Human organisms become rational, self-conscious individuals through linguistic interactions.
Internalized linguistic activity is like an engine running and sometimes revving even when the vehicle is stationary.
This has at least two consequences:
the need for reflective/meditative awareness of incessant, involuntary, unnecessary thought processes;
creative imagination generating, among many other works of art, Poul Anderson's sf which helps us to reflect on consciousness by postulating alien and artificial intelligences.
4 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
And not just the works of Poul Anderson! Other authors, such as the pre-STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND works of Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, Hal Clement, Avram Davidson, Jerry Pournelle, Larry Niven, and now S.M. Stirling, have made similar contributions. And I hope these writers too will have worthy successors.
Sean
Sean,
Of course! I emphasize Anderson because this is an Anderson blog but we do discuss some of the others, as you know.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Good! I merely wanted to stress Anderson had many worthy colleagues and, hopefully, successors. I've begun rereading Stirling's A TAINT IN THE BLOOD. Interesting, even fascinating, but perhaps not to everyone's taste.
Sean
I'd hesitate before calling any mental activity which is ubiquitous "unnecessary". It probably has some function we just don't know yet. Dreaming, for instance, is extremely important -- if you deprive someone of it the mental effects are severe, and it seems to be common to all mammals at least.
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