Tabula Rasa,

 

The foundational principle of empiricism, is the philosophical notion, that individuals are born empty of any build in mental content and that all knowledge comes from later perceptions or sensory experiences. This is known as tabula rasa or blank slate. I would say, we are not only born in that way, but we also live and we die that way, as there is no such thing, as language inside of us. The Latin term tabula rasa, comes from the Roman tabula, a wax-covered tablet used for notes, which was blanked, rasa, by heating the wax and then smoothing it.

 

Later, in English, it became blank slate or rather erased slate, which refers to the emptiness of a slate, prior to it being written on with chalk. Both the tabula rasa or the blank slate may be renewed repeatedly, by melting the wax of the tablet, or by erasing the chalk on the slate. A stylus, is a sharp tool, to write in the wax, which became chalk on a blackboard. With my Embodied Language (EL), the Latin vocalis –  sounding, sonorous, speaking, vox, voice – is my stylus, with which I create my reality.

 

When you read this writing, you must admit – even if you are almost dead and have wasted your entire life, like Chomsky, on the absurd lie, that language is innate and thus occurs inside of you – these written words are not inside of you, but they are, on this page, in front of you. Therefore, with EL, you’ll find out, that you do not think, but you write, so that you can read, what you have written, and, before you write, you speak, so that you can hear what you have said. I insist, your language is always outside of you, while the sensory experience of who you are, is inside your body. EL is the correct use of language, in which your words are always only outside of you.

 

I have a little, plastic, white board, on which I used to write something new every day, with a sharpy. It hangs on my wall, with a small poem, that stayed…

 

I erase

To put new words in place

This is how I make my case

 

In Disembodied Language (DL), you cannot really talk or write about what you exactly experience and, consequently, you imagine, as if language happens, by itself, inside of you and that this is your so-called chattering mind. This falsehood dissolves, the moment you switch from DL to EL. Such a change is brought about by speaking out loud with yourself about your own experience – whatever it may be – and by listening to your voice while you speak. This simple exercise will put you back in the driving seat of your language. Basically, being in charge of your own language, which is, of course, your EL – but not your DL – is your Language Enlightenment (LE).

 

The idiotic nature versus nurture debate, of course, takes on a completely different form, if it takes place with natural, peaceful, relaxed EL, rather than – as it has always done – with forceful, pretentious, boring DL. Actually, with our EL, there wouldn’t even be any debate anymore, as we would just talk sensibly with each other, about the extent to which all our behavior is hard-wired and genetically determined – which is nature – or if it is the effect of environmental conditions of development – which is nurture. If you had not read these words, which I have written on this blog, you would never be able to consider the difference between your DL and your EL and you would find the irrefutable fact, that language is, of course, overt, that is, in the environment, extreme.  

 

With our joyful EL, it is clear to us, that zealous, political nativists, like Chomsky – who, like so many religiously-blinded, arrogant persons, in spite of all the evidence, stubbornly, unscientifically, continue to believe, that concepts, mental capacities and mental structures are innate, rather than acquired by learning – are the extreme ones and not those, who, like me, have stated, there is no thinking going on inside of us, no covert language, and, no inner behavior-causing self. I salute all behaviorists and behaviorologists, who have claimed this all along, but who, like everyone else, also only engage in DL.

 

I recognize, we are biologically determined, and I don’t see any reason, why we shouldn’t extend this determinism to all our behavior. Yes, our behavior is determined by environmental stimuli and if we miss out on verbal stimuli, in early development, we will never be able to learn, what could only have been learned, if our brain had been stimulated properly. I believe that our usual way of talking and sounding with language – DL – is why a lot of people, me included, are on the autism spectrum. In retrospect, I am sure, I have only learned from, I have only been able to listen to, people who had what I now call EL.

 

Of course, my genetic endowment made it possible, to learn what I have learned, but my psychological traits, aspects of my personality, my knowledge, my wisdom, my social and my emotional behavior, were not, were not – yes, you read it twice – imprinted by my environment onto my so-called mind – like the stylus would write on the tabula rasa – but it first had an effect on how I came to listen and speak and, then, later, on how I learned to write and read.  I grew up in the Netherlands, therefore, I learned Dutch and my language – and not some imaginary, non-existing mind – was, obviously effected by my environment. The tabula rasa makes it very clear, that these written words are here, outside of you.

 

Did you know the locomotion of cats is very unique? Their gait is always balanced and in a straight line, right-front/left-back forward and left-front/left-back forward. They did research on kittens being exposed to environments, which consisted only of horizontal or straight lines and they found that cats, who were raised in environments with only horizontal stripes, they grew up, to become blind to vertical lines and  constantly bumped into the legs of chairs, whereas cats that were raised in environments, where they only saw vertical lines, they became blind to seeing horizontal lines and they couldn’t jump on the seat. Obviously, nobody would consider these horizontal or vertical lines to be inside the kitten’s head.

 

As I already stated, how can we begin to accurately determine, which influence is nature and which one is nurture, if we don’t even realize, that we will bias our results with our DL? Since we have never even acknowledged the difference between DL and EL, we engage in DL by default, and, consequently, we are inclined to be biased towards dispositional over situational influences. Surely, we are genetically determined, but we are not born with innate mental content, because there never was, there never is and there never will be language in our brain. All language is outside of our body or, as we say, in the environment, that is, we can say it, hear it, write it or read it. Therefore, we are tabula rasa, before and after we have spoken, listened, written or read, but also, while we speak, listen, write or read. This is our LE.