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Darren New wrote:
> Thomas de Groot wrote:
>> "Jim Henderson" <nos### [at] nospam com> schreef in bericht
>> news:4a766292$1@news.povray.org...
>>> There are good ways and bad ways to learn language. That we have an
>>> instinct for it now without being taught how to learn a language implies
>>> an instinctive knowledge.
>>>
>>
>> I doubt this very much. The case of the "wild childs" pleads against
>> this. The "Aveyron child", in the 19th century, was unable to learn
>> language once he was found in the wild. And other cases go in the same
>> direction. So, language is taught by example, and is not instinctive.
>> I am not sure, but I think this is also the common consensus among
>> scientists.
>
> I think people don't have an instinct for a particular language, but an
> instinct to learn whatever language they're around. Much like birds
> learn how to fly, pretty much reliably.
>
> Of course, if you're entire raised around non-verbal beings, the
> instinct to try to learn is going to get frustrated, just like you can
> starve without food even tho you have an instinct to get hungry and eat
> when you need to.
>
What usually happens is that they learn the body language and
vocalizations of the species they are dealing with. In some cases, its
easier to teach them basic signs, than teach them *spoken* language. The
reason being, simply, that often body language, in species with a narrow
range of ability to vocalize, use body posture and the like more to get
across basic ideas. But, you are still dealing with a case where the
person in question is being handed a more "limited" version of allowable
responses, and thus loses the ability to learn more complex ones,
especially dealing with vocal control and interpretation.
Sometimes I think this happens in cases of extreme indoctrination too.
You find people who don't just misread/hear something you said, they
seem to be almost **incapable** of parsing the meaning, based on any
definition of an idea, other than their own, and most of them, a) can't
change their definitions, and b) turn out to have lived isolated from
alternate meanings, often to an unbelievable extent (no TV, no Internet,
no books not approved, no friends outside the indoctrination
environment, no contact with people who have differing views). It seems
to warp their perceptions so badly that its not like they can't
understand the word, but its like... how its sometimes described trying
to learn an Asian language, when all your concepts are Western. Some
things simply **don't** translate, and you end up trying to find a
definition you *do* have, which fits the new word, despite the fact that
no definition you possess fits the real meaning. And, in the case of
*some* people isolated, by faiths, from the rest of humanity, for a long
period of their early lives, unless they snuck stuff, or went to friends
houses and saw it, etc., its like having a Brit ask you where to find
the crisps, or if they can bum a fag. If you have no word for the
former, and your entire universe has never contained a version of the
later than involved tobacco... Only, the sort of problem I am talking
about is actually *worse*, like, "What does the word 'evidence' or
'theory' mean to these people?"
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Mon, 03 Aug 2009 08:59:38 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Yes, but that's one of the points of my definition for faith, that it's
>>> based on a certainty that can feel like knowledge that comes from
>>> within rather than from external sources.
>> Certainly. But that doesn't make it knowledge, any more than being
>> deluded into thinking you're Napoleon makes it "knowledge" that you are.
>
> A fair point, still will have to think about this more.
>
>>> There's a distinction between the two (I know this perhaps contradicts
>>> what I wrote earlier in this post even), but "faith" is kinda wishy-
>>> washy, a bit lower on the scale of certainty than "knowledge". There
>>> are some things that I have faith about, but I'm not bothered that the
>>> associated feeling that accompanies that isn't as strong as some things
>>> that I have a certainty about that I can't explain.
>> Still not "knowledge" in my book. "Random stuff I'm sure of without any
>> evidence" isn't knowledge.
>
> Many years ago, I had a very bizzare experience driving home from work.
> As I got on the highway headed home, things seemed wrong, and I had
> absolute certainty that if I went my normal route home, something really
> bad was going to happen. I could even pinpoint where the badness was
> likely to happen - getting off one highway onto another with a very short
> acceleration lane. It was very late at night, so not a lot of traffic.
>
> I changed my route home, I was that sure that something bad was going to
> happen.
>
> To this day, I know that I avoided a disaster that night. Can't explain
> it, but the feeling even thinking about it now is much, much stronger
> than mere faith or belief. I can't explain it. Intellectually, I know
> it's unlikely anything was going to happen, but 15-ish years later, I
> still can't shake the feeling that the change in my route home was the
> right decision.
>
> I suppose it's the sort of thing people who are more religious than me
> would attribute to "the protection of God" or something like that, but I
> don't. I just instinctively knew that I needed to go home a different
> route.
>
There are a lot of people with experiences like this and some who appear
at times to have accurate foreknowledge and knowledge (or perhaps)
perception. I don't think these experiences fit well into any theory of
how the mind
and brain work. But I think you may be using the word "instinctive", in
any but
a very loose sense, to these. Of course one of the common and, I
suppose, legitimate
uses of the word "instinctive" is to describe knowledge or feelings
(learned or unlearned)
that are so deeply ingrained in us that it doesn't occur to us to doubt
it --until after the event,
perhaps. But that use shouldn't be confused with the way a scientist or
a philosopher
would use the term.
