Do Words Hurt?

Wang Tang
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

Can you or BDBinc or someone on that side of the argument please outline what exactly you are arguing. I am having a hard time following what your argument is but I genuinely want to understand your side.

Standard form would be nice, with Premise 1, Premise 2,... Conclusion.

Thanks.

But you following LM's original premise, premise 2 and his conclusion?
His conclusion was that to make verbal abuse not hurt the person he imagined the words separated from their meaning, in isolation (not even in the mind of the person). But we don't know how these words came to be without mind/thought/sense. I have left him some questions regarding his ideas but haven't yet got answers.
I am arguing in context to LM"s Claim verbal abuse does not hurt eg of verbal abuse case and suicide,( as far as we know jibbersih was not used and both persons had minds).
I think I can also argue using my personal experience that verbal abuse(words) hurts the person.

reply to post by BDBinc



I don't recall the OP's original #2 premise.

I'm just . . . near . . . outraged at the idea that words don't hurt and I'm incredulous that he thinks they are not hard-wired/coded in the brain.

Certainly folks--at least some folks . . . can be TAUGHT to detach themselves--particularly emotionally--from the weighty impact of hurtful words spewed by ignorant jerks not in close relationship.

Some can even be taught to distance their emotional health from the impact of hurtful words flung at them by those close to them.

But usually, ATTACHMENT DISORDER is soooooooo epidemic . . . it's a long row to hoe to get to that point of serenity and resilience in the face of horrific WORDS.

reply to post by BO XIAN


I found LM's posts unclear as to why he thinks words don't hurt(in context of course words with mind and meaning for without there are no words to be sensed or thought of).
I was noting Wang Tang's bias .
There was LM"s last premise, one about words without mind, I believe in that premise LM claimed to be mindless.

reply to post by BDBinc



LOL.

Whether folks claim to be so or not . . .

sometimes the brazen display is quite startlingly convincing. LOL.

It's difficult for this psychologist to read such blather and keep reminding myself that the writer pretends to hold themselves out as extremely rational, erudite, lofty, superior, bright, clever etc. and their assertions to make sense . . .

. . . while I read their writing and am shocked that they'd think such blather made the least bit of rational sense about the topic at hand, at all.

reply to post by BO XIAN


I can see the general ideas behind your side of the argument but it was still hard for me to follow most likely because I'm not as smart as you or most people here. In order for me to understand things I have to see them stripped down to the bare bones and straightforward or else it doesn't make any sense. It seems to me like you listed 12 conclusions instead of 11 premises leading up to 1 conclusion, and unfortunately I am not smart enough to understand how you got to your conclusions unless you spell it out for me nice and simple.

reply to post by BDBinc


FWIW, I do NOT see you as less than bright. You may not have an identical intellect to mine or anyone else's but you come across as plenty sharp to me.

If I'm counseling or teaching, it is somehow relatively easy for me to break things down in clearer component parts. Otherwise, for some reason, it's a challenge to me.

I'll try, hopefully in a few minutes, to see what I can do.

reply to post by Wang Tang



Trying again with these items:


1. Words are real. They are not ephemeral fantasies of nonexistence. They are real entities with real impacts--good or evil--on people--particularly children and the world.

1.1 To me, this is a self-evident fact of abundantly obvious common sense as well as a scientifically elaborated on fact.

1.2 IF words were not real with REAL impacts on our psyche's, emotions, relationships, self-concept, self-confidence, self-worth etc. then we all would not GIVE THEM THE WEIGHT WE *ALL* DO--including the weight the OP gives them. He gives them far more weight than he seems to let on . . . maybe than he admits even to himself.

1.3 Words are real tangible codings in our brains.

1.4 Words are how we construe reality and consider and ponder reality with our thoughts and our mind. Words are inherently integral, part of our mind and our thoughts.

1.5 Brains which were never able to learn words as part of a functional language--either written or sound or sign language--are not fully functioning brains by a long shot.

1.6 Words are composed of bits of sound or letters or hand signs and other symbols.

1.7 A language defines the meaning for each word--particularly in given contexts. Each language maps words a bit differently in the brain as the syntax, the grammar is a bit different and the vocabularies--even for more or less identical words in meaning--there are still nuances that are different. e.g. Eskimo's have 20 something words for snow. Their REALITY as DEFINED by their words regarding snow is quite different than the reality of the South Sea Islanders concept of snow.

'Merely' because of the above, the OP's assertions are absurd--totally off the wall absurd.

