Impossible to comprehend...

Try to think about something, anything at all.

Now try thinking about anything at all... without language.

Impossible.


Which makes me wonder how people thought before language was invented.
Would they think in pictures?
Were they capable of complex thought?


Weird to think about...

I think in non language form most of the time, don't you? One example - Do you think to yourself, "I am hungry" in words, or do you picture the food you are craving in your head, then get up to retrieve that food?

What if C A T really spelled DOG? Hmmmm

Around 70 % of schizophrenics hear voices that interrupt their thought patterns on a consistent basis and 15% of people with mood disorders experience auditory hallucinations. However, hearing noises or voices isn’t necessarily a sign of mental illness.

So this begs the question, schizophrenia cannot have come into being until language entered the equation.

Good post BTW.

Ya know, I always thought about this.


How did Helen Keller think before she was educated? How does a baby think? Babies have emotion, yet have no language, so where does the "organization" that language would do take place? Even a mute baby unable to utter a single sound. It is almost like language is a cookie cutter for what for we experience and what we experience is cookie dough. Sausseur and Derrida were so right. The "Transcendental Signified" DOES exist.

Originally posted by iSHRED
Try to think about something, anything at all.

Now try thinking about anything at all... without language.

Impossible.


Which makes me wonder how people thought before language was invented.
Would they think in pictures?
Were they capable of complex thought?


Weird to think about...

i just thought of a charlie chaplin movie, which was silent, it worked , not impossible

Originally posted by iSHRED
Which makes me wonder how people thought before language was invented.

people = souls

Answer: Math!

Ribbit

My dad and I have a long standing disagreement on this- on whether our thoughts start off without language or from it. It seems not all people do the same.

My thoughts begin with sensual memory, and then I find words come after. I see an image of an object in my head......say, an apple. I have the smell, feel and taste of that object flood through my mind, based on past experiences. The words for this come after. I have rather complex ideas arise in my head in a packet that is condensed that I can "feel"..... and then I sort of pull it out into linear form and language.

My dad says that for him, the word "apple" comes first and the associated memory comes after.

I don't know why this is. I read once a theory about how some people have minds that sort of work in a direction Conscious - subconscious, and others from subconscious to conscious?

Since I was very little, language has been a challenge for me. I was born in an area where I was the only english speaking kid around, so had to be translating spanish and english, my sister was mentally retarded and could not speak normally, so I was her translator for most of my childhood. Then of course later I moved ot France and had to be translating english and french. Perhaps it just got me to see language as something very relative and changing, and clinging to the ideas themselves which are to be attributed words.

It feels more universal, as even animals seem to think in this way, without language, and I can better understand and communicate with them.

umm, i only ever think in language when i need to translate my thoughts into words to explain something to someone else.
my thoughts are all gestalt, large interconnected "bubbles" of images and feelings and word-forms i can not possibly explain...

its one of the reasons i have so much trouble communicating with people, words are never sufficient. i often have to "practice" thinking in words by talking, out loud, to myself because if i keep it inside my head the words stay "stuck" to the "bubbles" or whatever you want to call them, and when i try to say whats in my head out loud its missing a lot of its intended meaning.

just read my signature, from Mark Twain, the best explanation in words i have ever come across.

reply to post by ZeroUnlmtd


You just had a memory of a movie you watched which I could almost guarantee you were also thinking words at the same time. Anyone of us can remember an image but we are comprehending it with our words just look how you told us about your thoughts which was the same way you were thinking them, Its almost like we are seeing a movie in our head while simultaneous explaining it to ourself with our own narration.

reply to post by BohemianBrim


Exactly, It is hard to explain ones thoughts even as I sit here typing this out. But this is not exactly how I want to express my thoughts at this point, It seems as though my more complex thoughts are much harder to explain and to formulate the right words in the right context.

