I might have more to write later, but I thought I'd share a favorite quote of mine that resonates with what you say here.
It's from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's 1945 book, Phenomenology of Perception. (I pull the quote from p. 182 of the 1970 Colin Smith translation published by Routledge and Kegan Paul.)
"Linguistic expression does not translate ready-made thought, but accomplishes it."
Hannah Arendt in her essay on Auden tells how 3 translators into German each mercilessly killed one of her favourite poems, “If I Could Tell You” . Easily done. And that's just from English, with its own perceptions and limitations?
It breaks my heart to think of a father utilizing Chat GPT to create a toast for his daughter’s wedding. I can understand wanting to present yourself in a “polished” way for such a public offering, but it does feel as if the entire point of a father personally addressing his daughter (& loved ones in attendance) is being missed. Your “taking self out of play” is spot on. I’m a psychotherapist and was recently talking to my close friend and her husband about challenges they’re having with their adult daughter and made some suggestions as to ways they could begin a dialogue with her. The husband (who is the biological dad) wanted me to write down what I had said so he could use my wording in a letter to her. I declined, and instead wrote out general suggestions on how to approach the situation. (For example: Let her know in no uncertain terms your love for her and that you’re hoping to cultivate harmony in the relationship. Ask her for any unresolved questions or concerns she has from the past that she still harbors anger or confusion about. Be willing to apologize and acknowledge your own shortcomings. Let her know her well being was always the goal of decisions that were made, even when the results ended up damaging the relationships. Etc.) I also strongly encouraged him to hand write the letter and in cursive if possible. I know it’s easier and speedier for most people to use a keyboard, but is ease and speed always preferable? I have discovered in my own life (and working with clients throughout the years) that handwritten letters/ journals/correspondence & maybe even wedding toasts) are more meaningful for the creator and the recipient. When writing things out (especially in cursive) the feeling you are hoping to convey is accessed easier AND if you start to write words that don’t adequately reflect what you’re attempting to articulate, you will be aware of it immediately. Additionally, most recipients of handwritten letters recognize the time, care and perhaps even struggles it took to create. I’m 60 years old, so probably “old school” compared to many, but even my 12 & 10 year old niece and nephew tell me how much they cherish the handwritten letters and cards I have given them over the years. I know it’s a bit different from the father of the bride wanting to make a good impression in a public setting, but I still believe things that come from the head and heart without mediated by a machine, are priceless, even in their “imperfections.” If the father had written out his toast himself, he could present it to his daughter as a keepsake; something he’s unlikely to do if he used Chat GPT. Thank you as always for your thought provoking sharings… I think you and I agree that technologies can be very useful, but there is always a gain AND a loss in adopting them… perhaps humans will develop wisdom and know when the spoken word is best, when handwritten words are called for, when a human and keyboard is ideal, and when Chat GPT is optimum. Blessings to you and all your readers!
Like most modern people, I was asked to memorize very little in school. That ended when I entered seminary and had to memorize the entire letter to the Romans by St. Paul. I was horrified; why did I have to memorize this letter? Resentfully, I thought of all the hotel rooms with an unread Bible. I spent hours walking the streets of Los Angeles muttering the words written by the evangelist. Only after I passed a test on the content of the letter was I allowed to write my exegetical paper. I remember very little about my paper, but I have never forgotten the words of Romans. For the first time, Paul's letter became 'mine' in in a unique and irreplaceable way. I incorporate memory exercises when I read today to provide a foundation for my analysis.
(1) This was just a marvelous essay. It could have been much less measured than it turned out being. And its being so measured shows your intellectual integrity and truthfulness as an author. Given my intellectual sensibilities, it tasted very rich, and set my intellectual faculties aflutter.
(2) Setting aside the important role spoken articulation plays in forming feelings, an argument can be made — I am making it in my dissertation — that written mathematical symbol systems are for mathematical thinking as speech is for "non-mathematical" thinking.
As Merleau-Ponty has it — and as I suggested in my comment from yesterday — thought becomes meaningful, recognizable thought only in being embodied. Making the same point in a different vocabulary, Kant would say: only in being schematized. (Schematization has for Kant the same ethical importance you observe, by the way, given his categorical imperative to strive to make reasons communicable and understandable to the rest of humankind.)
Speech is the original embodiment of thought. Most written natural languages, invented to represent speech, are only derivatively meaningful, for they're phonogrammic: they constitute a visible representation of an original audible presentation of thought.
