Mammal Things

[Kwing]

Language is an imaginary construct for talking about imaginary things. If you peel back the layers of society to that of primitive social mammals, so much of what we communicate feels useless.

If you're a wolf you go up to another wolf that's attractive and start nuzzling them. Said wolf can either nuzzle back or move away to reject you - maybe bite you or growl if you don't take the hint. In this dumbfuck society you have to approach someone and pretend you're interested in them for some intellectual reason - based on a bunch of fabricated ideology - and said person will engage you in a conversation that serves no purpose other than to be a proxy for intimacy, or they come up with some elaborate way of rejecting you so as not to "hurt your feelings." Break convention and several things can happen. You're either harassing someone by not respecting their personal space, being shallow by not engaging in meaningless filler conversations, or being rude by being too direct.

[SatanBrain]

I suppose you can transfer technology using your nose and legs, yes?

[Dre]

At 11/5/17 01:16 AM, Kwing wrote: Language is an imaginary construct for talking about imaginary things.

It's a real construct for talking about both real and imaginary things.

If you peel back the layers of society to that of primitive social mammals, so much of what we communicate feels useless.

Much of what most people communicate is useless, but some of it is actually quite useful. Some people (i.e. smart people) regularly communicate very useful information, and this is really obvious enough that it should go without saying.

In this dumbfuck society you have to approach someone and pretend you're interested in them for some intellectual reason - based on a bunch of fabricated ideology - and said person will engage you in a conversation that serves no purpose other than to be a proxy for intimacy, or they come up with some elaborate way of rejecting you so as not to "hurt your feelings." Break convention and several things can happen. You're either harassing someone by not respecting their personal space, being shallow by not engaging in meaningless filler conversations, or being rude by being too direct.

Or, you could get some pussy. That's just the game, bro.

[DamnedByFate]

At 11/5/17 01:16 AM, Kwing wrote: Break convention and several things can happen. You're either harassing someone by not respecting their personal space,

Check.

being shallow by not engaging in meaningless filler conversations,

Check.

or being rude by being too direct.

Check.

Humanity sucks. Anything I don't know yet that you want to tell me?

[axehandle-stain]

Nipples.

[DamnedByFate]

At 11/6/17 05:05 AM, JosephStarr wrote: So the entire point of all human social interaction is fucking?

The entire point of all social interaction of any species is to ensure the continued existence of that species, which must involve fucking.

That said, me being the anti-humanist that I am, I don't interact socially.

[Makakaov]

Humans are more like birds. You have to make a right combination of noises in order to interest your potential fucktoy.

[JimGiant]

At 11/5/17 01:16 AM, Kwing wrote: Language is an imaginary construct for talking about imaginary things. If you peel back the layers of society to that of primitive social mammals, so much of what we communicate feels useless.

Our language is socially constructed but that doesn't mean it's useless. Which side of the road you drive on is a social construct for example but bad things would happen if you "broke convention"

If you're a wolf you go up to another wolf that's attractive and start nuzzling them...

Yeah we aren't wolves. Humans favour more of a k selection style of reproduction because children take a huge investment to meet their potential. Men are more r selective than women though because biologically we can potentially have 1000s of children whereas women cannot. For this reason women are far more selective than men, they are biologically driven to want a man who can protect, provide and won't bore them to the point of suicide long term.

[edit, speaking purely in generalities in case anyone gets triggered, good for you if you don't fit this mold]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R/K_selection_theory

[GoodL]

Lots of people in this thread taking really nihilistic perspectives on the lives of humans...

First, I want to echo what a few people have already said, if all of our communication was physical (as in the wolf example) or minimalistic sound mimicry and interpretation (like the birds example) then human life would be completely and fundamentally different. This is because our level of abstract thought and communication of those thoughts through tools like language allows us to perform and create abstract things including art, technology, and perhaps most importantly: purpose.

This is sort of where I would offer the transition from nihilism to (perhaps a fairly specific form of) existentialism. I will grant that nothing has any inherent value, but that doesn't mean nothing has value because we have the power to create value.

