Does LANGUAGE create CONSCIOUSNESS? (Analysis of the Phenomenology of Language)
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- čas přidán 4. 07. 2024
- In this video I discuss the nature of consciousness and how it is fundamentally related to language. This fact was noticed by numerous thinkers including Nietzsche, Jung, and Julian Jaynes. This theory is largely based on Jaynes' theory but many philosophers have reached the same conclusions.
Sources: Julian Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind
Friedrich Nietzsche, Miscellaneous
Carl Jung, The Stages of Life
John Lakoff , Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language
Iain McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary
Incredibly well put! This is a topic I've tried to explain to a few of my intellectual friends that can be quite difficult to explain in a way they'd grasp. Your examples and presentation of the information is the perfect synthesis of the deeper implications as well as simplicity for understanding sake. I've seen nearly all your content, but this is truly a cut above the rest. Keep up the great work man.
Theepan, you are providing graduate-level lectures, on what are arguably some of the most sophisticated, profound, and daunting material in the Humanities.
To the extent that it isn't taboo to invoke things like "Perennial Philosophy", "theosophy", "depth psychology"... I'd argue that there is a kind of informal interdisciplinary field of academic pursuit that, over the past several decades or so, seems to have emerged as a fascinating, compelling, and transformative vector of inquiry.
It eludes easy definition, but includes everything from the original ethos of "religious studies", existential philosophy, cognitive psychology, behavioral neuroscience, linguistics, semiotics, philosophy of language, etc. It covers thinkers ranging from Julian Jaynes to Ludwig Wittgenstein, William James Ian McGhilcrist Carl Jung to Douglas Hoffman, Marcus Aurelius to Sankaracarya, John Hick to Charles Darwin, Martin Heidegger to DT Suzuki...
Sometimes I call it "nomological phenomenology", at others it's "archeological psychology", or even "Existential anthropology". It is a Venn diagram of disciplines and thinkers who have helped humanity make sense of our experience of consciousness.
And, given the tragic degradation of the ethos credibility, and integrity of Academia in our current situation.... it is more important than EVER to have public intellectuals to fill the critical gaps left in the wake of the Socratic collapse of the University system.
And you, my friend, are among a very select few who have put in the work required to become a lighthouse, a beacon of light to introduce ,guide, and encourage thousands of curious-minded people to better understand the metaphysical miracle of human consciousness.
So yeah, good job, my man. 👍
PP
i'd like to see more videos on language, very interesting
A brilliant (illuminated) video ..very “enlightening” thanks so much really enjoyed it. i think the words literary & literally gives us a peep into the nature of language & authority and how they entwine also the words sentence & sentience. You could say that in a land of matter where things matter, we are all characters in the great book of life & all part of a giant cosmic cross-wyrd puzzle “so what’s matter for? Just a metaphor?” :) language is like a map that bridges between inner & outer worlds. it's dynamic & continually evolving but it has also been shaped by all those who have come before us & thus contains a certain historical bias inherited from earlier ages that's difficult to escape from, as an example the following "sentence" : "many of us carry the courage of our "convictions" carries a certain sub-conscious bias.
Incredible video. Subbed
Congratulations brother, good one
Thanks for the video!
You have a great channel bro!!! you just got another sub!
amazing explanation. Thank you.
Incredible content.
Hi, great video and quality content as allways!
I would suggest a different terminology.
What you mean by consciousness I would simply call: thinking. Language creates the thinking mind, which is responible for this giant web of abstract metaphors or halucinations, as you call it, in which we live our daily lives. This is what the hindu sages called the Veil of Maya or illusion. I think consciousness is something much more primary, it is our fundamental nature, or true Self.
A better word would be knowing, but I choose consciousness just to stay consistent with Jung, Freud, Jaynes, and Neumann.
great job, thanks
Great video.
Glad you enjoyed it
Does this video help you to understand what consciousness is? If it does, congratulations! It means you are well advanced in terms of understanding the origins of human knowledge. If anything was unclear, please feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.
I found it to be one of the best overviews of consciousness I have seen/heard. Without question, our sense of (Jaynesian) consciousness is rooted in language, as this video correctly reveals. However, the video should have discussed that our written western words are phonetically written, such that they enhance this abstract process of metaphor required for consciousness. Second, if what you say is true in this video, which I believe to be, then why is it we hear of these days of ridding our minds of information/metaphor will allow is to reach enlightenment - or a higher form of consciousness? Does anyone have a thought on this? thx, great, great video.
