To me, it's message is that there are experiences that are not reducible to language, not concepts. For me, concepts, ideas, are creatures of language. I think the distinction is important. — T Clark

I've never thought about it this way before, so I found this very interesting. I'm chewing it in my cud right now. *cow noises*

But can't concepts be derived from experiences?

But can't concepts be derived from experiences? — Noble Dust

Of course. Saying "auw!" quite accurately describes the feeling of pain. Of course people hearing or reading "auw!" must know pain.

To me, it's message is that there are experiences that are not reducible to language, not concepts. For me, concepts, ideas, are creatures of language. I think the distinction is important. — T Clark

But can't concepts be derived from experiences? — Noble Dust

Sure, but the point is that not all of experience can be conceptualised - ie. reduced to concepts. Concepts refer to patterns of experience with a high probability of shared value/potential/significance. We can still share and relate to some significance or meaning of an experience without the use of concepts, let alone sharing language.

For me (and perhaps this is where T Clark and I may differ) qualitative ideas in experience interact to form concepts but have no form themselves. Chinese ideographs give form to ideas only through interaction within a language system, the logical structure (grammar and syntax) of which determines the situational conceptualisation that a symbol conveys. In this way, one symbol in Chinese can convey a positive or negative conceptualisation of the same qualitative idea, depending on its relative position in the grammatical structure. Each symbol, phrase, line, stanza, chapter or entire text is an idea that is conceptualised by understanding the logic of its relative position.

In English, a concept is already largely determined by the arrangement of letters or sounds in the word itself, including tense, position and focus. Ideas in modern English (and even in modern Chinese) refer to a complex interplay of conceptualised structures whose boundaries may or may not overlap and dissolve across phrases, sentences and entire texts. The qualities of speech sounds in English are often just as significant and evaluative as the words we use, more so than in Chinese.

As for what we can describe without language, isn’t this what art is for? And failing that, the way we interact with the world? I guess it depends on how narrowly you define ‘describe’: to write down, to render, to follow an outline...

Humanity.

But can't concepts be derived from experiences? — Noble Dust

Sure. That's what happens. Experiences go in one end of our minds and come out concepts at the other end.

Sure. That's what happens. Experiences go in one end of our minds and come out concepts at the other end. — T Clark

I couldn't word it better!

For me (and perhaps this is where T Clark and I may differ) qualitative ideas in experience interact to form concepts but have no form themselves. — Possibility

You and I don't generally see these things the same way. It seems like you are using "qualitative idea" as your version of what I am calling "experience." I think that's misleading. As I said, to me, a concept, an idea, is a linguistic entity.

As for what we can describe without language, isn’t this what art is for? — Possibility

I think you and I are in general agreement, but the use of the word "describe" bothers me. Descriptions are generally done with language. Again, I think that will be misleading, perhaps not to you and me, but to others.

I get what you're saying, but unless one assumes that all life is endowed with language, then language appeared at some point in time after life appeared. — javra

I think that such a starting point should only be seen provisionally, and as an artificial imposition on what is otherwise a dynamic flux. — baker

First off, I am sympathetic to your views. In entering into the realms of primacy, which is a metaphysical issue, I do hold a non-materialist slant on things. So this colors my world view. And the topic is not something worthy of this thread's theme. But to address the issue of language having had a beginning:

Language. Are we by this term intending “words and their grammatical use” or “communication of meaning”? Certainly all animals use “body language” to communicate meaning, often enough, this between species. A solitary cat will raise its hairs and spit; a solitary rattlesnake with rattle its tail; etc. All this done to communicate its private intentions of action that are not yet action - and thereby intimidate - and, often enough, this again to animals of other species which, more often than not, understand (or "get") what is being communicated. Arguably, to communicate is to make common that which is otherwise not. It can be intended and thereby voluntary or involuntary (such as how sweat can unintentionally communicate one’s fear).

Did Neanderthals speak with words. TMK, we don’t know. Nevertheless they exhibit being endowed with a great deal of complex meaning in their placing of flowers into the graves of their dead - from the meaning of flowers, to that of graves, to that of a potential spirituality. Though we don’t know whether they had words, we can only sanely infer that they communicated complex enough meaning to each other.

Once we get into interpreting language as “communication of meaning” and further into plain “communication” we can further abstract language to be the imparting of information from one form to another via any type of interaction. And then we can get into propositions such as, “the hammer communicates its force to the stone which it hits”. And so would crystals, prions, bacteria, and so forth.

Now, again, I’m sympathetic to the gradualism of evolution when looked at from afar. But when evolution is looked at up close, it holds mutations that result in punctuated evolution, if not punctuated equilibrium then punctuated gradualism. Unless the rate of successful mutations is constant, punctuated evolution necessarily unfolds. Just as there logically was a mitochondrial Eve from which Homo Sapiens as we know it resulted, so too I logically find the necessary occurrence of a mutation-driven punctuation in the evolution of communication that gave birth to the grammatically correct languages which we now know of.

