Understanding Language

Today it was investigated what are the factors that make up language. To better understand it, a new language was created with the options of having either actual words mixing in our previous knowledge of already existing ones and sign language, creating different combinations with our hands. Acting needed to be involved which included hand language to further understand what story a group is trying to communicate and express with their own language. This made me realize that not only words can make up a language but also sign language can help emphasize and transform a language into a more understandable form in which other people would be able to comprehend.

What is language?

Language is defined by the way we communicate with each other and send a message through the way of vocal, sign and written language. Distinguishable patterns of symbols and sounds is what makes communication happen and give it meaning. A language can still be a language even if no one speaks it as a language can also be communicated in a written form. The language can also go extinct in terms of the people who originally spoke it, however it can still carry on in different forms. Even if no one understands it, it can still be a language as new ones are made all the time that people dont know about as well as having your own personal language that you create and have the option to share with anyone else.

Discussion

In general, we do need to know the basic definition of a word to understand its meaning, but not literally, like from the dictionary but more from an experience or encounter. Words themselves randomly created dont have meaning until it's given an useful, purposeful meaning necessary to describe something. People claim younger generations dont use the language properly as the use of colloquial language as well as slang, abbreviations and different use of dialect.

Different ways of communicating language

There are other ways of communicating language, as it is a way of expressing yourself. Some of these include art, music, math and code. All of these are different types of ways one can express him/herself as it is something that can be learned and communicate in an understandable way between 2 or more people. All these different methods are social groups in which only people from that group can understand and share ideas, for example if you are a person who hasn't taken any classes in coding, you might not understand what someone who has been learning it for a while is typing.

Language distinguishes from the general idea of communication as every language has rules, a certain type of grammar, vocabulary and dialect. Whereas communication is more a basic way of expressing yourself in whatever way is effective for the comprehension of other people.

Video reflections

Today, we extended our knowledge on the topic of perception by watching multiple videos. In these videos we learned and saw how our brain can be tricked with illusions, with the first one having us think that the objects where three dimensional when they actually weren't. As you rotate the object you could then clearly see it was just a two dimensional piece of paper. Depending on the angle and perspective, the way we see things around can change, this is exactly what happened in the first videos as in a car commercial, various objects were shown and when the camera angle and people themselves changed, you could see how everything we saw, wasn't really the 'reality' of the situation. Some of the videos instead of using the change in angle, used the way our eyes and brain function together to focus on dots, placed in some images in order to manipulate what we were seeing. This included change in color and even making them disappear.

Sense perception

Sense perception was further discussed in this class by exploring multiple videos and images which made us question, "Can we trust our eyes?". Optical illusions as well as perception affected how our brains perceived what was received. One of the examples was the colors, in which apparently women can identity them better and in a wider range.
One of the videos shown asked to count how many hydro-balls where in a transparent cup filled with water. What was not seen apart from the 5 dropped was that there were hundreds of smaller ones floating on top of the cup which in our given angle, could not be seen.
A video about an Einstein structure in which one side was inward and one side was outward, but our brains made it the inward side pop out to make the illusion of it also being outward or in a 3 dimensional position.
A boy who became blind at he age of 3, developed his other senses further and could actually see things in a different way by the use of senses and could feel the vibrations of the things around them and was able to locate all the things around him.

To which extent is human perception limited?

Some of the limitations on human perception can be seen as with sight, you can really see 360 degrees, leading to not being aware of everything that is happening around you, sometimes optical illusions ca trick your brain into thinking that an image is something that might not necessarily be correct, this would be your brain trying to connect past experiences with what you are trying to process in that moment. We all also have a blind spot if you look at something in a specific angle. One can only hear, smell and see something so far which puts limitations into how we perceive the world around us therefore creating a different perspective when looking at something.

Visio

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Perception and knowledge of the world

What are the main points about perception and knowledge of the world?

One uses the abilities to hear, see, and become aware of our surroundings to form our perspective. Perspective is key in understanding how the world works and how we understand things around us. We use it every second of our life to process and filter information whether in school or at home. The brain tends to process everything quickly that not everything is actually information we take in and use, this causes for one to miss out on a lot of things in life. One of the examples can be how we tend to just skip or not taken into full account short words like "of" "as". One can see the world differently or from a different perspective when looking at it on a wider picture and with more attention on details.