1. i Jon Hellevig A BIOLOGICAL PHILOSOPHY VOLUME I:THE CASE
AGAINST NOAM CHOMSKY VOLUME II:MENTAL PROCESSINGRussia Advisory
Group, Oy 2010
2. ii Published by Russia Advisory Group OyFirst edition
published 2010Copyright Jon HellevigAll rights reserved.No part of
this publication, its printed or any electronic version, may be
copied, repro-duced, transmitted in any form or any means without
the prior permission of the pub- lisher. PublisherRussia Advisory
Group OyHermannin rantatie 12 A, 00580 Helsinki, Finland
www.russiaadvisorygroup.comemail: [email protected]
Authors personal internet site: www.hellevig.net Cover by Lyudmila
RyabkinaTypeset and layout by Avenir It Solutions, St. Petersburg,
RussiaPrinted at Painohme Oy, Yljrvi, Finlandwww.painohame.fi ISBN
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3. iiiCONTENTSAnnotation ..1Abstract ..1Introduction ..3A
Biological Philosophy, Volume I: The Case Against NoamChomsky1
Speech and Language ..35Main Principles of a Theory of Speech and
Language ......35Conceptual Problems due to the Failure to
Distinguishbetween Speech and Language ........47Speech on the
Continuum of Expressions. ....49Speech vs. Writing
.....53Interpretation of Feelings ............57The Immateriality
of Words and Language ..57The Thingly Fallacy (Language of Things)
....67The Structure of Language .....68There are no Languages
.....69Ur-Language ......78Grammar, Syntax and Rules ...79The Real
Limits of Language ....88Meaning .....90Meaning as Neural Processes
.....992 Evolution of Speech (the Ability to Speak) ....103Evidence
from Primate Research .114Evidence from Mirror Neurons
...118Lamarcks Vision on the Evolution of Speech ....1233 Notes on
the Philosophy of Language ....129Saussure ...131Bloomfield
...137John Firth .....146Roy Harris and Integrational Linguistics
.......147
4. iv Volitional Expressive Behavior in Apes ..154 John Locke
...159 Urban Legends about Locke ...1664 A Review of Chomskys
Verbal Behavior ..173The Foundations of Chomskys Speculation
...173Chomskys Questions to the Linguist ..174A Summary of Chomskys
Main Fallacies ......178The Surprising Ability to Learn ...181The
Language Faculty ...191The Growth of the Language Faculty
....197Empirical Studies in Pseudo-Biology ..201The Mind/Brain
.........204Failure to Distinguish between Speech and Language
...208Briefly about the other Fallacies ..210Chomskys Capitulation
.....215Grammar and Syntax ...220The Universal Grammar ...231The
Meaningless Argument .....234The End of Chomskys Grammar ..237The
Stimulus-Free and Context-Free Arguments 238Meaningless Linguistics
242The Ideal Speaker-Hearer 244Competence-Performance Theory
.....246Transmutation Rules .......251Chomskys Definition of
Language ...260How Children Learn Language .....265Chomskys Rise to
Prominence ...272The Triumph over Behaviorism ..272Chomsky and the
New Brave Computer World ......279
5. vA Biological Philosophy, Volume II: Mental Processing1 Mind
...........2932 Processes and Concepts ....303Rigidity of
Conceptual Definitions ..307Deconstruction of Concepts .....310No
Philosophical, Only Linguistic Problems .....312Language of Things
and the Thingly Fallacy ....315Things and Perceptual Abstractions
....319Language of Feelings ......322Thingly Philosophers vs.
Process-Philosophers ...326Lockes Advice ....327Order out of Chaos
....329The Fallacious Belief in Innate Knowledge ....3323 Mental
Processing ..344Neural Processes vs. Mental Processes andStates vs.
Processes 351New Dualism ...357More about New Dualism .....
359Material Processes and Immaterial Reflections ..364The Organic
Process Model .........366Mental Evolution and Unity
andInterdependency of Organic Funtions .369Mental and Somatic
Processes ........374Environmental Stimuli and Homeostasis
....380Feedback ......386Mental Images and Conceptualization
.....3844 Feelings, Emotions and Consciousness 397A Deconstruction
of the Concepts of Neuroscience ...403The Perversion of
Consciousness 404The Subjectivity Problem .....409A Demystification
of Consciousness ......411Web of Consciousness
.....414Unconsciousness ......415
6. vi The Mastery of Learned Unconsciousness ......417
Conceptualization .......419 Notes on Thought and Reason .424
Emotions .....431 The Carousel of Emotions .......4375 Expressions
.......4456 Interpretations .......455Qualia Mania .......460Mirror
Neurons and Interpretation ....4687 Memory ..475Summary of Main
Ideas Concerning Memory .....475About Memory ..479Memory Storage
.....487Other Conceptual Fallacies and the Unity andInterdependency
of Phenomena .....489Memory Traces ...494Contemporary Ideas of
Memory Traces ....500Present Stimuli vs. Past Stimuli ...5018
Kandels Search for the Neural Coordinates of the
ConceptMemory504Unity and Interdependency of Neural Phenomena
..507Explicit and Implicit Memory ....508Short-Term, Working, and
Long-Term Memory ....509Kandels Conceptual Minefield 514More on
Explicit and Implicit Memory ...517Long-Term Potentiation
......521The Fatality of the Reductionist Approach .528Notes
.........533Bibliography ..547Index ..555
7. A Biological Philosophy 1ANNOTATIONThere is a continuity of
expressions and interpretations from primordialbiological phenomena
to phenomena of social life. Human cognitionrepresents reflections
of biological mental processing of environmentalstimuli that
cumulate in feelings. In speech and by other means of ver-bal
behavior humans express an interpretation of feelings. The
ex-change of expressions and interpretations in human
communicationcumulates to social practices, human cultures, of
which the social prac-tice of verbal behavior (speaking), or
language practices, is the suprememanifestation. The continuum of
expressions and interpretations on anevolutionary scale and in the
various acts of human life displays a grad-ually increasing level
of cognitive appraisal based on mentally concep-tualized experience
as a function of increasingly complex and sophisti-cated mental
processes. The ability to mentally process complex cogni-tive
feelings corresponds with the ability to express these feelings in
amore sophisticated fashion, speech and the corresponding cognitive
ab-ilities representing the evolutionary culmination of these
processes. Thecontinuum of expressions and interpretations remains
connected by thebiological ability to speak and the social practice
of speaking (verbalbehavior), i.e., language which feeds the
body/brain with the externalstimuli that it processes..ABSTRACTThis
biological philosophy depicts a unified theory of natural and
socialsciences showing the continuity between the biological and
social phe-nomena of life, the latter representing reflections of
the biological ex-pressions of life. I argue that most
fundamentally all phenomena of lifeare functions of the organic
activity of an organism relating itself to itsenvironment, which
means that an organism is constantly interpretingthe stimuli that
it has become genetically endowed to detect. The stimu-li are
interpreted in neural processes, which on a higher
evolutionaryscale may be called mental processes. This mental
interpretation yieldsfeelings which represent a mental, cognitive,
dimension of the organichomeostatic system. In higher level mental
processes feelings becomeconceptualized cognitive feelings which on
the level of the human or-ganism are expressed by a range of bodily
expressions and ultimatelyby speech, which thus represents
interpretation of feelings.
8. 2 Both biological and social phenomena are reflections of
expressionsand interpretations. The continuous repetitive and
imitative interactionsbetween human cognitive expressions and
interpretations amount to so-cial practices, to all what we
understand as human culture, and the ma-terial achievements of
human culture. At the social level expressionsstand for immaterial
ideas which the human enacts by material bodilyexpressions, of
which speech represents the most sophisticated means.The
expressions themselves remain immaterial reflections of the
mentalprocesses. For a proper understanding of all social
phenomena, we need to rec-ognize that speech corresponds to a
concrete biological activity whereaslanguage represents the social
practice of speaking. Language (words,their perceived parts and
combinations) does not correspond to anythingphysical or
biological, and merely represents perceptual abstractions weform
based on our experience of verbal behavior. Language and wordsdo
not demonstrate mass and energy which would be a necessary
pre-condition for the postulation that they are material, that they
exist (thatthey are). From this also follows that (the
non-existing) words cannotpossibly mean anything and that instead
people mean by the words theypronounce. In present linguistic
theory, the necessity to distinguish betweenspeech (the ability to
speak) and language (the social practices of speak-ing) has not
been recognized with great detriment to the science. In
themisconceived practices of contemporary linguistics scholars also
treatlanguage and words as if they would be some kind of existing
entities,the material properties of which the linguist studies. As
this fallaciousapproach to linguistics is most prominently
propagated by Chomsky, Ihave chosen to illustrate my paradigm of
expressions and interpreta-tions in contrast to Chomskys theories.
In addition to the aforemen-tioned thingly fallacy, Chomsky also
labors under a series of gross mis-conceptions as to the biology of
language. He should understand thatnot language is biological but
speech, and then he should not any moreconceive of the social
practices of language being innate features of thehuman body/brain.
