Language and Thinking

[Fist and Faith]

I agree as well. But this is taking my idea too far. I'm not asking if every concept we can think about could be thought about without language. I'm asking if thought can exist without language. Honour is an abstract concept, eh? Perhaps there are certain kinds of things that couldn't be thought without language?

Or perhaps no concept can be thought as far without language as it can with? Maybe not. But maybe some can. I don't know. And even if some can't, maybe it's like saying Michael Jordan doesn't truly understand a basketball if he doesn't understand the chemical properties of rubber. That doesn't mean he doesn't understand a basketball, and not being able to take a concept in particular directions without language doesn't mean those concepts are not understood. (I'll try to think of particular examples, but I just want to get these thoughts down now, before I go to sleep.)

I've been trying to conjure up a scenario within which to frame my idea. Turns out God fits the bill. Heh. So God created everything. But before creating everything, God was alone. Nothing. Nobody to talk to. Did God have language before creating anyone to talk to? I don't know who is said to have been created first. Satan? Michael? Whoever it was, why would God have language before creating that being? It doesn't make sense. Language is for communicating. It may well be that it is largely how we think at this point. And it may well be that certain ideas cannot be thought without language. But language wouldn't exist if there is only one being in existence, would it? Which would lead to a time-paradox kind of thing. God needed to create someone to talk to before inventing language. But before inventing language, he couldn't think, so couldn't come up with the idea to create someone to talk to.

(Sorry, rus. This isn't a challenge to your beliefs. I assume you believe God could do what we cannot: think without language. Or that he had language even without anyone to talk to, since he always knew all things past, present, and future; possible or impossible; existing or not. Or that his complexity allows him to talk to himself in a way other than I talk to myself. I'm really not talking about any God anyone believes in, and am not trying to provoke you. Nor do I want this to become a discussion of... whatever. I'm just trying to get my idea across in terms that people can understand easily because of familiarity with God.)

[Avatar]

Wow! I actually am in agreement with Avatar on something!

Has to happen every now and then.

I'm asking if thought can exist without language.

I don't know that it can...my thoughts are all in the form of words. On a level below that, is my understanding of what those words mean. But thoughts happen in words, even when it's too quick to be individually "thought" of, if you know what I mean.

--A

[rusmeister]

I agree as well. But this is taking my idea too far. I'm not asking if every concept we can think about could be thought about without language. I'm asking if thought can exist without language. Honour is an abstract concept, eh? Perhaps there are certain kinds of things that couldn't be thought without language?

Or perhaps no concept can be thought as far without language as it can with? Maybe not. But maybe some can. I don't know. And even if some can't, maybe it's like saying Michael Jordan doesn't truly understand a basketball if he doesn't understand the chemical properties of rubber. That doesn't mean he doesn't understand a basketball, and not being able to take a concept in particular directions without language doesn't mean those concepts are not understood. (I'll try to think of particular examples, but I just want to get these thoughts down now, before I go to sleep.)

I've been trying to conjure up a scenario within which to frame my idea. Turns out God fits the bill. Heh. So God created everything. But before creating everything, God was alone. Nothing. Nobody to talk to. Did God have language before creating anyone to talk to? I don't know who is said to have been created first. Satan? Michael? Whoever it was, why would God have language before creating that being? It doesn't make sense. Language is for communicating. It may well be that it is largely how we think at this point. And it may well be that certain ideas cannot be thought without language. But language wouldn't exist if there is only one being in existence, would it? Which would lead to a time-paradox kind of thing. God needed to create someone to talk to before inventing language. But before inventing language, he couldn't think, so couldn't come up with the idea to create someone to talk to.

(Sorry, rus. This isn't a challenge to your beliefs. I assume you believe God could do what we cannot: think without language. Or that he had language even without anyone to talk to, since he always knew all things past, present, and future; possible or impossible; existing or not. Or that his complexity allows him to talk to himself in a way other than I talk to myself. I'm really not talking about any God anyone believes in, and am not trying to provoke you. Nor do I want this to become a discussion of... whatever. I'm just trying to get my idea across in terms that people can understand easily because of familiarity with God.)

No problem, Fist.
I have an interesting counter thought - you're thinking of God in a quite monolithic sense (in line more with Islam and Judaism); ie, as an individual. Christianity describes Him as Trinitarian -in other words, as a society.

...and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages...

(from the Symbol of Faith, aka the Nicene Creed)
So an infinite and omnipotent Being creates a mirror of His self, that is yet different, and not merely a copy, and in a relationship described to us in terms of sonship. This Being also exists eternally, making hash of our time concepts of "before" and "after".

