How do Language and Consciousness Relate? | Episode 1604 | Closer To Truth

Why the tension between consciousness, my inner experience, and language, enabling thought and culture? Does consciousness cause language? Or language cause consciousness? Featuring interviews with John Searle, Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, Ned Block, Barry Smith, and Colin Blakemore.

Season 16, Episode 4 - #CloserToTruth

Closer To Truth host Robert Lawrence Kuhn takes viewers on an intriguing global journey into cutting-edge labs, magnificent libraries, hidden gardens, and revered sanctuaries in order to discover state-of-the-art ideas and make them real and relevant.

Closer to Truth presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers.

#Consciousness #Language

[atharchaudhry]

I admire how beautifully Robert Lawrence Kuhn understands and summaries the complex content uttered by the experts. For instance recall, how well he transformed the words of the expert into a simplified version. "So it seems, that language then gives us capacity to transform momentary experiences into general principals that we can relate over time, so that we built categories and meaning from the individual experiences". This way of abstractions make the content more intelligible for listeners.

[werquantum]

The more I think about this, the more complicated it gets. Similar to when I watch those quantum mechanics vids. I may return to drinking.

[millenialmusings]

John Searle never ceases to surprise me with his insights! Always a pleasure to listen to him 😊

[tunahelpa]

A sweet memory from my daughter's childhood - she always rode in the back seat of the car (this is when she was pre-talking age). My wife and I, sitting in the front seat, would have a conversation. One time, in the midst of our talking, our daughter started speaking in nonsense words, as though joining in the conversation.

[stoneagedjp]

Many times I've known what I want to say, but been unable to find the words to say it. Or when needing to chose between two languages, I've always been aware that the thought comes first; it then comes out, often imperfectedly, in one language or the other depending on the environment. I therefore believe that language was bolted on long after the development of conciousness. It can only approximate what we experience in the conscious. In fact, language can even masquerade as our thoughts, which can deceive us into thinking we think something when we don't.

[EugeneKhutoryansky]

Computers have language without consciousness. Infants have consciousness without language. You don't need language to enrich consciousness, as you could think entirely in terms of pictures without words. Animals can make complex plans for the future and have self awareness by thinking entirely in terms of pictures. We now know that ants can pass the mirror test, in that the ant will recognize that she is looking at a reflection of herself.

[waoweMan]

I love to see Robert sitting quietly while John eloquently place his arguments

[fearitselfpinball]

The amazing thing is that consciousness is completely private but communication conveys ourselves via physicality outward and towards others.

[syedyousuf]

I think the true essence of man is to know meaning behind any thought or deed, so language, is the tool or device to attain that goal or purpose and to share with others, for collaboration and learning from each other. If it wasn’t for language we couldn’t have learnt and passed on to other generations who would build on it. Language is the best way to preserve what we learn whether verbally or in written form.

[tonyesfandiari]

Well done research on the subject- entertaining yet educational- a bravo to your cinematographer. Very well done . Thank you for producing meaningful content

[franciscohanna]

This is like "Awaking Life", without the painting. Great content.

[davestr]

I think Julian Jaynes had the right idea as to how language may have ‘evolved’ alongside consciousness, even if many of his details may have been off.

[danieljakubik]

Interesting. Pondering the relationship between language and consciousness.

[ianclarke]

I've always felt the effort of learning language to communicate stifles our consciousness

[easywind]

This may be obvious to some, but I think I know how we came to communicate the word “no” by shaking our head from side to side. Imagine yourself as a one year old sitting in your high chair having a meal and your mother spoons up mashed broccoli 🥦 and moves the spoon toward your mouth. You take a little sample to taste and immediately decide you don’t like. Then Mom spoons up a little more. Of course, you don’t want it. So you create a moving target. You shake your head. Logically, the opposite of no is yes and the opposite of shaking your head is nodding. This was a mildly profound insight for me. I present this for your ridicule.

[angelotuteao]

Have been fascinated by the connection between consciousness and language - thank you RLK

[raiagrobahadarnagar]

The challenge is to get out of all negativity and consider universe in abundance and positive energy without any artificial construct and being free of all worries. We might than be able to understand what a thought is and from where it comes and how our perception works towards any intention or phenomenon.

[grybnyx]

When Rebecca Goldstein marvels at the variety of ways in which her readers have understood the characters she created in her novels, does she inadvertently confirm the central fact of our beings, that the fullness of the experience of being is fundamentally unknowable to others?

[lisac.]

I really enjoyed the discussion. Great Channel!!

[compellingpoint]

The human world is composed of real things and imaginary things. The real things can be broken down into two categories: material objects and abstract ideas. Abstract concepts are ideas which do not have a specific material manifestation, while the other kind of thing has both a concept and an object existing in reality (whether it be physical or conceptual). For example, an apple is something that exists as both a concrete entity with certain properties but also as an idea which has additional properties such as sweetness.

The thing about an abstract concept is that it doesn't necessarily have a material manifestation, which means that there are no constraints on its definition. An apple is constrained in the fact that its redness and roundness are inherent to what it is as well as being physical properties of it (whether we choose to refer to them or not). However, if I define "freedom" as "the ability to do whatever you want", this then becomes something with additional aspects such as freedom from limitations.

Human consciousness is made up of ideas, which are abstract concepts that we use to make sense of the world around us. To take a very simple example, if you see a red apple on a table and it makes you think "that's an apple", then your mind has created an idea called "apple" based on what your senses have told you. You have not seen every single property of this thing called "apple" but rather just its colour and shape. It could be argued that these properties are intrinsic to an apple because they define what it is as well as being physical features.
So while an apple is a real thing, the idea of an apple (which your mind created) is not. The key difference between the two is that a material object can be experienced directly by you whereas ideas have to be interpreted from other things. So if someone says "you're so round", this has to be understood in terms of what they mean rather than being based on any direct experience.

So we must distinguish between the material and abstract, with the latter being composed of ideas. So if we say "I love you", this is not based on any direct experience but rather a concept which has been formed from other things.

We can see that these ideas (consciousness) have two key aspects: interpretation and meaning. The former refers to the fact that all concepts must be interpreted by a mind in order for them to become relevant, while the latter is what gives these concepts their relevance.