The Naming Ape Introduction Pass 1.5

INTRODUCTION:

The idea to be explored here in the entries which will for the time being be connected under the title (perhaps too cutely) The Naming Ape, is that Humans are simply animals fundamentally indistinguishable from other animals. In this regard one of the things which does distinguish humans in our use of language, and specifically how we filter our experiences through language and naming living more within out conceptualizations than the actual world we inhabit. This for the time being raises three prime questions in my mind, many more no doubt to be added as I go. Firstly how did we develop our systems of naming and how does it influence and effect our experience of the world? Secondly how do animals experience the world around them without the mitigation of language and conceptualization? Thirdly how might we understand those aspects of the world which we currently comprehend in a conceptualized fashion free of these concepts and filters? These are all complex questions which no doubt draw on various areas of study which are outside of my expertise, historical, anthropological, neurological, and I will attempt to address them as best I can, but it is of course also important to identify and accept the limitations inherent in any project.

The Usefulness of Conceptualizations

I do not mean for my attack on the human action of conceptualization to be taken as a devaluing of it. The truth is that on a day to day basis conceptualizing the world around us is not only a necessary part of living in the world but is most likely the cause of the success of the human species in competing with other possible apex species on the planet. The use of concepts is what has allowed us to store large amounts of information in our brains and draw conclusions about current and likely future experiences from those in our past. We do not need to remember all parts about all things but can instead extrapolate from the particular to the general. We are able to categorize and systematize our knowledge about the world. The problem comes in through our mistake in believing our concepts, categories, and systems reveal essential truths about the world and are more than the useful tools developed through generations of trial and error, and empirical investigation, through the process of evolution as those ancestors whose brains favored certain mental processes over other succeeded and passed such preferences down to us today. [This claim of an evolutionary source for our mental processes may seem strange, perhaps it does not, I intend to discuss this further later on but to quickly address it; Those ancestors whose brain structures allowed them a more accurate and complete mental representation of the world around them succeeded to a greater extent than did others and so had more children etc. This is how human beings came to be predominantly visual in their experiences of the world, no doubt somewhere along the chain there were those who relied more on their hearing, or sense of smell perhaps, to tell them about the world. There are obvious benefits to these systems and obvious detriments, bats and dogs for example have found a niche with in them.] (This section will likely be removed and expanded elsewhere) We mistake our limited understanding of the world around us, filtered through our preconceived categories, concepts, and systems, for reality because we mistake our categories, concepts, and systems for reality. Perhaps one of the most striking examples of this behavior is found in our system of categorization for animal life. In the 18^th century our brightest minds led by Linnaeus began replacing the Aristotelian taxonomy with a standardized binomial system for naming all organisms. This was a noble effort and one which provided the foundation for many great advances of our understanding of the world around us, including Darwin's revolutionary description of how such distinctions developed over time. Now however through the discovery of genetics and DNA we are able to map this development more precisely and see where our past system of classification broke down placing animals together according to physiological similarities which in truth developed independently of one another most likely in response to similar external factors. It was the discovery of the process of change over time itself however which put the nail in the coffin of the system of categorization as an accurate depiction of reality. This does not negate the essential usefulness of the system, but only its reliability as a source of truth.