There is an important book by Terrence Deacon _Symbolic Species: The
Co-evolution of Language and the Human Brain_. Appart from a substantial
explanation of the evolution of the brain, it also tries to explain the
development of the language using Peirce's sign theory. The bottom line is:
human beings' intellectual leap was possible because of the new way of
conceiving the world, i.e. through use of symbols, most importantly language.
But, to return to the discussion started by John and Martin, the points I
would like to make are: a) all systems of symbols are not language(s); b)
the use and/or the context determines when something could and should be
understood as a symbol (such as John's model of an airplane and most of the
pictures in the film); c) mental images, just as many other mental
processes, are not neccessarily symbols, as long as they do not have
strictly verbal/linguistic form.
If I imagine climbing the mountain, part of it would be verbal (ie.
symbolic), but part of it not. This non-symbolic part would consist of
mental images that wouldn't correspond to anything outside my brain (I
wouldn't think of exact configuration of the terrain, shapes of rocks, size
of the trees etc. that would have any referent in the *outside world*). And
the exact memory of some previous mountain-climbing is out of the question
- it is impossible to store all the various experiences (*real* and
symbolic alike) in brain. So, even if memory and learning are based on
symbolic activity of the brain, mental images, in my opinion, can be
non-symbolic.
Signs have one-to-one correspondence: architect's drawings can be mapped
onto the finished building. Mental models do not have such a one-to-one
correspondence; they are not only 'making the world present to our minds',
but also making use of analogy, abduction, induction and other mental tools
that helps us in making inferences about the world (see, for instance,
Holyoak's and Thagard's book _Mental Leaps_). Thus mental models make use
of signs but the result cannot be reduced to a sign.
Cheers,
Boris
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"Contrariwise," continued Tweedledee, "if it was so, it might be; and if it
were so, it would be: but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic."
Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
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