This also makes sense of what sounds like a pithy cliche - "God is love". Love only makes sense and has clear value when it is referenced to others, and not merely the self. Furthermore, Christ is described as the Word (of God).

Therefore, language "would have existed" eternally from that standpoint and we could identify no point at which it "had been invented". If God is completely outside of time; if time is His invention, then He would be under no paradox, any more than Shakespeare would be in relation to his plays. The author is present at all times, so to speak; at the beginning and the end, and could presumably insert or remove anything at any point without contradiction.

[Fist and Faith]

I'm asking if thought can exist without language.

I don't know that it can...my thoughts are all in the form of words. On a level below that, is my understanding of what those words mean. But thoughts happen in words, even when it's too quick to be individually "thought" of, if you know what I mean.

This only describes you. Probably me, too. Having lived every moment of our lives surrounded by language, we grew to use language to think. It may well be impossible for us to think without language. But does that mean it's impossible for thought to exist without language? Is there a thinking being anywhere in the universe that thinks without language? Could there be such a being? Can we use language to think about thinking without language? (Come on, that's a pretty cool sentence! ) I wastn't talking about God in my last post; I was just trying to give everyone the idea of a being whose brain is at least as complex as ours, but who has never known another being capable of thought. Would such a being be able to think?

[rusmeister]

I'm asking if thought can exist without language.

I don't know that it can...my thoughts are all in the form of words. On a level below that, is my understanding of what those words mean. But thoughts happen in words, even when it's too quick to be individually "thought" of, if you know what I mean.

This only describes you. Probably me, too. Having lived every moment of our lives surrounded by language, we grew to use language to think. It may well be impossible for us to think without language.

I think this far more important than your other question, because it has practical significance for all of us right now. That's why I was talking about euphemisms, because they are not irrelevant to this part of the discussion.

But does that mean it's impossible for thought to exist without language? Is there a thinking being anywhere in the universe that thinks without language? Could there be such a being? Can we use language to think about thinking without language? (Come on, that's a pretty cool sentence! ) I wastn't talking about God in my last post; I was just trying to give everyone the idea of a being whose brain is at least as complex as ours, but who has never known another being capable of thought. Would such a being be able to think?

This is more of a purely theoretical question that I see little practical use for. I've offered my answer already - such thinking without words is not going to be able to develop beyond immediate and present perception, which has a crushing effect on intellect. It is language that enables thought to blossom. So I'd say the only useful discussion is in how we do think with words.

Having lived every moment of our lives surrounded by language, we grew to use language to think.

This is quite true, and I would add to it that we grew used to the specific terms we have come to use, and do not generally think much about their origin, etymology, or the philosophical assumptions behind them. We take them for granted and as a result, don't know many of our own assumptions.

[Fist and Faith]

How do we describe human vs. animal languages? I'm seriously asking, because I have no idea. Many species have different sounds for different occasions. But we don't speak of them as though they use language as we do. They can't speak as we do, and they can't think as we do. But is it possible to think as we do - or, rather, as well as we do - without speaking, without language, at all? Is thought limited to language?

I know I'm repeating myself. I'm really interested in the concept. I don't know that it's going anywhere. But I have to put thought into thinking without language. I don't know if I could do away with it now.


All this is reminding me of Neverness.

How alien, how bizarre, how hopelessly stupid seemed his way of representing single units of meaning by a discrete progression of linear sounds, whatever sounds really were! How limited to put sounds together, like beads on a string! How could human beings think at all when they had to progress from sound to sound and thought to thought one word at a time like a bug crawling along the beads of a necklace! How very slow!

Because I wanted to speak with the pilot Ringess, I raised my truck and released a cloud of pungent odors that was to a human sentence what I supposed a symphony must be to a child's jingle. But he had no nose and he understood so little. Yes, Ringess, I told him, the scent-symbols are not fixed as, for example, the sounds in the word "purple" are fixed; they do not always mean the same thing. Isn't meaning as mutable as the smells of the sea? Can you sense the configuration of the minute pyramids of mint and vanilla bean and musk in this cloud of odors? And the meanings - do you know that the smells of jasmine and olathe and orange might mean, "I am Jasmine Orange, the lover of Man," or, "The sea is calm tonight," depending on the arrangement and the proximity of the unit pyramids to the other molecules of scent? Can you grasp meaning as a whole? And the logic of structure? Do you understand the complexities of language, my Ringess?

