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

Wednesday, October 27.

"I long to accomplish a great and noble task, but it is my chief duty to accomplish small tasks as if they were great and noble."

--Helen Keller

Like replacing the light bulb, I guess she means...

I would have thought that just getting through the day would be an accomplishment for her.

Considering the amazing insights in her writing, I'd say she did much more than that.

"Everything had a name, and each name gave birth to a new thought. As we returned to the house every object which I touched seemed to quiver with life. That was because I saw everything with the strange, new sight that had come to me." --Helen Keller, The Story of My Life

You can read the whole thing online at http://www.afb.org/mylife/book.asp?ch=HK-intro

I don't think anyone has ever described the mystery of consciousness any more vividly than this woman.

That quote very well describes how important language is to us. Without it we cannot "think".

http://www.todayifoundout.com/index.php/2010/07/how-deaf-people-think/

We humans keep having to find different things to differentiate ourselves from the other animals. We used to cite our opposable thumbs as the thing that separates us. Then we linked that to our ability to use tools. Then we found other creatures using tools so we specified that it was the making of tools that singled us out. Now we see creatures from crows to octopuses that do so as well. So maybe it's language that differentiates us but we know that's not going to last long as we find out more and more of the "languages" of other creatures like dolphins, chimps and birds. (Oh, and we've recently learned that some chimpanzee tribes wage organized warfare for territory so let's just skip that indicator now.)

SETI, some are beginning to suspect, may lead nowhere due to the great barrier that is distance and time and the blurring background noise of the universe. We may be quite isolated in our little bubble that stretches just short of the nearest stars.

But what if we find one day that some other species here on Earth with us is "intelligent", whatever that means. It may happen quite soon and the repercussions could be awesome.


Just a thought.

I like that thought. My dog communicates, and understands a few words of language, however he goes about it.

And I like this quote from your link:

"...deafness is significantly more serious than blindness in terms of the effect it can have on the brain."

This is interesting, and confirms my observations of deaf and blind people. And my observations of my own problems with vision and hearing. I didn't realise how much hearing loss was affecting me until I got the hearing aids.

That Helen Keller quote resonates with me: yesterday I got a package of tea bags down from a high shelf using my 4-foot pickstick, and went on to change the bed linens with the help again of the pickstick. It takes over half an hour but I can turn out an immaculate freshly made bed. If I could, I would run a victory lap, waving my arms in the air. Especially wrt snagging the tea bags.

Life is full of small victories. Like the people in the office agreeing that I didn't need to get a cashier's check to pay them $2.70 for the electricity.

Lil, I hope it is all getting easier for you. Losing mobility is so challenging. I liike your tag, by the way. Finally! Yay!!!!!

I've often wondered which I'd rather lose, my hearing or vision. Either would be tragic. I have to admit that if forced to make a choice, I'd rather lose my hearing. Of course, going deaf as an adult is different than never having hearing. An adult who goes deaf would still have the sounds in their memory.

My hearing is already sufficiently degraded that I can almost guess at what adult deafness might be like. And I could live with that, I think, far better than a total loss of sight. Or use of hands. With some use of hands, even without leg mobility, I'd be able to feel and be useful somehow ...

Helen Keller was amazing. Talk about overcoming handicaps. I can't even imagine what she endured.

This discussion has made me ashamed of myself for complaining about the few problems I have. I have it soooooooooo good compared to a lot of people.

The article about how deaf people think is interesting, but I doubt it's accurate when it says that "ASL primarily uses only hand gestures" and not facial expressions.

Also, it doesn't mention Sutton SignWriting A34088024.

TRiG.

TRiG, that is very interesting, Realizing that this is displaying my ignorance, I don't understand why anyone would need to write a novel or whatever using sign language symbols. The deaf people I know can write in English.

I can imagine that writing using those symbols would be a creative act, one which you could visualise while reading. It might give you a whole different perspective.

I have a question, since I don't know any sign languages. Is ASL the same as Ameslan? I remember that the people who worked with Washoe, the chimp who used sign language, called their language Ameslan. Or I thought they did.

All this talk of sign language made me go researching into what the Smithsonian says is a really old form of communication - Native American sign language.

You might enjoy this bear tale from 1930. It's pretty exciting, and shows how it works:

http://sunsite.utk.edu/pisl/flash/bearmed.html

Wittgenstein would have had a field day playing with all the logical spinoffs from that article on deafness and thought. The _Philosophical Investigations_ is all about language and trying to figure out how it works. And it's very readable, contrary to his reputation for stratospheric philosophizing...

Wittgenstein was a cool dude.

He was, like, totally. He made it acceptable to have the kind of career that went from teaching philosophy to being a hospital porter.

DG, "My dog communicates, and understands a few words of language, however he goes about it. "

Gotta say, if he understands a few words of English he's way ahead of me, as I don't speak one word of dog!

RE the problems of SETI -- I think we live alongside a number of intelligences, it's just our arrogance which refuses to recognize it. We'd have to become vegetarians and stop destroying the environment if we had to admit it wasn't up to just us. My

Thanks for those great links, all!

Thursday, October 28.

One of my all-time favorites.

"Forget mistakes. Forget failure. Forget everything except what you're going to do now and do it. Today is your lucky day."

-- Will Durant