Science Forums 2

[Pyrotex]

On The Nature of the Human Mind

This is a subject I have been considering for a long, long time. I eventually came upon the writings of Korzybski, the Polish-American philosopher who appears in my signature below. After reading his essays, I became convinced that the Human mind is constructed out of Tinker-Toy-like elements that are not electrical, chemical or physical. They are in fact, linguistic, and all our thoughts, concerns and imaginings are linguistic structures.

And yet, to read the philosophers, scientists and sages, linguistic ability is merely a skill, communication, like other skills such as painting and making arrowheads. Most learned folks believe that we turn our thoughts “into words” in order to speak them or write them. And our audiences hear or read our words and turn them back into “thoughts”.

I shall attempt to refute this. I shall attempt to demonstrate that our minds themselves, centered upon our innermost concept of “I”, consist of and are totally made up of linguistic structures. We think with them, we feel with them, we yearn and hurt and love with them.

I invite all who have ever wondered at what the "mind" really is to jump in and contribute. All efforts to prove my little theory wrong are humbly welcomed.

I shall break my presentation into two large pieces:
Piece I: Explaining the Human Mind as a Linguistic Structure
Piece II: A “Proof By Contradiction” for the Human Mind as a Linguistic Structure