Language Is Co-Creation: Text

Language is co-creation of the environments we live in.

I am looking at the very nature of language, which is a tool to provide meaning–and also a tool to create the essence of meaning. One could say meaning actively acknowledges, signifies, justifies, or accepts values.

How is it that populations determine correct and incorrect ways of speaking or writing– or even correct and incorrect ways of thinking? This is the beginning of the discussion: The relationship of how language fosters cognitive abilities.

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David Bohm, Philosopher and Physicist, has stated in interview,

“Thought has developed traditionally in a way such that it claims not to be affecting anything but just telling you the ways things are.
Therefore, people cannot see that they are creating a problem and then apparently trying to solve it.”

[Infinite Potential, 2020]

He gives the example of ecology, which in essence is a complete, self regulating system. Due to the nature of linguistic thought patterns, thinking of a subject like ecology within the frame of a language may divide the single subject into multiple parts. This is fragmentation.

The trouble of fragmentation occurs when the separate pieces are viewed without connection to each other as though they exist without the influence of the multiple parts.

So are there languages and language patterns that promote the trouble of fragmentation?
Is this a conflict within language alone, or might it have to do with the symbiotic relationship of language and culture?

Before we do the very thing David Bohm warned about, we can instead focus on the co-created nature of language. Across all languages are elements that can either build unto an understanding— to expand the awareness of the whole subject, or complicate an understanding— to fragment it

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Leonid Perlovsky, international Scholar of cognition, language, and engineering, conducted computational studies using elements of language to define cultural-language models. These elements are familiar words in the English language, expanded specifically to highlight the processes found inside human cognition.

[Language and emotions: Emotional Sapir–Whorf hypothesis:
Neural Networks, 2009]

Synthesis, for example, unites two or more pieces together. Try visualizing:
Your mind actively relates the world outside of you with your internal world. You have layers in your internal world, your physical internal self of tissues and organs such as the brain. Going deeper, there’s something electric that keeps the physical parts alive. Maybe the deepest level of your internal world is your consciousness, with the unconscious layered somewhere nearby.

The external world outside of you is filled with stimulus, and much of this stimulus will elicit an emotional response from you. Synthesis is the agent that links these emotional responses into the realms of thought.

If someone has a particular taste, or strong preferences when making decisions, we can refer to this as their aesthetic emotions.

Aesthetic emotions directly relate to the developed human instinct to gather information–known as, the knowledge instinct.

Differentiation has to do with development, evolution, and specialization of areas and skills.
This is much about the physical development of humanity as it is also about the mental and the emotional aspects. There needs to be a change in one of these areas for the additional areas to grow. And more, the area that begins the growth process for the whole needs to be given differential treatment, to be given priority in focus, and in a way needs to become aware of itself. This is until the remaining aspects can integrate the change. The process then may begin again with another aspect taking the lead.

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According to Perlovsky and related associates in this analysis, “Language models guide the acquisition of cognitive models.”

The cultural-language models observed by Perlovsky are summarized into three groups, of no specific rank in order:

There are Traditional-emotional cultures, which are recognized for close interpersonal bonds and intimacy and struggle with stagnation and the recycling of recurring conflicts.

There are Conceptual cultures, which excel at development, technology and innovation, and struggle with stability and equality.

And there are Multi-cultural models that combine the attributes of the two extremes.

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We do not need to be searching for which language and cultural-language models are superior and inferior. We do not need paradigms of cultural supremacy to guide us in maintaining order and advancing our evolution.

If what we want is balance between our thoughts and emotions, which would also be reflected in our systems, we would need to concentrate our use of language to meet the needs we are seeking to be fulfilled.

The primary senses– sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing– have aided human development into the creation of human languages, and so it continues.

Primordial sounds in early humans grew into vocalization, and vocalization in its essence is the ability to express specific needs.

The abilities of cognition can serve a group and serve an individual alike. Additionally the same cognitive abilities allow the human mind to comprehend both situations of presence for the collection of people and the separateness of the individual.

Human cognition began with the undifferentiated unity of emotional, conceptual, and behavioral mechanisms. This means, every emotional impulse lacked critical thought behind it and behavior only mimicked past behavior.

With human cognition presently evolved at partial-differentiation, also called partially independent, the various mechanisms remain in
communication with each other and also allow for one mechanism to take the lead in developing associations.

Partially-reunifying these mechanisms is synthesis: paring emotional motivation with cognitive or behavioral action.

