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Old 02-Mar-2008, 01:39 PM (13:39)     12        17166
Moriah Conquering Wind
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Pyrogenesis View Post
Here are the famous paragraphs on the diary kept in a private language.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Wittgenstein
258. Let us imagine the following case. I want to keep a diary about the recurrence of a certain sensation. To this end I associate it with the sign "S" and write this sign in a calendar for every day on which I have the sensation. - I will remark first of all that a definition of the sign cannot be formulated. - but still I give myself a kind of ostensive definition. How? Can I point to the sensation? Not in the ordinary sense. But I speak, or write the sign down, and at the same time I concentrate my attention on the sensation. But what is this ceremony for? for that is all it seems to be. A definition surely serves to establish the meaning of a sign. - Well that is done precisely by the concentration of my attention; for in this way I impress upon myself the connection between the sign and the sensation. But "I impress it on myself" can only mean: this process brings it about that I remember the connection right in the future. But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: Whatever is going to seem right to me is right, and that only means that here we can't talk about 'right'.

259. Are the rules of the private language impressions of rules? - The balance on which impressions are weighed is not the impression of a balance.


260. "Well, I believe that this is the sensation S again." - Perhaps you believe that you believe it! Then did the man who made the entry in the calendar make a note of nothing whatever? - don't consider it a matter of course that a person is making a note of something when he makes a mark - say in a calendar. For a note has a function, and this "S" so far has none. (One can talk to oneself. - If a person speaks when noone else is present, does that mean he is speaking to himself?)
Employing the language, however, will necessarily create a communication data transfer which will result in some type of feedback loop so to speak. By speaking the language, no matter how private and insular, the release of phonemes connected with concept and feeling results in the reception of this "signal" by ears (or if written, eyes) and the subsequent action of minds, even unconsciously, to decode and make sense of it. Through repetition a language itself can be fully conveyed where no prior context for its associations exists. In this respect language may be seen as compression code for the transmission of ideas and facts. Downloaded into the brain from the "airwaves" via sight or sound, it begins to "unpack" itself like a self-extracting zip file. Being crafted as a transmission device it must of necessity excrete its payload in one form or another.

The feedback loop results in its eventual decoding. Just as children learn their native tongues through a seeming "osmosis" of immersion and imitation, so it has been demonstrated also that new languages learnt in adulthood bes most adroitly assimilated as well when one subjects to the immersion process, similar to how the very young child picks up language. This indicates that some type of assimilation, adaptation, decoding and imitation process bes hardwired into the brain in the human species. Because of these components, a private language may be fabricated, constructed, or emerge spontaneously from one agency or another, but once in use it does not remain private. The human mind bes hardwired to decode it, even if it must do so without conscious participation.
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