Reflections: The Stuff of Thought

This was my second audio-book. My experience with this one was actually markedly different from the first audio-book. I was more interested and invested in this book than the first one - the subject matter is inexplicably closer to my heart, so I was more riveted to the narration. Secondly, I heard it during a couple of terribly long flight journeys, so it was ideal to just plug my earphones, close my eyes and concentrate on the content. For me, audiobooks seem to work best while flying. I can take notes in a separate book, doze off for sometime, refresh myself, and continue listening. I’m glad to have discovered this.

The narration of this book could have been better. I expected Steven Pinker himself to have narrated it (since I love his presentations), but it was a disappointment that he didn’t. The narrator seemed hurried and rushed in the initial chapters. There wasn’t much emotion or even respect for punctuation, as he just droned on and on. But the style improved in the subsequent chapters - he was more patient, measured, and even entertaining in a few places.

Onto the book itself - Steven Pinker meticulously analyzes how Language and its constructs play a complex role in our understanding of reality. He starts by delving into the ambiguous process by which the human-brain conceptualizes language and puts together grammar and semantics to communicate, and make sense of the world. He demonstrates that our verbs and prepositions reflect the innate ways in which the human-brain is wired. The semantics (meanings and definitions) that we develop through language and consequently, our experiences, influence our perceptions of Reality. Grammar, Verbs, Conjugations, and all the tedious linguistic structures - in any language -  are formulated by the innate process by which we dissect the world into its particulates - its objects, geometry, space, dimensions, time, and action.
For example, it can be argued that both sentences below are theoretically grammatical:
A: Water is poured into the jug
B: The jug is poured with water

Yet, those who are fluent in English, would hardly use sentence B. People who might use B would most likely be native-speakers of another language, and they might be literally trying to translate the sentence from their language to English. This is because, innately, our mental imagery struggles to agree with a Jug - a geometrically stable and solid structure, being poured - an action that indicates fluidity and movement. The verb Pour, and the action Poured, are associated more with the Noun Water, than with Jug. The innate knowledge and understanding of Physics, objects, space, and actions, is the reason why one mental imagery agrees more than the other. Speakers of another language would surely have their semantics and grammar aligned accordingly in their native language, but translations might affect the representation of their actual imagery in a foreign language. One might be quick to therefore conclude that our language, or rather, semantics and grammar, determines the kinds of images we have in our heads. Not exactly, and not always.

This is popularly noted as the Whorfian Hypothesis which basically states that Language can influence cognitive processes, due to the ways in which the linguistic structures shape one’s understanding of the world. Steven Pinker vehemently argues against this hypothesis of Linguistic Determinism. Through multiple experimental results and cogent arguments, he attempts to debunk the notion that Language determines structure of thought. I was initially in disagreement with some of Pinker’s arguments, but in the end we converge on essentially similar ideas. Language might influence, but does not determine thoughts. I do believe Language is integral to Thinking and Reasoning. It does play a vital role. But, I have come to agree that a particular Language doesn’t completely determine one’s thoughts and ability to reason or form newer thoughts. One language isn’t better than the other to make sense of the world better. In our head, we don’t necessarily think grammatically. Our thoughts are not stored or formed through the words or linguistic structures of any particular language. As a bilingual person, I can attest that I don’t think in one language or two languages. I might reason on pen and paper in English, but I don’t believe my thoughts are framed in any particular language. Anyway, this is a highly debated topic amongst Linguists. According to Pinker, Words are represented as far more richer and abstract clusters of thought. When we try to define the Word -  the clusters of our Thought - through Language, the linguistic structures might limit or influence our articulation and the many interpretations we might have of the Word. But within our heads, Language doesn’t determine our core cognitive processes of thinking or reasoning.

After much back and forth, though,  I still feel that there is some grain of intuitive truth to Linguistic Determinism. I’m not an extremist of the theory who would go all the way to state rigidly that one language might help in certain cognitive processes than the other... that German is a better language to learn math and science than another language etc. It’s not true in such specific, micro-level examples. Culture, environment, and so many other aspects might affect cognitive development in a certain country/place.  I believe that in the macro picture, the structure of a language does influence the abstract networks of thoughts we form. The imagery and metaphors in the language surely seem influential in how we interpret, imagine, and create newer thoughts. Speaking from the perspective of programming languages, I am aware of multiple experiments and studies that have evaluated the link between the syntax of the language and the eventual ways in which a programmer reasons to solve a problem or construct an algorithm through the language. The syntax and rules can sometimes inhibit certain kinds of thinking, and consequently affect the creative reasoning of a problem - it doesn’t affect one’s core intelligence or cognitive processes, but it does seem to be an agent in terms of how the processes are triggered. I know, this is also a hairy subject, so I will move onto another topic in the book.