So, due to this line of reasoning, I do maintain that there was a start to language in the sense of "words and their grammatical use" - a beginning that is ontic rather an artificial imposition on what otherwise is.

As to agency, I’m of the view that it is intrinsic to life, all life, differing only in magnitudes and the quality that ensues from such different degrees. In the history of biological evolution, mutations (and the novel genetic instincts that mutations can bring about, which can affect not just body but cognition) do not subvert agency in my view, but merely facilitate its degrees of presence. Hence, in simplistic manner and imo: a mutation brought about the cognitive degree of agency (this alongside the needed biological workings of the body that may have already been sufficiently present) required to create, aka invent, words. But as I first commented, this issue of agency working in tandem with biology is a very different topic than that of the thread. And I have little to no interest in debating it for the time being. Merely wanted to give my perspective.

Besides, rare as they might be, novums - new features - perpetually occur, thereby the evolution of any living language, and how are novums not invented? - javra

But most things that seem new are actually made of old, already existing things. — baker

Here I find an equivocation between that addressed and its constituents. Genotypically, a mutation is "actually made of old, already existing things" but the phenotype the mutation brings about is utterly novel. So too do I find with the novums of language. For example, the letters of novel words will be old stuff, but the new words and what they gradually come to convey to a populous will be utterly novel. As one concrete example of this, there is "meme" (coined in 1976, and today a common aspect of the English language). A good example of a recently invented word.

Additionally, I notice you say "most". What do you make of the exceptions?

You and I don't generally see these things the same way. It seems like you are using "qualitative idea" as your version of what I am calling "experience." I think that's misleading. As I said, to me, a concept, an idea, is a linguistic entity. — T Clark

The main difference I see (apart from equating ‘concept’ and ‘idea’) is that by ‘experience’ you’re referring to an affected quality of consciousness, whereas by ‘qualitative (or aesthetic) idea’ I’m referring to quality prior to affect. It is in one’s experience (of aesthetic ideas formed in the TTC, for instance) that any quality is affected in relation to its context.

So, as linguistic entities, for me ‘concept’ is an affected or experienced ‘idea’.

As for what we can describe without language, isn’t this what art is for?
— Possibility

I think you and I are in general agreement, but the use of the word "describe" bothers me. Descriptions are generally done with language. Again, I think that will be misleading, perhaps not to you and me, but to others. — T Clark

Which was why I mentioned the narrowness generally assumed in the term ‘describe’. Dictionary definitions of ‘describe’ include marking out or drawing a geometrical figure, as well as moving in a way that follows an imaginary outline.

Yep, the Scandinavian word "Lagom"

Yep, the Scandinavian word "Lagom" — Ansiktsburk

I love this word! I have been using ‘accurate’, but found it far too scientific to describe this dynamic quality of balance and sufficiency in one’s perspective.

English language use demonstrates a reluctance to name the relative quality of an unaffected idea. Lagom cannot be qualified as a concept until its value/significance is determined in relation to the quality of affected experience. So we translate lagom as a relative value in idiomatic form: ‘just the right amount’ or ‘less is more’. But each of these idioms alone is insufficient to describe the relative quality that is lagom.

I love this word! I have been using ‘accurate’, but found it far too scientific to describe this dynamic quality of balance and sufficiency in one’s perspective.

English language use demonstrates a reluctance to name the relative quality of an unaffected idea. Lagom cannot be qualified as a concept until its value/significance is determined in relation to the quality of affected experience. So we translate lagom as a relative value in idiomatic form: ‘just the right amount’ or ‘less is more’. But each of these idioms alone is insufficient to describe the relative quality that is lagom. — Possibility

You just described "lagom" in English!

Plus :point: lagom (Wiktonary). Fit the bill? Just what the doctor ordered? Perfect?

Lagom: the Swedish secret for a happy life. With a mad fool and some noble dust this shouldn't be a problem

More broadly, I've wondered in the past if there are actual aspects of fundamental reality that are only grasped by speakers of specific languages through words and expressions in their respective languages... — Noble Dust

Not to be dramatic or self-important, but this "Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis" is exactly the same idea that I've felt intuitively for years without any special knowledge of the subject; I had never heard of this specific hypothesis before now. I have no expertise or argument to use to back up this intuition. — Noble Dust

A week or so ago, you and I discussed the Whorf hypothesis. I commented that it was controversial, but that there seemed to some substance. I've been reading "The Language Instinct" by Stephen Pinker. In the front of the book he spends several pages explaining, with backup, why the whole idea is bologna.

Oh yeah?

I counted precisely 17 things that can't be described in the English language. Here they are, with ordinal numbers designating their spots:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
Unfortunately I forgot what 12 was.