The Prime Mover problem (NEW CONCEPTS)

[Edwin]

In both orthodox and AE theories on origins we have the problem facing creationists and scientists alike. What came before?

So the AE theory of language takes us back and back but like Achilles and the Tortoise with Achilles never passing the tortoise the innumerable accretions necessary to create a language never have a starting point that can be established.

The Achilles problem is solved by departing from calculation to reality and watching the Greek boy flash past the tortoise. It also possible to solve by the use of The Calculus and its power to enable the summing of infinite series..

We know English happened because it did and because it exists now it must have existed in the past. This much is true from observation but how much more satisfying if we could establish this truth from "calculation".

It may be that Boolean Algebra with a dash of Dodgson's Symbolic Logic will give us the tools for the job. This is something I plan to examine next.

[Ishmael]

Great. Sounds exciting!

Get to it.

[Edwin]

To make a start perhaps we should define language. For me a language has to be more than a warning shout, it must express links between ideas. Thus a general shriek of a bird that there is a hawk about may not be a language but if it expresses not only the danger but the source of the danger then it does verge on being a language.

Dogs can understand words, especially words in context, but to decide how far they understand language is difficult because they are supremely good at context and body language. Perhaps that is a clue to our own use of language in that people understand each other much better face to face than they do via email. Smilies are an attempt, of course, to add some "body language".

If we take the basis of language as we know it to be a word for a thing and a word for an action then we have Noun and Verb in Boolean or A^B in symbolic logic. However this is not enough for a language because the language that one individual speaks must be intelligible by another.

So to A^B we must add a concept of mutual understanding but one that is limited to a specific group because intelligibility within a group must imply unintelligibility outside the group. Thus we exclude the cry of a baby for food, for example, from language.

In Boolean: Language = Noun and Verb if (Group understanding) and not (Ex-group understanding or Universal Cry)

[Edwin]

An immediate result of this definition of language is to raise the question as to whether there was a "Prime Mover" of an Indo-European language. If we assume that language develops through necessity and immediate inter-action then it cannot be related to the language of another group except where they meet.

Perhaps then we should see the I-E language "family" as a quilt of languages sewn together which makes their subsequent division again into separate languages inevitable. Please understand that the language quilt is a mental construct and need not ever have existed in reality.

[Ishmael]

[Mick Harper]

Phew! Thanks, Ishmael, I suspected it was but couldn't follow the argument sufficiently to be dogmatic. For goodness sake don't append a reason in case this is true of you too. Edwin's gone so we can relax our intellectual standards somewhat. He was like that other bloke, the New Zealander. Fair put the wind up me he did.

[Ishmael]

Reason it is bunk:

Sandstone is made from sand, which is made from sandstone, which is...

[Mick Harper]

Like I said, best not give a reason.