Or maybe I am just stupid. Ether way I'm happy

Originally posted by g0dhims3lf
reply to post by ZeroUnlmtd

 

You just had a memory of a movie you watched which I could almost guarantee you were also thinking words at the same time. Anyone of us can remember an image but we are comprehending it with our words just look how you told us about your thoughts which was the same way you were thinking them, Its almost like we are seeing a movie in our head while simultaneous explaining it to ourself with our own narration.

nope, quieter than a conversation between two dead men. just because you can't clear your mind, doesn't mean others can't.

reply to post by ZeroUnlmtd


Perhaps then again this is a failed argument until there is a way one can enter anothers mind to know for sure that is what they are experiencing, until then you must rely on their explanation in "their words" that they have a clear mind. Also a clear mind as you said a convo between two dead men is not one of thought or picture it is the absent of

Originally posted by g0dhims3lf
reply to post by ZeroUnlmtd

 

Perhaps then again this is a failed argument until there is a way one can enter anothers mind to know for sure that is what they are experiencing, until then you must rely on their explanation in "their words" that they have a clear mind

edit on 5-1-2012 by g0dhims3lf because: (no reason given)

it was never an argument. no two people are alike. many similarities but not identical , that to include twins. stop thinking and just be. peace and love

reply to post by ZeroUnlmtd

Originally posted by iSHRED
Try to think about something, anything at all.

Now try thinking about anything at all... without language.

Impossible.

I was referring to an argument based on the subject of this topic that the OP stated, as you were telling me my statement was wrong by saying NO, I was pointing out that you are talking about the absent of thought not thought without language.

Originally posted by iSHRED
Try to think about something, anything at all.

Now try thinking about anything at all... without language.

Impossible.


Which makes me wonder how people thought before language was invented.
Would they think in pictures?
Were they capable of complex thought?


Weird to think about...

Infants do it all the time-- they learn a language without knowing it-- requiring incredible thought.

We do not lose that ability.

A substantial part of my intuitive thinking is not language dependent-- but almost all of what I do with that is.

With that said, we give power to our thoughts-- a certain concreteness-- when we express them with language.

All of us have had those moments where we search for words to express something we know, understand, perceive, feel, or whatever-- the words not yet formed-- but the thought, clearly, is present before the words to express it are known to us.

However, I have been told that Helen Keller described her life before language as a chaos of thought-- so some reasoning is surly language dependent.

.

reply to post by Frira


Good post! , I like the way you explained it. It gives meaning to the popular saying, "You dont know me" which can also be said, "I dont know how to explain me" lol. Feelings, emotions are sometimes the hardest things to explain. Most the time I write poetry to capture what I mean but the true meaning of how I actually feel or what Im thinking seems impossible to explain. Maybe my lack of vocabulary. On a semi-related note it seems the more knowledgable and technologically advanced we get the more confused and in danger we are. We move away from happiness and survival to desires and control. Morality and ethics are determinate only to the one thinking them while the universal language of math is definitive. Does this mean it is impossible to truly reason when emotions are involved? That there is no true answer to life only an equation of the universe.

Most of my thoughts are without language. They tend to be visuals, emotions, sounds, sensations....

Obviously if I'm thinking of a conversation I or others had there will be words, and I do however often give myself a running commentry.

But I'm sorry I don't agree with you OP at all.

The Freaky thing is the following

I have hypnotised someone and taken them back to an time in their childhood "fully associated" that is within the memory as if it were happening again.

I took this client to a point in time before they went to school, and learnt to read and right, at the age regressed to Language skills were not whole either toddler speak.

During reliving this memory (in hypnosis the memory is better than what happened 5 mins ago never mind how long ago) the client saw an open book on the floor for one of his siblings, as was toddling in the memory.

I asked to client to read out or explain what the book said and meant (searching for an Gestalt) as this event seemed important to the subconscious, anyhow they could read and see all the words on the book started reading it to me.

Now at the age of the regression the person had 30% of adult language skills no reading or writing but even though they learnt to read and write later this new knowledge seems to seep into events before we acquired it.

I strongly advise on the idea of language and such like, to look into Noam Chomsky but not his political work his early academic work on Language and how we acquire the ability.

Kind Regards,

Elf

I got another mental exercise for you:

Consider the room your in. Now mentally remove all the matter and energy contained in it.

Now remove the 3D space, the instances ot "the present" time, the future, and the past.

Can't be done. It's actually painful to extend even toward thinking about it. Go ahead, touch non-existence if you can.

Humans communicated with pictures and symbols before language was invented. So I think thoughts are translated into words when the need arises, I personally am a more visual or physical sensory person. But this just like all other things having to do with the brain, probably vary depending on the person.