Why do we talk?

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

There's just not one main reason. It's more instinctual than anything else, like for example have you ever been around a small kid who is a late talker? It's pretty annoying even if you are a quiet, introverted/reflective person that can deeply understand and respect why somebody doesn't want to say anything. Talking gives other people energy.

Anyways if somebody is being too quiet, they could just be around assholes that would treat them like shit for expressing themselves or something (ie once bitten, twice shy)... in that case ppl need love and hugs and puppy dog kisses. <3

[Olduvai]

this is a masturbatory discussion

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origin_of_language

[TheWholeEnglish]

I broke telepathy machine nd now haz 2 talk?!?!?!? Iz so horrible guyz! Feelz lyk 1982.

[lagerdemon]

Bc ppl have brains n we r like billions of islands that have desire to unite with other islands and we are gregarious. Evn introverted extraverts n introverted introverts

[Pookie]

The mind uses symbols to understand what it thinks it sees. Language is a metaphorical symbol to give meaning to ideas in the mind. You name it, to remember it and communicating it to your inner circle helps those closest to you understand.

We talk because it helps keep us alive as a species.

[ashlesha]

Sure that is a drive in American culture today, but we also largely have our survival needs taken care of and are free to spend our time musing on how to correctly assert our oppinion on the internet rather than fiding our next meal.

i'm pretty sure spirituality existed before things like agriculture.
and self-expression is in the way you flex your muscles and cock your chin as you drag a female back to your cave. maybe not a conscious concern, but its there.

[JWC3]

i'm pretty sure spirituality existed before things like agriculture.
and self-expression is in the way you flex your muscles and cock your chin as you drag a female back to your cave. maybe not a conscious concern, but its there.

Agriculture is something that happens well after realizing you need to eat.

[ashlesha]

Agriculture is something that happens well after realizing you need to eat.

i was looking for a reasonable line after which people were capable of being well fed on a regular basis.

[ashlesha]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evoluti...gy_of_religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_religion
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prehistoric_music

[JWC3]

i was looking for a reasonable line after which people were capable of being well fed on a regular basis.

In that case I believe there is evidence of burial rites pre dating agriculture. I would in general assume agriculture does not pre date speech/communication.

[ashlesha]

we come out of the womb crying. does anything predate communication?

you've been saying that spirituality and self expression are only possible in a modern and physically comfortable environment. i've showed you how that's false. there really isn't anything left to say. unless i'm misunderstanding you.

[JWC3]

we come out of the womb crying. does anything predate communication?

you've been saying that spirituality and self expression are only possible in a modern and physically comfortable environment. i've showed you how that's false. there really isn't anything left to say. unless i'm misunderstanding you.

I'm talking about syntax specifically. The same way that children don't come out of the womb practicing social rituals I doubt man crawled out of the ocean and started praying. Either way though, you didn't demonstrate that as false, you demonstrated that "sprituality" (read social rituals) can predate agriculture, and they do.

That's not really relevant to my point. Not to insult you or anything, but that's just a strawman. I'm talking about figuring out how to feed yourself, that doesn't, nor have I ever implied that it does, necesitate agriculture.

[ashlesha]

I'm talking about syntax specifically. The same way that children don't come out of the womb practicing social rituals I doubt man crawled out of the ocean and started praying. Either way though, you didn't demonstrate that as false, you demonstrated that "sprituality" (read social rituals) can predate agriculture, and they do.

That's not really relevant to my point. Not to insult you or anything, but that's just a strawman. I'm talking about figuring out how to feed yourself, that doesn't, nor have I ever implied that it does, necesitate agriculture.

if people communicated nonverbally to express social rituals, spirituality, emotions, and self-expression before people were able to get enough food on a regular basis, then how do you argue that getting enough food is a prerequisite to communicating verbally about those same things?

(i feel like i keep repeating myself)

nonverbal emotional expression -> food -> verbal pragmatic expression without an expressive component -> verbal emotional expression???????????????????????????????????????? ???

[pluie]

I don't really think it is a simple question. Are you talking cause and effect or what motivates us to talk? That's a place to start elaborating. Make sense?

It was about 5 years ago, I asked myself this question. A simple question, but no one could answer it for me.

Now I believe that with the help of socionics, I can answer it.

At first I thought it was to compare our values with others to be reassured that we are good people.

Now I think we talk because we want others to help us see the positive side of the perspectives that we value in the negative.
For example, if I complain about being tired while at work, I want people to help me take better care of my health.

[anndelise]

From what little I've read:
Our communication abilities developed as we learned how to intentionally and procedurally make and use tools. We were becoming mimetic cultures through this process. This is how we passed on information to others, initially focusing on how to do something, or To do something. (Such as a call signaling what kind of threat was there with a culturally learned response to the call/signal.)

(Our abilities to fully verbally language communicate came a little later. (Beyond calls and signals and tones.))

Art, ritual, spirituality, etc developed as we developed into symbolic cultures. This allowed us to pass on what something was, its qualities, etc. I'm sure this included self-expression.