@@gordonpepper1400 Thank you. So for your first point, I agree with this an it is a very interesting point. I wanted to include something like this but I was having difficulty putting into the right words, so I may discuss it at a future time. Language is extremely complicated and there is so much to discuss with respect to how it functions. As to your second point, I think it is paradoxical to try and remove ourselves from metaphors because in a sense, this is itself a kind of metaphor. I have always seen the highest form of consciousness as utilizing the best metaphors, but at the same time there is also a case to be made that simply being in the universe i.e., experiencing it without trying to understand it, is an enlightening experience, partly because it makes us aware of all that we don't know or even can't know.
Hey man! This is a really great video, i'm actually writing my thesis on made-up words. Me and my friends use a lot of these in our language. It's not so much slang, it's very much things we come up with on the spot. They can seem completely irrelevant, but in some way some sounds feel like metaphors for feelings. We put different sounds together to make up a new word. Or maybe the made-up word exists like Frankenstein out of different parts of other words, which implicates a combination of those words.
I thought you might find the thought/implications of made-up words interesting, i'm definitly going to cite some information out of your video for the thesis. It is super interesting! Thanks a lot!
@@zerohex2761 Your thesis sounds very interesting and that is something I wonder about a lot, especially how language can be generated depending on context.
I recommend citing John Lakoff's paper "Conceptual Metaphor in Everyday Language." It is pretty much the same thing as this video except that he is a noted scholar so you will probably be better received if you cite him instead of me lol.
lera boroditsky has some interesting takes on this as well :)
Show the Wunderpus photogenicus more please. Imagine having that in your subconscious. What’s that all about ? Great video.
Incredible, thought-provoking video. The only point is the utilisation of the word "consciousness", which I replaced with something rather approximating "perception" in your own understanding, as to me consciousness rather refers to a more metaphysical concept. :)
Language leads to unique cultural sensitivity. Some languages have names for colours that are absent in other languages. The awareness of presence of that colour will be vivid in the population that uses a language that has a name for that particular colour
Great stuff. What's your educational background?
Dreaming happens in REM only and not deep sleep.
You conveniantlt just glossed over this fact.
Overall, very nice and well thought out video. Here are some notes:
1:25 what you mentioned, the spotlight metaphor and what you are defining consciousness to be in that case, fits more what psychologists conceptualize as attention (roughly, direction of consciousness towards an object, be it willingly or not)
11:30 this left-rigth hemisphere specialization (called lateralization) is not as strong as you put it. It's not like the left hemisphere doesn't get /store images in memory associated with concepts (in fact, it very much does). I know you are taking Ian McGilchrist's word here, but be aware he has received valif criticism for defending a "simplistic" even a bit "outdated" notion of the brain.
This is a very helpful comment thanks. I am going to start looking into the more current models of brain lateralization to see if I can produce a clearer and more accurate picture of the neurology.
I have heard it claimed that his work was pretty accurate at the time he wrote and published but that things have gotten more complex in the time since. I don't know if that makes sense though ... like are some of the things he claims about what's experienced in corpus calosum severance studies the differences in what kinds of perceptions occur, what behaviors are elicited, etc. if presented to the left vs right hemisphere, do those still stand? They do, but I mean there's all kinds of evidence and conclusions in the book, and I wonder what particularly is uncertain...
One thing that is likely for someone to map onto based on a brief discription of what he's saying, and thus misunderstand him, is that he's basically saying left hemisphere is logical, rational and right hemisphere is creative as that trope. He's not saying that just to be clear, but I'm sure there's rich grounds for nuance where what he paints is not accurate or not precisely so.
Would it be possible to essentially put a governer on a peoples consciousness by creating a language designed to limit the mind? Is this possible? If i wanted to keep a piece of land to myself i would make sure i was the one creating the maps.
I think most of you would enjoy “How to Create a Mind” by Ray Kurzweil
A little skewed towards AI but very congruent with the contents of the video
What about the origin of consciousness? Like, is it generated in the brain? Or the brain is just an antenna and consciousness exists outside of it?
Both are still possible with this theory, this just shows how humans can gain knowledge, irrespective of what consciousness is in and of itself.
Try bernardo kastrups work, the idea of the world, dreamed up reality, more than allegory, or decoding jungs metaphysics.
@@SERVO-SALVONah. Still doesn’t explain it.
@@christopherhamilton3621 if you're looking for a single person to explain nature through words you're missing the point of thinking for yourself, nature is paradoxical. Language is limited and we're only capable of understanding or interpretating what others say from our own level of knowledge, perspective, and experiences. Maybe it's just your interpretation. You can't just read someones work and intellectualize it . What's that allegory of 4 blindfolded men touching different parts of an elephant? Perennialist epistemology is the way, hylics will never understand this.
