This guy has never met my friends

[pecunium]

Language, however, puts information first and manipulation second. Suppose I were to explain to you Einstein's theory of relativity, or Chomsky's theory of a biologically based language organ. My purposes in giving you the information might well be that of impressing you, or even ultimately mating with you (although anyone who could be induced to mate by such means would have to be pretty weird).

Adam's Tongue Derek Bickerton p. 48

Comments

[jonquil]

Dude. I'd be unlikely to mate with a guy who couldn't explain, at a high level, at least one of the above. (Granted, I am not currently in the mate-seeking business, nor do I plan to be, Fates willing.)

[pecunium]

Well, I think he's being euphemistic for sex, but yeah.

On a different note, are you in the companion for lunch seeing business, before I wend my way east for the summer?

[jonquil]

I'd love to try. How soon do you go? (I'm still in the sleep-all-day phase of shock, which I hope will end soon.)

[pecunium]

I leave a week from Saturday.

I have Thursday free, but no transport (though I will be in close proximity to Google), and Friday, and some strange mix of time the week after.

What are you in shock about (I have been terribly remiss in keeping up with much of anything)?

[roadnotes]

While those aren't the things I would hope to have a potential mate explain to me, you're right; I'd at least contemplate the possibility, if only fleetingly.

[metawidget]

My first date with rottenfruit was ostensibly to chat about math and music and stuff over breakfast. And we actually did :)

[commodorified.livejournal.com]

*is pretty weird, apparently*

[con-girl.livejournal.com]

I think that he completely right. We are weird, there's nothing wrong with that, and seduceable by such means. Mr. Bickerton is missing out.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

One of the amusing things is an anecdote he relates of of John Wilkes, who had been a severely scarred smallpox victim, and was a noted rake (being an habitué of the Hellfire Club).

He was asked how managed to be so successful, "Give me half an hour, and I can talk away my face."

[con-girl.livejournal.com]

Talking is good. :) Give me intelligent conversations any day.

[harimad.livejournal.com]

I would not want to meet Wilkes but he did have an awesome wit. He long ago fell out with his erstwhile friend Lord Sandwich. They had a famous interchange:
Lord Sandwich: You, Sir, will die of hanging or the pox.[1]
Sir John: That depends, Sir, on whether I embrace your politics or your mistress.


[1] A reasonable forecast, as it happened.

[bunsen-h.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of the "Goodbye, Polumbus" episode of Quark, in which Ficus gives a math lecture to his fantasy girl.

[txanne.livejournal.com]

Men who use language only for information don't get second dates with me. But that's fine, because they tend to find me unnerving, bless their little cotton socks.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I think some of the content is lost in stripping that quotation from context. He isn't saying people don't use it for more than information (in fact he lists non-informational content) but that language, as a thing independent, is merely a means of conveying it.

[charisstoma.livejournal.com]

Biologically wouldn't we want our offspring to have genes that favored intelligence. *smiles* Absolutely nothing weird about that.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Maybe, maybe not.

It's also not proven that glib = intelligent (nor that "intelligent = fit. Look at all the smart people who can't seem to manage in society).

Given the feedback loops in evolution; and the niches we've built for ourselves, the question is really open.

There are, after all, a large body of people who disdain intelligence, and in particular the sort of educated intelligence Bickerton to which Bickerton refers.

[tenacious-snail.livejournal.com]

I would totally go on a date with someone for the purpose of hearing them talk about Chomsky. If they did a good job of it, sure, there would be a good chance of the act of mating, but there are several other very important differences between human beings and animals that you should know about.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

But do they talk about Chomsky on the Discovery Channel?

[sylphslider.livejournal.com]

Language values information and manipulation to an equal degree. You want to convey information, yes, but you also want to get people to act in ways that you want them to act - like "don't touch that" or "please pass the salt" or "vote for Pedro."

I'll happily cop to being "pretty weird." :)

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. Language (to reify it) is purely about information.

People are what value manipulation.

[vvvexation.livejournal.com]

OTOH, language evolved among and was shaped by people, and therefore it doesn't make sense to reify it in a way that suggests it's any more or less than what people make of it.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Even without reifying it, language isn't a thing independent, it's a tool for conveying information. People manipulate language, sometimes to manipulate each other.

Without that intent, language, qua language, can't manipulate. All it is, when distilled, is units of information.

[cavyherd.livejournal.com]

I am pleasantly reminded of the bedroom scene in Contact.

[xinef.livejournal.com]

A couple of weeks ago, we had a chat with a friend who is divorced. She's decided to give okCupid a try, fully recognizing the long odds. Was amused by the quiz, until she got to the question "Which is larger, the earth or the sun?" The wrong answer to this question, she realized, would be a "deal breaker"! Needless to say, I'm sure she'd complete agree with your subject line to this posting, as do I.

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

Questions like that were a deal-breaker for me, too. I am always slightly bemused that I managed to meet my brilliant, sweet, handsome guy on a dating site that so obviously has people in the very shallow end of the intelligence pool.

...not that I didn't get my share of 'want 2 fuk?' messages. Sadly, you do have to deal with your share of boneheads on there.

But the boyfriend, who I've been with for almost 2 1/2 years, is better than anything I'd dreamed of before meeting him.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

The things which amuses me is that brains are the dealmaker. A pretty face/body, may cause me to want to go to bed with someone, and talent may make me want to repeat it, but it's all the trapping of wit which make me want to stay.

Which is why the net has been so good for me, in terms of finding people I am seriously interested in... because form (to paraphrase Wilkes) is lost to the sense of intelligence the written communication of the net makes plain.

[maevele.livejournal.com]

I knew I was weird. I would read fic of people discussing Chomsky, and it would be hawt. brains R sexxxxy

[redbird]

I wonder if he does as well with his partners as I do with the ones I have found, and kept, in part through wide-ranging and sometimes very abstract discussion.

[janetl.livejournal.com]

Harriet Vane and Lord Peter, in Strong Poison:
"If anybody ever marries you, it will be for the pleasure of hearing you talk piffle," said Harriet severely.
"A humiliating reason, but better than no reason at all."

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

Naq fur qvq.

[janetl.livejournal.com]

eventually. Oh, heavens. I need to read that series again.

[starcat-jewel.livejournal.com]

You would be amazed... no, actually, I don't think you would... at the flirtations I've had that were almost completely in subtext while ostensibly discussing something entirely different. A guy who can't do at least a little of that sort of thing is BORING.

[pecunium.livejournal.com]

No, I don't think I would. In person, or on the net.

:)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

One of the loveliest ones I ever had was discussing the Elizabethan use of second person singular vs. second person plural for degrees of formality and intimacy. And he was wearing a lace-trimmed shirt and a pale blue jerkin he'd made himself.

*sigh*

[janetl.livejournal.com]

How do you suppose "Bickerton" is pronounced? One hopes for "bicker-tongue".

[songblaze.livejournal.com]

Heh. No point in a guy I can't have a great conversation with. More particularly, an intelligent, great conversation. Without that, well, relationships just aren't interesting for very long.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

This quote doesn't indicate how close Bickerton considers first and second, or even whether he's considering frequency, or importance.

Yeah, most of my language use is for information exchange -- but also, the vastly major portion of the manipulation I've experienced has been done by means of language. Words can be Powerful, and have great manipulatory/emotional effect. In really skilled users, it may even be the effect intended.

It would seem, however, that Bickerton is not considering the speeches and public statements of Politicians -- many of whom are brilliant at avoiding factual communication in their use of language.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

What's that line in Freedom and Necessity? Something on the order of "We who beat words into swords or teardrops." YES.