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Let’s look at the English language and the presence of fragmentation. David Bohm seemed unhappy with it, and here’s a paradox found inside Bohm’s statement:

If Bohm was able to conclude that language-thought perpetuates problems, because language by design narrates expression through resolution, then where did his acknowledgment of this linguistic loop come from?

Naturally, this inspiration of thought had a source. Contained in the properties of linguistics, cultural awareness is passed from person to person through their shared language in conversations. Processes such as differentiation separate attachments, like attachment to a
problem-resolution-problem pattern of thought.

Somewhere in conversations he had been present for, the notion that there is nothing to be solved came into Bohm’s awareness. A person does not need to be a Theoretical Physicist like Bohm to encounter a conversation of this kind. A person may understand this significance from simple daily encounters, such as from someone that suggests taking a nap after a meal.

Rest is a natural state of being, and it is recognized in cultural habits across the world. When a person pronounces with words that they need to rest, or that something needs to be put to rest, it is understood that no further action can be taken. A person, regardless of the structure of their active language, still has their primary senses to utilize. Languages do develop from these primary senses, and a person does not have to convince themselves– whether through their thoughts, conversations, or culture– that they need to be at a constant state of activity.

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We come back to our original questions:

Are there languages and language patterns that promote the trouble of fragmentation?

I would argue to not blame a language for fragmentation.
What is truly responsible for fragmentation are language patterns that are promoted through emotional motivations.

Think of this as separate cultures within cultures that operate independently. This is a collection of people that benefit by working together to shift power. This is a group that sees a recurring problem and focuses their conversations to establish a solution. This is the individual that does not meet expectations and instead takes time to understand who they are independently.

If you seem confused by hearing these examples of fragmentation in a positive light, you are not confused– You are catching another paradox:

Fragmentation is just as natural and necessary as synthesis is as a cognitive process.

Imagine the first conversation held between a pair of early humans, who were able to communicate a specific need with their developing vocal chords. Do you see the frustration, maybe competitive jealousy, of a second pair of early humans watching the vocalized pair grow more satisfied with their needs at a quicker pace? The second pair would have to kill their
competition so as to not fall behind on the hierarchy– or they would be triggered into their own vocal-cognitive evolution by the virtue of observation.

If they truly wanted to grow more satisfied in meeting their needs, killing the pair that evolved first would not be productive. This decision of taking control through redirecting emotional motivation to learn instead of to conquer actually comes from a place of fragmentation– the fragmentation being the insecurity within the situation.

Differentiation separates the whole into parts in order for the parts to challenge their weakness. The harmony of unity comes back when the emotional need is met through a new thought and a new behavior, the synthesis and the gift of vulnerability.

Is this a conflict within language alone, or might it have to do with the symbiotic relationship of language and culture?

We live in a world that has divided mindsets, with different word choices, different language structures, different behaviors and different emotional sentiments. A language would only produce an excess of fragmentation– that is an excess to the point of not being able to harmonize into a cycle with synthesis–if there was a clear intent by either a collection of people
or by an individual to prevent this balance from happening. This is found among warring people, to keep weakened aspects weak in order to dominate and to direct authority and culture.

This excess of fragmentation may also continue after trauma, if a culture is lost and the pretenses of the culture’s development are lost. Society and culture can be built from a fragmented base. Words are powerful, and conditioning a person to lose a sense of their development leaves them to use language and to think in a fragmented way. Such is also the
case in abusive personal relationships.

Hence, we can reference this understanding of the power within human cognitive capabilities through literature– George Orwell’s examples of doublethink and doublespeak, “War is Peace,” in his novel 1984.

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Here is an exercise:

You are in conversation with another person, and you reach a point when this person has a view that you disagree with. Depending on the severity of importance, say instead of disagreeing on which restaurant to dine at, you are disagreeing on values– on beliefs that influence decisions. This person is firm in their beliefs, and you have to decide on your own reaction to their viewpoint. Will you continue to explain your reasoning, breaking apart every angle of their sentences to find resolution that fits into your own thoughts? Or do you recognize that they are at rest?– Whichever actions led them to this opinion could go no further? And will you allow yourself the rest then, that whichever actions you are taking are not the actions
needed to reopen their side of the conversation to something more?

This is a balance: Even when a conversation ends with words, fluidity carries on in the senses.

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My closing thoughts are to remember the importance of wielding your language in a way that communicates the truth of your experience. You do not need to have complicated explanations. You just simply need to use your language to know where you will be received, and watch what
grows from there.