The ability to speak has evolved, whereas lan-guage and all other
social phenomena are not subject to evolution. To properly grasp
these ideas, we need to drop the present concep-tual method of
science, and the related misconceived scientific me-thod, in favor
of a descriptive process theory, by which we strive todepict the
processes and the phenomena they give rise to instead, as it
is
9. A Biological Philosophy3presently done, of trying to match
the received academic concepts to theunderlying processes. Through
this insight we understand, e.g., thatmind should not be treated as
an existing entity and rather be seen as amanifestation of the
biological processes of a body interpreting envi-ronmental stimuli
(most prominently the stimuli in form of verbal sym-bols). By
clearing the science from the conceptual debris, I completethe
materialist paradigm and propose to conceive of human cognition
interms of a new dualism, the dualism between the body and
environmen-tal stimuli. This, whereas earlier materialistic
explanations have ignoredthe necessity to include in the paradigm
the external stimuli being men-tally processed. Instead of the soul
the external influence isrepresented by the environmental stimuli.
These mental processes yieldthe perpetual interactions between the
material body and the immaterialexpressions and interpretations of
which all human cognition and cul-ture are manifestations.
10. Introduction 5INTRODUCTIONAll philosophy is a critique of
language (Wittgenstein, Tractatus4.0031).Expressions and
Interpretations Interpretation of FeelingsIn this book I present a
biological philosophy. This biological philoso-phy represents the
first true and complete unified theory of natural andsocial
sciences showing the continuity between the biological and
socialphenomena of life, the latter representing reflections of the
biologicalexpressions of life. The bridge which links the social
with the natural,biological, is formed by human feelings. Feelings
are results of neural(mental) processing of environmental stimuli
in connection with the or-ganic system of homeostasis. The aspects
of cognitive feelings whichwe call thoughts come about by merging
the learned concepts from so-cial practices (language practices)
with biological feelings. Thoughts,embedded in less consciously
developed cognitive feelings, are thenexpressed in form of speech
and by other volitional and non-volitionalsymbolic means of bodily
expression. The feelings expressed by oneindividual are in turn
cognitively (organically) interpreted by otherpeople, the
corresponding neural processes affecting the body and itsbehavior
both consciously and unconsciously. There is thus a conti-nuous
cycle between the feelings expressed by one and all individualsand
the expressions pertaining to an interpretation of feelings of
others.I express this idea by the paradigm of expressions and
interpretations.The continuous interaction between human cognitive
expressions andinterpretations amounts to social practices, to all
what we may refer toas the social dimension of life. Depending on
our points of view, weperceive various fields of social practices
which, however, are alwaysmerely aspects of the general exchange of
expressions and interpreta-tions, aspects of a non-divisible social
dimension of life. Thus it isthis interaction between expressions
and interpretations of feelings thathas created our social
practices, all what we understand as human cul-ture, and the
material achievements of human culture.
11. 6 The Case Against Noam ChomskyThe Ability to Speak vs.
LanguageThe most important means for expression of feelings is
speech, this iswhy I define speech as interpretation of feelings,
although I need topoint out that all symbolic means of expression
(such as bodily expres-sion, writing, forms of art, architecture)
are forms of interpretation offeelings. I shall further in this
book explain why I very much deliberate-ly say interpretation of
feelings instead of translation of thoughts. Inthis paradigm it
becomes crucial to understand the true essence ofspeech and
especially the distinction between speech and language. Theability
to speak and speech acts are biological, material,
phenomena,whereas language is a social practice, of which we form
perceptions inabstraction. Up to this day this has not been
understood in linguistics;and this has led to great confusion in
the science when both the biologi-cal ability (speech) and the
perceptual abstractions (language), whichare formed based on the
results of exercising this biological ability, arediscussed as if
they were one and the same. Most importantly we needto understand
that speech corresponds to real physical acts of behaviorwhich are
enabled by the biological ability to speak. Speech and
writingrepresent forms of verbal behavior. Language, however, does
not cor-respond to anything physical or biological, and merely
represents per-ceptual abstractions we form based on our experience
of verbal beha-vior. I argue that this distinction has never been
properly made, noteven by Saussure who as a lonely thinker had an
idea of the necessity todo it. (I will discuss Saussures conception
of the distinction in chaptersSpeech and Language and mainly in
Notes on the Philosophy of Lan-guage). - The confusion and the
problem that follows from it are wellillustrated by a reference to
Roy Harris. In my view Harriss linguisticphilosophy clearly
represents the better of the contemporary traditions;therefore I
turn to Harris to show how the confusion persists even onthe level
where these issues are best understood. Harris acknowledgesthat
linguists face a problem with replying to the question: What
islanguage? (1998: 15). This problem is, according to Harris, due
to thereason that language involves at least three activities;
these he lists as:(i) neural activity in the human brain, (ii)
muscular activity of thebody, and (iii) social activity. Harris
then tells that these three activi-ties are variously interrelated
in different definitions of language. Hestresses that whether one
defines language as an activity or an ability(faculty) the problem
remains. I shall note that, I have not discovered
12. Introduction7how Harris himself actually chose to define
language, however, in thisconnection it is clear that Harris did
not realize that the way out of thedilemma is to identify, on the
one hand, speech as pertaining to the bio-logical ability to speak
and, on the other hand, language as the abstractperceptions we make
of the social practice of speaking (social practiceof verbal
behavior; language practices). The activities that he identifiedas
pertaining to the question are mutually contradictory and
confusingwhen they are all taken to refer to language or,
correspondingly,when they are all taken to refer to speech - but
when we settle for re-ferring by the first two, (i) and (ii), to
speech (the ability to speak andverbal behavior) and by the third,
(iii), to language (the social prac-tice), then the problem
disappears. - With exercising the biological abil-ity to speak we
gain skills in the social language practices similarly likewhen we
exercise the ability to run and kick a ball we gain experiencein
the social practice of football. In the course of the work on
thispresent book, I have noted that there seems to be in modern
science ingeneral a very serious problem of differentiating between
what is a bio-logical ability and what is a socially acquired skill
which has beenenabled by the ability. This particular fallacy
amounts to one of themost fundamental fallacies on which Chomskys
erroneous theories arebased. Thus, for example, Neil Smith says in
the Foreword toChomskys New Horizons in the Study of Language and
Mind (2007a:x): Chomsky has long been famous (or notorious) for
claiming that asubstantial part of our knowledge of language is
genetically determined,or innate. That something linguistic is
innate is self evident from thefact that babies do but cats,
spiders and rocks do not acquire lan-guage. Naturally something is
innate, but what is innate and genet-ically determined is not
knowledge of language, but the ability bywhich we acquire
knowledge, or more properly by which we gain expe-rience and skills
of language practices, or: interpret the verbal behaviorof others
and express our interpretations of feelings. (Detailed discus-sions
on this issue to follow further in the book).A Study of Expressions
and InterpretationsActs of speech, verbal behavior, can be studied
as objects of a naturalscience as the behavior corresponds to real
organic processes. Lan-guage, however, cannot be studied as a
natural science; language and allthe hypothetical elements of
language are mere perceptual abstractionsand do not correspond to
anything material; language and its elements
13. 8The Case Against Noam Chomskylack mass and energy and can
therefore not be studied as real objects.Language practices can
only be described, interpreted in words. - I pro-pose to include
linguistics into a broader study of expressions and
inter-pretations with a clear differentiation between (i) the
biological abilitiesto express and interpret, and (ii) the social
practices which constitutehuman language. Further this entails that
both in relation to the socialsphere and the biological we have to
study, not language, but expres-sions, that is, study the biology
of how expressions are organically pro-duced and the social
practices of expression. By thus calling for a studyof expressions
and interpretations instead of a study of the more narrowfields of
speech and language another crucial implication follows. Thisis the
necessity to admit into the realm of the study the whole act of
bo-dily expressions and not only the alphabetical symbols by which
we inabstraction depict the perceptions we form merely on the
sound-patternsin exclusion of all the other aspects of the speech
act.No Languages, Only Language PracticesI stressed above that we
need to recognize that speech corresponds toreal physical acts of
behavior which are rooted in the biological abilityto speak.
