linguistic abilities
Without knowing it, your mind is constantly generating tree-like structures of data to represent knowledge. This especially apparent when analyzing sentences and paying attention to how your conception of the ideas being presented develop as the speaker fills you in more and more over time, eventually reaching the point at which you have successfully constructed a clear, meaningful representation of the linguistic input you’ve received over the past n time steps. however, natural language processing as we know is fundamentally flawed, giving way to miscommunication that can lead to serious problems, particularly when attempting to understand those around you, as well as being understood yourself. In order to combat these issues and take full advantage of our linguistic capacity, the seemingly small, unimportant elements will have to be brought to light, revealing the true significance of the basic building-blocks through which we understand our world.
hardwired rules
this process of construction and manipulation that occurs in your brain when reorganizing phrases to produce meaning is crucial for comprehending and adapting to the ever-changing world that surrounds you. following specific rules that govern the part of the brain responsible for ones ability to produce and understand language is the key property that allows for such a process. hardwired grammatical laws are built-in to the brain at birth, requiring only that examples are provided over the next few years exhibiting relative accuracy of grammatical structure, as well as generally relevant subject-matter, however semantics are not relevant to the acquisition of basic language, which heavily involves syntax rules and the possible structures that result from the application of said rules.
meaningful models
with cognitive abilities that generate meaning through a rule-based construction process, a system is necessarily more than the sum of its parts. arranging elements to form a structure automatically produces additional meaning by assigning relationships between parts. this additional information does not “add to” any one part, but instead is considered a distinct part the system as a whole.
so, the brain produces models of understanding due to the rules built into the structure of the brain. this is useful, obviously, for the application of natural language, however i argue it is also primarily responsible for the other forms of logical and process-driven cognition we use, such as tool building, food preparation, and group bonding, all of which are crucial to the development and sustainability of a population, and which all require a surprisingly similar mode of logical cognition, all revolving around rule-based sequential processes that, when performed correctly, yield something that is more than the sum of its parts. a hammer is more than a stick and a rock, due to the additional ‘meaning’ acquired through the ‘association’ of elements (attaching the rock to the stick).
the hammer can now do more than either the stick or the rock in isolation. by associating two objects, one effectively produces another level of meaning, one which is based on the roles assigned to different components which indicate functional significance. for instance, the components of the hammer can be thought of as more than just the raw materials used in construction. the stick becomes a handle, allowing one to control the movement of the rock at the end. the rock is used as a blunt object, something that tends to withstand large amounts of impact without breaking. this role-oriented level contains knowledge of each element, as well as the relation between them. the ability for one to control the rock with greater ease by manipulating the stick is the essential purpose of a hammer, given by the relation between its two parts. Not only are the roles of each component specified, the role of the hammer is specified from the user’s point-of-view as a tool to drive another, sharp object into a surface, among other things. Therefore the hammer itself has functional significance with respect to the person, just as the stick and rock have functional significance with respect to the hammer.
emergent structures
Just as objects are perceived in terms of their role within a system, each person is perceived in terms of their role within a society. A complex system of decentralized agents, each accessing the environment through role-oriented framing of observations, will tend to yield what is called a super-structure. The emergence of a super-structure occurs during the complex interactions between agents as they act within a shared environment over time, and once again exemplifies the recurring them of the whole being more than the sum of its parts. a super-structure is generated by the actions of members in a population, yet consists of something ‘more’ than just its members.
super-structures manifest in the real world as cultural systems produced by existing societies. The existence of a super-structure provides a society with a 2-level structure, where the bottom-up generation produces emergent construction of additional meaning, which becomes part of the super-structure and feeds back to influence the function of the first layer.
The interaction between a society and its super-structure is a positive feedback loop. The top-down influence manifests locally (from an individual’s perspective) as a kind of control-system that stabilizes the behavior of individuals through the reinforcement of cultural norms which have been generated by the society. Given the instinctive aversion to abandonment experienced by most, the natural solution to a cultural norm with which your behavior contradicts is to conform, effectively minimizing the undesirable aspects of your own behavior in order to fit the constraints enforced by the super-structure. Those that fail to follow the rules may be confronted by social or even legal punishment through alienation, imprisonment, or any number of methods used to negatively reinforce an individual’s actions.
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