Most of the book explicates each linguistic structure in detail - verbs, prepositions, tense, etc, to demonstrate that these structures were borne out of our mental conceptualization of Quantity, Amounts, Space, Geometry, Spatial relationships, Temporal relationships, and of course, Causality. Causality was an interesting chapter. In here, there are multiple examples of how a sentence structure can sway our logical perception of a situation (see, language does influence our logical thoughts). It’s all about how the situation is framed. It leads to multiple pitfalls in Logic and Fallacious interpretations.
* If widowhood follows marriage, then does marriage cause widowhood?

With so many variables abounding in every complex situation, navigating to the Cause from the Effect is tricky. It is even trickier when we begin to use Language, and its rules alone, to get to the Cause. This is probably why Lawyers make so much money on linguistic technicalities.

But then, I liked the part where Pinker shows that we are so inherently steeped with a moral sense that we can most often make our way out of ambiguous and sticky representations of a morally-dubious situation that’s cloaked in clever Linguistic acrobatics.

I also liked the chapter on Metaphors. There are many theories that Language by itself is a huge set of metaphors to our abstract thoughts. But that aside, metaphors and imagery help us grasp abstract concepts much better. Abstraction is diluted much better through relatable imageries and concepts. This is because the natural way of our thinking is through Metaphors - we constantly make connections of neural networks, relating one concept with the other. We therefore find it easier to imagine and relate.

Further, an entire chapter is dedicated on the subject of Social Niceties and Courteous Language. Why should we say “I was wondering if you could look at my document?”, instead of just saying, “Take a look at the document”, that’s precise and to the point. Language is to communicate direct requests and thoughts, after all. But all the hedging and polite rules are to conform to social protocol. It satisfies the bigger picture of basic human evolutionary requirement - communal cooperation. We insist on using euphemisms even when everybody understands the inferences, we force ourselves to be politically correct despite the other person being aware of it, etc. In the end, we feel far more worse, far more hurt, to hear the brutal truth, the callous sentences, than recognizing a forced-politeness. Most of us can deal with the latter better than the former brutality. We do appreciate the fact that the other person at least respects our feelings a tiny bit to frame their unpleasantness in a polite manner. And hence, we have devised language structures to suit this need - to maintain a measure of fragile harmony.

Finally, do names, even those without an actual meaning, evoke some abstract meaning in you? Does “Tom” conjure a different picture than “Jim”? Why are there trends in names? Why do some names sound older, newer, cooler, sweeter, bolder? Pinker goes into a whole chapter analyzing the motivations behind Names and parents’ naming ideologies. This wasn’t a very interesting chapter to me, but it served as a nice break from all the heavy academic content from the previous ones.

Well, truth be told, I was expecting some content on Language and its correlation with Personality and an Individual's Nature. Along the lines of addressing these questions - Do adjectives, sentence structures, noun phrases etc. reflect a person’s inherent personality or character traits? Can one’s nature influence how they use language while writing versus talking? Can the use of language predict a person's innate nature? Etc. See, the phrase “Window into Human Nature” (from the title of the book) had a whole slew of meaning to me, inside my head. The way I interpreted it, the way my thoughts came together to understand it, was different. Steven Pinker concentrates on the broader aspects of Human Nature and Cognition, and not on individual personality. And the book has helped me appreciate this much better.

To summarize this rambling post, this was an interesting and educative read on linguistics and psycholinguistics. The human brain is far too complicated to arrive at definitive and conclusive facts about how exactly language and thoughts interweave and influence each other. But the book provides ample arguments and scientific experiments to help the reader slowly make sense of at least a part of the puzzle. 

Reflections: The Dragons of Eden

Any book on the human brain/mind is sure to light up my... well, figurative antennae. To top it, an award winning book on the evolution of human intelligence, written by a renowned scientist, was simply screeching to be read. Carl Sagan has carefully arranged his thoughts and his speculations on the evolution of the human brain, trying to pin-point the turn when intelligence made its entry and propelled Homosapiens to the the top of the food chain.