THEREFORE:

BECAUSE WORDS ARE REAL . . . and the meaning of the assaultive parent cursing the child REGISTERS in REAL ways in REAL time spoken by a real mouth from a real parental brain and registered by real ears on a real child's brain and stored in the child's brain in real and very impactful ways . . . RECEIVING more or less accurately the meaning the parent was verbally slugging the child with:

1.8.1 OF COURSE WORDS HURT.
1.8.2 OF COURSE WORDS ARE RESIDENT IN MORE OR LESS TANGIBLY CODED FORM IN OUR BRAINS. Some of the coding storage and retrieval involves electrical signals and some involves chemical storage and signals.

2. Words ARE IN the brain--at the 'hardwired' level. I've posted upthread just a smattering of the scientific research documenting "lexicons" (dictionaries) in the brain.

Not sure how to simplify this assertion.

2.1 IF words were NOT hardwired in the brain in 'lexicon-storage' fashion, then individuals with related brain damage in an auto accidents would NOT LOSE THEIR BRAIN LEVEL DICTIONARIES--but they do. Therefore, they were stored in the place that was damaged--or in the retrieval mechanism. Both things happen. And we can tell the difference between which has happened.

2.2 Vocabulary increases in children's brains CHANGE the brains. This is demonstrable. Essentially, the more WORDS stored in the child's brain--the larger the brain-level lexicon grows, THE MORE THE CHILD'S BRAIN IS CHANGED. This is additional emphatic evidence that WORDS EXIST IN VERY REAL TERMS IN THE CHILD'S BRAIN.

2.3 Not only does the child's brain change with a growing vocabulary--the child's brain ALSO CHANGES THE MORE INTER-RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN WORDS AND OTHER ASSOCIATIONS THAT THE CHILD SUCCESSFULLY MAKES.

2.4 One of the studies I cited above, IIRC, noted that at some point in the child's maturation, the child's brain is making interconnections between neurons in the thousands PER SECOND That is--building NEW HARD WIRED CONNECTIONS at an incredibly rapid tangibly detectable rate.

2.5 Some of those rapidly increased connections are increasing the associations and connections between newly hard-wired WORDS, their meanings, their tangible &/or mental referents etc.


3. Words are destructive to developing BRAINS, PSYCHE'S, IDENTITIES, A SENSE OF WORTH

Read my tread on ATTACHMENT DISORDER HERE:

www.abovetopsecret.com...

3.1 . . . HORRIBLY DESTRUCTIVE WORDS AND PHRASES have life long impacts on individuals with significant degrees of ATTACHMENT DISORDER. I guesstimate that to be at least 80% of the general population and maybe even 90+% . . . with the definition of

3.2 "SIGNIFICANT ATTACHMENT DISORDER" = THAT DEGREE OF ATTACHMENT DISORDER SUFFICIENT TO CAUSE PERSISTENT AND LASTINGLY TROUBLESOME ISSUES WITH RELATIONSHIPS, IN RELATIONSHIPS.

3.3 e.g.

A) "YOU'RE A WORTHLESS PILE OF ####"
B) "YOU'LL NEVER AMOUNT TO ANYTHING"
C) "YOU'RE A LOSER AND WILL ALWAYS BE A LOSER"
D) "YOU'RE STUPID"
E) "YOU'RE BRAINLESS"
F) "YOU'RE AN IDIOT"
G) "YOU'RE AN ACCIDENT"
H) "YOU'RE USELESS"
I) "YOU'RE INCOMPETENT"
J) "YOU SHOULD HAVE BEEN ABORTED"
. . .
. . .

3.4 SUCH WORDS DO HURT--DEVASTATINGLY. THOSE and similar words help fill our prisons where 95% or more of the prisoners have serious degrees of ATTACHMENT DISORDER--many because of DEVASTATING WORDS like the above.

4. Such words are sooooo destructive, that when spouted dozens of times a day over the early years in a child's life, the child will end up physiologically BRAIN DAMAGED. MRI studies have documented that the brain centers which are responsible for emotional management and emotional expression as well as the center responsible for relationships and relationship management ARE PHYSIOLOGICAL DAMAGED--ABNORMAL--DISTORTED--MANGLED--NOT IN OPTIMUM FORM AND FUNCTIONING.

4.1 WORDS did that--not a ball bat nor a scalpel--but words hammered into the psyche of a developing child like a sledgehammer.


= = = =

Not sure what to add to 3-4 . . . I think I'll stop here. I'm not seeing how to make the above simpler.

BASICALLY I'M DISAGREEING with the OP most fiercely on these 2 points:

1. WORDS EXIST IN THE BRAIN--HARDWIRED SO TO SPEAK IN THE BRAIN.
2. WORDS ARE LASTINGLY AND DEVASTATINGLY DESTRUCTIVE--over the lifespan of millions of people.

