h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I hear (in Bach Passions) a German phrase for "I thirst" that would translate as "it thirsts to me" (Mich durstet?).

Some English or American philosopher of the 20th century tried to get around the problem of the external world or some such academic entertainment by saying not "this is a dog" but "it's dogging here". He must have been related to the dyslexic agnostic insomniac.

Not sure about that one, but it reminded me of the German for it is sore - literally, it is doing to me a hurt. That's pretty passive - my head is inflicting hurt upon me!

And of course Germans use the same construction when they want to say they're sorry they can't do something that has been requested - 'es tut mir Leid' = it causes me pain.

There's a similar semantic construction in Polish (maybe it's a regional thing): przykro mi = distress for me (that I can't do x).

Spanish "lo siento" -- I feel it (=I'm sorry)

I had an email from a Spaniard using a translating bot once; he began "I sit not to write it in groins". That is what I gather the translator made of "Lo siento de no escribirlo en inglés" (Sorry not to write in English). (An ingle is an architectural feature also known as a groin. He must have left the é out of inglés putting it into the bot)

Italian has 'mi piace', I like it, which is literally 'it is pleasing to me'.

Catching up on the backlog...and ignoring most of it (no slight intentended)...

It's funny how an 'obscure' word can suddenly crop up several times in a short period. Just before I went on holiday, I mentioned the word 'crepuscular'. The same word occured in a talk on the hunting habits of owls (nocturnal, diurnal and crepuscular)...but best of all, a friend came out with the wonderful phrase 'She's a woman of crepuscular pulchritude.' And all within a single week!

A while back I started rabbiting about Chomsky: Does Universal Grammar describe some fundamental properties of the universe and as such is hardwired into the brain, or is it *a* way of generating language that happens to have been harwired? I was leaning towards the former. Now I've come across Chomsky's Generative Phonology. He (and others) came up with a set of rules which can predict sound patterns in English.

So...now I'm confused. I'm reading about all of this in Stephen Pinker's 'Words and Rules'. Pinker seems to be using Chomsky as evidence that we store sound patterns as rules. *On the other hand* - could it not be that phonological rules are a mathematical model of the human vocal tract?

Fortunately, I also took along some lighter holiday reading.

You obviously haven't got to the bit where he talks about Sign Language yet. Ooops! I gave the ending away.

Sign Language uses Grammar Rules, although it doesn't use sound.

"Does Universal Grammar describe some fundamental properties of the universe and as such is hardwired into the brain?"

Many things in evolution could have happened otherwise, but having happened the way they did, can't be revised (the design of the eye would be more efficient if the connections from the rods and cones came straight out the back of the eyeball, but . . . they don't). Wittgenstein's Tractatus was based on a hunch that the form of language was identical to, or at least mirrored, the form of the universe, but later he gave up on that assumption.

>> ..design of the eye would be more efficient if the connections from the rods and cones came straight out the back of the eyeball... <<

The modern chicken egg no doubt owes much to trial and error tests done by dinosaurs well back beyond 65,ooo,ooo years ago when Gravity still had some spring in her step and the world was covered in omelets.

Perhaps the true use for which the Gods of Evolution have designed the human eyeball will not be obvious to the Pragmatix of Science until we abandon ego-centric concepts of an Earth centered, gravity governed Universe.

It is at least possible for example that the hairless ape was never meant to read and write. So perhaps intelligence is just a measure of pure optic input potential. If so, then the current shape of the eye can at least be said to accomodate both light-source video sources and light-reflective film resources. This information was hitherto unknown and never considered when constructing previous models of the Universe.



~jwf~

I don't understand the point about the design of the eye. The connection to the rods and cones is off centre because there is a blind spot where the connection joins in. It would be serious to have a blind spot at the centre of vision. Of course an eye could exist with rods and cones in front of the connection point, but that would be more complex.

There would be no need for a blind spot if the wires came straight out the back of the eyeball and didn't have to plunge through the retina. Would that be more complex? Dawkins (I think) treats that evolutionary step as an unfortunate event that, once established, could not be revised (evolution can't go back).

The point is, we shouldn't expect evolved design to be ideal, only functional. "What a book a Devil's Chaplain might write on the clumsy, wasteful, blundering low and horridly cruel works of nature!" -- Darwin.

So we shouldn't expect our brains' hardwired system of grammar to be a perfect model of the logic of the universe, just as something that will get us around.

~jwf~ sets us a stern task: to abandon egocentric concepts. < audible exhalation expressing the horror of enlightenment>

The Buddhist agenda may be close to just that. But how will we know if they achieve it?

>> ..(evolution can't go back).. <<


...and that's why whales don't look like fish anymore.
Much as they'd like to, having walked around on dry land for a few million years before finally deciding they preferred the oceans afterall, they just can't do that water-breathing thing anymore. All recent attempts to beach themselves are rather short-sightedly ambitious and contrary to Evolution's fixed rules.

The sad fact of Evolution's cruel arbitrary policy of "one way or no way" leaves every specialised species at risk to ongoing changes and ongoing changing conditions. Imagine what would happen to giraffes now if trees decided to stop growing taller.

~jwf~

Good point; whales look like fish.

Internally, they don't.

>> ...whales look like fish.
Internally, they don't. <<

How'd you Noah that?



*Sorry, but a true class clown can never resist retelling the worst old jokes when opportunities come dangling in baited with a straight line like that - I'm gone, carry on.*



~jwf~

How do I Noah that?

They have a different arky-type

Octopuses and related marine animals have an eye without a blind spot, the connections from the retina to the optic nerve lying behind the retina rather than in front, as they do in mammals.

Noggin

I'm desparately trying to think of a worthwile pun, to castigate you for your scriptural solecisms.

The point about evolution, of course, is that it *isn't* design: it just looks at first sight as though it is. There's no process that's looking for the perfect solution. It's just that solutions that work are selected for.

Similarly, language. Languages don't have to be perfect or logical - merely communicative.