Ideas blossom outward like arctic poppies in the sun growing into other ideas crosslinked and connected by pungent association links, and link to link the smells of roasting meat and wet fur flow outward and sideways and down, and blend into fields redolent with the sweet perfume of strange new logic structures and new truths that you must inhale like cool mint to overwhelm and obliterate your bitter, straightforward ideas of logic and causality and time. Time is not a line; the events of your life are rather like a jungle of smells forever preserved in a bottle. One sniff and you'll sense instantly the entire jungle rather than the fragrances of individual flowers. Do you understand the subtleties? Do you dare open the bottle? No, you have no nose, and you don't understand.

He understands all that the structure of his brain will let him understand.

[Avatar]

Would such a being be able to think?

How do you define thought?

--A

[rusmeister]

Would such a being be able to think?

How do you define thought?

--A

Thought is the mental connection of ideas. It therefore exceeds perception. Automatic reaction to stimuli is not thought. Language is the vehicle by which we connect thoughts.

[Vraith]

Would such a being be able to think?

How do you define thought?

--A

To Fist: yes. [and on the Neverness thing, it's a different mode of language, but still language, much like mathematics, if you don't speak it a mathematician will wonder if you can ever understand what he's "talking" about. Though there are people who try to claim mathematics is more than simply a different kind of language]
To Av: exactly.
Rus wouldn't go for my analogy that a painter painting is thinking non-liguistically, but the complexity, depth of understanding of numerous relationships involved in painting, I don't know how you can call it anything but thinking. Michael Jordan playing basketball is thinking. When I do kata, technique, sparring, bag-work, I promise you I am thinking, and words only get in the way, make it harder.
Another that Rus might not go for: Music. Those who "speak" it don't need language for it. It is intensely thoughtful, reasonable, and even communicative. Words aren't necessary except to translate it into a different kind of thought. Music, as a field, is stuffed to the rafters with musical work "speaking" to, and about itself and other musical work.
[and btw, dolphins have at least some language, they have names for each other, and chimps can learn some: chimps can even teach other chimps to sign]
None of which is to imply that language is not the only real super-power in many areas, it is.

[aliantha]

Now that Vraith has brought up music, as a (former ) musician myself, I had to go back and find rus's objections to painting-as-thought.

Perception is not, in itself, thought. "Thinking about something" means applying reason to what we perceive. And when I speak of "thought" and "thinking", I am not speaking only of things related to logic, and by "reason", I mean thought processes.
Admiring beauty, or experiencing awe at the sight of an asteroid strike, is perception, but it is not thought. It requires language to even think "How beautiful!" or "How awesome!" One can be struck or awed, but that does not add up to thinking about the phenomenon. Even to generate poetry, which is the best vehicle we know of to express those internal experiences - perceptions - you have to have language first.

And I disagree with rus. (Imagine that! )

I gather, rus, that you're not artistically inclined. I will grant you that you need language to translate the gut-punch of your emotional response to a painting or piece of music into a banal "How beautiful!" But in terms of *creating* the atmosphere that gives you that punch in the gut, ah, that takes *thinking* -- and not necessarily the "reasoning" sort of thinking. "Reason" is too cold and calculating a term for what an artist or musician does to get the result he or she desires.

(I suck at art, so I'm going to use music for my examples henceforth.)

First there is technique: how to hold the instrument, where to put your fingers, which keys produce which sounds. In the case of wind instruments (I played clarinet), you also have to worry about your embouchere -- that is, the position of your lips and tongue -- as well as breath support.

Then there is reading music: the translation of those squiggles on the page into the position of your fingers on the keys, the amount of breath support (soft or loud or in between), whether the note is short and sharp or long and sustained, and so on. You have to remember whether there are three or four or five beats to the measure. You have to remember whether C should be C sharp. You also pick up a smattering of Italian in order to read the abbreviations that tell you about tempo (another Italian word!) and so on.

And then you practice, so that all of this becomes rote. During this phase, you're thinking, but not necessarily in words. Oh, your brain translates "rit." to "ritardo" and you know that means you have to slow down. And at the very beginning of the process of learning to play, you may have to write C-D-E-F-G under each note to help you remember which keys to push. But eventually you see a note and know it and play it. Maybe it's a "muscle memory" at that point -- but for sure, at that point, stopping to think, "that's a C, so I put all my fingers down as well as this lever at the very bottom -- next is A, which is just this lever at the top -- and now G, which is everything open," will just slow you down. (I had to stop and think, just to type that out! With the instrument in my hands it would have been automatic! )

But in between playing-by-rote and performing the piece for an audience, something *else* happens. Maybe you begin to have an emotional response to the piece yourself, I dunno. But there is a definite chemistry that happens when a musician sits down before a piece of sheet music, particularly when he or she sits down with other musicians who have their own parts of the music to play. There can be a dialog, a call-and-response, a single united voice, or all of those things, and more -- and not a single word is spoken.

