I. Our Wayward Minds

Mind, Knowledge, and Belief

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Brain, Mind, and Belief: The Quest for Truth

“We are not trapped in some kind of original sin, only original stupidity. And stupidity can be overcome by a determined effort of intelligence.”                                   Colin Renfrew 

Topics

The mind and its quest for truth Can we rely on our minds? Processes of the mind   Linguistic relativity   Language, thought, and reality: Words, concepts, things The transparency illusion Mental models of the world Tricks played by the mind that distort its operation

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Can we rely on our minds?

We think we are the smart animals• “Homo sapiens”• Large brains

We like to rely on our minds What else have we got?

• For thinking• For seeking the truth about

the world who we are what are we doing here?

But trusting our minds can be dangerous

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The quest for truth

A natural activity of humans The means/instrument: our minds Is this instrument reliable? Seeing the world through tinted glasses What if you don’t even know you are

wearing glasses?

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It is perfectly possible that the truth is beyond our reach, in virtue of our intrinsic cognitive limitations, and not merely beyond our grasp in humanity’s present stage of intellectual development. But I believe that we cannot know this, and that it makes sense to go on seeking a systematic

understanding of how we and other living things fit into the world.                                                                   Thomas Nagel

Processes of the Mind

Perceiving Thinking Managing activity Remembering Learning Managing beliefs

• Acquiring• Maintaining• Modifying

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Language plays a big role in all these processes

Some ways language influences thought

Allows formulation of precise thoughts• Bacon: “Writing maketh an exact man”

Allows communication of thoughts The medium of scientific, commercial, legal,

philosophical, educational, etc. exchange, agreement, formulation

Provides conceptual categories for organizing thoughts

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Linguistic Relativity

Language and ThoughtDifferent Languages, Different Thoughts?

Question:Do people who speak different languages think differently?

Questions about Linguistic Relativity

Does language influence thought? Does thought influence language? What is the difference between language

and thought? Is there a difference between language

and thought? Can we have thinking without language? What is thought/thinking?

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A Common Assumption

Expressions in language directly describe (or ask about, or otherwise make statements about) the world

Is this assumption correct?

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This Assumption is not Supported

We do not talk about the world directly, but..• About our internal (mental) models

of the world• I.e., about our construals

about our conceptual systems about “virtual reality”

• Virtual reality: one’s mental model of reality

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The Linguistic Relativity Hypothesis

Also known as• The Whorf hypothesis• The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis

Edward Sapir (1884-1939) Benjamin Lee Whorf (1897-1941)

Every language has its own way of categorizing experience

People who speak different languages think differently

People who speak different languages live in different (mental-social) worlds

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And before Sapir and Whorf..

Nineteenth Century• Max Müller (Germany, U.K.)• Wilhelm von Humboldt (Germany)• William Dwight Whitney (U.S.A.)

Early twentieth century• Franz Boas (Germany, U.S.A.)

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Benjamin Lee Whorf, 1897-1941

“…the world is presented in a kaleidoscopic flux of impressions which has to be organized byour minds…. We cut nature up, organize it into concepts, and ascribe significances as we do,because we are parties to an agreement to organize it in this way — an agreement that holds throughout our speech community and is codified by the patterns of our language.”

Benjamin Lee Whorf 13

Whorf on relativity

From this fact proceeds what I have called the “linguistic relativity principle,” which means, in informal terms, that users of markedly different grammars are pointed by their grammars toward different types of observations and different evaluations of externally similar acts of observation, and hence are not equivalent as observers, but must arrive at somewhat different views of the world.

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1945)

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Another quote

Whorf 1956:214

We are thus introduced to a new principle of relativity, which holds that all observers are not led by the same physical evidence to the same picture of the universe, unless their linguistic backgrounds are similar, or can in some way be calibrated.

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1945)

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Reactions to Whorf’s Ideas

… have been controversial from the start Whorf may be better known outside linguistics

than any other linguist (except Chomsky) Prevailing opinion in linguistics has been

opposed to Whorf’s ideas But there has also been a minority view all

along, that he was really on to something An enormous amount of publication has

resulted, pro and con

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The argument for linguistic relativity

Thinking is inextricably bound up with language

Different languages conceptualize human experience differently

Different grammars point peoples to different observations and different evaluations of similar external phenomena

Therefore, thinking patterns vary from one language to another.