Language, however, does not correspond to anything physicalor
biological, and merely represents perceptual abstractions
humansform based on their experience of verbal behavior. Thus there
are nolanguages. There is no language, there are no languages,
there are nowords, there is no grammar, nor is there any syntax, in
the sense thatthere are physical objects with mass and energy. What
are thought of aslanguages are fundamentally language practices,
that is, the more orless uniform styles of verbal behavior of
people that communicate inclose proximity with each other by
imitating each others verbal beha-vior. By the concept language we
should thus refer to various lan-guage practices such as, for
example, English, French, Finnish, andRussian. We may speak of
language practices of any community thatwe chose to study, and
present the language practices of people in agiven village, a given
suburb, of a given age in a given place, of a givenprofessions,
social standing etc. When we speak about language in thegeneric
sense we refer to all language practices at once, without an
ef-fort to differentiate between the various language practices. We
shallnote that as language practices are only perceptual
abstractions, then wecan never identify what exactly a language
practice consists of and how
14. Introduction 9we should delimit it. This is, of course, a
blow to the people raised un-der the ideals of the misconceived
scientific method, who dream ofbeing able to identify specific
languages and their perceived thinglyelements with the precision of
mathematics. We just have to live withthe fact that language
practices are amorphous social phenomena, whichwe may only describe
to the best of our satisfaction. When we attemptto describe a
particular language practice, then we may only identify thecontours
of the grand phenomena and the detailed aspects we perceiveto the
extent we need to identify and interpret them. But the real
scien-tific insight is that nothing exact will never correspond to
the percep-tions one or another observer may form on these
phenomena. All thedescriptions and interpretations we make on
language practices mustremain subject to our stated assumptions for
narrowing the field of real-ity.MeaningIn this book it is stressed
that words do not mean anything in them-selves, and that instead
people mean (express meanings) with the wordsthey use. Words, i.e.
verbal symbols, and other linguistic particles, e.g.phonemes and
morphemes (to which I refer as verbal symbolic devices)are,
however, in language practices employed to a certain degree in
auniform fashion. In language practices verbal symbols (including
verbalsymbolic devices) are assigned meanings as they are employed
and cor-respondingly people take them to mean something based on
their obser-vations of this use of verbal symbols. As one person
uses these symbolsin imitation of how other people have used them,
then it is as if the ver-bal symbols would have meanings in
themselves. We kind of copy themeanings we have experienced. And in
this sense linguists are justifiedin tentatively identifying
meanings in words. But this only insofar as thelinguist understands
that these verbal symbols in reality do not have anyabsolute or
inherent meanings in themselves. The study will thus yield
adescription of what kind of meanings verbal symbols have been
as-signed in various contexts, or what kind of meanings they have
beentaken to carry.We also have to consider the question of
meanings at the level ofgrammar (or syntax), that is, on the level
of combination of the variousverbal symbols and symbolic devices.
Chomsky and like-minded lin-guists have made a pseudo-science out
of the question whether gram-mars have meanings or whether they are
meaningless. Whereas I under-
15. 10The Case Against Noam Chomskystand and respect the idea
to try to identify meanings (in the sense that Iexplained it above)
of verbal symbols and symbolic devices, I do, how-ever, propose to
reject the whole idea as misconceived in relation togrammar
(syntax). This because, as I point out, grammar is (when cor-rectly
performed) merely a description of meaningful statements.Grammar as
such cannot be said to be meaningful or meaningless, ra-ther the
whole question is meaningless. People mean by their statementsin
the contexts that the statements are produced and with the
verbalsymbols that the statements consist of. Certainly the
arrangements andcombinations of the symbols also serve to convey
nuances of meanings,but these nuances may be expressed in infinite
variances and can there-fore not in any way be regarded as
functions of the grammar (syntax).To note, that not to any lesser
degree than those verbal symbols that canbe depicted with the
alphabet, meanings are also expressed by a lot ofother aspects of
speech and verbal behavior such as intonation, strengthof voice and
a host of other bodily expressions. Therefore if the study
ofgrammar from point of view of meanings would make any sense, then
itwould have to include all these other aspects of speech and
verbal be-havior as well. And this would be an impossible task by
the methods ofprecise science, instead these issues may only be
alluded to and ex-plained by examples.In reality meanings are
produced in the brain/body as functions ofneural processes of
interpreting verbal stimuli. This is why each word isalways
understood uniquely by each person in general, and by each per-son
in any particular moment of life. Thus neural processing of the
sti-muli that originate in verbal symbols represents always a
private,unique and everchanging phenomenon. This naturally means
that aword does not, and cannot, represent an objective meaning, as
themeaning is created (interpreted) in the body by each unique act
of men-tal processing.The conclusion that words do not mean
anything but people mean bywords should of all the ideas presented
in this book become the onewith the most general and immediate
implications. This recognitionshould fundamentally change our
attitude towards so-called facts andknowledge. With the belief in
the hypothetical meanings of wordsshould also go the belief in
certainty, the idea that by words some inhe-rent and infallible
truths could possibly be revealed. This fallacious ideashould be
replaced by the recognition that words, utterances, phrases
16. Introduction11etc. represent merely interpretations of the
narrators feelings andnothing more certain than that.The Biological
Paradigm of Expressions and InterpretationsI first realized that
all social phenomena correspond to the paradigm ofexpressions and
interpretation, but when I studied the biological condi-tions for
speech it occurred to me that the same holds true for all
biolog-ical phenomena as well. I noticed that all biological
phenomena are alsomanifestations of organic expressions and
interpretations. Thus I cameto think of expressions and
interpretations on a continuum which rangesfrom elementary physical
movements to cognitive expressions and in-terpretations performed
by a human being. Each organic act corres-ponds to an act of
expression, the organism by its movements (reac-tions, external and
internal) expresses its interpretation of a stimulus(set of
stimuli); similarly, and in parallel to expressions,
interpretationsare also movements in reaction to stimuli. In higher
evolutionary formsof life, such as in the human these movements of
expression and inter-pretation cumulate to cognitive expressions
and interpretations in themental processes, which essentially
consist of movements in form ofneural reaction patterns.Thus I
first subsumed all the human social activities under the para-digm
of expressions and interpretations, and later I noticed that
thesame paradigm fits for the biological, organic, world that
produces thesocial. Then I recognized that I had in fact discovered
the continuumwhich joins the biological world and the social world,
natural sciencesand social sciences, this is the continuum of
expressions and interpreta-tions. I came to understand that life is
a constant process of expressionsand interpretations. We humans, as
all organisms, constantly interpretour environment, both the
internal and the external. Homeostasis, thehomeostatic system,
represents such a complex biological system of in-terpretation (and
naturally in the other, reverse, dimension it is a systemof
expressions). This is the life sustaining homeostatic system of a
liv-ing body, i.e. the complex interrelations between the processes
in thebody that interact to maintain a relatively stable state of
equilibrium, ora tendency toward such a state, in the whole body at
large by the conti-nuous adaptations of the constituent processes
to external and internalstimuli from one organic action to another.
On a higher level of cogni-tion the homeostatic system is enhanced
by cognitive interpretation that
17. 12 The Case Against Noam Chomskyoccurs as mental processes
which eventually lead to cognitive feelingsand thoughts, and their
expression in speech.The Organic Process ModelThe expressions and
interpretations paradigm, in turn, is connected withthe organic
process model which depicts how various phenomena cor-respond to
organic processes, which occur in organic bodies (most
fun-damentally these bodies in themselves are bundles of
processes), wherestimuli are being processed, which stimuli result
in process outputs(reactions, expressions, reflections). These
ideas bring us to the mostfundamental idea of life, as I see it;
this is the idea that all expressionsand interpretations, all
cognition and all cognitive operations and beha-vior, and therefore
also speech, represent functions of the processeswhich occur when
an organism posits itself in relation to its environ-ment, that is,
interprets its environment in relation to itself. This
inter-pretation is always at the end of the analysis about how
environmentalstimuli affect the body and its parts through their
effects on the organichomeostasis of the body. I argue that there
is no difference in principlebetween how cognitive feelings and
other type of stimuli affect the ho-meostasis; cognitive feelings
which cumulate into ideas (thoughts, opi-nions, etc) merely
represent an extension of the system of homeostasis,and thus form
an integrated part of the homeostasis. When a human or-ganism
processes stimuli it is de facto interpreting the environment orits
position in the environment. We shall recognize that the
startingpoint of a science of human behavior lies in understanding
that all bio-logical processes (of which the social is an extension
in form of expres-sions resulting in social practices) are at the
end of the analysis aboutthe well-being of an organism in relation
to its environment. An organ-ism has thus developed evolutionary
inasmuch it has been able to coor-dinate and adapt all its
movements, organic processes, in relation to theenvironment. In
this evolutionary process the neural system has devel-oped to
coordinate the other organic processes and organs in relation
toeach other, and in relation to the environment (i.e. the internal
environ-ment in relation to the external). The neural system has
from the verybeginning been about coordinating the somatic system
(the rest of thebody) and naturally it has continued to be so, only
in a much morecomplex fashion. Each received environmental stimulus
has an effecton one or another part of the body this effect is
recorded as the somat-
18. Introduction 13ic marker. This illustrates how the bodily
