4

Scheme or why it is better sometimes do not know anything. “Galina, draw diagrams!” It is not enough to say that the advice of my professor puzzled me. It put me to a state of stupor. I did not doubt for a minute that he grasped the essence of my observations correctly. And if he said “draw diagrams”, then diagrams are possible in general! I just need to find them, I need to understand at least what edge they should be drawn from! I began to look intensely for the possibility of some kind of scheme in a relationship of language and brain. At that time, I was saved only because I had a very vague idea of structuralism (a direction in linguistics), which would definitely lead me in the wrong direction. Linguistics from the time of my student life has always caused me confusion and fear due to the unearthly wisdom of linguistic luminaries. I was sure that I would never be able to figure out the jungles of scientific terminology and, probably because of it, I quickly forgot about scientific disputes immediately after graduation. Later, I learned not to trust excessive scientificness and no doubt decided that a smart idea is understandable even to a fool, but if a smart person feels like a complete idiot, trying to understand any idea, this means that this idea is presented by a person who does not understand it clearly by himself. I began to look for an answer in a completely different direction. My question is: how is language physically stored in the head? A nerve cell is similar to a blot: it is a massive body with long arms. Nerve cells literally bind to each other with these arms. The scheme must be sought precisely here: in the ordered connection of one cell with another. Obviously, information is stored inside a nerve cell, but how? Let's start the countdown from childhood. Most likely, the child is born with an already developed branched network of nerve cells, the initial link of which is the concept of "I". These connections are laid in the uterine period. Formed self-awareness begins to shape the world around itself. The first thing parents do is introducing of simple words to the child: they point to objects and repeat the names many times. Any sound is converted in the brain into an electromagnetic signal. Suppose that this wave invades a nerve cell and leaves a trace there - a matrix. The more often the word is repeated, the more clearly the matrix is outlined. This process is very energy consuming, so the child sleeps a lot. During sleep, physical (chemical?) processes occur in the brain. All information that was seen, heard and felt, took place in the brain, and left a mark in the nervous tissue in the literal sense. The sound matrix is the thread of Ariadne, or rather, one particle of the thread of Ariadne, which will lead me to the final scheme. So, in the beginning was the Word ... next content