a little more McLuhan (& maybe Pynchon)

[Bekah]

I really think y'all would enjoy "The Information: The History, the Theory, the Flood" by James Gleick.  It's a bit of everything from Plato's ideas to African drum-beats, Morse Code, McLuhan, Shannon, Dawkins and more.  Published in March of this year. 

http://around.com/the-information

Bekah


On Aug 31, 2011, at 7:43 AM, alice wellintown <alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:

> I stuck my own assertion into Pinker's book; I claim that computers do
> not play chess and certainly can not defeat a grand master. A bunch of
> very smart people use a computer to defeat a grand master who lays
> without the use of one.
> 
> Pinker does use the computer chess player analogy to make his point
> that as complex as so-called thinking machines seem to be, as
> sophisticated as so-called computer languages seem to be, they are in
> fact simple when we put them next to the real thinking and basic
> language of a human infant. Out of the brains of babes!
> 
> It took a lot of evolution to make that big rug-rat head and squeeze
> it into the world. There were periods of rapid change, when mutations
> multiplied and the fittest, those who had offspring, carried the
> adaptive language faculty and passed it on (it may have been nearly
> vesigal or not essential to the fittest who survived, accidental and
> not a factor but present nonetheless).
> 
> On a related idea, The Neo-Evolutionists that McLuhan cites, like
> Robert Redfield, are not determinsts, so free will. McLuhan, a
> positive guy would be attracted to them. His Catholicism has the free
> will puzzle solved. Pynchon too. We've known that certain spinal
> reactions are without free will, like when we touch a hot stove and
> the spine pulls our hand off it without consulting the brain. But are
> all our decisions made without free will? I've worked with young
> people for a long time. They simply don't think as much as adults do
> before they act. This seems a reasonable argument for the abolishment
> of the death penalty for anyone under the age of 25 or under the 100
> IQ Bell apex. The actions of humans are rarely rational. We have to
> work at thinking and our brains are designed to work by habit and take
> short cuts around thinking. Today, we read that we need to teach
> students to think, think critically. We can't do this. You can lead a
> horse to water, but we can't force it to drink. On a mass scale, this
> is the problem with our economy:
> 
>  “You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.” You
> can force money on the system in exchange for government bonds, its
> close money substitute; but you can’t make the money circulate against
> new goods and new jobs."
> Samuelson, Paul Anthony; Economics (1948), p 354.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> On Wed, Aug 31, 2011 at 7:28 AM, Paul Mackin <mackin.paul at verizon.net> wrote:
>> On 8/30/2011 8:11 PM, alice wellintown wrote:
>>> 
>>> In the same book by Pinker, _The Language Instinct_, in Chapter 7,
>>> "Talking Heads", he tosses the robots in the trash and kicks the AI
>>> enthusiasts to the curb. Robots can't do the smple tasks that infant
>>> humans are born doing. BTW, computers can not play chess. He also
>>> makes fun of the idea of animal languages. Animal and computer
>>> languages like Pluto, not planets.
>> 
>> The paradox is that the "simple tasks" turn out to be the very hardest to
>> understand in physicalist terms.
>> 
>> Defeating grand master Evgeny Vladimirov was by comparison duck soup.
>> 
>> How do the little tikes do it?
>> 
>> P.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 5:48 PM, Paul Mackin<mackin.paul at verizon.net>
>>>  wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> On 8/30/2011 5:05 PM, cfabel wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> I’m not sure if this helps or just reveals my own misunderstanding of
>>>> what’s
>>>> going on here, but I believe there is quite a passel of research
>>>> suggesting
>>>> strongly that mental operations exist prior to the onset of language,
>>>> conversation by gesture, and social interaction. So it seems not
>>>> unreasonable to hypothesize, at least, that some of us “think” without
>>>> words. But, language is not just significant symbols but syntax and
>>>> syntax
>>>> seems to be part of our bio-inheritance, part of our pre-social
>>>> mind-brain
>>>> (Chomsky’s “language faculty?”). So, syntax, probably, is neither learned
>>>> nor constructed socially and this suggests a reversal of the model of
>>>> symbolic interaction, mind, language, and the self. Bio-inheritance
>>>> first,
>>>> symbolic interaction follows, probably?
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> This sounds very relevant to Mark's question. The symbol consciousness
>>>> seems
>>>> to be kind of an overlay placed upon the real show going on in the neural
>>>> networks.    AI theorists model both neural networks and symbol
>>>> manipulation
