facts? interpretations?

[Swing Hammerswing]

Boys, computers can't play chess, let alone beat a
world champion, such thinking is almost so
dumb that I don't no where to begin disabusing
you all of such foolishness, but this statement that language
is learnt is also so dumb, so  I don't know where to
begin, but I'll state it simply and then you
can try to lift it.  language is not learned, it is, bilological,
humans are not thinking machines, we are more
like worms than the IRS, our brains are more like
fish brains and bird brains than data and disks and
hardrives and softwear and all the rest, just as we are not computers, 
computers are simply our
tools and not very good ones at that, binary, rigid,
inflexible, what would you rather have if you were
a homo Faber building a human culture,  a computer and a clock or a
hammer and a fire drill?    a hammer blows a  computer away at every swing,  
and just as the goo goo gah gah of human
infants is more complicated than any computer "language" (ebonics is a 
language kids, but if your TV has a fever, your  computer a
virus, than most likely you think black talk is not a language
but only a slang or some shit, cause you can understand it
and you can't understand a word of Greek, but it's a language, lexicon
distinction does not a language make).
Language ain't no cultural artifact kids, it develops and
grows like your genitals, not instructions needed, that's
why langauge, as smart as you boys seems to be with your
fancy words, is qualatatively equal ina all of us. Something
democratic in those selfish genes after all. We know how
to talk, just like we know how to eat and we do it
just like bird fly and spiders make webs and bears shit
in the woods. This is a bit of hyperbole so don't get too
hung up on the nonbusiness end of the hammer boys, but
we stood up straight and started taking not because
we learnt it  in school, but because we adapted and evolved.

Ever read that Foucault and Chomsky interview? Boys,
Foucault is a Bull shit artist in any language. His
study of the Greeks is so sloppy it's not worthy of the
trees being cut down to keep it in print, but
why talk of dihonesty boys, dishonesty is not
political.





om: Doug Millison <millison at online-journalist.com>
>To: pynchon-l at waste.org
>Subject: facts? interpretations?
>Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 10:00:25 -0700
>
>"jbor"
>"Language, and thus "knowledge", are taught, learnt: they're not
>instinctive. This is neither dogma nor catechism, and there is a solid body 
>of
>research on the subject. If you've got an alternative perspective on what 
>is a
>very simple proposition to grasp then by all means present it for 
>discussion."
>
>
>The sun revolves around the earth -- that was a very simple
>proposition to grasp, too.
>But it turned out not to be true.
>
>That language is "not instinctive" is far from universally accepted
>as accurate; to the contrary, we seem to be hard-wired for language
>and culture, which appear to possess an evolutionary history that
>preceeds our own, which arise naturally among humans (and other
>animals) and conditioned by our physical make-up-- quite a bit of
>exciting work is underway exploring those areas; an interesting
>starting point is Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its
>Challenge to Western Thought by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, plus
>tons of research that's beginning to uncover the physical components
>of emotions and thought.
>
>Bauerlein does a good job of restating the constructionist position,
>then showing its fundamental weakness:
>
>"One can prove the institutional nature of social constructionism by
>noting how easy it is to question. The weakness of social
>constructionism as an epistemology lies in the fact  that one can
>agree with the bare premise that knowledge is a construct, but
>disagree with  the conclusion that objectivity is impossible and that
>the contents of knowledge are dependent upon the social conditions of
>the knower. Of course, knowledge is  constructed. It must be
>expressed in language, composed methodically, conceived   through
>mental views, all of which are historically derived. Constructionists
>extend the fact that knowledge materializes in cognitive and
>linguistic structures which have social determinants into the belief
>that knowledge has no claim to transcend them. That  knowledge cannot
>transcend the conditions of its origination stems from the notion
>that  cognition is never innocent, that cognition has designs and
>desires shaping its  knowledge-building process, that knowing always
>has an instrumental purpose. This  human dimension is local and
>situational, constructionists argue, a historical context for
>knowledge outside of which the knowledge has no general warrant. Even
>the most  ahistorical kinds of knowledge, the principles of logic,
>mathematics, and science, have a social basis, one obscured by
>thinkers who have abstracted that knowledge from its rightful setting
>and used it for purposes of their own. Thus Martin Heidegger claims
>in a   well-known illustration, "Before Newton's laws were
>discovered, they were not 'true'. . .   .Through Newton the laws
>became true" (Being and Time). We only think the laws preceded
>Newton's conception because, Heidegger explains, that is how entities
>"show themselves."...There is abundant evidence for believing that
>the truth of Newton's laws is independent of Newton's mind, language,
>class, education, etc. The simple fact that persons of different
>languages and cultures   implement those laws effectively implies
>their transhistorical and cross-cultural capacity.   Engineers and
>physicists confirm the laws daily without any knowledge of Newton's
>circumstances. Three hundred years of experimentation and theory have
>altered Newton's laws only by restricting their physical purview. In
>short, Newton's laws have been justified in vastly different times
>and places. Yes, scientists and engineers have  de-historicized
>Newtonian knowledge, pared it down to a few set principles (nobody
>actually reads the Principia). But though abstract and expedient, the
>laws of Newtonian   physics still have a truth-value, and that value
>is related not to Newton's world, but to  how well the laws predict
>outcomes, how reliably they stand up to testing, how useful they are
>in physical domains. To think otherwise is to deny the distinction
>between the contents of knowledge and the  context of their
>emergence. This is an old logical mistake, namely, the genetic
>fallacy:   the confusion of a theory's discovery with its
>justification. Social constructionists overlook  this distinction
>between discovery (the circumstances of a theory's origin) and
>justification  (the establishment of its truth). To them, the idea of
>separating truth from origin  depletes thought of its historical
>reality, and ultimately smacks of formalist methods and  mandarin
>motives. "
>http://www.bu.edu/partisanreview/archive/2001/2/bauerlein.html
>
>Where does Pynchon come down on this question?  Hard to say, but
>given his devastating critique of the systems approach, and of
>religious dogma, it's difficult to imagine him applauding a system of
>thought as limited and dogmatic as social constructionism -- the
>world exceeds its grasp quite easily, it founders on self-cancelling
>contradiction ("no facts only interpretation" erases anything like
>certainty for the claim of fundamental truth that its defenders make
>for social constructionism), it fails to capture anything like the
>complex richness of life and thought.
>--
>d  o  u  g    m  i  l  l  i  s  o  n  <http://www.online-journalist.com>

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