But some thought has become autonomous, in a sense, as the means for embodying thought, and thus "accomplishing" thought, have evolved. Mathematical thought is an example. Though it may have originated with speech, mathematical thought has become unique. Why? Mathematical symbol systems — at their core, at least — are not phonogrammic but ideogrammic: they're visible presentations of thought, giving thought a direct, recognizable embodiment, with no "layer" of speech between the thought and its visible sign. Here, the writing is originally meaningful, not derivatively so. When the mathematician writes out her matrix calculations, for example, she is thinking. That is, the writing is not a scaffolding for or a reminder of thinking being formed behind her eyes; the writing is the medium in which her thinking is formed.
My point in rehearsing all this esoterica is to put some pressure on the (otherwise apt) generalization that writing cannot mobilize "our own internal resources" the way speech can. That is, the generalization might be restrictedly true for certain domains of thinking, but not all.
I haven't read Merleau-Ponty and he probably addresses this, but I believe that thought, or at least some thought, initially emerges in the mind non-verbally - even abstract, non-visual ideas. But by "embodied" he might mean transformed into language. It's certainly true that working with ideas using language (i.e. writing and speaking) generates more ideas (some non-verbal at first.)
Interestingly, from Alexandra Petri's column today in the Washington Post on 'Gemini' was this:
"Personally, I am not a big corporation, but I do not think that a good way of selling your product is to announce that it will suck all the joy out of being alive. I enjoy the joys of being alive. I don’t hate efficiency. But I hate missing the point."
Nice piece, very much reminds me of a 2011 study that coined the term "Google effect": people are more likely to remember where information is located (how to google it) than to recall the information itself.
I guess the key to AI chat programs, is that they are not human. Secondly, perhaps, they understand nothing.
I am 'bookish' in the way Illich describes himself in his commentary essay (still available online I think) on the Didasalicon of Hugh of St Victor (Augustinian, Paris, late 1120s). 'Bookish', in our sense was yet to come, Illich recounts, as was 'reading', and writing was sparse and hand-copied. There was a certain library of thought to access in writing, highly selected by history and to be understood in the light of precious surviving wisdom. Hugh was highly influential (and original) in writing down his guidance, aware he was more than 'training' his students, aware of responsibility.
So we later had more to read, much more, and have been allowed to write our own thoughts, for good and ill. We can become trained sufficiently as if we were 'public-speaking' at some forum, wedded to argument, to our experience as if we understood it, to knowledge that might be understanding.
There must be similarities it seems between this prior world I participated in and our new experience with mechanised intelligence, but I suggest as I think you do, we do not think like machines. I certainly don't. I am hopeless at what a machine can do easily. I guess we need much training to think in machine mode, but that in its new form it has now become ubiquitous. We are the ones in receipt of training, not the neural nets of the machine. T'is that way round, so the stakes could be very high if we forget ourselves?
This comes neatly into a conversation among home educating families I know who are struggling with current perceptions about ‘reading ages’ and dyslexia. It encourages us to ask much deeper questions about articulation, memory and the formation of self. Having raised children with the gift of varying strains of what is now called dyslexia (a gift I seem to have given them !) I must say I do find myself rather leaning towards Plato. Their beautiful minds have a depth of memory and rhetorical skills that early literacy could well have spoiled. They do now read fluently but even that information is stored in verbal form and has a fluidity of play. So I admit to being one eyed… but as always with this delicately considered writing I am challenged to look deeper.
A nice piece as always. I have a humble request for help in rediscovering some work which has expired in my memory (and on which topic I regrettably didn't write anything down). I am thinking of some recent philosophical theses that explore the social effects and consequences of the shrunk and ever present feedback loop between expressions (especially in written or audio-visual mediums) of opinion, identity, etc. and "reviews" of such, by either peers or respected authority. I think some connections were drawn to the extremely abundant reliance on reviews in commerce, entertainment, etc. Even ChatGPT prides itself on its mechanisms for incorporating user feedback. I suppose this is another way in which "the self" is becoming more diffuse. Technology often announces "personalized experience" as a technical feat, but in a world of increasing social revision of persons, perhaps it is less impressive.
on knowledge as something more intimate than disparate facts, there is Tim Ingold's intersting writing on knowledge as life/wayfaring/movement rather than dots, separated, lifeless.
I might have more to write later, but I thought I'd share a favorite quote of mine that resonates with what you say here.
It's from Maurice Merleau-Ponty's 1945 book, Phenomenology of Perception. (I pull the quote from p. 182 of the 1970 Colin Smith translation published by Routledge and Kegan Paul.)
"Linguistic expression does not translate ready-made thought, but accomplishes it."
Perfect. Wish I had that one stored away before writing.