[JWC3]

if people communicated nonverbally to express social rituals, spirituality, emotions, and self-expression before people were able to get enough food on a regular basis, then how do you argue that getting enough food is a prerequisite to communicating verbally about those same things?

(i feel like i keep repeating myself)

nonverbal emotional expression -> food -> verbal pragmatic expression without an expressive component -> verbal emotional expression???????????????????????????????????????? ???

Agriculture is not the earliest example of humans being able to care for their physical well being consistently. That's why it's not relevant. There exist plenty of cultures even today who don't farm.

Also, yes, you are repeating yourself. Also there is no evidence that indicates that the earliest (known) social rituals where exclusively nonverbal for any length of time. Or verbal for that matter.

[TheWholeEnglish]

Bc ppl have brains n we r like billions of islands that have desire to unite with other islands and we are gregarious. Evn introverted extraverts n introverted introverts

Das rite b/c 1 time i c island nd sed 2 sumbody "das a island!"

[ashlesha]

Agriculture is not the earliest example of humans being able to care for their physical well being consistently. That's why it's not relevant. There exist plenty of cultures even today who don't farm.

Also, yes, you are repeating yourself. Also there is no evidence that indicates that the earliest (known) social rituals where exclusively nonverbal for any length of time. Or verbal for that matter.

i'm trying to talk about self-expression that isn't for pragmatic purposes...why do you keep changing that to "social ritual?"

what i'm saying is obvious so we must be talking about different things. people obviously communicated nonverbally for various reasons before they communicated verbally.

[JWC3]

i'm trying to talk about self-expression that isn't for pragmatic purposes...why do you keep changing that to "social ritual?"

what i'm saying is obvious so we must be talking about different things. people obviously communicated nonverbally for various reasons before they communicated verbally.

I change it to social ritual because that's all whoever found the burial sites dared assume. There is no way to know if burial rituals had any spiritual aspect or if they were strictly social. There actually isn't a whole lot of evidence that nonverbal communication came first. It's easy to assume that it did, however all the aspects of verbal communication disintegrate over time after death so there is no way of knowing exactly when man developed the ability to say "Hello" or if we've just had the equipment for it the entire time and only recently developed syntax to accompany it.

In anycase, to put this discussion into chronological perspective. The neolithic revolution was about 15k years ago, you can go ahead and double that if you want and say that maybe like some weird individual was working on farming another 15k years before that but it didn't gain popularity until 12k BC. So you've got farming at about 30k years ago. You have the earliest undisputed burial rite at about 40k years ago. You have early man practicing presistence hunting at an estimated 2 million years ago. So one of the earliest methods of survival predates our knowledge of any sort of social or spiritual aspect of our lives by about 1.96 million years.

You could take the earliest social ritual, double it's age, double it again, then double it two more times and you'd be right around the age of the oldest spear point.

[krieger]

are you people still talking.

[Destroypuppy]

Why, what is our motivation to talk, and how and why is it satisfying or not. What are we looking for in a conversation.

[lagerdemon]

Das rite b/c 1 time i c island nd sed 2 sumbody "das a island!"

Yaya cuz everyone need frenzzzzz
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y_2elQKdA_I

[lagerdemon]

I change it to social ritual because that's all whoever found the burial sites dared assume. There is no way to know if burial rituals had any spiritual aspect or if they were strictly social. There actually isn't a whole lot of evidence that nonverbal communication came first. It's easy to assume that it did, however all the aspects of verbal communication disintegrate over time after death so there is no way of knowing exactly when man developed the ability to say "Hello" or if we've just had the equipment for it the entire time and only recently developed syntax to accompany it.

In anycase, to put this discussion into chronological perspective. The neolithic revolution was about 15k years ago, you can go ahead and double that if you want and say that maybe like some weird individual was working on farming another 15k years before that but it didn't gain popularity until 12k BC. So you've got farming at about 30k years ago. You have the earliest undisputed burial rite at about 40k years ago. You have early man practicing presistence hunting at an estimated 2 million years ago. So one of the earliest methods of survival predates our knowledge of any sort of social or spiritual aspect of our lives by about 1.96 million years.

You could take the earliest social ritual, double it's age, double it again, then double it two more times and you'd be right around the age of the oldest spear point.

Ya its interesting to see how much popularity farming has gained just in the last 10,000 years. You would think people would be ok with leading short, unstable lives hunting and gathering and dying of malnutrition when game was rare but no, surprisingly they actually want to build homes and have property and work in the fields and trade crops and shit in the same shithole year after year. But then, clint eastwoods spaghetti westerns characters were completely fictional and charles darwin slept with israeli regardie night aftr night...sooo

[golden]

Possibilities: Because language is constitutive of reality. The brain and language have co-evolved and continue to do so. We have linguistically scaffolded to a point where now we are dependent on language.

[TheWholeEnglish]

Yaya cuz everyone need frenzzzzz
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y_2elQKdA_I

I'm not your fucking friend.

[leckysupport]

vanity.

I'm starting to believe that "art as self expression" = vanity and bad art.

[Aylen]

We talk to share important information and gain understanding as this video clearly shows.