For a while now, I’ve been going through the Pimsleur language CDs program for French. I was listening to one on the bus the other day and it got to the explanation as to how you put verbs in past tense; how to say, “I bought something” as opposed to “I am buying something.” In essence, you put the verb “have” in front of the verb, like “I have bought something.” (It’s not quite that simple but that’s the gist.) This is pretty similar to English, where adding “have” puts the experience in the past. If you say, “I have eat something” it sounds like baby talk but gets the point across.

This is an interesting role for the word “have” isn’t it? We think f have as denoting ownership, like “I have a cat.” It’s almost implied that by experiencing something we take ownership of it. We own the experience of having eaten.

And how about future tense? In French, like english, you add the verb for “going.” For example, “I am going to eat a sandwich” makes clear the act will take place in the future. Again, this is curious. We tend to first think of “going” as traveling through space but here it’s almost like you’re saying “I am traveling through time into the future and there I will eat a sandwich.”

I’d be curious how this problem (how to place an action in the past or future) is handled in different languages. It would be quite interesting if all cultures used the same techniques but I’m almost certain that isn’t true. (I seem to recall reading about some tribal culture that really didn’t differentiate between the past and present or future—it was happening in some giant “now.”)

Language, as Wittgenstein noted, really gives illumination into the mind. And our thoughts are limited to the words we can use to express them.

I continue reading “The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind.” Early in the book the author Jaynes makes the extraordinary remark that “Consciousness is not neccesary for learning.” He backs this up with interesting studies that show people improving in different skill sets but not really knowing why or consciously directing their efforts.

This shouldn’t sound too crazy. As a kid you first get on a bike and travel a wobbly path down the driveway. You do this for several days and you’re less wobbly. You do it every day for a year and you’re even better. Your balance improves, you more smoothly push the pedals etc. But you didn’t really direct yourself to improve, you simply did. You unconsciously made various micro adjustments to your riding technique and it got better and better.

Of course, that previous paragraph isn’t quite right. When you get on the bike you do have some advice, usually from you screaming parents, that you are conscious of. And you may even conscioussly try different ideas as you work to improve (“what of I push down hard with lef while relaxing this one.”) It seems fair to say that you are somewhat conscious of learning but, nonetheless, a large part of it is unconsciouss. I am very unaware of exactly how I perform many of the tasks I perform daily. If someone had asked me a minute ago how many fingers I use to type I would have been in the dark. I probably would have guessed four, but I now notice that it’s mostly two.

In a way, the idea that learning is largely unconscious is encouraging. Basically, we just need to do something over and over and we will get better at it. But, the whole idea of conscious, directed learning is that we can find shortcuts to become better, faster and also not learn bad habits. Years ago, I read a pretty interesting article by jazz guitarist Tuck Andress about picking technique. He went into quite a lot of detail and I have, rather lackadaisically, been trying to apply his advice, or at least be more conscious about how I pick a guitar string. In that case I’m “consciously” trying to learn.

But the whole point with conscious learning is to try and get the skills into your subconscious. If you have to think about how to do a task, you will probably screw it up. (The Far Side once nailed this.)

All of this points to a more disturbing realization: that we don’t consciously control our actions and lives to the degree that we think. And I suspect Jaynes has more to say on that in later chapters.

A great question that arose once I started reading about the brain and brain disorders is this: what is the difference between a psychopath and a sociopath? Both terms are thrown around in pop culture, generally to mean, “a person with really fucked up morals (or a lack of them.)” But these are two different terms—something must separate them, yes?

I researched this question on the web a few years ago and found very little useful information. Generally I got the impression that psychopaths were somehow worse than sociopaths, but exactly how was unclear.

I was discussing the topic with a friend recently and we looked it up again and found this article. It makes things a bit clearer, though not completely. One point.

Sociopathy, while severely the less understood of the two disorders, can be congenital or acquired. Psychopathy, meanwhile, is generally considered a confluence of genetic and chemical imbalances.

So, psychopaths are born psychopaths, not made that way. So, would serial killer Henry Lee Lucas who was raised in an environment of unbelievable neglect be a sociopath? Maybe, though I’ve always heard him described as a psychopath.

Another point of distinction:

Psychopaths lack the proper neurological frameworks to develop a sense of ethics and morality. Sociopaths interact with their social worlds in a meaningful way, but their moral compasses needed a massive tune-up yesterday.
…
while psychopathy and sociopathy both likely involve impaired cognitive function, the two differ in which circuits are affected. Psychopaths are fearless; sociopaths aren’t. Psychopaths don’t have a sense of right and wrong; sociopaths do.

So the main difference would seem to be that sociopaths understand what they are doing is wrong and they just don’t care, whereas psychopaths don’t really understand that they are in the wrong. This still seems a little vague but is clearer than it used to be in my mind.