rediscovered, anew, through hands on experience every three generations. That is positivism. They have science , too. Science is a body of knowledge socially shared across generations. The hands-on experience that humans get is mediated by language. Language is interaction with dead ancestors. With language, there is always a third person ,an ancestor, involved in the conversation. That's the point of the wheel example. It is a play on the words of the famous saying Lets not reinvent the wheel. Once some genius invented the wheel, the reason it didn't have to be reinvented was because of culture and stories preserved across generations. Language helps an individual to remember how to make a wheel. The language is filled with symbols which are signs-symbols with an arbitrary relationship between the signifiers and the signified. The word for tuber in any of these languages has an arbitrary relationship to what it refers to. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity
When I was in the Army I knew guys who could not read an Army manual if their life depended on it, and yet you could blindfold them and they could take apart, clean, and re-assemble an M2 Browning machine gun. They didn't get this sort of skill because stories of their dead ancestors were passed down and accumulated over thousands of years. They got such dexterity (and lack of literacy) growing up in places like Lynchburg, VA, taking apart cars in their backyards. CJ ^ CB: Are you saying when they first learned to do it, the Sgt. did not say a word to them in teaching them how to do it ? With manuals, you are talking about a period after _writing_ has been invented, not language. Could they _make_ from scratch a Browning automatic weapon without any language mediating ? Why try try to makeout that language doesn't mediate almost all of human processes since language began ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity
CJ: For example, this is what it takes for a contact pidgin to turn into a full-blown language. Now what evidence do you actually offer up that demonstrates primitive societies operate on a collective storage of thousands of years of information? CB: The style of stone tools remains the same over thousands of years. You might say that the language of the stone age peoples is written in stone. When we get to Moses, there is early writing in ...uh stone , on tablets. See also, the Aztec cosmological mono_liths_. Then Levi-Strauss discusses the logic of the concrete. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity
CeJ jannuzi In 1960 Levi-Strauss' uses structural linguistic concepts to demonstrate the information in the binary opposition/base 2 computer sense, in primitive myths It got Althusser going, but this analysis I suspect is largely nonsense. I won't let it got at that though. More later on why this sort of binary differential analysis just doesn't work to measure information. CJ ^ Byte http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byte From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to:navigation, search This article is about the information storage unit. For the homophone, see bite. For other uses, see Byte (disambiguation). The byte (pronounced /ˈbaɪt/) is a unit of digital information in computing and telecommunications. It is an ordered collection of bits, in which each bit denotes the binary value of 1 or 0. Historically, a byte was the number of bits (typically 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 16) used to encode a single character of text in a computer[1][2] and it is for this reason the basic addressable element in many computer architectures. The size of a byte is typically hardware dependent, but the modern de facto standard is 8 bits, as this is a convenient power of 2. Most of the numeric values used by many applications are representable in 8 bits and processor designers optimize for this common usage. Signal processing applications tend to operate on larger values and some digital signal processors have 16 or 40 bits as the smallest unit of addressable storage (on such processors a byte may be defined to contain this number of bits). The term octet was explicitly defined to denote a sequence of 8 bits because of the ambiguity associated with the term byte and is widely used in communications protocol specifications. Contents [hide] 1 History 2 Size 3 Unit symbol or abbreviation 4 Unit multiples 5 See also 6 References [edit] History The term byte was coined by Dr. Werner Buchholz in July 1956, during the early design phase for the IBM Stretch computer.[3][4][5] Originally it was defined in instructions by a 4-bit field, allowing sixteen values and typical I/O equipment of the period used six-bit bytes. A fixed eight-bit byte size was later adopted and promulgated as a standard by the System/360. The term byte stems from bite, as in the largest amount of data a computer could bite at once.