>>>> in order to provide a better understanding for the design of robots.
>>>> 
>>>> Also there are the neuroscience findings (brain imaging) that support the
>>>> idea that our nervous systems make decisions for us before we are even
>>>> aware
>>>> of them.  Throws into doubt so called "free will."
>>>> 
>>>> P
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> C. F. Abel
>>>> 
>>>> Chair
>>>> 
>>>> Department of Government
>>>> 
>>>> Stephen F. Austin State University
>>>> 
>>>> Nacogdoches, Texas 75962
>>>> 
>>>> (936) 468-3903
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> From:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org  [mailto:owner-pynchon-l at waste.org] On
>>>> Behalf
>>>> Of Mark Kohut
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 3:27 PM
>>>> To: David Morris
>>>> Cc: alice wellintown; David Payne; Paul Mackin; pynchon -l
>>>> Subject: Re: a little more McLuhan (&  maybe Pynchon)
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> This has been a fascinating, because more puzzling than usual, thread.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I do not know what I may be "mistaking" my word-thinking for, since I am
>>>> just offering it as a phenomenon.
>>>> 
>>>> I do not know if it comes from some learned or innate 'grammar".........
>>>> 
>>>> Yes, I KNOW it slows me down --in reading anyway. (Although I have
>>>> various
>>>> speeds--as we all do?)
>>>> 
>>>> How word-thinking is connected to my auditory sense, I do not know
>>>> either,
>>>> except that, as I wrote, it happens
>>>> 
>>>> when I listen to TV, say, so that sense is involved. Happens (mostly)
>>>> when I
>>>> read in quiet. happens when I write.
>>>> 
>>>> Sometimes when I 'think", I think.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> And, I am sure I 'think', experience much mentally, in other ways than in
>>>> words as well. Not to even mention the Unconscious.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> I just wondered who else is like me in this regard. What they think it
>>>> might
>>>> mean for our orientation in the world.
>>>> 
>>>> And, for whom this may NOT be true.............and what that might mean
>>>> for
>>>> them...
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> And how societies might handle the dirfferences.
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> From: David Morris<fqmorris at gmail.com>
>>>> To: alice wellintown<alicewellintown at gmail.com>
>>>> Cc: pynchon -l<pynchon-l at waste.org>
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, August 30, 2011 2:57 PM
>>>> Subject: Re: a little more McLuhan (&  maybe Pynchon)
>>>> 
>>>> On Tue, Aug 30, 2011 at 10:34 AM, alice wellintown
>>>> <alicewellintown at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>>>> 
>>>>>  I think McLuhan would say that, even on a gray scale, black&  white are
>>>>> qualitatively different......like literate vs. pre-literate even on a
>>>>> gray
>>>>> scale
>>>>> 
>>>>> He would say this.
>>>> 
>>>> And who wouldn't say this?  Without qualitative differences in a gray
>>>> scale, no images could be seen.  But the point of a scale is minute
>>>> differences.
>>>> 
>>>>>> And young 'uns learn most languages as abstract marks on a page.
>>>>>> English
>>>>>> say.....
>>>>> 
>>>>> This is false. First, humans don't learn language but are born with
>>>>> language.
>>>> 
>>>> Language versus literacy?  I think we've jumped a step here.
>>>> 
>>>>>> The literate vs. pre-literate distinction is in anthropologists' work
>>>>>> and
>>>>>> is still used to the present....
>>>>> 
>>>>> Like all technologies, printing brought positives and negatives. Surely
>>>>> there are things that pre-literate cultures have kept or developed that
>>>>> literate cultures have lost or neglected. We would all be better runners
>>>>> if
>>>>> we hadn't abandoned the cave and invented the wheel. But the health that
>>>>> would come with our endurance would not give us longer or better lives.
>>>>> We
>>>>> would die quite young.
>>>> 
>>>> AMEN!
>>>> 
>>>> But would our shorter lives have been more rich inside?  (joke)
>>>> 
>>>>>> No one has (yet) answered whether they think mostly in words....for
>>>>>> example, I watch TV....I SEE the words they are speaking...mostly...not
>>>>>> every, I'm sure....
>>>>> 
>>>>> We think in grammar not words.
>>>> 
>>>> I'd like to see more of this "We think in grammar not words" theory.
>>>> If by this grammar you mean simple equations of logic revolving around
>>>> desire, fear, etc, then I think I understand your statement.  These
>>>> binaries are not our enemies (as GR might imply).  They are natural
>>>> first perceptions that we need to see more finely with practiced
>>>> observation.
>>>> 
>>>> On another level, individual humans are often predisposed toward
>>>> certain sensory inputs: visual and/or auditory primarily.  I am
>>>> personally very visually oriented.  Maybe Mark mistakes his
>>>> word-thinking from being primarily auditory.
>>>> 
>>>> David Morris
>>>> 
>>>> 
>>>> 
>> 
>> 
>>