Science Forums 2

[CraigD]

Originally Posted by sman

No. Civilization is defineately not natural. Yes, the term is ambiguous and yes, the question is terribly unscientific, but that doesn't make it meaningless.

The terms “natural” and “unnatural” aren’t meaningless, but their meanings differ greatly in different contexts.

In some scientific contexts, the terms are useful, though in many such context, other words, such as “artificial” are used as an alternative to “unnatural”. For example, in photography and acoustics, recorded data caused by the recording devices rather than the “natural” phenomenon being recorded are termed “artifacts”, and their study provide significant sub-disciplines.

In some contexts, such as “biological science” as I used it in post #2, “nature” and “natural” refers to the collection of all entities, while “not nature” and “unnatural” refer to an empty collection. In such a context, the terms are of such little use that “meaningless” seems to me a reasonable description of them.

Originally Posted by sman

Or arrogant.

In some contexts, natural/unnatural are used to promote world views in which a supernatural entity (usually termed “God”) endows humans, and humans alone, with a quality distinguishing us from the rest of nature. I think “arrogant” is a reasonable description of such world views.

In my experience, the most common use of natural/unnatural are in reference to the speakers beliefs about good and bad. Thus, “back-to-nature types” describe non-wild plants and livestock as unnatural and urban dwelling and bad, while “mainstream types” describe the beliefs and behavior of back-to-nature types as unnatural and bad. Religionists of one denomination may describe behaviors, such as homosexual intercourse, as unnatural, while religionists of another describe the same behavior as natural. In these cases, the terms natural and unnatural say more about the people using them than about that to which they refer.

Originally Posted by sman

Language is a good example. Most of it takes place in the visual cortex, that is, the machinery that, in chimps, is designed to process the continuous stream of optical data into meaningful correlations with our environment. In humans it has been co-opted for the expression of abstract concepts through metaphor.

I’m not a neurologist, but according to all the popular reference I’ve read (such as the wikipedia articles “visual cortex”, “Wernicke's area” and “Broca's area”), this isn’t correct. In humans, chimps, and other animals with human-like language ability, the “neurological machinery” involved in vision is anatomically distinct from that involved in recognizing and using language.

Although ones first thought would lead one to assume that language is neurologically most related to hearing, speech, and sight – senses – neuropsychology for the past couple decades, and more speculative psychological theories dating back much further, have increasingly favored the hypothesis that a key component in human language, symbolic thought, is more strongly related to the brain’s motor (muscle movement) centers. According to such theories, symbolic thought – arguably all “conscious” thought – uses repurposed motor nerve systems, not repurposed sensory systems. (For some links, see the wikipedia article “embodied cognition”)

Originally Posted by sman

If you examine language you'll notice that it's mostly visual and spatial metaphor. Many other pieces of the primate brain have been hijacked by language in humans. In fact, I'll bet - with no other guide than a language like English - there's enough information to draw an almost complete wiring diagram of the brain, and not just the neocortical areas, the older parts too.

I’ll take that bet!

Based on the reading I’ve been doing recently on the subject (Lakoff’s Metaphors We Live By and Philosophy in the Flesh), I don’t think any of the academics and technicals working in the field feel it’ll be possible to gain a good understanding of the brain without a lot of neuroimaging - MRI, PET, and more intrusive, “mindblowing” techniques. The idea that linguistic analysis alone is sufficient to explain the brain and behavior appears to have been thoroughly considered and rejected.

I think the point behind the wager, however, is right on, and a good example of thinking of embracing the concept of the embodied mind. Rather than seeking a detailed, minute understanding of the brain, cognitive linguistics and psychology appear to me to be focused on discovering simple, practical models in which a surprisingly small number of metaphors can be used to explain nearly all thought and behavior. Via such approaches, a practical scientific understanding of the mind may be possible without understanding its detailed neurodynamics – possibly a good thing, as the latter may prove very hard to gain.