[citation needed] A contiguous sequence of binary bits in a serial data stream, such as in modem or satellite communications, which is the smallest meaningful unit of data. These bytes might include start bits, stop bits, or parity bits, and thus could vary from 7 to 12 bits to contain a single 7-bit ASCII code. A data type in certain programming languages. The C and C++ programming languages, for example, define byte as addressable unit of data large enough to hold any member of the basic character set of the execution environment (clause 3.6 of the C standard). The C standard requires that the char integral data type is capable of holding at least 255 different values, and is represented by at least 8 bits (clause 5.2.4.2.1). Various implementations of C and C++ define a byte as 8, 9, 16, 32, or 36 bits[6][7]. The actual number of bits in a particular implementation is documented as CHAR_BIT as implemented in the limits.h file. Java's primitive byte data type is always defined as consisting of 8 bits and being a signed data type, holding values from −128 to 127. Early microprocessors, such as Intel 8008 (the direct predecessor of the 8080, and then 8086) could perform a small number of operations on four bits, such as the DAA (decimal adjust) instruction, and the half carry flag, that were used to implement decimal arithmetic routines. These four-bit quantities were called nibbles, in homage to the then-common 8-bit bytes. Historical IETF documents cite varying examples of byte sizes. RFC 608 mentions byte sizes for FTP hosts (the FTP-BYTE-SIZE attribute in host tables for the ARPANET) to be 36 bits for PDP-10 computers and 32 bits for IBM 360 systems.[8] [edit] Size Architectures that did not have eight-bit bytes include the CDC 6000 series scientific mainframes that divided their 60-bit floating-point words into 10 six-bit bytes. These bytes conveniently held character data from punched Hollerith cards, typically the upper-case alphabet and decimal digits. CDC also often referred to 12-bit quantities as bytes, each holding two 6-bit display code characters, due to the 12-bit I/O architecture of the machine. The PDP-10 used assembly instructions LDB and DPB to load and deposit bytes of any width from 1 to 36-bits—these operations survive today in Common Lisp. Bytes of six, seven, or nine bits were used on some computers, for example within the 36-bit word of the PDP-10. The UNIVAC 1100/2200 series computers (now Unisys) addressed in both 6-bit (Fieldata) and nine-bit (ASCII) modes within its 36-bit word. Telex machines used 5 bits to encode
[Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity
CeJ jannuzi at gmail.com So I remember ancedotally speaking this discussion from grad school, applied linguistics, ELT, etc. We were discussing the importance or unimportance of the sound [zh] as in 'beige', 'rouge', 'garage', etc--if you say the sound as a 'continuous' one (not using technical language here because I don't think it would be appreciated anyway). ^ CB: Here's a minimal pair : beige/base. the zh/ s binary opposition voiced/unvoiced distinguish the meaning between these two words. ^^^ Now the traditional structuralist argument (within applied linguistics, ELT, etc.) was this sound is not an important one to teach because of this structuralist idea of 'cognitive load' (the structuralists who for the most part were behaviorists get 'cognitive' on occasion if they think it suits their arguments). The argument went, this sound in English has little cognitive load and so is not an important one to teach. So I asked, why? How do you know it has little cognitive load. And the answer was: one, it appears in words that are not that common (indeed, fairly recent imports from French--see, it's a French sound even); two, we can not juxtaposition a lot of words to show 'minimal pairs' that contrast this [zh] with some other similar sibilant consonant. On the contrary, even if it doesn't appear frequently in the lexicon or even in a few frequently used words, it is all over the place in actual spoken English. If a word ends in a voiced [z] and is followed by a [j] as at the beginning of 'your', chances are co-articulation (assimilation, mutual assimilation) creates a [zh] sound in the liaison. Like: Please yourself. So much for structuralist sureties. Cognitive load my arse. Now I like structures and symbols, that's for sure. So why is the symbol of the hexagon the god of the bees? CJ ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Launching Language: The Gestural Origin of Discrete Infinity
Chomsky has countered that he doesn't deny that language could have evolved by natural selection for communication, merely that he doesn't believe that this is at all self-evident, and he doesn't believe that there is any convincing evidence that this must be so. In his paper on this subject with biologists Marc Hauser and W. Tecumseh Fitch, Chomsky argued that other plausible scenarios (such as sexual selection) are equally capable of explaining the evolution of language, while hypothesizing that recursion is the only property of language unique to human beings: ^^^ CB; Sexual selection _is_ natural selection. Differential fertility is the main thingy in evolutionary biology, not differential mortality. ___ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