David
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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:54:23 -0700, Patrick Elliott wrote:
>
>> Instinctive certainties, however, are wrong more than half the time.
>
> Citation?
>
Uh.. Such numbers are also made up and wrong, more than half the time? lol
Seriously though, I don't know the actual number, or have a cite, but I
*have* seen cases dealing with cognition, where you can not only get
50-50 fails, but even 99% failures. One of the best examples is the,
"two people with a big sign walking rudely between two people talking.",
experiment they run, yearly, at some colleges, for their psychology
experiments. The one where they replace the person asking the question
of some random person with someone the wrong height, dressed wrong, in
clothing some **totally** different color, or even the wrong gender, and
like 90% of the people being "asked", never notice the substitution. The
brain just starts over where it was interrupted, so long as the
conversation "seems" to be the same, and ignore **everything** else. The
replacement could probably be standing their nude and the only reaction
you would get was, "Damn, I didn't realize when you came up that you
where nude.", not, "Where the hell did the original person I was talking
to go?"
The ease by which the mind can be tricked is actually quite scary.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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David H. Burns wrote:
> Darren New wrote:
>
>> Did you look at the maps I posted, and the links to definitions? I
>> thought
>> "southern and midwestern United States where Protestant fundamentalism
>> is dominant" was pretty descriptive, didn't you?
>>
>
> So you mean that the "Bible Belt" is where "Protestant Fundamentalism"
> (another
> prejudicial and emotive term) is "dominant" (whatever you mean by that).
> Why call it the
> "Bible Belt" and what real evidence was used in drawing the maps? And
> who drew them? :)
>
> David
>
Same as most such data-
1. Self reporting of religious affiliation.
2. Lists of registered churches.
3. Stated views and objectives of the same, from their own mouths.
4. Self reporting of what the congregation members *in* those places
*say* they believe.
You know, that sort of stuff.
--
void main () {
If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
if version = "Vista" {
call slow_by_half();
call DRM_everything();
}
call functional_code();
}
else
call crash_windows();
}
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Darren New wrote:
> Brain damage:
> The man who mistook his wife for a hat
Very interesting book. All of the author's (Oliver Sacks) books, that I
have read,
are well worth reading.
David
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Darren New wrote:
>
> Did you look at the maps I posted, and the links to definitions?
>
Did you read the accompanying text on Wiki? The term "Bible Belt" is a
derisive term
coined by H. L. Mencken, a Baltimore journalist, who had a special
hatred for the
"south" and Baptists (exceeding his hatred for everything else). But I
don't want to do
Mencken injustice. He was a brilliant and witty writer and fun to read
even now. Try him if you
haven't. :)
David
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Patrick Elliott wrote:
> like 90% of the people being "asked", never notice the substitution. The
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p1aEqBaK3aM
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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David H. Burns wrote:
> So you mean that the "Bible Belt" is where "Protestant Fundamentalism"
> (another prejudicial and emotive term)
What's prejudicial about the term? Are you saying there aren't protestant
fundamentalists?
> is "dominant" (whatever you mean by that).
So you're arguing with the words in definitions now? You don't know what the
word "dominant" applies to when used to refer to a population of people?
> Why call it the "Bible Belt"
Because it's a description of how people in that belt of land interpret the
bible. Do you not know the definition of "bible", or of "belt"?
> and what real evidence was used in drawing the maps? And
> who drew them? :)
I don't know, but it's been a term in common use for decades, so arguing
that it's meaningless is just playing silly buggers. You'd like to take
offense, but since there's really nothing to take offense at, you're having
a hard time coming up with reasonable objections.
Do you think that protestant fundamentalism *isn't* dominant in those areas,
compared to other religions?
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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David H. Burns wrote:
> Did you read the accompanying text on Wiki? The term "Bible Belt" is a
> derisive term
Not any more. Indeed, 25 years after it was coined, the president didn't
seem to have any problem using the term. I would imagine that after 90 or so
years of common usage, it may very well have lost its sting for most people,
including all those foreign countries that decided it was a good term to adopt.
And the page didn't say anything about it being derisive, but merely about
it being coined.
You really don't have to act offended or disgusted by someone using the same
terminology that Truman used 50 years ago. Unless, of course, offense is a
smokescreen for lack of content. ;-)
--
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
"We'd like you to back-port all the changes in 2.0
back to version 1.0."
"We've done that already. We call it 2.0."
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Darren New wrote:
> Do you think that protestant fundamentalism *isn't* dominant in those
> areas, compared to other religions?
>
What do you mean by "protestant fundamentalism"? The term
"fundamentalism" and
"fundamentalist" in current usage almost always refers to violent sects.
Other than that
they are almost always pejorative. And for that matter what do you mean
by "protestant"?
For instance the Baptist Church historically did not arise from the
"Protestant Reformation".
Also do you mean by "Bible Belt" an area where the Bible is read a lot
or do you mean an area
where the Bible is interpreted in a certain way? If the latter, then
it's a misnomer. Off course the
answer to some of the questions lies in the history of the term. "Bible
Belt" was coined by H. L.
Mencken as a derisive term. :)
David
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