Soon after the new part of the brain began to produce thoughts-and-words about man’s physical environment, and so as to make his existence therein more comfortable and lengthy, older parts, (involved with emotions), took note. At the first opportunity when the machinery involved in word-production was momentarily not in use, they leaped in and appropriated it as pertinent to their interest, which would result in a man’s speech going from, “The new water hole is one day’s walk to the left of the red mountains,” to “I am so sad and my mate died last year.”
The newer, abstract-dealing, fact-wheeling part of the brain might say: “Here is how you make fire,” while the older, further down, farther back emotional-recorder part of the brain might say: “Look at me, this is what depression is.” Verbal conveyance of practical information about living is one use of words. Talking about how you feel about living is another separate one. Knowing how to create fire is valuable to anyone, and verbally describing your emotions seems useful to most, but not to all.
Words have enabled men to construct in their head a non-tangible, holographic picture of the physical reality around them and to abstractly turn it about and imagine it first this way, and then that. Thus they make practical plans for beneficial alterations of the environment without having to go through the less efficient process of physical trial and error. That is one use of words; but words have also constructed in men’s heads a picture of a reality that never existed in the first place, which is the mind’s ability to picture what the words mean regarding: ”One day’s walk to the left of the red mountains” is not the same as the pictures that float in men’s minds triggered by words strung together. “I am the type of man who does not suffer fools gladly,”or: “Justice will prevail after death and the day of judgment.”
When words talk about wood and wheat, they mean something. When they talk about you and other people, they have no idea what they are talking about – nor are they required to, (which is why a few people want to do The Thing).
J.