From: Robert Owen (rowen@technologist.com)
Date: Sun Oct 10 1999 - 15:48:26 MDT
Eugene Leitl wrote:
> Matt Gingell writes:
>
> > I find the notion that there exists some universal 'language of mind'
> > encoding system underlying cognition extremely implausible.
I would like your interpretation of the evident universality of some form
of the "Law of Contradiction", "The Law of the Excluded Middle" the
processes of "induction and axiomatic inference", interpretive prototypes
like causality or conditionality, or evident perceptual stereotypes like
"time" "quantity" and "space/size/distance". Not to mention the perva-
sive use of hierarchical categorical structures.
It can't be entirely due to cultural conditioning, unless we assume that
all cultures are formally identical (then a new problem, why?) or regarded
as an artifact of language, since it seems clear that linguistic communica-
tion cannot occur at all if these factors are not the basis for symbolic
notation and syntax. And granting, e.g., that we can have "N" geometries,
or "N" metalogical systems, we still must have a universal norm for
deciding questions of identity, consistency and the validity of inferences.
None of this is argumentative; but I am always amazed that e.g. every-
one everywhere has a chronometry of some kind. Perhaps you could
help me understand this phenomenon.
Bob
=======================
Robert M. Owen
Director
The Orion Institute
57 W. Morgan Street
Brevard, NC 28712-3659 USA
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