People who speak different languages live in different worlds

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The argument against linguistic relativity

Thinking follows universal patterns There is a universal ‘language of thought’ Basic thought patterns come from

• Universal properties of the human body• Universal properties of orientation in space and time• Universal features of the environment

Sky, land, sun, rain, water, etc.• Universal properties of perception and cognition

Therefore, thought patterns do not vary from language to language

Thought gets ‘translated’ into different languages

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Linguistic Relativity: Pro & Con

Pro

Thinking is inextricably bound up with language

Thinking patterns vary from one language to another

People who speak different languages live in different worlds

Con

Thinking follows universal patterns

Thinking is independent of particular languages

Differences between different languages are actually pretty superficial, don’t affect thinking

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The Naive Theory of Meaning

Words in a one-one correspondence with reality

The world is made up of objects, and for every type of object there is a word

Different peoples use different languages to speak about same world

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Alternative Theory

Words represent reality only indirectly

Every language has its own way of categorizing the objects of the world

People who speak different languages live in different worlds

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Rocks

English rock rocks

tyhpi tyhtyhpi Mono 22

Plural vs. Distributive

In Mono, what matters is not how many, but in how many places

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Compare…

’fruit’ ‘fruit’

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Types of Rocks

Large orMedium

Small,One Piece

Small,Many Pieces

rock

pebble

gravel

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Types of Rocks – Mono

Rough or jagged

Smooth (as instreambed)

Large orMedium

Small,One Piece

Small,Many Pieces

tyhpi pa’oohpy

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Exercise: Beards

Questions

What are asking about?

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Three distinct levels

The World

The Conceptual System The Linguistic System

External

Internal

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The internal and the external

Conception

Language Perception

Sensing

In the mindInterface

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The World

Infinitely varied

No boundaries

No two things exactly alike

Everything changes

“Kaleidoscopic flux”

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The meaning of “dog”

Perceptual properties

of dogs Dogs in the world

and their properties

In the Mind

The World Outside

Conceptual

properties

of dogs

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Meaning is conceptualization

The meanings of linguistic forms are in our conceptual systems, not in the outside world

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Our mental models of the world

All imposition of structure in our mental models is accomplished at the cost of ignoring some properties of the phenomena modeled

(Compare the map)

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Direct experience

The only thing we experience directly is our own mental activity

What we apprehend as directexperience of reality is actuallybeing filtered by the mind

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Direct Knowledge

”…since the activity of our mind is the only part of Nature directly known to us, its laws are the only ones that we can justifiably call laws of Nature.”

Jakob von Uexkull Theoretical Biology (1928)

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Its not just things

Social Relationships

Processes

Qualities

Perceptual properties

Space, Time

Etc.

The same for all people, or different for speakers of different languages?

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Techniques of Simplification

Categorization Segmentation

• Requires assumption of boundaries The illusion of enduring objects

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Categories and Boundaries

How do categories and boundaries get built? By emphasizing some properties while

ignoring other properties

This is not only simplification — it is distortion of reality

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Categories

There are no categories in nature

All categories are in the mind – in our internal mental microcosms

Making/assuming categories seems to be a universal property of mind

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Segmentation

Some features and combinations of features are distinguished – mentally separated from – the “kaleidoscopic flux”

Often involves the assumption of boundaries (to aid the distinction)

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Boundaries

Mountain and Valley

Land and Sea

Automobiles

The Human Body

The Sun

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Boundaries

There are no boundaries in nature

All boundaries are in the mind – in our internal mental microcosms

Making/assuming boundaries seems to be a universal property of mind

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The Illusion of Enduring Objects

Sunshine A River Boston Cape Cod Joe Biden Your Body

A.k.a. The illusion of self-identity through time

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Three Worlds?

As we have seen, there are two worlds to consider • External (the real world)• Internal (the microcosm, the mental world)

Categories Boundaries Enduring objects

And there is another..

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Three Worlds

1. The real world 2. Our internal microcosm 3. The projected world

• Projected from our minds to the outside world Therefore, appears to be “out there”

• We tend to equate it with the real world It takes special effort not to do so

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The World we See (#3)

The world we see is projected from our mental models

Categorization necessarily entails ignoring some properties

As a distorted world it is also to some extent an illusion

Inevitably our representations of reality are filled with illusions

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The Real World

Infinitely varied

No boundaries

No two things exactly alike

Everything changes

“Kaleidoscopic flux”

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The Transparency Illusion

The illusion that the cognitive system is transparent, hence gives us an undistorted view of the world

Actually, it not only simplifies, it hides from us the fact that it is doing so

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The Linguistic System

Means of talking/thinking about the conceptual system

Also provides means of thinking to oneself about • The world (?)• Our conceptual system

Illusion: we think we are talking about the world directly• The Transparency Illusion

The illusion that our minds are transparent, hence that we see the world as it is

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The Conceptual System

Organizes the phenomena of the world Inevitably, it simplifies

• Boundaries• Categories• Enduring Objects

Virtual Reality• Example: Fictive motion

• That highway goes to Providence

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Every cognitive system is a model

Cognitive systems necessarily depend upon simplification:• boundaries, categories, etc.

everyone’s cognitive system is necessarily a system of illusions

It would be impossible for all people, despite their different languages and cultures, to share the same set of illusions

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Different languages..