(somatic) processing systemsprecede and interact with the mental
processing system. Even the high-est cognitive mental processes are
at the end of the analysis about thebody in relation to the
environment, the difference (between cognitiveand more simple
neural operations) being only in the higher degree ofcomplexity and
multidimensionality of the processes.Homeostasis, the Gateway to
Cognition, and MentalProcessingThese considerations led me to
conclude that understanding homeosta-sis is thus the gateway to
understanding all human behavior and theconnection between natural
sciences and social sciences.The connecting link between the purely
physical organic movementsand cognitive feelings that ultimately
lead to conscious awareness ofones own thoughts is mental
processing. The brain readouts that men-tal processing results in
feed into the enhanced homeostatic system offeelings. In the
fundamental unity of phenomena feelings are alwaysabout the body in
relation to the environment, therefore, feelings areboth caused by
bodily processes and lead to bodily processes as expres-sions. In
my interpretation, I would thus render the idea of somaticmarkers
(Damasio) by telling that cognitive reactions are anchored inthe
system of correlating environmental conditions (stimuli) with
theireffect on the body (and its parts) and consequently the whole
homeosta-sis, which develops feelings of higher and higher
cognitive value, orcomplexity, up to conscious recollection of some
reflections of them.Both in an evolutionary sense and in respect to
the life of any givenorganism, all organic and neural processes may
be conceived of asprocesses of movement that are combined in more
and more complexprocesses within the framework of the homeostatic
system cumulatingin the human higher-order process of cognitive
consciousness. I con-ceive of these processes on a continuum which
starts with physicalmovements, which combine into organic processes
and neural processes(some of them characterized as mental
processes), which further com-bine through the homeostasis to
feelings, which give rise to cognitivefeelings, which may develop
to mental images and phenomena that cor-respond to
conceptualization of abstractions, which latter two embed-ded in
the underlying cognitive feelings may develop into thoughts(ideas)
when the human in a state of cognitive consciousness applies
hisexperience of language and other social practices to the
cognitive feel-
19. 14The Case Against Noam Chomskyings. In accordance with
this conception, I hold that all phenomena ofcognition are results
of such neural processes that can be characterizedas mental
processes yielding cognitive reflections. The evolutionary value of
cognitive consciousness lies in that the or-ganism observes itself
similarly as one observes others and in this waythe environment is
made to include the organism itself, and so more ful-ly integrating
the whole environment in the homeostatic system whichbears on the
well-being of the organism. Reflecting on these ideas it seems to
me that in neuroscience the re-search paradigm should be amended so
as to define the activity as astudy of cognition instead of a study
of consciousness whereas con-sciousness (on the different levels of
awareness) represents aspects ofcognition. Cognition, cognitive
appraisals, happens continuously whe-reas cognitive consciousness
(the being aware of being aware) comesand goes. An important, and
perhaps decisive, feature of cognition isconceptualization. Thus
the biological method of studying cognitionand conceptualization
should replace the conceptual method of studyingconsciousness. I
refer to the evolution of these cognitive abilities bythe concept
mental evolution. By this concept I mean the
evolutionarydevelopment of the ability to process stimuli in ever
increasing complexways and the potential possibility to react, to
express the necessaryreactions in response to the processes.Mental
ProcessesThus we should conceive of a continuum of organic
movements, or or-ganic processes, where the movements (processes,
or reaction patternsof interpretation and expression) at one end of
the continuum (up-stream) could be called physical processes, and
at the other end (down-stream) we would have the complex and
sophisticated movement pat-terns which I call mental processes. In
between these ends there aremovements, or processes, which we may
chose to describe as more orless physical versus more or less
mental, or we could say that they dis-play both physical and mental
process features. But nowhere on thecontinuum would we be able to
draw a definite line of demarcation be-tween various types of
organic movements in an attempt to define whatare to be regarded as
mental processes versus simple physical move-ments. I refer to this
continuum of mental processes as the Lamarckian
20. Introduction 15continuum. Thus mental processes are those
ever more and morecomplex and sophisticated, reentrant and
high-speed neural processes.Materiality of Processes, Immateriality
of Process ReflectionsIn many sections of this book, I address the
ideas of materiality vs. im-materiality; this I have also done in
regards to mental processes. I stressthat mental processes are
material, but the outcomes of the processes,our cognitive ideas,
are not material and rather represent reflections ofthe material
processes. Somewhat simplifying I suggest comparingphysical and
mental with a picture and a film. To grasp this we shouldremember
that a film merely represents a series of pictures projected
inrapid succession showing the objects in successive positions
slightlychanged so as to produce the optical effect of a continuous
film inwhich the objects move. When the film is run quickly through
a projec-tor the reflections of it appear to us as something living
as opposed tothe individual pictures which are still. The film has
only one dimensionat a time, the fast projection of the series of
pictures, but the mentalprocesses are multidimensional and combine
at any given time the ef-fects of a variety of simultaneous
processes which are in constant rela-tions of feed forward and
feedback, reentry, remote signaling, etc. Inview of these
considerations, I am not introducing the film metaphor asa
scientific analog to what mental should be taken to be, but rather
asan aid to put us on right track on how to conceive of these
issues. I es-tablish cognitive reflections (including thoughts) as
immaterial; I alsostress the immateriality from another point of
view namely, from thepoint of view of the behavior that cognitive
reflections give rise to. Allhuman behavior cumulate in social
practices; these social practices, orthe very behavior as it is
observed, serve as stimuli for our cognition.These stimuli are also
immaterial, this whereas the behavior as such ismaterial, but the
behavior reflects expressions of cognitive feelings (in-cluding
ideas) only by way of symbolizing them; therefore we do notobserve
(and cannot observe) the very ideas but only the symbolicmeans by
which they are expressed. Already from this point of view theverbal
behavior we as observers detect is immaterial inasmuch as itstands
for the immaterial cognitive reflections. Yet another
considera-tion adds to the reasons why we should consider the
social stimuli asimmaterial, this is the fact that we do not take
in the behavior as such,whereas we merely form perceptual
abstractions of some (often superfi-cial) aspects of the behavior.
Hereby I stress that we should not con-
21. 16 The Case Against Noam Chomskyfuse the immateriality of
cognitive expressions of ideas with the materi-al traces they may
leave behind, such as the arrangements of alphabeticsymbols
depicted in ink on paper, or buildings and machines and
otherartifacts, as well as pieces of art.Words, Immaterial
Perceptual AbstractionsThe above considerations remind us that
language, words and all theother hypothetical elements of language
(morphemes, grammar, syntax,etc) are also nothing but perceptual
abstractions they do not exist;they are no things; they are no
material entities. In this book, I point out for some peculiar
reason it seems that nobody has done that before me that only
things can exist, and what are things, they are substancesthat we
must be able to identify in terms of mass and energy. We aretaught
already in basic physics that matter is to be defined as any kindof
mass-energy that moves with velocities less than the velocity of
light(whereas radiant energy moves at the velocity of light;
Pauling, GeneralChemistry, 2003: 1-3). This is also expressed by
Einsteins famous equ-ation E = mc2 (E standing for energy, m for
mass and c the velocity oflight). It is about time that we
recognize the principle of relativity alsoin social sciences.
Language, words, and all the hypothetical linguisticparticles do
not manifest mass and energy and therefore they do not ex-ist. And
as they do not exist, then they cannot possibly display any kindof
characteristic features either, nor may they be analyzed in any
fa-shion without reference to contexts where they have been
expressed.And therefore we have to stop doing social sciences on
the analogy ofnatural sciences. Written texts and the abstract
perceptions we form ofspeech expressions merely represent traces of
interpretation of feelingsthat occur as momentary reflections in
the mental processes of humanbeings.In reference to the physical
definitions of matter, I want to raise ahypothesis on how the
immateriality of cognitive reflections could beexplained. I remind
that thoughts represent reflections of mentalprocesses or more
correctly thoughts represent merely fleeting reflec-tions of a
potentially infinite variance of mental processes. Bearing thisin
mind, I would like to think that a physicist could in principle
explainthese cognitive reflections in terms of mass and energy.
Most probablythe physical explanation would point to such a gradual
loss of energy onthe border of the mental process - in relation to
the particular infinitely
22. Introduction 17small sub-process presently reflected in
consciousness - that the result-ing cognitive reflection could be
considered immaterial.Materialism Reinterpreted New DualismWith
these ideas, I complete the materialist paradigm (materialism).
Ihave now shown how all ideas are produced by a material, organic,
bio-logical body, but I have also demonstrated how the ideas are
throughquite material processes given immaterial reflections. In
this connec-tion, I want to refer to the ideas of new dualism.
Briefly, I hereby referto the fact that while we shall conceive of
all processes of cognition asmaterial, we shall anyway bear in mind
that they are the results ofprocessing of immaterial stimuli
stemming from social practices. Thusthere is a dualism between the
body and the environmental stimuliwhich it processes. If we
understand that social expressions do not existeven when we may
experience them through the media of human beha-vior and the
ability to remember and imitate (sometimes aided by ma-terial
traces that behavior leads behind), then we may grasp how
imma-terial social practices affect cognition in form of immaterial
stimuli.This is what led me to postulate the paradigm of new
dualism thedualism between the body and the external stimuli being
processed byit. According to this idea the essence of neural
(mental) processes is toprocess external stimuli that have been
detected (received) by the sen-sory organs (sensory receptors).
