🚀 go-pugleaf

Hi Glen,

>  What is "language"? This is not a rhetorical question.

A highly-symbolic system of representation, for the most part unique
to humans, that allows individual experiences to be classified,
stored, and shared (communicated).  It is my understanding that almost
all languages use NVO (noun-verb-objects) conjunctions to accomplish
this representation.  In a great many languages, the particular form
of the linguistic symbols is arbitrary.

> > Does language build on a conceptual system?
> 
>  Mainstream (lame) philosophy and psychology would, I think, say "yes." I 
>  would not.

Excellent!  I'm VERY curious as to why?

> > Or perhaps
> > concepts emerge from or are a byproduct of linguistic representation
> > and processing?
> 
>  What is "linguistic representaion"? What is "processing"?

1. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, and any other type of language
element as represented in the mind/brain.  2. Mental/cognitive
operations with these representation, such as parsing a text and/or
integrating a parsed text with one's prior knowledge.

> >Most of all, what is a good definition of "concept"
> > or "conceptual representation and processing", especially from a
> > psychological, neuroscience, and linguistic point of view?  I find
> > that these research areas routinely invoke the notion of concepts and
> > conceptual processing, but a decent definition of them -- let alone a
> > solid one -- seems terribly elusive.  So, thoughts and sources on this
> > would be great to hear about.
> 
>  The notion of "concept" is generally invoked when the stimuli controlling 
>  behavior cannot be divided into cut-and-dried categories, and where an 
>  animal or person responds in a particular way to stimuli it has never seen 
>  before but which nevertheless are called "X" by people. So, when a person is 
>  shown a picture of, say, a tree, that the person has never seen before, we 
>  say "They have  concept of tree." This is simply a description of behavior. 
>  How do you "give someone (or animal) a "concept of tree"?

So, this to me is what I would call categorization.  Let me ask, then:
How would you differentiate between concepts and categories?

Thanks!
Doug