TOWARDS CONSCIOUSNESS: ONTOLOGY, LANGUAGE, AND INTELLIGENCE

In: Advances in Research of Human Consciousness.
Windsor, Canada: International Institute for Advanced Studies in Systems Research and Cybernetics, 39-43, 1994.

Ross A. Gagliano

Department of Mathematics and Computer Science

Georgia State University

Atlanta, Georgia 30303-3083

USA

Tel: (404) 651-2253

FAX: (404) 651-2246

email: matrag@gsusgi2.gsu.edu

Abstract

A linguistic approach based on the work of Gough is described that strengthens the bridge between our understanding of intelligence and that of consciousness. Based on Gough's notion of a primal language, the approach shows how the first levels of perception, and perhaps much of what we have come to know as intelligence, are rooted strongly in language. The approach led to the Indexical Symbol Object Language (ISOL) which mirrors how humans, independent of a particular natural language, "parse their world." As a result, perceptions become a direct consequence of this idealized coherent interanimated indexical network which can then serve as a means to gauge the ontological dimension of consciousness.