Multiple Systems and Multiple Time Scales of Language Dynamics: Coping with Complexity

This paper follows consequences of applying a view on symbols, which presents them as replicable constraints on dynamics. On the background of a brief history of symbol- versus dynamics-oriented explanations in cognitive sciences this view is presented as a possible third way, able to link these two aspects of cognition. The consequences for the study of natural language are presented: In this area such a view allows for critical evaluation of common assumptions about language and opens promising ways for its study. However, it is pointed out that language from this perspective becomes a mind-bogglingly complex phenomenon, involving a multitude of embedded and co-depended time scales and systems. An attempt at identifying some of them is made and the paper concludes with an assessment of computer simulation as a theory-building tool in such complex cases. It is noted that both the complexity and non-linearity of dynamical processes involved and the irreversibility of natural selection of constraints limit in a particular way the predictability and possibility of generalization of such a theory.