Hannah Arendt in her essay on Auden tells how 3 translators into German each mercilessly killed one of her favourite poems, “If I Could Tell You” . Easily done. And that's just from English, with its own perceptions and limitations?
It breaks my heart to think of a father utilizing Chat GPT to create a toast for his daughter’s wedding. I can understand wanting to present yourself in a “polished” way for such a public offering, but it does feel as if the entire point of a father personally addressing his daughter (& loved ones in attendance) is being missed. Your “taking self out of play” is spot on. I’m a psychotherapist and was recently talking to my close friend and her husband about challenges they’re having with their adult daughter and made some suggestions as to ways they could begin a dialogue with her. The husband (who is the biological dad) wanted me to write down what I had said so he could use my wording in a letter to her. I declined, and instead wrote out general suggestions on how to approach the situation. (For example: Let her know in no uncertain terms your love for her and that you’re hoping to cultivate harmony in the relationship. Ask her for any unresolved questions or concerns she has from the past that she still harbors anger or confusion about. Be willing to apologize and acknowledge your own shortcomings. Let her know her well being was always the goal of decisions that were made, even when the results ended up damaging the relationships. Etc.) I also strongly encouraged him to hand write the letter and in cursive if possible. I know it’s easier and speedier for most people to use a keyboard, but is ease and speed always preferable? I have discovered in my own life (and working with clients throughout the years) that handwritten letters/ journals/correspondence & maybe even wedding toasts) are more meaningful for the creator and the recipient. When writing things out (especially in cursive) the feeling you are hoping to convey is accessed easier AND if you start to write words that don’t adequately reflect what you’re attempting to articulate, you will be aware of it immediately. Additionally, most recipients of handwritten letters recognize the time, care and perhaps even struggles it took to create. I’m 60 years old, so probably “old school” compared to many, but even my 12 & 10 year old niece and nephew tell me how much they cherish the handwritten letters and cards I have given them over the years. I know it’s a bit different from the father of the bride wanting to make a good impression in a public setting, but I still believe things that come from the head and heart without mediated by a machine, are priceless, even in their “imperfections.” If the father had written out his toast himself, he could present it to his daughter as a keepsake; something he’s unlikely to do if he used Chat GPT. Thank you as always for your thought provoking sharings… I think you and I agree that technologies can be very useful, but there is always a gain AND a loss in adopting them… perhaps humans will develop wisdom and know when the spoken word is best, when handwritten words are called for, when a human and keyboard is ideal, and when Chat GPT is optimum. Blessings to you and all your readers!
This is so, so good. That concept of taking the self out of play is huge and really gets at the heart of things.
Like most modern people, I was asked to memorize very little in school. That ended when I entered seminary and had to memorize the entire letter to the Romans by St. Paul. I was horrified; why did I have to memorize this letter? Resentfully, I thought of all the hotel rooms with an unread Bible. I spent hours walking the streets of Los Angeles muttering the words written by the evangelist. Only after I passed a test on the content of the letter was I allowed to write my exegetical paper. I remember very little about my paper, but I have never forgotten the words of Romans. For the first time, Paul's letter became 'mine' in in a unique and irreplaceable way. I incorporate memory exercises when I read today to provide a foundation for my analysis.
(1) This was just a marvelous essay. It could have been much less measured than it turned out being. And its being so measured shows your intellectual integrity and truthfulness as an author. Given my intellectual sensibilities, it tasted very rich, and set my intellectual faculties aflutter.
(2) Setting aside the important role spoken articulation plays in forming feelings, an argument can be made — I am making it in my dissertation — that written mathematical symbol systems are for mathematical thinking as speech is for "non-mathematical" thinking.
As Merleau-Ponty has it — and as I suggested in my comment from yesterday — thought becomes meaningful, recognizable thought only in being embodied. Making the same point in a different vocabulary, Kant would say: only in being schematized. (Schematization has for Kant the same ethical importance you observe, by the way, given his categorical imperative to strive to make reasons communicable and understandable to the rest of humankind.)
Speech is the original embodiment of thought. Most written natural languages, invented to represent speech, are only derivatively meaningful, for they're phonogrammic: they constitute a visible representation of an original audible presentation of thought.
But some thought has become autonomous, in a sense, as the means for embodying thought, and thus "accomplishing" thought, have evolved. Mathematical thought is an example. Though it may have originated with speech, mathematical thought has become unique. Why? Mathematical symbol systems — at their core, at least — are not phonogrammic but ideogrammic: they're visible presentations of thought, giving thought a direct, recognizable embodiment, with no "layer" of speech between the thought and its visible sign. Here, the writing is originally meaningful, not derivatively so. When the mathematician writes out her matrix calculations, for example, she is thinking. That is, the writing is not a scaffolding for or a reminder of thinking being formed behind her eyes; the writing is the medium in which her thinking is formed.