A wolf doesn't create art because it lacks abstract and higher-level thought, and besides, it's far too busy worrying about survival and reproduction. I, however, place value in art, albeit somewhat arbitrarily, and that allows me to pursue the consumption and production of art. And those are activities I find satisfying. So sure, you may say that "art is useless and imaginary" but it still has value to me because I decided it has value, and therefore subjectively it does have value.

One last point that I find very interesting - Some people among the philosophy of language community don't believe that communication is the primary purpose for language. People like Noam Chomsky think that language is primarily a cognitive tool that gives us strong abilities of spacial and temporal reasoning, higher-level thinking (as in, the ability to think about thoughts), and abstract thinking (we can imagine things that don't exist, one practical example of this would be imaging the outcome of a scenario in your mind before trying to do something, which may protect you from otherwise unforeseen danger). In this sense, language is a key element of our survival and evolution, and is therefore far from "useless" in the way described in the OP.

[ChiralAnomaly]

Language reflects our intellectual capabilities. Animals do not have the same capabilities, so their communication is primitive. (There is nothing wrong about it though)

[Kwing]

At 11/7/17 10:56 AM, GoodL wrote: This is because our level of abstract thought and communication of those thoughts through tools like language allows us to perform and create abstract things including art, technology, and perhaps most importantly: purpose.

Something sounds very weird to me about this response - probably you referring to purpose as important, which just sounds like circular reasoning.

So sure, you may say that "art is useless and imaginary" but it still has value to me because I decided it has value, and therefore subjectively it does have value.

That sounds almost dystopian to me. You could place value on survival but you're making life MORE difficult by moving the goalposts and placing it on a completely unrelated activity. Value creates expectations (Buddhists would say desire,) and expectations complicate fulfillment. Ultimately value is only necessitated by itself because, redundant and self-evident as it sounds, value has no intrinsic value.

People like Noam Chomsky think that language is primarily a cognitive tool that gives us strong abilities of spacial and temporal reasoning, higher-level thinking (as in, the ability to think about thoughts), and abstract thinking (we can imagine things that don't exist, one practical example of this would be imaging the outcome of a scenario in your mind before trying to do something, which may protect you from otherwise unforeseen danger).

That makes intuitive sense to me. Communication without language isn't as abstract but it's certainly sufficient. But things like agriculture and technology are clearly dependent on a level of organization that can only be achieved through language.

[GoodL]

At 11/7/17 01:27 PM, Kwing wrote:

At 11/7/17 10:56 AM, GoodL wrote: This is because our level of abstract thought and communication of those thoughts through tools like language allows us to perform and create abstract things including art, technology, and perhaps most importantly: purpose.

Something sounds very weird to me about this response - probably you referring to purpose as important, which just sounds like circular reasoning.

So sure, you may say that "art is useless and imaginary" but it still has value to me because I decided it has value, and therefore subjectively it does have value.

That sounds almost dystopian to me. You could place value on survival but you're making life MORE difficult by moving the goalposts and placing it on a completely unrelated activity. Value creates expectations (Buddhists would say desire,) and expectations complicate fulfillment. Ultimately value is only necessitated by itself because, redundant and self-evident as it sounds, value has no intrinsic value.

People like Noam Chomsky think that language is primarily a cognitive tool that gives us strong abilities of spacial and temporal reasoning, higher-level thinking (as in, the ability to think about thoughts), and abstract thinking (we can imagine things that don't exist, one practical example of this would be imaging the outcome of a scenario in your mind before trying to do something, which may protect you from otherwise unforeseen danger).

That makes intuitive sense to me. Communication without language isn't as abstract but it's certainly sufficient. But things like agriculture and technology are clearly dependent on a level of organization that can only be achieved through language.

This is a pretty good response, and you've got some very interesting points. I don't agree entirely, which is to say I don't entirely disagree. I understand why expectations can complicate fulfillment (which is a huge problem for desire satisfaction theories in value ethics), but I don't think the two ideas here are entirely mutually exclusive. It seems to me that you can create value AND live without attachment (or desires). For example, many Buddhists are vegans because Buddhism tends to set a certain value on the sanctity of life. That doesn't prevent those Buddhists from detaching their egos, if you see what I mean (even though I realize I'm not using entirely proper terminology. I apologize to any Buddhists if I say something blatantly wrong, I don't claim to be an expert by any means.)

Anyway, I appreciate your post, well stated. :)