Not sure if I’m hovering on the brink of a “Writer’s-block”, or some form of lapse in the Broca’s region of my brain, but lately I have been struggling to pull out words from vague puffs of thoughts. I take longer than usual to speak, and wrestle with my mind to put down intelligent (or even sensible) sounding words on paper. So, my thoughts on this book are going to sound quite inadequate. And honestly, I’m quite surprised that I am not practically oozing with things to discuss and reflect on after reading such a book.

One of the things I was disappointed with the book was that, Sagan dwells on the evolution of the human brain - the physical mass itself, while I pointedly wanted to read about the progression of intelligence. I guess it goes back to the philosophical implication - there is no mind without the brain. And yes, I understand that it’s not easy to define intelligence without discussing the numerous cognitive regions of the brain. But, since I was quite familiar with the regions of the brain, the localized and non-localized cognitive functions, the extremely cool experiments with people and monkeys concerning language, the mind-blowing experiments with “split-brained” people, the significance of the corpus-callosum and the interaction between the left and right hemispheres etc.... the book didn’t hold enough insights or surprises for me. I was looking for a few missing pieces in my puzzle, and it sadly didn’t hand me those. Nevertheless, it’s an intelligent and engaging read. And for an astrophysicist to gather so much research evidence and glean wonderful and precise insights into the complexities of the human brain is testament to Sagan’s mind-blowing intelligence.

However, I am not omniscient. I did learn quite a few things. It was quite fascinating to learn that our brain-mass as well as our body to brain mass ratio, have been rapidly increasing, relative to other animals on the planet. So bigger brains do, in a sense, mean more intelligence! In a nut-shell, intelligence or higher-order reasoning abilities are attributed to the development of the neocortex, the part of the brain specific to mammals. I was impressed with the archaeological and anthropological evidences of the progression of the brain and the development of the temporal and frontal lobes, all of which are also associated with intelligence. Haven’t we heard our grand-moms say, a  broader forehead marks intelligence? And ahem, that is Sagan’s hypothesis on why human childbirth is so painful - our pelvic bones haven’t evolved at the rate at which the human head has “grown” or changed in shape (wish I could paste pictures of the skulls of Neanderthals versus homo-sapiens). Besides, given the structure of our bodies, apparently the pelvic bones cannot become wider without damaging our gait and balance. So well, all the science-fiction movies about babies with gigantic heads with brain tentacles waving about as they traumatize their moms don’t seem too unrealistic in the future ;)

Sagan also has an interesting take on the abortion issue. He defines the beginning of human life to the start of neocortical development. For, according to him, that’s what sets us humans apart, and if we are to value human life, the neocortical development seems to be a reasonable cut-off point for him. I don’t really agree. What if one’s neocortex is poorly developed, or gets damaged? Does the person lose their human label, and all the dignities that go with it? Besides, as the book reiterates, intelligence arises from numerous complex cognitive activities, spanning several regions of the brain. The issue of the start of life is far too ambiguous and philosophical still. But I enjoyed reading such extrapolations on the topic, including the future that awaits us, Artificial Intelligence, and the intelligent aliens we might have to encounter at some point.

The title of the book might intrigue a few - why dragons, and why Eden? The R-complex of the brain, the deeply buried repressed Unconscious (as Freud might say) harbors our primordial fears, desires and instincts. It’s called the reptilian part of the brain - the one that still instills fear and loathing of reptiles, our early deadly predators. Our brain seems to have evolved to combat the predators - for example, the reason why we sleep at nights and dream of dinosaurs and dragons. So in a convoluted way, our brain’s growth is due to the fear of reptiles (or, by natural selection, the brains that could survive such predators have sustained). It has given rise to various cultural beliefs and myths surrounding reptiles and snakes (such as in India). Even in the genesis, it’s because of a reptile, mankind gets thrown into a world of sins. But we progressed because of our well developing neocortex and seamless interaction between the left and right hemispheres (one pattern matches to form rudimentary hypotheses about the world, and the other critically and rationally weeds out the illogical hypotheses). Sadly, even in this state of evolution, many left hemispheres don’t work as rationally, and myths still abound. Sagan goes on to talk about the importance of rationality in our civilization.

And there are many more interesting cultural beliefs that tie with all this. Ever wondered why every human civilization insists on training the right hand? I won’t spoil this for you, if you really are contemplating on reading this book. How wondrous - your brain will seek out to learn more about itself.