Have different categories Segment the world differently

• Example: kinds of rocks

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Quotation from B.L. Whorf

… every language is a vast pattern system … in which are culturally ordained the forms and categories by which the personality not only communicates, but also analyzes nature, … channels his reasoning, and builds the house of his consciousness.

Benjamin Lee Whorf (1945)

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Past, Present, Future

In the English way of thinking..• Time is linear

From past, thru present, to future Past and future extend from present

From a cognitive point of view..• Past is memory or hearsay• Future is prediction

and planning and/or worrying

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Time as Metaphorical Space

In English.. • The future lies ahead• The past is behind us

Similarly, in Mandarin..• qiantu (front-road) ‘one’s future’• qianjing (front-scene) ‘prospect’’

But the metaphor provides a choice:• Future ahead, past behind• Past ahead, future behind

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Time as Metaphorical Space

‘ahead ’ and ‘behind ’ are spatial terms Compare ‘future’ and ‘past’

• No spatial reference• They refer only to time

Using spatial terms for time is metaphor

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Time as Metaphorical Space

The future is ahead

The past is behind us

PAST FUTURE

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Time as Metaphorical Space

In Navajo and Aymara:

The future is behind

The past is ahead

PAST FUTURE

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The Illusion of Mental Transparency

Illusion: We think we are talking and thinking about the world

Most people think that the future really is ahead, that it’s not just metaphor

We are actually talking and thinking about our conceptual systems

The transparency illusion• The illusion that our perceptual and

conceptual systems are transparent — they are showing us the world as it is

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Implication of the Transparency Illusion

The illusion: The cognitive system is transparent, hence gives us an undistorted view of the world

Therefore, the mind is not only simplifying, it is hiding from us the fact that it is doing so

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How far does linguistic relativity extend?

Different languages, different thinking• Thought is shaped by language• Thought is influenced by language

Also these?• Non-linguistic thinking influence by language• Perception is influenced by language• Behavior is influenced by language

Different languages, different worlds

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Significant behavioral consequencesExample from B. L. Whorf

“Empty” gasoline drum• No longer contained fluid• But did contain fumes• Label on drum: “empty”

Lighted cigarette butt Tossed into drum Kaboom!!

Example from Whorf:

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Another hypothesis of Whorf

Grammatical categories of a language influence the thinking of people who speak the language

Example: Grammatical gender

Does talking about inanimate objects as if they were masculine or feminine actually lead people to think of inanimate objects as having a gender?

Could the grammatical genders assigned to objects by a language influence people’s mental representation of objects?

Boroditsky (2003)

Experiment: Gender and Associations(Boroditsky et al. 2002)

Subjects: speakers of Spanish or German• All were fluent also in English• English used as language of experiment

Task: Write down the 1st 3 adjectives that come to mind to describe each object• All the (24) objects have opposite gender

in German and Spanish Raters of adjectives: Native English speakers

Examples:

Key (masc in German, fem in Spanish)• Adjectives used by German speakers:

Hard, heavy, jagged, metal, serrated, useful• Adjectives used by Spanish speakers:

Golden, intricate, little, lovely, shiny, tiny Bridge (fem in German, masc in spanish)

• Adjectives used by German speakers: Beautiful, elegant, fragile, peaceful, pretty

• Adjectives used by Spanish speakers: Big, dangerous, long, strong, sturdy, towering

Boroditsky’s Experiment: Results(Boroditsky et al. 2002)

Result: Adjectives were rated as masculine or feminine in agreement with the gender in subject’s native language

Conclusion I: Linguistic influence on mental processes

Different languages, different thinking• Thought is influenced by language• Thought is shaped by language

Systems of categories and boundaries are built by language

And not just linguistic thinking • Perception is influenced by language• Behavior is influenced by language

Stay tuned! Different languages, different worlds

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Conclusion II: Mental models

We operate with mental models• not directly with the world

They all differ from one another• In different language communities• In different cultures• Also within communities

Interpersonal differences We each live in our own personal

world, different from all others At most one person in the world has it right Actually, they are all faulty

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