Tuesday 30 October 2007

Do ideas pre-exist?

"Although it is widely conceded that the problems infants show in acquiring correct speech are primarily
motor control problems rather than perceptual problems, there has been little effort to develop a coherent theory of acquisition of speech motor control,
" excerpt from the announcement of a discovery of The University of Texas at Austin researchers about the origins of speech.


What does that mean? Is perception irrelevant to speech acquisition? If we accept that what separates correct from non-correct speech is due to differences in motor control mechanics than a developed perception of the environment, this might be taken as a hint towards the idea, that concepts and ideas, for which the speech among other forms of expression facilitate, pre-exist irrespective of the development of the particular mode of expression, the thought process included.

Ideas being transcendental. Plato's far-off realm where ideas exist independently of anyone who may have thought of them. The inheritance through reminiscence from a previous state of existence. If perception is dis-associated from acquiring and developing speech, this assumption points toward the thought that ideas are not the refined products of our sensuous or sensory faculties. We do not need to proceed via the percepts to concepts pathway. We might gradually acquire a grasp of concepts and ideas as our speech and other forms of exploring our surroundings develop, but ideas and concepts pre-exist. The mind which we develop being the product of the process to which our brain is engaged to, as it acts as the conduit that connects our consciousness with the transcendental realm of ideas.

We arrive to knowledge already there, which might have been there even before the dawn of humanity.

Thursday 25 October 2007

Brain, the conduit

The brain is the conduit tuned to these special kind of waves that confer to the carrier its special qualities. Evolution has produced in its development the human brain with the right size and the right structure that made possible the connection with a plane of existence alien with its surrounding world.