Chapter 22 — Language and Reference: Words as References to Knowledge

Language begins as Signals.

Spoken words arrive as sound Signals.

Written words arrive as visual Signals.

The sound or written shape of a word does not contain everything the word can bring to mind.

After its meaning has been learned, the content of the word can Reference Tags and knowledge islands.

A Word Is Not the Concept

Consider the word:

car

The three letters do not contain the shape of a car, the sound of an engine, the procedure for driving, memories of particular cars, or the experience of riding in one.

The written word is only a small visual Signal pattern.

However, if you understand the word, its content can Reference the much larger group of Tags representing cars.

In simplified form:

word Signal → word Tag → Reference to related knowledge

A small Signal can therefore help activate a large amount of stored information.

Words Acquire Meaning Through Learning

A child may recognize a dog before learning the word dog.

The child may already have Tags for the animal’s appearance, barking, movement, touching its fur, and pleasure or fear.

Adults repeatedly say dog when the animal is present.

Through learning, the sound Tag for dog becomes Hard-Linked to Tags related to the animal.

The word then gains useful meaning.

Later, the child can hear dog even when no animal is present. The word’s content can Reference the existing dog knowledge island.

Language does not always create the original concept. It can provide a learned way to reach, communicate, and think about that concept.

The Same Word Reaches Different Knowledge

Consider the word:

tax

For someone with little tax knowledge, the word may activate only a few Tags.

For an experienced tax preparer, the same word can Reference thousands of Tags involving forms, rules, calculations, clients, deadlines, and procedures.

The external word is nearly the same for both people.

What becomes available depends on what already exists in each brain.

The word provides content for the Reference. The person’s existing Tags and knowledge determine what can be found.

A Sentence Provides Several References

Now consider:

Mom knows quantum mechanics.

The sentence contains several pieces of content.

Mom can Reference the knowledge island representing your mom.

Quantum mechanics can Reference a separate knowledge island.

Mom knows quantum mechanics provides content describing a relationship between them.

You can understand the sentence even if your Mom island has never been directly Hard-Linked to your quantum-mechanics island.

The sentence brings the relevant content into the same active situation.

If you accept and remember the information, a new Tag may form:

Mom knows quantum mechanics.

That Tag may become Hard-Linked to the Mom island.

Language can therefore do more than activate existing knowledge. It can also provide content used to form new Tags and Hard-Links.

Context Helps Select the Meaning

The same word can have different meanings.

Consider:

bank

It may mean a financial institution. It may also mean the side of a river.

Compare:

I deposited money at the bank.

We sat on the river bank.

The word bank is the same, but the other words provide different context.

The brain must process the sentence content to determine which Tags and knowledge island are relevant.

This also happens with words such as he, she, it, this, that, here, and there.

If someone says, He bought it, the words alone are not enough. The current situation and previously active Tags are needed to determine who he is and what it means.

Reference therefore depends on both stored knowledge and current context.

Grammar Provides Relationship Content

Words help reach relevant Tags, but their order also matters.

Consider:

The dog chased the boy.

The boy chased the dog.

Both sentences contain the same main concepts: dog, boy, and chase.

But they do not describe the same event.

Word order and learned grammar patterns provide content about the relationship among the Tags.

A person may have learned a familiar pattern:

actor + action + object

The words fill different positions in that pattern.

Grammar does not merely activate the dog, boy, and chase Tags. It helps the brain process who performed the action and who received it.

Language Can Reference What Is Not Present

Someone can say:

Remember the restaurant we visited five years ago.

The restaurant is not physically present.

The words can still Reference Tags for the place, food, people, emotions, and events.

Language can direct thought toward a distant place, a person who has died, something that happened in the past, something that may happen in the future, or something that has never physically existed.

The immediate Signals may consist only of sounds or written marks, but their learned content can reach knowledge far beyond those Signals.

Language Can Combine Existing Knowledge

Consider:

Mom is standing on Mars.

You do not need to have seen this event.

The sentence can activate Tags for Mom and Mars and combine their content into a new imagined situation.

This does not make the statement true.

It only makes the combination available for thought.

Language can therefore contribute to reasoning, planning, imagination, and creativity by bringing different Tags and knowledge islands into the same active situation.

Language Allows Knowledge to Be Shared

Words can also help one person form knowledge from another person’s experience.

Someone may explain:

Do not eat that plant. It is poisonous.

The listener does not need to eat the plant and become sick before learning the danger.

The language Signals provide content that can form new Tags and Hard-Links in the listener.

This allows knowledge to pass between people without everyone repeating the original experience.

Writing allows the same information to remain available after the original speaker is gone.

The STLR Proposal

STLR does not treat words as the storage location of all human knowledge.

Words are learned sound or visual patterns. Once their meanings have been learned, their content can be used to Reference Tags and knowledge islands.

A sentence provides several pieces of content. The brain processes the words, grammar, current situation, and existing knowledge to determine what becomes relevant.

Language can therefore:

• Reference existing knowledge
• bring separate knowledge islands into the same active situation
• describe relationships among Tags
• help form new Tags and Hard-Links
• communicate knowledge about things that are not present
• support increasingly abstract thought

The information is not all contained inside the physical sounds or written marks.

Their learned content helps the brain reach and process the knowledge needed in the current situation.

This ability allows modern language to carry learning far above the original Signal level.