My point in rehearsing all this esoterica is to put some pressure on the (otherwise apt) generalization that writing cannot mobilize "our own internal resources" the way speech can. That is, the generalization might be restrictedly true for certain domains of thinking, but not all.
I haven't read Merleau-Ponty and he probably addresses this, but I believe that thought, or at least some thought, initially emerges in the mind non-verbally - even abstract, non-visual ideas. But by "embodied" he might mean transformed into language. It's certainly true that working with ideas using language (i.e. writing and speaking) generates more ideas (some non-verbal at first.)
Thank you for your thoughts and expressions -- they have opened up this "layers " way to view:
“Layers” of Self: Being, Doing, Remembering, Knowing, Thinking, Expressing
“Layers” of Taking in Thinking and Knowing: Experiencing, Listening, Seeing
“Layers” of Expressing: Sound, Mime, Melody, Speech, Art, Writing
“Layers” of Receiving Expressing: Feeling, Hearing, Seeing (then translating that back into Self)
Interestingly, from Alexandra Petri's column today in the Washington Post on 'Gemini' was this:
"Personally, I am not a big corporation, but I do not think that a good way of selling your product is to announce that it will suck all the joy out of being alive. I enjoy the joys of being alive. I don’t hate efficiency. But I hate missing the point."
As a psychologist, I’d argue that your paragraph on the labor of articulation touches on one of the fundamental mechanisms of therapy.
Talking about things makes them real, and thus facilitates our ability to navigate them.
Nice piece, very much reminds me of a 2011 study that coined the term "Google effect": people are more likely to remember where information is located (how to google it) than to recall the information itself.
I guess the key to AI chat programs, is that they are not human. Secondly, perhaps, they understand nothing.
I am 'bookish' in the way Illich describes himself in his commentary essay (still available online I think) on the Didasalicon of Hugh of St Victor (Augustinian, Paris, late 1120s). 'Bookish', in our sense was yet to come, Illich recounts, as was 'reading', and writing was sparse and hand-copied. There was a certain library of thought to access in writing, highly selected by history and to be understood in the light of precious surviving wisdom. Hugh was highly influential (and original) in writing down his guidance, aware he was more than 'training' his students, aware of responsibility.
So we later had more to read, much more, and have been allowed to write our own thoughts, for good and ill. We can become trained sufficiently as if we were 'public-speaking' at some forum, wedded to argument, to our experience as if we understood it, to knowledge that might be understanding.
There must be similarities it seems between this prior world I participated in and our new experience with mechanised intelligence, but I suggest as I think you do, we do not think like machines. I certainly don't. I am hopeless at what a machine can do easily. I guess we need much training to think in machine mode, but that in its new form it has now become ubiquitous. We are the ones in receipt of training, not the neural nets of the machine. T'is that way round, so the stakes could be very high if we forget ourselves?
This comes neatly into a conversation among home educating families I know who are struggling with current perceptions about ‘reading ages’ and dyslexia. It encourages us to ask much deeper questions about articulation, memory and the formation of self. Having raised children with the gift of varying strains of what is now called dyslexia (a gift I seem to have given them !) I must say I do find myself rather leaning towards Plato. Their beautiful minds have a depth of memory and rhetorical skills that early literacy could well have spoiled. They do now read fluently but even that information is stored in verbal form and has a fluidity of play. So I admit to being one eyed… but as always with this delicately considered writing I am challenged to look deeper.
A nice piece as always. I have a humble request for help in rediscovering some work which has expired in my memory (and on which topic I regrettably didn't write anything down). I am thinking of some recent philosophical theses that explore the social effects and consequences of the shrunk and ever present feedback loop between expressions (especially in written or audio-visual mediums) of opinion, identity, etc. and "reviews" of such, by either peers or respected authority. I think some connections were drawn to the extremely abundant reliance on reviews in commerce, entertainment, etc. Even ChatGPT prides itself on its mechanisms for incorporating user feedback. I suppose this is another way in which "the self" is becoming more diffuse. Technology often announces "personalized experience" as a technical feat, but in a world of increasing social revision of persons, perhaps it is less impressive.
on knowledge as something more intimate than disparate facts, there is Tim Ingold's intersting writing on knowledge as life/wayfaring/movement rather than dots, separated, lifeless.