[Avatar]

Thought is the mental connection of ideas. It therefore exceeds perception. Automatic reaction to stimuli is not thought. Language is the vehicle by which we connect thoughts.

So if we don't have language, we can't think?

--A

[Fist and Faith]

Thought is the mental connection of ideas. It therefore exceeds perception. Automatic reaction to stimuli is not thought. Language is the vehicle by which we connect thoughts.

So if we don't have language, we can't think?

That's what I've been asking all along!!! And you've been agreeing with rus that we can't.



How about this wording...

We do not use the words thought and language interchangeably. We never do. They mean different things. What do they mean? Do they differ only in that thought takes place silently, and does not involve communicating with anyone? Yeah, we sometimes "think out loud." But we need not. When we do, it's not because we're trying to communicate with anyone. Anything we think out loud can be thought only within our heads. But is there anything else to differentiate the two words? Language is surely the way we most often communicate thoughts. But we can also act something out in pantomime. If thoughts can be accurately communicated without language, can they exist in the first place without language?

Thought is the mental connection of ideas. It therefore exceeds perception. Automatic reaction to stimuli is not thought. Language is the vehicle by which we connect thoughts.

I agree that thought is more than perception, and that it is not the same thing as automatic reaction to stimuli. But the first and fourth sentences are taking too many steps. "Thought is the mental connection of ideas." So what's an idea? An idea is not a thought? Do animals have ideas?

And even if your answer is "No, ideas are not thought.", you're still saying this:
-Thoughts connect ideas.
-Language connects thoughts.
So what are thoughts - in what form do they exist - before language connects them?

[Avatar]

Thought is the mental connection of ideas. It therefore exceeds perception. Automatic reaction to stimuli is not thought. Language is the vehicle by which we connect thoughts.

So if we don't have language, we can't think?

That's what I've been asking all along!!! And you've been agreeing with rus that we can't.

And I still do. I just wanted to confirm that agreement. Because it leads to another question.

--A

[Vraith]

So if we don't have language, we can't think?

That's what I've been asking all along!!! And you've been agreeing with rus that we can't.

And I still do. I just wanted to confirm that agreement. Because it leads to another question.

--A

If that means what I think it means, agreement that we canNOT think without language, I do not agree, no. We can.
But I'm quite interested in what the question might be.

[Fist and Faith]

We're all on the edges of our seats, Av! Let's just assume rus agrees with you. He's said it a few times already.


But to take it in this direction:
If we don't have language, we can't think. And if we can't think, we don't have language.
Kind of what I was saying. The two words are never used interchangeably. But are the two things so intertwined that one cannot be done with out the other? Perhaps. And was the first thought a human ever had (Talking to those who believe in evolution, here. ) the thought that a particular sound stands for a particular thing? Which made a brand new pathway in a human brain? Which was passed on, and the children were able to take language just a little further, which formed more pathways, which were passed on... So language allowed thought to develop, and thought allowed language to develop?

But I agree with Vraith and ali. We do think without language. It's just not a type of thought that can be expressed with language. Who says there's only one type of thought, or that all types must be expressable with language?

[aliantha]

But I agree with Vraith and ali. We do think without language. It's just not a type of thought that can be expressed with language. Who says there's only one type of thought, or that all types must be expressable with language?

Glad *some*body acknowledged my post. I thought it was kinda good... <grumbles>

I've thought of another example of communication-without-language. You know when a kid does something that skirts the boundaries, but then happens to catch Mom or Dad looking at him/her with that look and straightens right up?

Same kind of thing happens between a long-married couple, or between two best friends: all they have to do is trade a look.

In both of those cases, the thoughts behind the look could well be expressed with language -- but language in both cases is unnecessary and would even be redundant.

As for how it all started: I expect things were all grunt-and-gesture until somebody got the idea (either deliberately or by serendipity) to always pair a particular grunt with a particular gesture, and like any good fad, it caught on. Dunno if the neural pathways were always there to support language or not, but I suspect they evolved later, as greater and greater nuance was called for.

One other thing I noticed earlier and meant to mention (but got carried away by my musical post): rus seems to equate "thinking" with "reason", and I think (;)) they're two different things.

[rusmeister]

I've said that we can communicate without language - but that we can't communicate on higher or more complex levels without it. The appeals are to the perceptions and the emotions (images and music, for example). When you draw diagrams or use sequential imagery, you are already appealing to active thought processes. We can't not think "If.... then....". We are already applying actual thinking to such images.