These processes correspond to organicinterpretations. Processes of
organic interpretation further lead to bodilyexpressions which are
reactions to these interpretations (among suchexpression, gestures
and speech). At some point the joint outcome ofthe various
processes simultaneously occurring are brought up to a cog-nitive
level, where higher-order mental processes occur both
uncons-ciously and consciously as reflections of the lower level
processes.These higher order processes are what correspond to what
we may callcognitive behavior or the kind of activity we refer to
as pertaining to theintellect or intelligence. The factors external
to the body in mentalprocesses are thus the stimuli that are being
processed by the neural sys-tem, and they are no metaphysical soul
or mind. This is why I pro-pose to think of the processes of the
brain/body interpreting stimuli interms of the dualism between body
and stimuli. To make this idea ma-nifest and to highlight these
issues against the misconceived classicaldualism, I refer to it as
the new dualism and alternately as natural dual-ism. We therefore
may now recognize how at the end of the analysis the
23. 18The Case Against Noam Chomskyconnection between the
natural biological world and that of the social isnot a mysterious
one but that of the relation with body and stimuli. In fact, even
organic life as such (keeping with the paradigm of ex-pressions and
interpretations) is a function of a dualism between bodyand
stimuli. It was Lamarck who first identified this as the
fundamentalcondition of life. This helped me to recognize that
social life is a func-tion of the capacity of the human animal to
cognitively interpret andexpress his feelings, and most importantly
to imitate the expressionsof others. Language and all other social
practices are functions of thisimitation. Language is the living
memory of all the expressions whichpeople have made. Language, all
social practices, all what humans haveever cognitively performed do
not exist, only memories of them existinsofar as one human being
remembers these practices.The Fallacious Conceptual MethodI argue
that in order to fundamentally understand the issues at stake
inthis book we need to recognize the fallacies of the present
conceptualmethod of making science and the accompanying
misconceived modelof the so-called scientific method. By the
conceptual method, I meanthe reigning tendency of scientists to
approach their subject matters andresearch findings with their
inherited rigid conceptual frameworks.Scientists take the concepts
for real and what ensues is an attempt tomatch the, in fact, real
physical and biological processes to the receivedconcepts; this
instead of doing what they should: match the concepts tothe
biological processes. By a study of nature and life we can
neverhope to find any biological correlates to concepts, by
concepts we mere-ly attempt to express our interpretations of the
biological processes.Thus, for example, we cannot try to identify
what kind of processes cor-relate with the concepts memory,
imitation, learning, imagina-tion, will, appraisal, belief, etc. By
these various psychologicalconcepts we may merely describe
perceived aspects of our cognitivebehavior which are based on
unified and interdependent biologicalprocesses, which I propose to
denominate as feelings. Fundamentally, the underlying neural
processes and phenomena towhich we refer by these concepts are the
same; we merely form variousperceptions of the observed processes
and behavior; and all kinds ofconsiderations affect how these
perceptions come about (most impor-tantly the way we have learned
through participating in social practices
24. Introduction19to perceive various phenomena). These kinds
of concepts thereforemainly serve as aids for a psychological
analysis of human behavior.Naturally they are also needed in
neuroscience, but hereby the scientistsshould take care to ensure
that he merely employs them as descriptiveaids whereby he tries to
illustrate his interpretations; but he shall notmake a
neuroscientific analysis of the concepts, the way, for example,Eric
Kandel has treated the concept memory. To remedy the dilemmacaused
by the conceptual method and in order to put neuroscience onright
track we should recognize the process-like character of
cognitionand all that can be subsumed under cognitive behavior
(feelings, per-ceptions, thoughts, volition, intentions, etc). I
therefore, in accordancewith my conception of the organic process
model, propose to view allphenomena of life both natural and social
life as organic processesand reflections of such processes. In
chapters Memory and KandelsSearch for the Neural Correlates of the
Concept Memory, I will illu-strate this fallacy in regards to the
concept memory. Here I will limitmyself to a few remarks in this
respect.MemoryThe ideas that pertain to the concept memory serve to
illustrate howscientists remain in ignorance of the fundamental
unity and interdepen-dency of organic phenomena as well as to
illustrate the misconceivedconceptual method. This as the
scientists in memory theory proceedfrom the assumption that there
must be some biological processes thatare particular to this
concept. Instead of understanding that memory isthe perception we
form of certain human cognitive activities, they post-ulate that
one could already in primordial forms of life detect thoseneural
processes that are memory. I consider that memory properlyspeaking
is about a human being having the (seeming) feeling of cogni-tive
consciousness about past experiences in a way that can be
renderedby abstract expressions (for example in speech by language;
or by otherforms of human expression). I also consider that other
primates andother animals which have the ability to be cognitively
conscious ofmental images can be said to posses memory (i.e. the
ability to re-member), but their memory is limited to the mental
images, whereashuman memory combines both mental images and verbal
conceptualmanipulation of the images. In order for this to happen
one has to beable to conceptualize experience, which will enable
the organism to re-late new experience to past experience and so to
say reawaken those
25. 20The Case Against Noam Chomskyneural reaction patterns
that correlate the new experience with the pastexperiences.
Memories are the cognitive results of processing
presentenvironmental stimuli in the background of all our life
experiences, asencoded in our neural processing patterns. Memories
are the impres-sions that mental processes lead to when the
processes recognize apast experience in the continuous process of
interpreting the present.Memories are not a collection of
snapshots, mental clips or tokens thatone has collected and which
would exist stored in the recesses of thebrain, rather language and
other social practices as stimuli in mentalprocesses give rise to
what we perceive as memories as a result of in-terpreting the
present.Misconceptions about Mind and ConsciousnessThe concepts
mind and consciousness represent the special fallacyof taking the
results of the mental processes to stand for some entitiesthat
themselves produce the cognitive reflections, as I will show
below.But I argue that we instead should see mind as a merger of
the socialdimension of life with that of the biological apparatus,
as a result of thebiological apparatus processing social stimuli;
consciousness, in turn,should simply be taken to signify the
awareness of sensations and feel-ings, of which self-reflexive
awareness of cognitive feelings representsthe most developed and
sophisticated stage. I maintain that it is not correct to refer to
mind as if it would be aphysical entity, and instead I point out
that the mental operations of in-terpreting the environment by the
physical entity brain is what causesthe various cognitive
reflections to which we refer to as mind. Insteadof treating the
concept mind as a physical entity we should then con-ceive of mind
as a reference to the phenomena which result from theinteraction of
environmental stimuli (most importantly stimuli derivedfrom social
practices, past and present expressions) with the biologicalneural
apparatus. Mind represents the results of neural (mental)processing
of environmental stimuli which we detect in form of
socialpractices, that is, reflections of human behavior (the
stimuli from socialpractices being embedded in the stimuli stemming
from other parts ofthe nature and the physical environment).
Further mind represents thereflections, process outcome, that the
mental processing of stimuli re-sults in. I will further on in this
book account for the various ways weperceive the abstractions that
we form of these underlying phenomena
26. Introduction21and stress that whatever abstractions we may
perceive in this regards,we should note that at the end of the
analysis mind is a social and lin-guistic construction, in a way a
social fiction, and by no means an ob-ject for neuroscience.Often
philosophers (or philosophizing scientists) use the conceptmental
synonymously with mind, but, as I showed above, we shouldrather by
mental refer to the neural processes that lead to cognition.Thus
mental is not the same as the mind or anything else in that
me-taphysical vein, it is simply a word denoting enormously complex
phys-ical, neural processes, which occur in infinitely complex,
high-speed,reentrant circuits with feedforward and feedback
loops.Similarly as phenomena connected with cognitive reflections
havebeen reified, and even personified, in the concept mind, the
same andadjacent phenomena have been reified and personified in the
conceptconsciousness. Through a series of peculiar linguistic
processes thathave bewitched thinking of philosophers the concept
consciousnesshas become to denote a mystical entity that brings
about human cogni-tion; basically consciousness has in the 20th
century literature servedas a more academically hygienic successor
concept for the more ancientsoul and mind. I have in this book
attempted a demystification of theconcept consciousness, and to
return it to its original meaning ofawareness (which is the meaning
in which, e.g., Descartes employedthe concept). In the best sense
of the present contemporary use the con-cept corresponds to what I
want to call cognitive consciousness, thatis, being
self-reflexively aware of cognitive feelings, or yet in otherwords:
being aware of the reflections of mental processing of concep-tual
abstractions together with the awareness of being aware. But
weshould note that we may be aware of, that is, conscious of, a
variety ofsensations. We should think of all the various sensations
and organicphenomena of which we may become conscious of on a
continuumstarting from physical sensations (bodily reactions), such
as touch, pain,cold, warmth, light, thirst, hunger; and gradually
as we proceed on thecontinuum we reach that kind of consciousness
that corresponds to anawareness of cognitive feelings, concepts,
thoughts etc., that is, allthose processes that involve the
processing of conceptual abstractions(or as some say, intellectual
activities). Consciousness thusrepresents aspects of all these
named organic and neural phenomena;consciousness corresponds to the
salient features of being aware of theunderlying processes. There
is no point on the continuum where thecorresponding processes and
phenomena would be to that degree differ-
27. 22The Case Against Noam Chomskyent in nature that they
would merit the separate denomination of con-sciousness as opposed
to the other phenomena which we may identifyon the continuum.
