Is language needed for thinking?

reply to post by Itisnowagain


You and your Buddhism!

Nothing, by its very definition, does not exist.

I am not nothing, I am my father's son.

p.s. While we're on them, though, what do you know about paradoxes? Feel free to pm me if you know anything cool about them that is secretive and spooky.

Bleeeeep
Nothing, by its very definition, does not exist.

I am not nothing, I am my father's son.

Nothing appears to exist as this - that which is actually happening (always presently). What is actually happening is a happening - it is not a thing.

The father is nothing - the son is the apparent something.

The son cannot appear to exist without the father.

reply to post by Bleeeeep


The son is that which appears. As you have already stated - awareness does not appear to exist - but without awareness (the father) there is nothing.

I absolutely do not need language to think, and I experience an active process of putting my thoughts into language in order to communicate them to another. To suggest otherwise seems absurd to me. But in talking with others, I have become aware that some people do not experience that kind of thought process- their thoughts seems to emerge in language from conception!

Personally, I don't know how anyone can function like that, though obviously they do just fine.

My stepfather thinks that way, and we have discussed it a lot, and I would say it is the reason he is horrible with foreign languages. To speak another language, he must literally translate each word directly from his native to tongue to the other.

He doesn't extract the concept from the language whole, and then drop it into the other mentality (for language vehicles cultural values, associations, and views as well). So it comes out twisted.

I think he also has problems understanding children and animals.... or at least his comprehension stays on a objective "outsider" type of view- he is unable to enter a certain empathy with them. It strikes me almost as a sort of autism, though the man is brilliant intellectually.

reply to post by anonentity

I have a very early memory of thought-process without language, which suggests what may have been possible for our pre-language ancestors.
I've posted it here before- here is one version;

My earliest memory goes back to a time before I knew language.
I could not express my thoughts in words, of course, but I was aware of a number of things, which add up to a kind of thought-process.
I was aware of the place where I was- in my cot next to a light window, probably the morning light.
I was aware that I wanted to get out.
I was aware that i could not manage the catch which would let down the side of the cot (a simple hook-and-eye affair, as I know retrospectively).
I was aware that if I cried, someone would come along and let me out.
Which led me into a course of action. I cried.
My memory stops at the opening of the door (right hand end of the opposite wall) and my father appearing through the doorway.
I don’t know whether this means that the sequel was satisfactory, or whether it means that the sequel was traumatic.

Itisnowagain
Nothing appears to exist as this - what is actually happening always presently. What is actually happening is a happening - it is not a thing.

The father is nothing - the son is the apparent something.

The son cannot appear to exist without the father.

You should post some ideas on the thread: Free will exists. How could it not?

If you say, okay I can will something then that is cause, and if you say okay I can stop something from happening with my will, then that is effect. If you say you cannot do either, then there is grounds for cause and effect, or "happening".

-What you're calling happening, I would call time, or God's will. If things are happening, why are they happening -- they must be willed or it must be cause and effect, but it cannot be both.

Oh and my point was: Happening cannot happen without Father, as it is his will that creates it

or

I believe in will.

Bleeeeep
-What you're calling happening, I would call time, or God's will. If things are happening, why are they happening -- they must be willed or it must be cause and effect, but it cannot be both.

'Things' are not happening - I said.... that which is actually happening is not a thing.
This that is happening is not in time - it is present.

Bleeeeep
Oh and my point was: Happening cannot happen without Father, as it is his will that creates it.

There is only the father - father is the source - is there any thing separate from source?

Words appear now. Nothing can appear any other time because without there be awareness of the word it cannot appear to exist.
When is awareness? Is it in time?

reply to post by Itisnowagain


I have said you cannot separate them.

If you remove any of the three you are left with nothing -- and nothing does not exist -- only the trinity.

We are apart of the Trinity, yet we aren't it distinctively. We are sons and daughters made in the likeness of all three byway of body, will, and consciousness.

Bleeeeep
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

I have said you cannot separate them.

If you remove any of the three you are left with nothing -- and nothing does not exist -- only the trinity.

We are apart of the Trinity, yet we aren't it distinctively. We are sons and daughters made in the likeness of all three byway of body, will, and consciousness.

When is awareness?
When is the apparent (that which is appearing) existence?

There is no 'we' - there is just this present happening.

Words and symbols imply that there is more than there is. Say the word 'yesterday' and it could convince one that there is an actual thing called yesterday - but where is it?

Words make believe.

reply to post by Itisnowagain

Depends on whose awareness it is.

My awareness is in the end's past -- a place I like to call "now".

Bleeeeep
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

Depends on whose awareness it is.

My awareness is in the end's past -- a place I like to call "now".

Awareness is not personal.

Awareness is ever present (eternal now) - the 'person' is in time. The 'thought of you' is in the past or future - which never exists.
The story of you is made of words.
The idea that there was a yesterday and the idea that there is a tomorrow has spread you out and makes it appear as if you are not ever present. There is only that which is present. The present appears to be happening. The present can happen as words which speak about other. Worship (believe in) other and there will be suffering.

When one realizes the father (present awareness), the person (individual) is lifted away - rapture.

If there were no words or symbols implying anything other than what actually is - what would there be?

reply to post by Itisnowagain


It is as if we have both read the books but we each came out with different interpretations. How can you reconcile interpretations?

Maybe because we each have a different interpretation, it proves awareness is personal? It proves there is "free will" which effects each member of the one body?

How can we continue this argument if we both know the fundamentals to each others beliefs, and there is no reconciliation between the two?

I think the problem with Buddhism is that by denying the ego as self, it confuses everything from that point on. It is like they start you off with a bunch of good knowledge, and then one thing gets out of place and it throws the rest of the teachings off coarse.

Ego, self, id, is your spirit -- it is your will. If you give that up, you go off course.

Okay, your turn.

reply to post by Bleeeeep

Bleeeeep
I think the problem with Buddhism is that by denying the ego as self, it confuses everything from that point on. It is like they start you off with a bunch of good knowledge, and then one thing gets out of place and it throws the rest of the teachings off coarse.

It is not Buddhism that I speak.
I have not read 'the books'.

Look at the direct experience. It is not about ideas and concepts - it is seeing directly what is happening.

This may help (if there is any interest in understanding where I am coming from) but if you are stuck in the 'trinity' you might not click the button.

reply to post by Itisnowagain


At 2 mins in he asks what does awareness do. I would have said, it creates the concept of awareness with its will, yet without will, or a concept of how to do that, it would not be able to do it.

Then I would have stood up and left.

The principles are newage Buddhism.

Bleeeeep
reply to post by Itisnowagain

 

At 2 mins in he asks what does awareness do. I would have said, it creates the concept of awareness with its will, yet without will, or a concept of how to do that, it would not be able to do it.

Then I would have stood up and left.

Is that when hearing stopped? Or did listening to the video continue after 2 mins?

Bleeeeep
The principles are newage Buddhism.

The principle is 'Advaita Vedanta' - it is not new age.