On music, I remember the scene from "Children of a Lesser God" (5 stars, a must-see)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_a_Lesser_God

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgyZMXqW3jU

where William Hurt is trying to explain music to a deaf woman. And he can't - because there is no thought to transmit. A direct appeal to beauty and emotion, created with great thought - regarding technique and aims - but not itself transmitting thought. We can think ABOUT the music, but that is not the same as the transmission of thought.

[Vraith]

But I agree with Vraith and ali. We do think without language. It's just not a type of thought that can be expressed with language. Who says there's only one type of thought, or that all types must be expressable with language?

Glad *some*body acknowledged my post. I thought it was kinda good... <grumbles>

I've thought of another example of communication-without-language. You know when a kid does something that skirts the boundaries, but then happens to catch Mom or Dad looking at him/her with that look and straightens right up?

Same kind of thing happens between a long-married couple, or between two best friends: all they have to do is trade a look.

In both of those cases, the thoughts behind the look could well be expressed with language -- but language in both cases is unnecessary and would even be redundant.

As for how it all started: I expect things were all grunt-and-gesture until somebody got the idea (either deliberately or by serendipity) to always pair a particular grunt with a particular gesture, and like any good fad, it caught on. Dunno if the neural pathways were always there to support language or not, but I suspect they evolved later, as greater and greater nuance was called for.

One other thing I noticed earlier and meant to mention (but got carried away by my musical post): rus seems to equate "thinking" with "reason", and I think (;)) they're two different things.

Heh...maybe I shoulda given you a nod. I agreed with the main points. Sorry. But this post has more to "talk" about, in a way, things you point at:
If words are the thing, why is it not only easy, but practically certain that seeing these words in my post misunderstandings will be much higher than if you could see me? Actually, we know the answer: much important information cannot be expressed in words. And vice versa, words can say some things that nothing else can manage.
A couple interesting structural things: most of the "new brain" [recently evolved] parts have limited, diffuse relations to "old brain" parts...they don't talk. Language connects more to the older parts. But at the same time: the subsections of those new brain parts have vertical connections, but fewer horizontal connections. The logic and language zones, like NY and Penn. talk a bit...but mostly they talk to their own counties and people. [keeping in mind that almost all parts of the brain are interactive to some extent with other parts].

[Fist and Faith]

That's not why he couldn't explain it to her. The idea that Bach (the piece in question was the sublime slow movement of Bach's concerto for two violins) did not put thought into his music is absurd. And I know you're not saying he didn't, I'm just starting there. Bach's music is complex, mathematical, structured. Arguably beyond any other composer's. It's amazingly well thought-out. This doesn't mean he literally thought about the inversions, augmentation, interval of the next voice entering with the theme, etc., with language. It's a kind of thinking that comes without language. But it is most definitely complex.

And how does one transmit that thought to another person? The only way is to play the music for the person. You can talk about it forever. You can describe the vibrations per second of every single note in the concerto. You can discuss music theory, with all the chords and progressions. I could literally teach you to understand at least several basics right here, with words. You'd be able to write it out yourself, and recognize the major and minor scales when you see them on paper. You'd be able to figure out the tonic and dominant chords.

We could do all of that without ever hearing a single note of music. And you would never understand music in the slightest. Music that is complex and deeply intellectual, like Bach's. Like Marlee couldn't. You can't communicate certain types of thought in ways that other types of thought are communicated.

[rusmeister]

That's not why he couldn't explain it to her. The idea that Bach (the piece in question was the sublime slow movement of Bach's concerto for two violins) did not put thought into his music is absurd. And I know you're not saying he didn't, I'm just starting there. Bach's music is complex, mathematical, structured. Arguably beyond any other composer's. It's amazingly well thought-out. This doesn't mean he literally thought about the inversions, augmentation, interval of the next voice entering with the theme, etc., with language. It's a kind of thinking that comes without language. But it is most definitely complex.

And how does one transmit that thought to another person? The only way is to play the music for the person. You can talk about it forever. You can describe the vibrations per second of every single note in the concerto. You can discuss music theory, with all the chords and progressions. I could literally teach you to understand at least several basics right here, with words. You'd be able to write it out yourself, and recognize the major and minor scales when you see them on paper. You'd be able to figure out the tonic and dominant chords.

We could do all of that without ever hearing a single note of music. And you would never understand music in the slightest. Music that is complex and deeply intellectual, like Bach's. Like Marlee couldn't. You can't communicate certain types of thought in ways that other types of thought are communicated.

Fist, I KNOW you can talk about it, and I know that artists usually put thought of some sort, including technique, into their work. But the music doesn't MEAN "such-and-such". And that is what I mean when I speak of "thought". So Bach put thought into creating the music, but the music does not communicate thought - which I distinguish from emotion and perception. It's not what I understand by "thought".