Cognitive Dissidents discussion

Greetings fellow dissidens!

This is my first post here & I already seem to require some assistance. When I attempted to add a comment under this exant topic...well... almost nothing happened. What did happen was a little line appeared. Unfortunately that line did little in the way of allowing me to transcribe a text. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy the appearance & disappearance of little lines just as much as the rest of you, but such enjoyment did little to fulfill my purpose here-- at least as I'm aware of it.

Posting this as a new discussion topic (obviously a falsification since this is already a discussion topic) is not meant as provocation, but merely represents a tactic used to get around my technical difficulties.

Anyway, or more to the point: When I was an undergraduate at UCSD I took a few classes in linguistics-- which was taught under the Chomskian paradigm at that time. I don't pretend to have taken it in at a very deep theororetical level but the following is what I recall regarding its basic tenents.

1. Language is inherent to the structure of the human mind-- or brain maybe.

2. The structure of language refects (or IS maybe) the structure of that mind.

3. That structure is a set of rules.

4. Those rules exist in the mind as an ordered set of relationships-- that is, the mind must apply them in the proper order-- don't apply rule # 18387 prior to the application of rule # 18386-- at least if you are going to apply rule # 18386.

5. Now the "generative" part, as I recall, means the "rule" will generate the form of the utterance you desire. It starts with the idea that all complex utterances emergence from the simplest utterences or earliest rules. The grammar of the ur sentence (maybe I am incorrect here?) is simply S1 = noun subject + verb. Then you can begin applying other rules in their proper order to generate whatever you like.

6. That gives you some idea as to the "transformational" concept-- which, again as I understand it, is merely that the string of rules continue to transform your initial sentence as you apply them.

7. It formulates that the human mind works on a sort of "efficiency model." Let me explain. Compare the way grammatical proofs works to the way that proofs work in geometry. In geometry you start with a statement and work your way toward another using rules to justify each step in the process. Same in linguistics. BUT-- & this is a big BUT-- in geometry whether you get there in 2 steps or a zillion you still have a justified proof-- the first might be considered more "elegant" but the second is also "correct." In linguistics ONLY the most expedient set of steps is considered "correct." & the reasoning is that the brain requires such an expedient structure to process the complexities of the language grammar more or less-- more I guess-- automatically.

Hence: we all process these fixed rules in the same way, by the same means, according to the same system. If we don't, we're not following the grammar.

Difficult to find the congruence between such paradigm inert thinking (would make a good acronym, eh?) & Chomsky's political writings? It is for me.

In Mille plateaux, Deleuze & Guattari write: "Chomsky's grammaticality, the categorical S symbol that dominates every sentence, is more fundamentally a marker of power than a syntactic marker: you will construct grammatically correct sentences, you will divide each statement into a noun phrase and a verb phrase (first dichotomy...)." All pointing to a real tension & contradiction between his linguistic project & other facets of his intellectual life-- but then again, to my knowledge, Chomsky never even attempted to put them together. I don't think the lack of congruence means anything to him.

Interesting. Ponderous.

I'm sure it's all much more complicated than this. I don't think the GTG paradigm still has the authority that it did when I took linguistics, but I may be mistaken.

Even at that time I remember having this extremely brilliant if somewhat incomprehnsible morphology professor who was very good at problematizing the basic "elements" of the linguistic system-- arguing that the very concept of "word" was rather nebulous & messy-- that the distinction "verb" versus "noun" was hardy as precise & discrete as the GTG system would have us believe.

To open the discussion still further, a question: what other politically radical thinkers fall into (the) PIT?

I'm really a bit too tired for a good response but have been turning over this post in my mind for a few days. First, Chomsky's take on language seems very much a typical scientific approach, one that I see pretty much every day. It is simple and elegant and after you read it, it makes perfect sense. The trick is coming up with it in the first place. Also, it seems either incomplete or off the mark somewhat, but it least it gets the ball rolling. I sometimes think the most important thing he has done was to discredit behaviorism, a truly horrible manifestation (infestation?) of the past century. Anyway, a lot of the clever ideas I have seen in science have turned out to be wrong in the end, at least in some crucial aspect.

Where I might question this the most is in the "efficiency model" of the human mind. This, interestingly enough, is one of the major topics of Ellul - our obsession with efficiency since the industrial revolution. Now, I do think the mind is terribly efficient, but biological systems also are redundant, often circuitous and certainly complex. I guess I just have a problem accepting this point without stewing over it for a (possibly long) while.

I am not sure I find a great contradiction between Chomsky's political and linguistics thinking. At least I don't see them as mutually exclusive. He is clearly a rationalist and I could see that the application of a simple set of principles and the thoroughness of research carries over into his political thought. The building up of complex systems from simpler ones with a few sets of rules is not at odds with anarchist thinking per se, at least not as I see it. Given that what I am most interested in right now is self-organization of living systems, I think one could draw a parallel between these seemingly disparate topics and his approach.

As for Deleuze & Guattari, I don't ever know if I can figure out exactly what they mean.

I originally posted this topic b/c I was hoping to arouse a reply from someone I don't know who joined this group early on & whose profile presents her as a linguistics student AND b/c in my latest (currently in progress & unpublished) bk, "Paradigm Shift Knuckle Sandwich", the subject is alluded to AND b/c I know Chomsky's politics but not his linguistics. I recently ran across his idea of Deep Grammar - wch appeals to me but I've given it no further thought.

As for the "efficiency model".. Well.. I've coined the term "Bird-Brainism" as an "efficiency model" of sorts but, having not so long ago collaborated w/ & interviewed a brain researcher, my impression is that the brain is more strcutured in an extremely fluid way w/ mucho overlap & "redundancy" - a form of practical self-protection & modularity that's not "efficient" at all in the way that Chomsky apparently means it.

But, then I haven't read Chomsky's linguistics & I ain't about to shit on the man lightly, so don't take what I've written here as a criticism of him.