Correspondingly feeling and consciousness arealways intertwined,
consciousness always being an aspect of feeling.Consciousness is
the awareness of feelings, while feelings areproducts of mental
processes. It is when feelings concern the higherorder mental
processes, processing that leads to the evoking and form-ing of
concepts and the emergence of cognition, that we reach a differ-ent
stage of complex awareness that allows us to consider, to a
certaindegree, our own feelings and even manipulate them. But only
this laststage is what our contemporary scientists admit to be
covered by theirsacred concept of consciousness. I would rather
refer to these kinds ofprocesses of self-reflexive cognitive
awareness by the term cognitiveconsciousness; this concept
represents the fleeting peak aspects ofcognitive feelings that
possibly may rise through the processes of cogni-tive recollection
and ultimately be expressed (at least tentatively) inspeech, and by
other deliberate symbolic devices such as gestures, otherbodily
expressions, writing, objects of art, and symbolic expressions
inartifacts. Cognitive consciousness is a condition of thinking but
notthinking itself, as will be explained below. The important
feature ofcognitive consciousness is that it is what enables us to
interpret theprocesses of cognitive feelings, which in turn may
lead to cognitive per-ceptions in the present, thinking,
remembering etc. At any given timewhen we are cognitively conscious
of one or another mental process offeeling, there occur in the body
(unconsciously) other mental processeswhich create cognitive
feelings. Any of the processes of feeling mayeventually emerge into
consciousness.By accounting for consciousness in this way we
recognize that thereis no specific mystery of consciousness in
comparison with any othermental processes. We therefore realize
that the research task now be-comes strictly biological: that of
trying to identify the complex reentrantmental processing circuits
and the biochemistry involved in them, whilekeeping in mind that
these processes are about processing environmen-tal stimuli.Mired
in their admiration of the concept consciousness it did noteven
occur to the 20th century neurophilosophers that there must
beanother side to the coin, that is, if there is consciousness then
theremust also be unconsciousness. Tellingly the latter term does
not evenform part of their vocabulary. This illustrates once more
the perverted
28. Introduction 23role assigned to consciousness, not as a
juxtaposition to unconscious-ness but as a synonym to the
hypothetical mind. This does notamount to any small oversight,
rather it played a hugely detrimental rolein perverting the
scientific understanding of mental processes and therole of
consciousness in them. When consciousness was not juxta-posed with
unconsciousness as it should have been it became anindependent
stand-alone mystical entity. Thus the 20th century
neuro-philosophers did not conceive of conscious processes as
emerging fromthe unconscious ones (naturally not even fully
understanding that thequestion was precisely of mental processes).
They fatally failed to rec-ognize that consciousness merely
represented the highest stage ofmental processes, the phenomena on
the tip of the Lamarckian conti-nuum, or the evolutionary
hermeneutical spiral, forming part of a si-multaneously occurring
myriad of mental processes which run mostlyunconsciously. When I
return to the more detailed discussion of theseissues further into
the book, then I will point out that we should, how-ever, not
conceive of the processes as rigidly delimited to conscious
andunconscious processes, rather we should conceive of them as
beingblurred in each other on a web of consciousness, which from
moment tomoment brings ever competing sensations and feelings up to
the levelof consciousness; but this only for fleeting moments and
all the timedistracted by the other processes that are constantly
assailing the thre-shold of consciousness.The considerations which
I have rendered above in regards to the na-ture of consciousness
and unconsciousness should alert us to the factthat we cannot
validly postulate that mental processes are either con-scious or
unconscious. Consciousness is not a question of a switch be-tween
the positions on and off, rather we experience subtle degreesof
consciousness of various processes at the same time. Thus most
men-tal processes go on unconsciously only to pop up as momentary
sparksin consciousness. We should simply recognize that there are
physico-mental process that we are consciously aware of (to some
degrees), andthen all the other neural (including mental) processes
that we are notconsciously aware of.ConceptualizationIn my view the
ideas that pertain to conceptualization brings us to acrucial
junction in understanding cognition and all cognitive activitiesand
behavior. According to the organic process model, that I present
in
29. 24The Case Against Noam Chomskythis book, all organic
activity can be seen as functions of interpretationand expression
on an evolutionary continuum ranging from simplephysical movements
to cognitive processes. Following the organicprocess model, I have
stressed in several parts of this book that all func-tions of
organic life is always about processes where an organism
positsitself in relation to its environment. This corresponds to
the organisminterpreting the environment in relation to itself. The
genetic endow-ment for mental processes in humans has evolved so
that the human hasgained the ability to encode cognitive experience
of abstract phenomenain form of mental processing of abstractions
(conceptualize experience).In any given situation the human forms
new abstractions, which are re-lated to formerly conceptualized
experience in processes which formnew conceptualized experience.
The new conceptualized experience isthen assigned its place in the
general system of life experience (aplace in form of the neural
patterns forming our human life expe-rience). For this to happen a
state of cognitive consciousness seems tobe a necessary condition.
I presume that concepts are stamped in con-sciousness, meaning that
it is precisely in the moments when the animalis consciously aware
of its feelings that concepts are formed. In the re-levant brain
systems various cognitive perceptions are simultaneouslyprocessed
and lead to conceptualization of new experience in the back-ground
of old by, as it were, creating concepts by comparing new
ex-perience to past experience, and then assigning the new
experience aproper relation in regards to past experience. I would
consider that it isthis very assigning of the relative place what
corresponds to conceptu-alization. I assume that each abstract
conception corresponds to a neuralreaction pattern where the
synaptic strengths in the involved neural cir-cuits correspond to
the encoding of the concept in relation to otherconcepts in systems
that can be thought of as brain maps. But this doesnot imply that a
static map would have been created, rather the mapsmust be in
constant flux continuously monitoring the flux of life of
theorganism in its environment, that is, each new moment of life
throughthe new experience affects all the previous neural patterns.
These con-siderations are also important in regards to linguistics.
The conceptsthat correspond to words must also develop in the above
described fa-shion. Words are always related to a given life
experience embedded inprevious life experience. Words are processed
neurally like all otherstimuli, so that the linguistic abstraction
that has been experienced (inspeech and text) are neurally
interpreted like all other cognitive stimuli;
30. Introduction25they are in working memory assigned a place
in relation to the overalllife experience by way of relating the
present verbal stimuli to thepresent spatial position of the
organism in accordance with how pastexperience has been neurally
encoded in reaction patterns. This is whyeach word is always
understood uniquely by each person in general, andby each person in
particular in every new moment of life. Thus neuralprocessing of
the stimuli that originate in words is always a private,unique and
everchanging phenomenon. This naturally means that aword does not,
and cannot, carry an objective meaning, as the meaningis created
(interpreted) in the body by each unique act of
mentalprocessing.ThinkingHaving dealt with the above phenomena, I
would like to add a few con-siderations in respect to thinking. We
should recognize that thinking on-ly represents the conscious part
of all the cognitive feelings that affectus at any given time.
Thinking is always a predominantly consciousprocess (although some
aspects of thinking remain unconscious).Thinking is the result of
combining the concepts of language (socialpractices) to the
underlying feelings. When we think we are consciousonly of the
feelings that have caught our attention, of the feelings weare
aware of. And even so, only on a superficial level, for we can be
va-guely conscious of a feeling even before we have been able to
fullyconsciously conceptualize it. Thus for me thinking signifies
such cogni-tive mental processes where concepts are applied,
consciously and part-ly unconsciously, to cognitive feelings. To
understand this we have torecognize how fleeting the borderline
between the conscious and un-conscious processes is: the
unconscious and conscious processes areconstantly blurred within
each other. All kinds of consciousness, cogni-tive as well as
non-cognitive, are continuously mixed with otherprocesses of
feeling - consciousness shifts by non-perceptible nuancesfrom
process to process leading to barely perceptible sparks in the
webof consciousness. The first stage of thinking involves the
emergence ofmental images; these mental images may in themselves
already involveconceptual abstractions, but on a higher stage of
thinking neuralprocesses that correspond to verbal concepts merge
with the images andthe other conceptual abstractions. Following
this logic, I would thensuggest that thinking, as all organic
activity, also consists of variousprocess stages. Thoughts may be
seen as immaterial reflections of bio-
31. 26 The Case Against Noam Chomskylogical processing of
stimuli from social practices (including language),which through
the phenomena of remembering are continuously ree-nacted in the
body and thus brought up to mental processing in think-ing.