The title at the moment says "Does LANGUAGE create CONSCIOUSNESS?". I assumed that the video was going to argue for why language is required to have consciousness but I seemed to be wrong. You defined consciousness but you didn't define language. The reason why I missed that is because I believe that dogs and cats are conscious but would you consider the way cats communicate a LANGUAGE in this context? If you do then what would constitute a metaphor in the "cat language"? Or if metaphors are not a necessary component to create consciousness then I'm confused why you spent so much time in the video talking about them. It's possible that I completely misunderstood the point of the video. I hope this comment was constructive. Best regards.
Very good question. So if a cat is consciousness, this would require it having mental concepts. Animals seem to have very basic mental concepts like familiar, unfamiliar, danger, family, etc. To be conscious, a cat would need to project these mental concepts in new situations to get a sense of knowing them. This means that a cat can be conscious, but probably not to the same extent as us. I personally don't think cats possess a refined degree of consciousness but it is hard to tell for sure without actually being a cat, lol.
@@nexusvoid314 Are mental concepts a necessary prerequisite for consciousness? It seems rather that mental concepts are produced as a result of consciousness. Also, this classification of "basic mental concepts" creates a whole new taxonomy in the mental space. Does a creature only have consciousness if it can attain a certain level of mental modeling? Also what about the reality that one can have a conscious experience of something without having a linguistic component to it. Any novice meditator can direct their awareness (consciousness?) to an object like their breath without the scaffolding of metaphor to generate this experience. There are a lot of interesting grey areas here and while language is essential for developing the conceptual abstractions we use (and are used by) the contents of consciousness seem to extend beyond what you've defined in the video here. Very challenging topic and you've opened up a lot of interesting things to consider here, thanks so much.
*george lakoff not john lakoff. otherwise good vid
thanks for the correction
Poggers vid
Consciousness has its origins in the Self or the Divine Core. The ego is merely the center of consciousness as it manifests through the brain in an extremely stepped down, limited and partial way. The ego is under girded by the shadow and the layers of wounds and blocks in the body (primal repression and self rejection). Beneath these layers of the onion is the Self or the Divine Core and Circumference of the being. Consciousness has both a subjective aspect and an objective or Universal aspect. In the average person, the ego is severed from the Self. This is the "fallen condition" or the "human condition". There is a path back to the Self or Soul Core, which is located in the depths of the heart. At first a mental ego perceives that they exist in their head and believes they are merely a brain full of facts and knowledge. This is a very limited and impoverished state of consciousness. As a person approaches Self Realization, the center of consciousness opens up behind the heart and a person no longer lives and exists as a mere mental ego. As far as language goes...language is merely symbolic . The Self knows by intuition and communicates in symbols. At the level of the Self or Divine Soul, language is not even used but falls away. At this level of consciousness, there is direct knowing and communication is telepathic. Ultimately the 4 functions of consciousness must be integrated...thinking, feeling, intuition, and sensation. This happens with enlightenment or integration. Jung called this "individuation".
Consciousness is a hallucination based on metaphors and models, true. But metaphors exist not solely in language, there are sound and visual metaphors too, and language is not necessary for consciousness
This is exactly right, any experience can become a metaphor for understanding something else such as a new experience, independently of language. But language does enable us to understand the structure of metaphor and language expands our capacity to be conscious.
@@nexusvoid314 I think it allows us to think about our thoughts better and leads to deeper self-consciousness. It is not necessary for either though
“Consciousness is a consequence of the metaphors we use” is far too strong a conclusions to draw from the material presented.
It’s not even technically accurate either.
So are you an eliminative materialist/illusionist? Consciousness and Qualia doesn’t really exist but is an illusion generated by the brain and language is its method?
I wouldn't call consciousness or qualia illusory. In fact, I would argue that they are more objectively real than the physical world. This doesn't mean that the physical world isn't real, but the psyche clearly comes first and then I presume the existence of the physical world after the fact.
Another way to put it would be to say that I think consciousness is metaphysical, but metaphysical is not synonymous with unreal, it just means that it transcends the physical world.
Needs some input from cognitive sciences.
I included the work of Dr. Iain McGilchrist, but I didn't go into two much detail other than to describe the role of the two hemispheres in language comprehension. New information has demonstrated the role of the cerebellum in comprehension as well.
Language has nothing to do with consciousness, Decarte is wrong, it's I am therefore I think.
Watch the video
Not bad, but somewhat big mouth, shouldn't be quite as confident about some fo the statements.
People to the moon? Come now. Its 2023
Are you seriously questioning this in 2023/2024? 😂
@@christopherhamilton3621 I don't know anybody who still believes that except some of the boomers
No. It doesn't. Have you ever had a pet?
You should watch the video and understand what it's about first