[Marxism-Thaxis] Evolutionary timeline for language
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language Evolutionary timeline [edit] Primate language Not much is known about great ape communication in the wild. The anatomical structure of their larynxes do not enable apes to make many of the sounds that modern humans do. In captivity, apes have been taught rudimentary sign language and the use of lexigrams—symbols that do not graphically resemble their corresponding words—on computer keyboards. Some apes, such as Kanzi, have been able to learn and use hundreds of lexigrams. The Broca's and Wernicke's areas in the primate brain are responsible for controlling the muscles of the face, tongue, mouth, and larynx, as well as recognizing sounds. Primates are known to make vocal calls, and these calls are generated by circuits in the brainstem and limbic system.[7] In the wild, the communication of vervet monkeys has been the most extensively studied.[8] They are known to make up to ten different vocalizations. Many of these are used to warn other members of the group about approaching predators. They include a leopard call, a snake call, and an eagle call. Each call triggers a different defensive strategy in the monkeys that hear the call and scientists were able to elicit predictable responses from the monkeys using loudspeakers and prerecorded sounds. Other vocalizations may be used for identification. If an infant monkey calls, its mother turns toward it, but other vervet mothers turn instead toward that infant's mother to see what she will do.[9] [edit] Early Homo Regarding articulation, there is considerable speculation about the language capabilities of early Homo (2.5 to 0.8 million years ago). Anatomically, some scholars believe features of bipedalism which developed in australopithecines around 3.5 million years ago would have brought changes to the skull, allowing for a more L-shaped vocal tract. The shape of the tract and a larynx positioned relatively low in the neck are necessary prerequisites for many of the sounds humans make, particularly vowels. Other scholars believe that, based on the position of the larynx, not even Neanderthals had the anatomy necessary to produce the full range of sounds modern humans make.[10][11] Still another view considers the lowering of the larynx irrelevant to the development of speech.[12] The term proto-language, as defined by linguist Derek Bickerton, is a primitive form of communication lacking: a fully-developed syntax tense, aspect, auxiliary verbs, etc. a closed-class (i.e. non-lexical) vocabulary That is, a stage in the evolution of language somewhere between great ape language and fully developed modern human language. Bickerton (2009) places the first emergence of such a proto-language with the earliest appearance of Homo, and associates its appearance with the pressure of behavioral adaptation to the niche construction of scavenging faced by Homo habilis.[13] Anatomical features such as the L-shaped vocal tract have been continuously evolving, as opposed to appearing suddenly.[14] Hence it is most likely that Homo habilis and Homo erectus during the Lower Pleistocene had some form of communication intermediate between that of modern humans and that of other primates.[15] [edit] Archaic Homo sapiens Further information: Archaic Homo sapiens Steven Mithen proposed the term Hm for the pre-linguistic system of communication used by archaic Homo, beginning with Homo ergaster and reaching the highest sophistification in the Middle Pleistocene with Homo heidelbergensis and Homo neanderthalensis. Hm is an acronym for holistic (non-compositional), manipulative (utterances are commands or suggestions, not descriptive statements), multi-modal (acoustic as well as gestural and mimetic), musical, and memetic.[16] [edit] Homo heidelbergenis See also: Homo heidelbergenis: Language H. heidelbergensis was a close relative (most probably a migratory descendant) of Homo ergaster. H. ergaster is thought to be the first hominin to vocalize[17] (possibly females engaging in baby-talk), and that as H. heidelbergensis developed more sophisticated culture proceeded from this point and possibly developed an early form of symbolic language. [edit] Homo neanderthalensis See also: Neanderthal: Language The discovery in 2007 of a Neanderthal hyoid bone suggests that Neanderthals may have been anatomically capable of producing sounds similar to modern humans. The hypoglossal nerve, which passes through the canal, controls the movements of the tongue and its size is said to reflect speech abilities. Hominids who lived earlier than 300,000 years ago had hypoglossal canals more akin to those of chimpanzees than of humans.[18][19][20] However, although Neanderthals may have been anatomically able to speak, Richard G. Klein in 2004 doubted that they possessed a fully modern language. He largely bases his doubts on the fossil record of archaic humans and their stone tool kit. For 2 million years following the emergence of