I disagree fiercely with the OP because of the above cited reasons and evidence.

. . . as well as professional and personal experiences . . .
.

reply to post by BO XIAN


Ok thank you I'm starting to get a better idea of where you are coming from. But still, I have a few obstacles that are preventing me from accepting your point of view.

If you call me "useless," "incompetent," "loser," it will not necessarily affect me because I know through my personal experiences that I am not useless, I am fairly competent, and while I may lose in some things I have won at enough things that I would not consider myself an outright loser.

These words only affect people who have experiences that allow these words to hurt them.

So it seems to me words have a correlation with pain, but not causation. It seems painful experiences are the direct cause of the pain.

LesMisanthrope
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

The perceived is constantly changing - the words may not be appearing but there is constantly an appearance.

What you perceive isn't constantly changing, how you perceive it is.

When you watch the tv does the picture on the screen never change?

Words can't hurt you if your deaf.

rickymouse
Words can't hurt you if your deaf.

Are you are deaf person/child that has had verbal abuse signed to them?

One of my points to LM was that we cannot separate the word from sense and thought.

Wang Tang
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

Ok thank you I'm starting to get a better idea of where you are coming from. But still, I have a few obstacles that are preventing me from accepting your point of view.

If you call me "useless," "incompetent," "loser," it will not necessarily affect me because I know through my personal experiences that I am not useless, I am fairly competent, and while I may lose in some things I have won at enough things that I would not consider myself an outright loser.

These words only affect people who have experiences that allow these words to hurt them.

So it seems to me words have a correlation with pain, but not causation. It seems painful experiences are the direct cause of the pain.

In a child when there are no experiences of verbal abuse what then in that case do you say is the cause of pain upon verbal abuse? Without the words no suffering. For no young child has had experiences of being called a fu*king L9ttle useless sh4t.
The experience of verbal abuse is one that induces pain in the person.
If verbal abuse is not spoken where is the cause for pain?
Heaps of verbal abuse does not reflect one's personal experiences on the contrary the abuse can be outside what has been experienced before.

Wang Tang
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

Ok thank you I'm starting to get a better idea of where you are coming from. But still, I have a few obstacles that are preventing me from accepting your point of view.

Thx for your kind reply.


If you call me "useless," "incompetent," "loser," it will not necessarily affect me because I know through my personal experiences that I am not useless, I am fairly competent, and while I may lose in some things I have won at enough things that I would not consider myself an outright loser.

These words only affect people who have experiences that allow these words to hurt them.

So it seems to me words have a correlation with pain, but not causation. It seems painful experiences are the direct cause of the pain.


Ahhhhhhhhhhhh . . . evidently you are not considering that

FOR young children 0-8 . . . when their very brain centers are extremely formative regarding

1. EMOTIONAL responses and management of emotions--including the brain center having to do with the FEELINGS OF and the management of

A) interpersonal PAIN
B) psychological PAIN
C) existential PAIN
D) emotional PAIN

and

2. the brain center having to do with feelings toward and management of

RELATIONSHIPS and

A) RELATIONSHIPS VALUE
B) RELATIONSHIP affirmation and confirmation of PERSONAL WORTH
.
C) RELATIONSHIP security, safety, comfort
D) RELATIONSHIP durability, TRUST, trustWORTHINESS, reliability
.
E) RELATIONSHIP PREDICTABILITY, and the sanity that comes from PREDICTABILITY in PRIMARY RELATIONSHIPS vs the insanity that comes from verbal ABUSE and UNpredictability
.
F) RELATIONSHIP pleasure rewards including dopamine triggers and receptors vs PAIN triggers and receptors chemically in the brain depending on the CONSISTENT, EMOTIONAL, INTENSE, PERSISTENT WORDS spoken TO the formative brain, identity, child.

FOR THOSE CHILDREN:

WORDS

ARE

THE

PAINFUL EXPERIENCES

resulting in, triggering

PAIN SIGNALS

IN

the child's

FORMATIVE BRAIN

.
.
WORDS spoken in anger, abuse, hurtfulness by a primary care giver--persistently (sometimes even just ONCE or a few times for particularly genetically sensitive children),--intensely (sometimes even softly for particularly genetically sensitive children)

WILL cause very literal pain signals, pain triggering chemical and electrical message components to be effected IN the child's brain.

I hope that's clearer?

Thanks for your kind reply.

.