According to this idea the organism reinterprets past
experienceanew and anew in infinite variances. Eventually thoughts
may lead to expressions in speech. This isdone by applying the
learned concepts from the social practices of lan-guage to
thoughts.Emotions and FeelingsI will round up the review of the
phenomena pertaining to the majorconcepts of neurophilosophy with a
few remarks in regards to what areconsidered as emotions and the
relation between emotions and feel-ings. In my conception feelings
correspond to the primary phenome-na, whereas emotions should be
considered merely as socially influ-enced perceptions we form of
complex behavior, which behavior in turnrepresents manifestations
of the underlying feelings which are in a con-stant flux; what we
call an emotion does not represent a higher orlower form of organic
processing on the Lamarckian continuum; anemotion does not
correspond to anything independent from the bio-logical processes
of sensation, homeostasis and feeling. An emotion isthe perception
that we form on some conspicuous reaction patternspresent in
observed behavior while simultaneously ignoring the com-plexity of
the underlying feelings. An emotion is thus best to be con-ceived
of as mental processes that give rise to conspicuous bodily
reac-tions (expressions) connected with a socially determined
linguisticname to stand for the simplified perceptions we form of
the complexityof manifested behavior based on the underlying
complex and fluctuat-ing feelings.From the Conceptual Method to a
Study of BiologicalProcesses The analysis of these conceptual
fallacies show why we need a funda-mental paradigm shift: we have
to understand that instead of analyzingthe concepts by which we try
to illustrate our ideas we have to givepriority to the study of the
underlying biological processes, and try tomatch the concepts to
the processes we observe and not the other way
32. Introduction27around as it is presently done. And doing so
we shall never lose sight ofsome fundamental scientific principles,
which are: (i) the principles ofevolution, by which we should
understand that all living organisms aregenetic successors of lower
forms of life; (ii) the evolutionary principlealso entails that a
complex organism incorporates both processes thatrun the same way
and yield the same expressions as they did in the pri-mordial forms
of life, and processes that are based on the former butdue to the
increased complexity yield other expressions; (iii) the prin-ciple
of a unitary (holistic) character of all organic processes, which
fol-lows from the previous principle; according to this principle
all organicand neural processes are unified so that they all bear
on the homeostasisof the organism, and through the homeostasis
affect each other; (iv)the previous considerations also mean that
all the processes are interde-pendent as I have depicted it with
idea of the hermeneutical evolutio-nary spiral.These evolutionary
principles should never be let out of sight whenconsidering any
organic or social phenomenon, because each one in thevery finest of
its aspects has its ultimate roots in the unity and
interde-pendency of the body and the nervous processing system
operating thebody in relation to the environment. From this also
follows the recogni-tion that all organs and organic abilities
(faculties) are somehow in a re-lation of unity and interdependency
to each other. All organic features,the anatomy, and organic
capabilities conspire to bring out new beha-vioral abilities
produced by the biological machinery, the parts of whichhave
originally been developed for other organic functions, for
whatwould seem as simpler functions. In regards to human behavior
weshould then realize that all the various types of behavior we
recognize,or the abilities (faculties) we perceive, only represent
surface levelperceptions of an infinite array of similar organic
processes that lead todifferent outcomes or rather perceived
outcomes in any given situa-tion.Evolution of SpeechWe need to
recognize that speech (the ability to speak) has evolved,
butlanguage the social practice, cannot be said to have evolved. A
socialpractice such as language does not evolve in the proper sense
of theword; or, if we want to use the word evolution also in
regards to lan-guage and other social practices, then we have to
realize that we are us-ing the same verbal symbol in two different
senses. By evolution of bio-
33. 28The Case Against Noam Chomskylogical organisms
(biological evolution) we refer to changes in the ge-netic
endowment of living organisms corresponding to gene expres-sions,
which in all offspring results in an anatomy, organs and
organicprocess patterns, which in all essential aspects are
predetermined by thegenetic endowment. Whereas biological evolution
signifies a change inthe external and internal form of an organism,
social evolution signifiesmerely perceived changes in human
behavior. This evolution of the ability to speak has been a gradual
process ofconverging interdependent and intertwined organic
processes to which Irefer with the principle of unity and
interdependency of organicprocesses and which I have depicted by
the hermeneutical evolutionaryspiral. There has been no one point
in the history of life or mankind orapehood, where we could
proclaim that the ability to speak hademerged and the social
practice of language could be said to have beenformed. Gradually
and imperceptibly over millions of years some apel-ike animals have
evolved and become bipedal by which change theanatomy of their
vocal tracts have changed so that they could master theskill of
consciously articulating refined sounds. This evolution of
theanatomy has proceed in pace with a change in habits so that in a
herme-neutical spiral change in anatomy, biology, and the neural
system havecorresponded with changes in social habits. In these
processes the abili-ty to conceptualize experience has evolved with
the ability to make andinterpret symbolic bodily expressions that
correspond to the conceptua-lized experience. Speech and the
ability to speak represent the culmina-tion of these gradual
genetic evolutionary processes.The Contrast with ChomskyI have
noted that my ideas on speech and language are in marked con-trast
to all the ideas that Noam Chomsky has through his carrier
pro-fessed and raised to the pinnacle of linguistics with wide
recognition inother fields of science. I realized that as Chomskys
ideas are so widelyknown, and still to a large extent accepted,
then I could best illustratemy paradigm by pointing out the
differences between it and Chomskystheories. This is why Chomsky
has received such a prominent role inthis book, even to the extent
that I call the first volume of A BiologicalPhilosophy The Case
Against Noam Chomsky. We shall remember thatChomsky himself rose to
prominence with an article called The CaseAgainst B.F. Skinner
where he sketched the outlines of his fallacious
34. Introduction29theories. I thought, it would be only natural
that the theories should exitwith the same measure. In the critique
of Chomsky, I am guided bythe correct method of philosophy as
determined by Wittgenstein, that is,"to say nothing except what can
be said, i.e. propositions of naturalscience ... and then whenever
someone else wanted to say somethingmetaphysical, to demonstrate to
him that he had failed to give a mean-ing to certain signs in his
propositions" (Tractatus 6.53). This is whyall philosophy is a
critique of language (Tractatus 4.0031).Lost and Found
PhilosophersThe greatest surprise that I experienced when doing the
research for thisbook was that most of the ideas that I had an
intuitive correct perceptionabout (and which I subsequently became
convinced of) had alreadybeen expressed by many a 19th century
philosopher. I had been per-plexed over the number of absurdities I
encountered in our contempo-rary philosophy and neuroscience, and
when I so clearly sensed thatthey were wrong, the bigger was my
amazement that to a sufficient de-gree many of the correct ideas
had already been expressed by philoso-phers a few hundred years
ago. In this book I refer to many of them:Condillac, Bonnet,
Lamarck, Romanes, Spencer, the more recent Bar-tlett, and last but
not least, Lewes. Against the paradigm I present it be-comes also
necessary to take a fresh look at Descartes ideas from the17th
century, to which ideas I hope to give a new lifeline. It is a
trage-dy, and I would say a mystery, how the wealth of insight
these menpossessed and exhibited so totally escaped the 20th
century scientificmind. The mystery is explained by all we know
about the perversionsbrought about by the scientific method,
behaviorism, reduction-ism, and the cognitive revolution. But the
tragedy remains. Andalong with the sense of tragedy, I feel
personally sad for those people,many of whom devoted their life in
search of the truth, even succeedingin revealing some bright and
lasting insight, but only to be ignored, mi-sunderstood, or even
ridiculed. The most striking example of this, I ex-perienced when I
received by mail order the copy of Lewess Problemsof Life and Mind.
The book was of original print of 1879 and had for-merly been in
the possession of Bedford College. It was clear that no-body had
ever read this copy of the book for as I received it, more thana
century after its printing, it still remained uncut. Naturally some
scho-lars specializing in the history of ideas know about Lewes,
but in noneof the contemporary books that I researched for the
present study was
35. 30The Case Against Noam Chomskythere any reference to him.
And this is a pity, for his Problems of Lifeand Mind must be
considered as one of the best books on philosophyever written.
Especially I recommend to everybody the short introducto-ry volume
Problems of Life and Mind. Third Series. Problem the First.The
study of Psychology. Its object, scope, and method (1879a). It is
on-ly by great efforts that I have kept myself from extending the
volume ofthis book by any further quotes from Lewess book, which
remains sovalid for demonstrating the problems of life and mind
that we are stillfaced with in this 21st century.The experiences of
many become the guide of each; they do not all pe-rish with the
individual; much survives, takes form in opinion, precept,and law,
in prejudice and superstition. The feelings of each are blendedinto
a general consciousness, which in turn reacts upon the
individualconsciousness. And this mighty impersonality is at once
the product andthe factor of social evolution. It rests on the
evolution of Language, as ameans of symbolical expression rising
out of the animal function of in-dividual expression by the
stimulus of collective needs (Lewes 1879a:80).The organism adjusts
itself to the external medium; it creates, and is inturn modified
by, the social medium, for Society is the product of humanfeelings,
and its existence is pari passu developed with the feelingswhich in
turn it modifies and enlarges at each stage. Obviously, then,our
science must seek its data not only in Biology but in Sociology;
notonly in the animal functions of the organism, but in the
faculties devel-oped under social developments (Lewes 1879a: 71).A
Biological Philosophy Volumes I IVThe present book consists of four
volumes of A Biological Philosophyof which volumes I and II are now
printed together in one cover. Thefirst volume is named A
Biological Philosophy, Volume I: The CaseAgainst Noam Chomsky; the
second volume is called: A Biological Phi-losophy, Volume II:
Mental Processing. It is my aim to write a third vo-lume which
would deal more in detail with the general evolutionarytheory and
juxtapose Lamarcks process theory with Darwins thinglyideas that to
a large extent are rooted in the anthropomorphic fallacy. Iconsider
that my earlier book, Expressions and Interpretations. Our
36. Introduction31Perceptions in Competition (Hellevig 2006)
form the fourth volume ofthis series. These four volumes form a
cycle of interrelated ideas, eachvolume addressing the biological
philosophy from a particular point ofview. The first volume is
about language (language practices), which isthe bridge between the
biological and social. The second volume showshow the biological
body in mental processes interprets environmentalstimuli which
processes create feelings, an interpretation of which is
ul-timately expressed in human speech. The third volume will serve
to de-scribe the evolutionary processes which have enabled the
present formof human life. And the fourth volume discusses the
essence of the socialpractices which essentially are manifestations
of biological expressionsand interpretations, and which serve as
stimuli for the biologicalprocesses.
