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Authors: Arthur Koestler
Tags: General, Philosophy
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tree. The
operation is further complicated, and sometimes brought to the verge of
a breakdown, by our lecturer's deplorable tendency to correct, erase,
chop off entire flowering branches from the tree and start growing
them afresh. The Behaviourist calls this Trial-and-Error behaviour and
compares it to the behaviour of rats running at random into the blind
alleys of a maze; but the search for the mot juste is, of course,
anything but random.
Matters would be even more complicated if our subject were a poet,
instead of being a historian. If he were a poet, he would have to
serve two masters -- operate in two interlocking hierarchies at the
same time: one governed by meaning and the second governed by rhythm,
metre, euphony. But even though the lecturer writes in prose, his choice
of words and phrasing is influenced by the demands of style. Complex
activities are often dependent on more than one hierarchic order --
trees with intertwining branches -- each controlled by its own rules
and value-criteria: meaning and euphony, form and function, melody and
orchestration, and so on.
I have said enough to indicate some of the problems which human speech
presents. Now Behaviourists, too, are in the habit of preparing papers,
and even of writing books, so they must no doubt also be aware of the
difficulties and complexities of the process. But when they discuss
'verbal behaviour', they manage to forget or repress them. They confine
the discussion to such embarrassing trivialities as: 'The verbal stimulus
"Come to dinner" is usually reinforced by food.' They demonstrate how
the experimenter can 'control a subject's verbal behaviour' by placing
'a large and unusual pencil in an unusual place clearly in sight --
under such circumstances it is highly probable that our subject will say
"pencil"' [13] (both examples are from Skinner's Verbal Behaviour ,
a treasure-house of similar profundities). By these methods they can,
as we have seen, go on talking about S-R atoms forming chains extending
in a vacuum -- without having to bother to define what the S's and the
R's consist of.
Summary
Where indeed shall we look for the atoms of language -- in the phoneme
/e/? In the digram /en/? In the morpheme /men/? In the word /mention/?
Or in the phrase /don't mention it/? Each of these entities has two
aspects. It is a whole relative to its own constituent parts, and
at the same time a part of the larger whole on the next level of
the hierarchy. It is both a part and a whole -- a sub-whole. It is one of
the characteristic features of all hierarchic systems, as we shall
see, that they are not aggregations of elementary bits, but are composed
of sub-wholes branching into sub-sub-wholes, and so on. This is the first
point of general validity to retain from the preceding discussion. I
must now mention a few more characteristics of language which have the
same universal validity for hierarchic systems of all types.
'Active speech' (in contrast to 'passive speech', i.e., listening)
consists in the stepwise elaboration, articulation, concretisation,
of originally inarticulate generalised intents. The branching of the
tree symbolises this step-by-step, hierarchic process of spelling out
the implicit idea in explicit terms, of converting the potentialities of
an idea into the actual motion-patterns of the vocal chords. The process
has been compared to the development of the embryo: the fertilised egg
contains all the potentialities of the future individual; these are then
'spelled out' in successive stages of differentiation. It could also
be compared to the way a military command is executed: the generalised
order 'Eighth Army will advance in direction of Tobruk', issued from
the apex of the hierarchy, is concretised in more detail at each of
the lower echelons. Furthermore we shall see that the exercise of any
skilled action, whether instinctive, like the nest-building of birds,
or acquired, as most human skills
operation is further complicated, and sometimes brought to the verge of
a breakdown, by our lecturer's deplorable tendency to correct, erase,
chop off entire flowering branches from the tree and start growing
them afresh. The Behaviourist calls this Trial-and-Error behaviour and
compares it to the behaviour of rats running at random into the blind
alleys of a maze; but the search for the mot juste is, of course,
anything but random.
Matters would be even more complicated if our subject were a poet,
instead of being a historian. If he were a poet, he would have to
serve two masters -- operate in two interlocking hierarchies at the
same time: one governed by meaning and the second governed by rhythm,
metre, euphony. But even though the lecturer writes in prose, his choice
of words and phrasing is influenced by the demands of style. Complex
activities are often dependent on more than one hierarchic order --
trees with intertwining branches -- each controlled by its own rules
and value-criteria: meaning and euphony, form and function, melody and
orchestration, and so on.
I have said enough to indicate some of the problems which human speech
presents. Now Behaviourists, too, are in the habit of preparing papers,
and even of writing books, so they must no doubt also be aware of the
difficulties and complexities of the process. But when they discuss
'verbal behaviour', they manage to forget or repress them. They confine
the discussion to such embarrassing trivialities as: 'The verbal stimulus
"Come to dinner" is usually reinforced by food.' They demonstrate how
the experimenter can 'control a subject's verbal behaviour' by placing
'a large and unusual pencil in an unusual place clearly in sight --
under such circumstances it is highly probable that our subject will say
"pencil"' [13] (both examples are from Skinner's Verbal Behaviour ,
a treasure-house of similar profundities). By these methods they can,
as we have seen, go on talking about S-R atoms forming chains extending
in a vacuum -- without having to bother to define what the S's and the
R's consist of.
Summary
Where indeed shall we look for the atoms of language -- in the phoneme
/e/? In the digram /en/? In the morpheme /men/? In the word /mention/?
Or in the phrase /don't mention it/? Each of these entities has two
aspects. It is a whole relative to its own constituent parts, and
at the same time a part of the larger whole on the next level of
the hierarchy. It is both a part and a whole -- a sub-whole. It is one of
the characteristic features of all hierarchic systems, as we shall
see, that they are not aggregations of elementary bits, but are composed
of sub-wholes branching into sub-sub-wholes, and so on. This is the first
point of general validity to retain from the preceding discussion. I
must now mention a few more characteristics of language which have the
same universal validity for hierarchic systems of all types.
'Active speech' (in contrast to 'passive speech', i.e., listening)
consists in the stepwise elaboration, articulation, concretisation,
of originally inarticulate generalised intents. The branching of the
tree symbolises this step-by-step, hierarchic process of spelling out
the implicit idea in explicit terms, of converting the potentialities of
an idea into the actual motion-patterns of the vocal chords. The process
has been compared to the development of the embryo: the fertilised egg
contains all the potentialities of the future individual; these are then
'spelled out' in successive stages of differentiation. It could also
be compared to the way a military command is executed: the generalised
order 'Eighth Army will advance in direction of Tobruk', issued from
the apex of the hierarchy, is concretised in more detail at each of
the lower echelons. Furthermore we shall see that the exercise of any
skilled action, whether instinctive, like the nest-building of birds,
or acquired, as most human skills
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