BDBinc

Wang Tang
reply to post by BO XIAN

 

If you call me "useless," "incompetent," "loser," it will not necessarily affect me because I know through my personal experiences that I am not useless, I am fairly competent, and while I may lose in some things I have won at enough things that I would not consider myself an outright loser.

These words only affect people who have experiences that allow these words to hurt them.

So it seems to me words have a correlation with pain, but not causation. It seems painful experiences are the direct cause of the pain.

Ahhhhhhhhhh . . . you seem to be failing to ponder sufficiently facts about sense of WORTH formed in the developing brain those very early years.

WHY do you think that men (and women in usually different ways), will become workaholics?

Why will men who have made their first $million$ strive endlessly--neglecting wife and children--striving endlessly for their first $10 million or their first $100 million AS THOUGH THEY WERE STILL IN POVERTY?

It is related STRICTLY to the sense of WORTHLESSNESS fostered, HARD-WIRED into their formative brains by . . .

drum roll . . .
.

WORDS

.

Sooooooo . . . in their family engineered, word generated, trained and hard-wired cluelessness about such things . . . THEY are off and running CREATING THE SAME PAIN-FILLED SENSE OF WORTHLESSNESS IN THEIR children. And the cycle continues and the enemy of our souls is gleeful.

Why do you think The Manual talks about God going to implement a specific END TIMES project of TURNING THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS back to their children "ELSE HE'D SMITE THE EARTH WITH A CURSE?"

BECAUSE

THE ISSUE IS SOOOOOOO INCREDIBLY CRUCIAL to INDIVIDUAL, MARRIAGE, FAMILY, SOCIAL AND GOD-MAN stability, worth and relationships.

As Sam Soleyn articulates soooo powerfully in MY FATHER! MY FATHER! our era is plagued with epidemic fatherlessness--we are overwhelmingly an era, a culture, filled with

EMOTIONAL, SPIRITUAL, EXISTENTIAL

ORPHANS

ALL

groveling desperately

virtually exclusively

read no time or energy for other priorities

FOR

SAFETY & PROVISION

In a child when there are no experiences of verbal abuse what then in that case do you say is the cause of pain upon verbal abuse? Without the words no suffering. For no young child has had experiences of being called a fu*king L9ttle useless sh4t.

I may not be GROKing your meaning above sufficiently.

IF the child truly has had NO experiences of verbal abuse, THEN that much more robustly healthy child has a wealth of RESILIENCE hardwired into their formative brain against being GREATLY PAINED by words from others.

However, it is extremely rare these days--if a child is in kindergarten or public schools--for them to experience NO verbal abuse in their formative years. And any verbal abuse CAN inflict lasting pain even when not administered by a parent or primary care giver. Words ARE THAT powerful--particularly IN young brains.

I think you greatly UNDERESTIMATE the power of occasional verbal abuse outside the family to impact the developing brain, the child's identity and sense of worth. Even in the teen years such experiences can be very painful even though the child is past the super critical 0-8 years. Identity as a teen and elevation of peer perspectives above some tenuous parental standards can still be quite damaging.

The experience of verbal abuse is one that induces pain in the person.
If verbal abuse is not spoken where is the cause for pain?

Show me the evidence of any significant cohort in our era growing to maturity TOTALLY WITHOUT ANY verbal abuse. There must be some scattered individuals here and there--perhaps among some of the Amish and some gentle tribal people here and there.

Show me the parent who has been perfectly totally lacking in ANY verbal abuse. There must be some . . . but I haven't met them in 66 years of intensely watching for them.

Heaps of verbal abuse does not reflect one's personal experiences on the contrary the abuse can be outside what has been experienced before.

Technically true enough. Theoretically. However, please reflect on what I've said above. What deep cavern or isolated hermit cabin affords such a TOTAL LACK of verbal abuse in our era? It's in the media abundantly. And certainly it's in the school systems and the VAST MAJORITY--if not total cohort of families. Even saintly parents--of which there are a diminishing number--occasionally "lose it."

Thankfully, occasionally losing it WHEN THE MAJORITY OF THE TIME their words are affirming and loving--occasionally losing it IN THAT CONTEXT doesn't usually leave lasting scars.

Verbal abuse at any age can be greatly destructive--even with--though NOT AS MUCH--even with the rare person who did not have parental verbal abuse.


.

rickymouse
Words can't hurt you if your deaf.

SADLY that's inaccurate.

1. sign language is essentially the same as spoken or written language on such scores. The brain treats it essentially as the same except for the visual aspects of storage and retrieval.

2. A case could be made that discrete CONTEXTUAL, INTERACTIONAL DYNAMICS COMPONENTS could essentially function as words in such meanings.