37. 33A Biological Philosophy Volume I:The Case Against Noam
Chomsky
38. 34
39. Speech and Language351 SPEECH AND LANGUAGEThe limits of my
language are the limits of my world (Wittgenstein,Tractatus
5.6.1.)Main Principles of a Theory of Speech and LanguageTo begin
this exposition of my conception of speech and language, Ineed to
remind of the essential principles of a biological philosophy,which
were briefly introduced in the Introduction. These principles
beardirectly and simultaneously an all the aspects of the theory of
speechand language to be discussed here and in different chapters
of this book.For the linguist the most central principle is that of
the need to dis-tinguish between speech and language. Speech
corresponds to the bio-logical ability to speak, that is, the
ability in imitation of the verbal be-havior of other people to
express oneself by means of articulating re-peatable sound patterns
to which the speaker assigns a symbolic mean-ing. From the point of
view of the interlocutor speech corresponds tothe ability to
interpret the sound patterns expressed by others (hereby Imarkedly
say interpret instead of understand). By speech I also referto the
actual acts of expressing oneself in speech. Speech, then, refers
toboth the ability to speak and the actual exercising of this
ability.Whether I refer to the ability or the actual exercising of
this ability inthis book will be clear from the context. The
crucially important distinc-tion which is to be marked at all times
is that between speech (abilityand exercising of ability) versus
language. Speech occurs as part ofmore complex acts of expression.
To these complex acts of expression Irefer by the term verbal
behavior. Verbal behavior comprises not onlythe articulation of
sound patterns but all the bodily expressions that sur-round the
effort (this idea is explained more in detail below). I use
theconcept verbal behavior also to cover the practice of writing.
(In writ-ing a special problem occurs as the writer is forced to
limit the present-able part of his behavior to only those
expressions that he can depict bymeans of the symbols of writing.
But we have to remember that even sothe act of writing consists of
more than the arrangement of the verbalsymbols he can possibly
depict).Language in turn corresponds to the social practices of
people crea-tively imitating the verbal behavior of each other. I
refer to these socialpractices alternately as social practices of
verbal behavior, social
40. 36 The Case Against Noam Chomskypractices of speaking,
social practices of language, and languagepractices. By these
alternative concepts I do not usually imply any spe-cial semantic
divide, although the reference to verbal behavior mayserve to
emphasize the connection between speech and all other beha-vior. I
sometimes use the concept verbal behavior in the sense of
ex-pressive behavior, i.e., so as to include other bodily
expressions in theconcept as well. Language, then, is not an entity
(or a thing) of any sort, and rather cor-responds to the perceptual
abstractions that we form of the relevant so-cial practices.To
illustrate the dichotomy between speech and language, I shallpoint
out that Wittgenstein has said: Language is a part of our organ-ism
and no less complicated than it (Tractatus 4.022). But,
unfortu-nately, this was not the proper analogy to be made, for it
is speech thatis part of our organism (i.e. stems from the
organism) and language ispart of our social practices.From this
exposition of the distinction between speech and languagefollows
that language cannot be studied as an object of biology. In
thehuman biology there is nothing that could possible correspond to
lan-guage. However, biologically we must study the ability to speak
as partof the broader ability (and necessity) to express. Speech
(the ability tospeak) has evolved, but language cannot be said to
have evolved (I havedeveloped this conception in chapter Evolution
of Speech). Languagecan be studied only as a social practice. And
hereby one should not beconfused by the fact that speech
expressions (speech acts) always aremanifestations of language
practices. This like any act of imitationwhich is always a memory
manifestation of previous acts of behavior.By any new speech act a
person draws from language practices andcontributes to language
practices, but at no point does the speakerposses language within
himself, he only possess the ability to partici-pate in the
practice. And by this participation, given the ability, he
ac-quires skills in the language practice (he learns a
language).The connection between the biological ability to speak
and the socialpractices is to be found in a more fundamental
biological ability, name-ly the ability to imitate. It is by
imitating the verbal behavior of otherpeople that a child learns
the language practices of its community, andit is by imitation that
individuals at any stage of life learn and renew thelanguage
patterns by which they express themselves. Thus all the
simi-larities in the way people speak, the expressions they make,
and the
41. Speech and Language37language practices they take part in,
are to be explained by the simplefact that all these are results of
imitations and of remembering.This simple realization that all what
we call language is a functionof imitation and memory makes
redundant all the peculiar theoreticalquestions Chomsky has posed
as the supposedly fundamental questionsthat linguists have to deal
with. These will all be discussed more in de-tail in chapter A
Review of Chomskys Verbal Behavior, but here I willalready bring up
one of them, the most prominent of them: What con-stitutes
knowledge of language? (Cook, Newson 2007: 11 - 131 ; seealso
Chomsky 1986: 6). In the background of the paradigm developedin the
present book, we can now answer the question once and for all. Inmy
conception knowledge of language signifies the possession of
ne-cessary skills and experience to express oneself in a fashion
that corres-ponds with the language practices of a given community
so as to beable to sufficiently well illustrate what one means,
that is, to adequatelyexpress an interpretation of ones feelings
coupled with the ability to in-terpret the verbal behavior of ones
interlocutors, which abilities aremore fundamentally rooted in the
abilities we may call rememberingand imitation. Thus knowledge of
language is not anything we couldpossibly try to describe in
abstraction of the actual verbal behavior inwhich the language
skills are manifested. Correspondingly learning alanguage signifies
the acquisitions of the necessary skills through ex-periencing
actual verbal behavior. A language as it is theoretically de-fined
in abstraction - can never be mastered; all one may master is
onesown skills in verbal expression. I noted that the abilities to
participatein language practices are motivated by the fact that the
skills to partici-pate in language practices are entirely a
function of remembering andimitation; this means that all what we
can say are derived by thesenses, that is, they are derived as
neural reactions to environmentalstimuli. Hereby imitation is
merely a concept by which we call theseneural reactions when
considering them from this particular point ofview; from another
point of view the same neural reactions would becalled memory or
remembering (this also means that I argue thatremembering is only
one aspect of imitation, and vice versa). The sti-muli to which I
referred are the speech expressions and other features ofverbal
behavior (and other aspects of social practices) which we
organi-cally detect. - This is, of course, in marked contrast to
Chomsky whoinsists that knowledge of language is not derived by the
senses but is,as Chomsky says, fixed in advance as a disposition of
the mind (Bo-tha 1991: 42; in reference to Chomsky in 1965:
51).
42. 38The Case Against Noam Chomsky The conception imitation
and its significance to speech has beendiscussed most in detail in
chapter Evolution of Speech, where referenceis also made to the
research of Rizzolatti et al. on the so-called mirrorneuron system.
Remembering/memory is most profoundly discussed inchapter Memory.
There are no languages, but we may conditionally say that there
arelanguage practices, but hereby we may, of course, by way of
abbrevia-tion speak of languages if by that we, indeed, mean
language practic-es. For some reason people experience immense
difficulties in trying tocomprehend the idea of there not being any
languages; for most peoplethe existence of a language seems as the
most natural thing in the world.In fact, this again, is a case of
bewitchment of thinking by our languagepractices: people consider
themselves possessing irrefutable evidence ofthe existence of
languages by the mere fact that they have been raised tothink of
their proper language practices as a thingly entity. The
nominalname by which we refer to language practices, e.g. to those
covered bythe name English, in itself creates and solidifies the
idea that a lan-guage is a thing which we use and share in common.
This is a purelylinguistic fallacy which should be easy to remedy
simply by introducingconceptual clarity by the way of explaining,
as I am doing it, that lan-guage is shorthand for language
practices. We do not speak Eng-lish, but we take part of the
language practices we call English; we donot use English, rather we
express ourselves in imitation (to the bestof our abilities) of the
English language practices: English speakersparticipate in a common
social practice called English. We may wellrefer to the
participation in this social practice by the colloquial speak-ing
English, but scientifically we must realize what is properly
unders-tood by it. Consider that, on the one hand, the Queen of
England andher peers speak English, and on the other hand, so do
the Prime Mi-nister of India and his colleagues, but they all speak
differently, dontthey? The difference is not caused by them using
different languages,rather it is explained by the fact that they
participate in slightly differentlanguage practices. The ability to
speak is innate in humans whereasthe language practices (the
so-called languages) are in no way innate,neither are none of the
speech expressions that cumulate to languagepractices innate.
Speech expressions, all our verbal utterances are ex-clusively
based on the models derived by way of imitating social prac-tices.
And, to note, the very language practices are in constant
flux.
