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Article 4764 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Language as Technology: A Phenomenological Study
Message-ID: <1992Mar28.140324.7155@waikato.ac.nz>
Date: 28 Mar 92 14:03:24 +1200
References: <1992Mar26.223702.28641@a.cs.okstate.edu> <1992Mar27.002606.32145@mp.cs.niu.edu> <1992Mar27.224344.7150@waikato.ac.nz> <1992Mar27.154137.6740@mp.cs.niu.edu>
Organization: University of Waikato, Hamilton, New Zealand
Lines: 41

In article <1992Mar27.154137.6740@mp.cs.niu.edu>, rickert@mp.cs.niu.edu 
(Neil Rickert) writes:
> 
>  You use language for much more than communication.  You use it to construct
> models.  It is these mental models which are essential to knowledge
> acquisition.  No doubt mental models are possible without language, but they
> would be much simpler than the models we construct with language.
> 
Are the mental models actually constructed using langauge, or merely
labelled with it? I can bring to mind a picture of a dog. I know it is a
dog because I have labelled it as such using my language, but the model in
my head is a picture - something I would have a hard time describing in
words, if I could do it at all. I don't think my ability to use language
enhances my ability to remember what my dog looks like, it only serves to
label the model 'My dog'.

>  You use language to communicate to others in society.  But you also use
> language to communicate with yourself, and this latter aspect is important.
> As an example, much of your memory of past events is due to the fact that
> you have used language to reconstruct (i.e. model) the events, and you have
> reviewed (through thought) these language models many times, refreshing your
> memory as you do so.  Without this ability most newly acquired knowledge
> would evaporate within a relatively short time.
> 
This is almost certainly true for academic learning, that is things we
learn through language in the first place, but what about episodic memory?
I have a picture I can bring to mind of a woman's face. I have never met
her, but I believe I will and that she is important to my future in some
way. I have analysed the characteristics of this face many times (put
linguistic labels to the features etc.), but now, rather than being able to
recreate the picture more clearly, I find that I can no longer bring a high
resolution image of my lady friend to mind.

Ignoring the obvious personal implications - how does your theory account
for this?

Stumpy.
--
Robert 'Stumpy' Marsh | Brought to you from the bottom of the world
rmarsh@waikato.ac.nz  | both topographically and socio-politically.
+64 7 855 4406        | Whatever happened to Godzone?


