Words and Concepts

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JOURNAL OF METAPSYCHOLOGY
431 Burgess Drive, Menlo Park, California 94025

Article 47
October 26, 1989

Words and Concepts

If you want to designate some particular entity (piece of reality -- object, event, or state of affairs), one way to do so is simply to point to it. If you ask me, "Which of those cars is yours?", I need not say anything. I need only point. The essence of this act of pointing is directing your attention to the entity I want you to notice.¹ At the point where you notice the right entity, comprehension has occurred, and the communication is complete. If, however, I respond by pointing only vaguely in the direction of the cars, you would be well justified in asking, "Which car do you mean?", as though I had uttered an incomprehensible utterance. In fact, of course, the essence of any successful communication lies in the fact that the recipient is aware of what the sender intended him to be aware of.

If the entity one wants the other person to attend to is not present or not a discrete object that can readily be pointed to, then it is necessary to use other means of pointing. One way of doing this would be to use pictures or photographs. If someone asks me, "What is your favorite scenic attraction in Paris?", I could reply by showing him a photo of the Eiffel Tower. I don't actually have to go there and point it out.

In fact, the most common way of pointing to entities is with words.

Words as Pointers

Words are pointers to things (entities). The meaning of a word is the entity to which it points. You understand a word, not when you can say other words that constitute a correct definition, but when, on hearing the word, your attention goes to the entity that that word is meant to designate. To be somewhat more precise, the meaning of a word is the potential entity to which it points, because a word (like "unicorn") may refer to something that does not actually exist. We have another name for a potential entity: namely, "concept". A concept is a potential -- or candidate -- fact. It is something that might exist but requires a person's assent in order for that person to consider that it exists. To put it simply, then, the meaning of a word, phrase, or utterance is the concept to which it is meant to direct attention.

How Words Are Learned

When we learned our first words, in all likelihood we started by having things pointed out to us or came to associate the presence of an entity with a word. Perhaps we learned to associate "Mama" with the presence of mother, because the word was used when she was around and not when she wasn't around. Association may be regarded as a type of pointing, in that each of two or more associated items tends to draw attention to the others. If fact, something could point to something else just by being near it. If I want to refer to a certain house, and you are familiar with the house next door, I can first direct your attention to the house with which you are familiar, then say, "It's the one to the right (or left)," and thereby direct your attention to the correct entity.

This is the how new words are learned. If you are familiar with the colors green and blue, I can point to the color bluegreen by saying that it lies between blue and green. This is really no different from pointing to house A and house C and then identifying house B by saying that it lies between the two. Your attention is thereby drawn to the correct entity, just as much as if you actually went to the site and pointed to house B.

The Linguistic Map

A language acts as a map of reality. When you want to indicate a piece of reality (an entity), you can, by speaking words, show where it lies on the linguistic map. When you thus locate things on the map for others, they may then go there -- physically or conceptually -- and experience what you want them to experience. Each time you learn a new word, you acquire a new point on your map. The act of defining a new word is the act of locating a point on the linguistic map with reference to other points on the map, then writing the new point onto the map. This new point can now be used to locate other points. We tend to create and define new words when we find we are continually having to refer to a certain point by referencing two or more other points, like "7 miles south of Tollville and five miles southwest of Greenberg". After awhile, it becomes onerous to continue to repeat this phrase, and you decide to call it "Lewistown". That saves you time and allows you to reference other points with respect to Lewistown.

A person with a large vocabulary has a very detailed linguistic map with which to deal with the world. He can point out entities concisely and with precision. His map is like one of those city maps that comes in the form of a book, with absolutely everything on it. A person with a very limited vocabulary has a map that perhaps has only a few of the major streets and highways on it. He will have difficulty locating things for himself or others.

When you learn a second language, you acquire a second, parallel linguistic map. It is like having one map of San Francisco made by one company and another made by a different company with a different philosophy of map-making. The two maps may be equally detailed, but you may find it easier to find certain things on one map than on the other.

Miscomprehensions

Having a miscomprehension of a word or combination of words is like having a map with a place-name in the wrong location. A person may not run into trouble until he starts using that place-name to find things, at which point he starts encountering incongruities; he gets disoriented and confused. If you find someone in this condition of disorientation, one way of reorienting him is to check to see that his map is correct, or to give him a correct map. Another is to fall back to simple pointing, showing him where things are in the actual world around him: "See that? (Pointing) That's Bradbury Street. See that? (pointing) That's the Mormon Church. Now if you go down Bradbury Street to the church and go left, you will be where you want to be."

Application to Education

These observations are very relevant to the field of education, because when a word or phrase encountered in study is not correctly understood, a wrong point is entered into the student's linguistic map. He does not notice the error at first (if he did, he would not have a miscomprehension, but only a failure of comprehension, perhaps, which he could easily correct). But when he starts trying to understand other words and phrases that reference that word or phrase, he begins to feel disoriented and confused. He also feels blank, because he expects to get a concept from what he is reading, but he cannot, because it does not make sense to him.

The handling is to find the miscomprehension and correct it. This is equivalent to giving the person a correct map. Or you can point out the meaning by showing the person the object being defined, or, at least, a picture or diagram of it. Remember that the ultimate definition of anything consists of taking the person to that thing and pointing at it. That is why pictures, diagrams, and demonstrations are useful in correcting confusion. They serve as "phenomenal anchors" for the concepts the student is absorbing -- things that keep him in touch with reality. We have referred to phenomenal anchors in the past as "mass", and that term will serve as well as any other.

In the absence of such phenomenal anchors or mass, a person will start trying to construct his own mental mass, in the form of mental pictures, to try to orient himself. These mental pictures tend to restimulate other mental pictures, and the result is often the appearance of negative feelings. Besides, the pictures the student gives himself are probably inaccurate and non-contributive to his learning. Giving the student an accurate phenomenal anchor -- a physical mass -- to confront, instead of his own mental mass, allows him to let go of the mental mass and the restimulation at the same time, and the negative feelings tend to vanish.

Summary

In summary, you can minimize the woes of miscomprehension by building the following principles into your teaching methods:

Make sure students know that they must look up every word or phrase of whose meaning they are not entirely certain.
Make sure the materials have a sufficiency of mass (things that can be pointed to) so that the student stays in touch with reality.
Have students regularly create their own physical mass by making demonstrations, using demo kits, clay, or diagrams and sketches, and by applying the data to real-life situations as soon as possible. The best form of demonstration is application.
Teach students to watch for signs of difficulty -- blankness, confusion, disorientation, and negative feelings -- and to handle these manifestations by finding and clearing up all miscomprehensions and by introducing more mass into their process of studying.

Frank A. Gerbode, M.D.
Director, IRM

¹ Since "interest" is simply "directed attention", this is equivalent to saying that the essence of pointing is getting someone interested in something, if only slightly. That is also why interest is necessary for communication.

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