No language, no thoughts?

[nebulous1]

Originally Posted by nitokenshi

They can read their deaf not blind


I had a class once where this boy asked the funniest question but he brought up a good point. The teacher was British and he asked the teacher if he thinks in a British accent. Teacher said no but then again he had been in America for quite a while.

I wonder what language bilingual people think in.

Um, that's why I wrote sign language or reading...some are people who went deaf after they had hearing for some of their life..jeesh.

[nebulous1]

Originally Posted by Kracer

Language is a an expression of compromised of thoughts. As such it is relative to personal experience, education, personality and emotion as well as being perceived in a literal or figurative way.

Writing is then transcribed language which again is full of 'transcription' errors.

Good luck talking to a collegue at work or your wife. Language is one of many ways to convey expression of thoughts. Can't tell if thoughts employ language unless someone hears you, 'thinking out loud'. Can a person who never had the ability to speak, think?? Probably.

Grunts, laughs, growls and facial expression work well enough.

Then there is lawyer speak...........

Can a person who never had the ability to speak, think?? Probably.
The whole crunch of this thread was my question about thinking and language, not the ability to speak. If you knew a language, and went deaf, you'd still have that ability to form mentally based on that language.

Can you think without words? Not that you are doing self talk in your heads, but can you formulate thoughts or ideas without language?

I am surmising that language goes much deeper than just being able to speak or communicate with others. Perhaps we communicate with our own brains this way. Maybe that is what differentiates us from animals?

[2mares]

Is language the very thing that limits animals from becoming like us?

No. Animals have their own language. Its the opposable thumb the limits them.

[jimboburnsy]

Originally Posted by nebulous1

If we didn't have language, would we be able to think? Or, would our thoughts be more like impressions, feelings, more like an animal?

Is language the very thing that limits animals from becoming like us?

With language, we think and have the thoughts, "I know I think this." or "I know that I came into the room."

But without language, would it just be perceived as an acknowlegement of what just happened?

To test this theory and to gain some insight into thoughts without words you should go pick some mushrooms off of cowpoo and eat them. That should render you language free for a few hours. I'm sure its a challenge to think about anything in that state.

[subsound]

Originally Posted by nitokenshi

deaf people can think

Hummm, even without spoken language people have language...written and visual is still language (I am betting people aren't listening to this post being read to them). How to do think about philosophy or politics with visualizations I wonder. You can once it is defined as a representation to you what it would be, but I wonder how you would build it without very defined categories.

[jtur88]

Take this test. Set your oven timer for about 5 minutes. Then pull up a chair and look out the window. Try to forget about the timer. When it goes off, write down the exact sentence you were thinking.

Or, what sentences do you say to yourself about truth or love or morality? When you read a post here that is full of BS, do you stop reading long enough to say to yourself "I don't believe a fully valid conclusion is being drawn here, even though the platitudes used as evidence sound like they might be convincing, because it appears to conflict with some generalizations that I have formed in the past based on sound evaluation of data that is relevant to the subject matter at hand"? Or is all that just an instant "Aha".