^^^^ JM: The process of eye movement and mental adjustment that keeps continuity of vision is not conscious. This kind of "unconsciousness" has nothing to do with Freudian metapsychology of the unconscious.
The mental computations that go into the making of language are not conscious in the same way that the mental computations that go into continuity of vision are not conscious.
I realize in mentioning Freud you are probably not trying to map Chomsky's notions of non-conscious physical processes and onto Freud's notion of "the Unconscious". You are probably just pointing out a cultural tendency. But I think that it is important to distinguish these notions.
The case is a bit different with Levi-Strauss, but since it has been 25 years since I have read him, I will leave alone any confused thoughts I might have about the correspondence between Levi-Strauss and Freud's metapsychology. ^^^^
> Charles: The grammar of a specific language is not innate.
>
> ^^^^
JM: I think Chomsky would claim that there is no such underlying mental phenomena as a "grammar of a specific language". There is just one mental process and various environmental cues and switching mechanisms that produce language structures.
What have you got against mental structures being innate?
A related question: Why is the idea of innate mental structures such a threatening idea to so many of my comrades? I never quite understood it.
^^^^
Oh, but I can't leave it go. One of the most profound hints that
> Cassirer left was the idea that mathematics deals with the abstract
> syntax of representation through the theory of groups. But he died in
> 1946, before he could pursue this thought. It takes a lot of very
> unmathematical (as well as very abstract mathematical) thinking to see
> that the various algebraic heirarchies (metamathematics of algebras)
> sets, semi-groups, groups, rings, fields are systems in a tiered
> hierarchy in which the elements and their operators become
> increasingly complex. From a simple Cartesian pairing of elements in
> sets (coordinates of a two dimensional plane), which follows simple
> operations like union, to the more complicated system of association,
> if A -> B, B -> C, then A -> C, or the associative rule (associative
> groups), each additional operation (or rule of combination) adds a
> degree of complexity, in which the available syntax is enriched and
> made more articulate (speaking in metaphorical terms). One finally
> arrives at a general theory of morphisms, or homeomorphic groups(?),
> or in even more abstract language homeomorphic topological groups.
>
> ^^^^
> CB: I guess we Chucks think alike. I sent my mention of group theory
> before
> I read your post.
^^^^
JM: Just to say on-list... this little analysis by Chuck is wonderful stuff.
^^^^
>
> In some crude sense, all this verbage is just a way of saying that
> many of the shapes and their motions in space that compose the way we
> think about the world, have a logical order and structure about them
> that inform and expand (define?) both our perception and understanding
> of the physical world.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: So, if the basic elements used to model molecules in a thermodynamical
> system and wealth in an economic/class system with rich and poor have
> significant analogies, we might expect them to be alike in the way the
> study
> claims ?
>
> ^^^^^^
>
> I would actually reverse the causal order and say that the physical
> world (temporal apriori) has informed us of its homeomorphic topology
> through
> its contact and intimate relationsip with our co-evolving kinesthetic
> complex---called the brain or mind.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: Yes, that's Marxism, materialism. The material world has made and
> shaped
> the human mind out of human practice.
JM: Has the material world also shaped the human mind/brain out of pre-human "practice"? If so what does "pre-human" practice mean? Arguably most of our mental structures evolved before modern humans even existed.
You say: "The material world has made and shaped the human mind out of human practice." What I object to in this statement is that if taken literally as a kind of hypothesis about the making of the mind/brain, it is a kind of Lamarckian theory of evolution. But I am sure you didn't mean it this way.
I think you mean the statement as a kind of dialectical rule of thumb or truism. Taken as a simple truism, the statement doesn't say much of anything specific. It simply states a common place -- "Where there is (something we call} 'learning' and 'culture' then the mind/brain is shaped by learning and culture." No doubt, but if this is so then, this is a statement that should apply to all animals who display aspects of learning and culture and not only to animals of our own species. Thus it is equally true to say "The material world has shaped the chimpanzee mind out of chimpanzee practice." Or "The material world has shaped the human and chimpanzee mind out of the practice of our common ancestors."
The reason I harp on this point is that I seem to remember I used to use these Marx-mots and dialectical cliches as a rule of thumb all the time. But I think that in the "human-centrism" of such statements they display a world view that is pre-evolutionary and thus in a deep sense anti-materialistic.
However, it would get vulgar to claim
> a true "one-to-one correspondence", to use a group theory metaphor,
> between
> physical molecules' concentrations and where dollars concentrate or the
> something like that. No cause directly from that basic physics level and
> the
> human social rich/poor level .
>