Henri Bergson (12) - Language
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- Опубліковано 30 чер 2024
- In this video, we look at Bergson’s account of language. There are two aspects to language; what I call the abstract aspect, and speech. The first includes the way language enables our practical lives and facilitates an ‘inner’ turn to concepts; the second is language as communication of ‘speech.’ The second aspect centres on the body and Bergson’s ‘motor diagram;’ a model which facilitates speech through nascent movements that scan a phrase and emphasise its main articulations, essentially creating a ‘field’ (exactly like the ‘field’ we saw in the video on perception), into which relevant memories flow. Bergson’s account of speech is a holistic one, in which the whole is grasped before the parts; words before phonemes, sentences before words, and ideas before sentences. The harmony this can generate between speaker and hearer opens up the possibility for a genuine connection in interpersonal relationships.
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*Contents*
00:27 Language - Abstract Aspect
00:38 Practical function
02:01 Intellectual / Conceptual function
05:39 Language - Speech
09:02 Associationism
09:51 Problems with associationism
14:05 Bergson’s motor diagram
28:37 Aphasia
29:24 Word deafness
30:25 Comparison with perception
36:58 Two key ideas in Bergson
44:05 Summary
This really brings out what you said before about movement. I'd add to your two key points (and yes, those are simply superb) the statements: "Thought is a movement" and "Speech is a movement". Wow.
Which puts me in mind of music as the art form that for me captures movement. Maybe that's why it is the art form everyone just feels at home with. With painting, drama, literature and poetry there's a need to engage in a different way that perhaps needs the intellect to be involved and music simply doesn't? And music also wants to engage our bodies because much of it also makes us want to dance.
Some modern painters did try to bring music into their work. One of my absolute favourites is Kandinsky with his Compositions, Impressions and improvisations. And then others like Pollock actually brought movement into theirs. And yes, I love his work too. I was totally blown away when I saw the Abstract Expressionist Exhibition in London some years ago.
Nice. Yes, there is definitely something special about music as an art form, isn't there.
Hi, Nathan! I'm presuming you already know ( but some viewers may not ) that Bergson married Marcel Proust's cousin ( Proust was Best Man! ). Bergson was a massive influence on Proust - to the extent that many regard 'In Search of Lost Time' as a representation of Bergson's thought in fiction.
Yes!! But even as the die-hard Bergsonian I am, that still isn't enough to get me to read Proust! One day... maybe... there just always seem to be more pressing titles on my list of books to read.
I would recommend it - but, yes, so many books, so little...'time'. 😉
I find it great that you allow the speech to have intervals of indetermination, as in a generous demonstration of Bergson's take on language. one can feel the ideas growing since a nascent state. dont know what 'ramble' means, but it sounded really nice.
Oh nice. That's a neat way to interpret my speech. Thanks!
again thanks fellow being for sharing this with us
Thankyou for this wonderful content. It is almost as though eveything could be this unsplittable movement, in this episode, language. I wonder how Wittgenstein relates to this.
Hi again, Yosh iii. Thanks a lot.
Oh yes. They both (later Wittgenstein, anyway) seem to have very similar ideas about language, don't they. Wittgenstein seemed to go into much more detail within language itself (words, concepts, etc.) whereas Bergson emphasised more the way sounds appear as meaningful (the body and his 'motor diagram'). They both end up describing the same thing, just from different angles; language is a whole first, and one which only arises in practical, lived communication with others who already understand the basic 'rules' (not grammar or vocabulary) of the language game we are both playing.
Computer can speak, as we are withnessed with chatgpt. No dwelling into meaning and intentions. Just generating the next word, best asdociated with past words. Would you say that chatgpt is practical asdicianism?
But _does_ chatgpt speak? If it doesn’t mean or intend anything, in what sense is it ‘speaking’? It’s producing sequences of letters and words that mean something to a human listener, but without a sense of what it’s doing, I don’t think we can say it is ‘speaking’ any more than we can say a calculator ‘adds’ two numbers you input. Calculators don’t ‘do’ anything - nor does chatgpt (including speaking).
Does this matter? Not if all you are interested in is learning something. It makes no difference whether you get information from a human or an AI algorithm (the latter may even be better because it is a 24/7 resource that never gets tired or needs a break). It _does_ matter, however, insofar as we want to remain clear about the difference between technology and human beings. Muddying the waters here not only produces ignorance but can lead to absurdities like thinking that since chatgpt ‘speaks’ without being conscious, then maybe this is what human beings are doing as well, or fears of an AI takeover.
@@absurdbeing2219 Speaking is an ability we aquire. We download the words from our cultural cloud and learn to use these words in the right context. The meaning underlined beneath. It under-stands. The question is weather chatgpt can get close to this meaning, while it develops the answer. I believe it is doing so, as much as an autonomous car is driving through the streets and being careful not to run over a cat or a child. Ofcourse it is a different type of speaking. It is not an action within the wide context of duration. Nevertheless, part of human speaking is technical. How many types of speaking are there? Is there only one?
I really enjoy your leactures. It is a great project. I thought of doing it myself in Hebrew about Plato. Thank you again.
@@amirleshem6720 Thanks a lot. Glad to hear you are enjoying my content. I started doing it purely for my own benefit, but it has kind of grown into something a bit bigger than that now.
"Speaking is an ability we acquire." Of course. But, we 'download' words from the cultural 'cloud.' Surely not; at least not if the words in quotes are to mean anything. You will of course say these are merely metaphors, but this is my point. They are _only_ metaphors. They are unhelpful in thinking about how humans learn language or whether we should consider chatgpt to be speaking or not precisely because _they blur the distinction between humans and machines, making us either think humans are more machine-like than we are or that machines are more human-like than they are._
You say an autonomous car is “driving” through streets and “being careful.” This is no different from my calculator example (an autonomous car is no more conscious, aware, intending, meaning-making, etc. than a calculator), and my attitude to it is the same; i.e. there is ambiguity in the language being used here. The words in quotes imply deliberate, conscious intentionality. When we apply these terms to AI (which I would say is not conscious, unaware, incapable of intending, etc.), we essentially fool ourselves into thinking AI might be on the spectrum of consciousness or somehow meaning or intending something.
In response to this, you might say our language is outdated and needs to be expanded to accommodate AI. This takes us to my last point…
Is there only one “type” of speaking? This is not what is at stake here. We can divide speaking (or ‘driving’ or ‘being careful’) into as many "types" as we like, but what we don’t want to do is elide the difference between what humans (i.e. conscious beings) do when we speak and what AIs (i.e. non-conscious algorithms) do when they produce strings of words.
What do we gain by stretching the word ‘speech’ to include AIs (i.e. non-conscious things)? I would argue nothing. What do we lose? The clear (also valid and real) distinction between humans and machines.
At least, this is how I think of it. At bottom, it is just semantics, but semantics are important because the way we use language conditions the way we think (and what we think is likely to be true). This is also why I am violently opposed to the notion that the brain is hardware and the mind software. The little gain in understanding is vastly outweighed by the way this phrasing 'humanises' machines and 'machinises' humans.
Please write something which is original to your observations from senses and make videos on advaita vedanta
Hi. To be honest, Hindu philosophy is a little too mystical for me. I'm really more interested in existentialism or phenomenology, which I find very closely matches my sensory observations.