That is, a parent's body language, sequential behaviors etc. could constitute --in the brain--RELATIONSHIP WORDS having the same impact as verbal, written or signed words.

i.e., if a parent persistently looked disgusted at a child--that LOOK could constitute a "word" in the relational, brain filing sense.

reply to post by BO XIAN


You are right, most times body language and expression are used in the real world in conjunction or in replacement of words. If you cross your arms in front of the kids, they automatically know that something is up without a word being said.

reply to post by BO XIAN

More unmitigated nonsense.

Actually, your assertion is like dogmatically claiming that a dozen cookies in a glass cookie jar on the counter are not at all there. Then you blather on endlessly insisting that the cookies are not in the jar . . . and how the cookies are everyone else's mental imaginations.

Sigh.

Though I would agree that your posts do illustrate & display a lot of knowledge about falsehoods.

I've given supporting evidence from research documenting brain level lexicons . . . i.e. dictionaries. You ignore the evidence.

You pretend that your fantasies about words and the brain are realities.

Your fantasies are false, wrong, inaccurate, absurd from the foundation up.

Yet you blather on as though endless spewing will persuade folks with an IQ above freezing.

Psychologically fascinating. We don't see THAT level of dogged, arrogant, tenacious absurdity on ATS all that often.

Yet you claim to know a lot about obsessions.

Evidently your mirrors are all shattered.

Words ARE in the brain . . . hardwired in . . .

Deal with it.

(I must applaud you for your passive aggressive internet sighs. Do you think people believe you are actually deeply exhaling or is that your unique way to describe your frustration? Either way it's hilarious. It reminds me of an Archie comic. Keep it up.)

The mental lexicon is a scientific construct, meaning it is an explanatory variable that is non-demonstrative. Such constructs are used to fill in the areas of misunderstanding. You're referring to nothing but your imagination (not even yours, but someone else's) at this point—hypothesis and theories, and not fact. No psychologist or linguist believes there is an actual lexicon composed of words in the head. But you do?

Words are not composed of synapses, neurons firing, ganglia, brain matter and certain lobes and hemispheres. Saying so would involve a complete rewrite of biology, neuroscience and psychology. You can try to shoehorn it as much as you'd like but you're departing from reality at this point.

Hey I'm glad you've taken an own obsessive approach to words. A few post up I could've sworn you told me I was wasting my time. But then here you are.

reply to post by BDBinc

The experience of verbal abuse is one that induces pain in the person.

I could've sworn you told me it was the words that hurt, BD. So now it is not the words but the experience? Make up your "mind", sir. Words are a part of experience, but they are not in themselves experiences.

reply to post by Wang Tang

So it seems to me words have a correlation with pain, but not causation. It seems painful experiences are the direct cause of the pain.

Exactly so.

reply to post by BO XIAN

WORDS


ARE


THE


PAINFUL EXPERIENCES


resulting in, triggering


PAIN SIGNALS


IN


the child's


FORMATIVE BRAIN

Now words are "painful experiences"? You're on witch hunt at this point. This is simply untrue. Words are a part of the experience, but not the experience themselves.

Here's a refresher for you:

word |wərd|
noun
a single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or printed.
• a single distinct conceptual unit of language, comprising inflected and variant forms.
• (usu. words) something that someone says or writes; a remark or piece of information: his grandfather's words had been meant kindly | a word of warning.
• speech as distinct from action: he conforms in word and deed to the values of a society that he rejects.
• [ with negative ] (a word) even the smallest amount of something spoken or written: don't believe a word of it.
• (one's word) a person's account of the truth, esp. when it differs from that of another person: in court it would have been his word against mine.
• (one's word) a promise or assurance: everything will be taken care of—you have my word.
• (words) the text or spoken part of a play, opera, or other performed piece; a script: he had to learn his words.
• (words) angry talk: her father would have had words with her about that.
• a message; news: I was afraid to leave Washington in case there was word from the office.
• a command, password, or motto: someone gave me the word to start playing.
• a basic unit of data in a computer, typically 16 or 32 bits long.

And here's another one befitting a PhD such as yourself:

paragraph |ˈparəˌgraf|
noun
a distinct section of a piece of writing, usually dealing with a single theme and indicated by a new line, indentation, or numbering.
verb [ with obj. ]
arrange (a piece of writing) in paragraphs.
DERIVATIVES
paragraphic |ˌparəˈgrafik|adjective
ORIGIN late 15th cent.: from French paragraphe, via medieval Latin from Greek paragraphos ‘short stroke marking a break in sense,’ from para- ‘beside’ + graphein ‘write.’