Is it possible to think without language?

Discussion in 'General Philosophy' started by nicklwj, Jul 27, 2006.

  1. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    ToR it was not so much the time as the vertical vs horizontal thinking that interested me; although it was proved that it could be taught as a separate concept, I find it interesting that the language we speak can not only affect the sounds we are able to produce, but may have covert effects on the process of thinking as well.
     
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  3. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    forget the animal bit for the moment.

    what are you suggesting? that before humans had language that they didn't think?
     
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  5. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Leo,

    Did you know the Oldowan toolkit persisted virtually unchanged for over a half a million years?

    Also.
    What do you think of the definition of 'think'?



    Sam,

    Not much time here but this:

    Reminds me of something I read, I've tried to source it, but can't. It is either from Calvin and Pinker's Lingua Ex Machina. (Yes. The same Pinker that ToR has been bringing up.) Or from The Naked Neuron by... I forget the author. Joseph? Hmm.

    Anyway.
    The story goes like this.
    (quoted from an ancient post of mine):

    I know that I posted the quote verbatim in some thread or another, but google is failing me and I don't have the time to do any indepth digging at the moment.

    Quite interesting though, yes?
     
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  7. invert_nexus Ze do caixao Valued Senior Member

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    Ah.
    Found it.
    Searched for tu-whit instead of kikskakitl. Go figure. Google's weird.

    ...when A. F. Chamberlain visited the Kootenai and Mohawk Indians during the late 1800s, he noted that they even heard animal and bird sounds differently from him. For example, when listening to some owls hooting, he noted that to him it sounded like "tu-whit-tu-whit-tu-whit," whereas the Indians heard "katskakitl." However, once he became accustomed to their language and began to use it, he soon developed the ability to hear sounds differently once he began to listen with his "Indian ears." When listening to a whippoorwill, he noted that instead of saying whip-poor-will, it was saying "kwa-kor-yeuh."
    -The Naked Neuron, p. 250
     
  8. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    That is really amazing!!

    So a sensory defect does affect cognition?

    Need more research on this.
     
  9. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    Invert_Nexus:

    "The frontal lobe is enormously swollen in humans.
    We also have an angular gyrus at the juncture of the parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes (which is conjectured to be a rather magical area in terms of cross-modality, that is blending of the three different brain functions into one. Language production is partially linked to this area (as well as multiple others)).

    Know what's interesting about the frontal lobe, ToR?
    It is an area of the brain that does not receive projections from the body. It deals only with the brain. It is a self-referenceing associational area.
    And it's hugely swollen.
    Does this raise any bells or whistles about the topic at hand? (And I don't mean animal pride.)"

    That is rather fascinating, actually. The most distinct trait of humanity, that is, mentality, being the most developed portion of the brain. Fitting!

    "Also.
    Did you know that rats can do quite well with their neocortex removed surgically? (Quite well is quite relative, of course.) The process is called decortication:
    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...5&dopt=Abstract"

    An interesting experiment, but one which also shows how much the rats lost. They were, for all intents and purposes, severely disabled following this operation. Basic things, such as orientation, were utterly screwed with.

    "The point, ToR, is that they are less intelligent than humans and are unable to think in abstract terms such as is demonstrated in making tools with tools, and in understanding abstract concepts such as justice."

    Unable v. do not are two separate things and we must take that into a consideration. Whereas apes may not make tools to shape other tools, nor have an apparent conception of justice as abstracted as ours, we cannot say that it is beyond the scope of the ape to create a tool-shaping-tool. That being said, yes, there is no evidence of apes communication abstract principles to one another, but it is very often the case with humanity that these conecpts are found to be confused to a great extent, and are usually enmeshed with notions of value, love, fear, and various other things, all which apes -do- show.

    "It completely forgets the extra-special aspect of language. Not that symbols refer to reality. But that symbols refer to symbols.
    It's a bootstrapping process.

    A is for Apple.

    To J is for Justice."

    Could we not relate the abstract of justice, at least, to the appropriate/inappropriate and a moralization of such? For instance, if one wishes to effectively hunt as a tiger, one must employ stealth couple with a pouncing attack to the neck, so that the appropriate thing to do is to follow this. Doing something else will often lead to failure and thus it is inappropriate. Similarly, in our social context, we must follow generalized rules in order to assure that our survival - much like the tiger's - is kept from being threatened, but as we often see, the concept of justice somewhat withers in the face of force, so that forceful individuals of varying types, often shun justice, by virtue that their survival is not at stake. The abstraction of justice then comes from simply not thinking this entire process out, but through cultural transmission and innate fears and aversions of pain and death and the like, we come to idealize it, but even when we speak of justice, we are speaking in more concrete, specific things, which are nonetheless clouded by our lack of thought on the subject. That is to say, the process of abstraction may make symbols referential to one or more symbols, but the symbols referenced eventually return to reality. Thus we can speak of abstractions on abstractions as "third tier", the abstract refernece as "second tier", and "first tier" as reality. It is only that certain aspects concepts are further and nearer from the "first tier" that symbols have a distance from reality, but by virtue of being within a tiered system, are never divorced from it utterly. In this way we somewhat rescue the Augustinian notion expressed in the Wittgenstein quote, as well as adding to it a potential justification of more abstract notions, which would nonetheless be intuited, as Augustine said, in much the same was as everything else.
     
  10. Oniw17 ascetic, sage, diogenes, bum? Valued Senior Member

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    Again, what are we defining language as? If the answer is simple communication, which all animals, and possibly some lower life has, I would say no to the question. But if you mean systematic language, like english, then yes, you can think without language, see my first post.
     
  11. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    I think we are defining language as a set of symbols governed by rules of grammar
     
  12. Absane Rocket Surgeon Valued Senior Member

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    I haven't read most of these posts (but at some point I intend to). I think it's rather pointless to define language for this topic. I think we need to all agree on what "thinking" really is at its most basic level and discover what we can build from there using elementary pieces. Perhaps from here we can see how language develops in a "thinking" being. Unless thinking is an algorithm of instructions... which we can see where language develops. Like, in computer programming. The most basic thing is machine code. Zeros and ones... From here, to make the thinking easier (computers) we created ASM... and from there we made it even easier.. C/BASIC/Java.. whatever. You use the basic intruction set of the computer to decipher the higher languages (like C) back into machine code.

    Or maybe I need to see what you all are really talking about.
     
  13. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    Oldowan toolkit?

    Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!



    man had to hunt food before the advent of language.
    there had to be a process going on inside a persons head to allow them to do that.
     
  14. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    Come on leo!

    Hunting for food is instinctive.
     
  15. leopold Valued Senior Member

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    i find it impossible to believe that humans didn't think before they had language.
     
  16. Ophiolite Valued Senior Member

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    I haven't read the earlier posts, but I agree wholeheartedly with Leopold. Indeed I find no difficulty in thinking many quite sophisticated thoughts without any language involvement whatsoever. Certain categories of thought are more readily handled in this way - ask any topologist. Why then would we think this facility was not available to our ancestors?
     
  17. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    What I said to you was not in reference to language itself but to your statement that 'hunting' and 'trapping' and 'snaring' one's own food require "reasoned thought". Sorry for the mix-up.

    I have already said that thought without language is 'possible'. I'm not sure how that can even be confuted.
     
  18. S.A.M. uniquely dreadful Valued Senior Member

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    So you think language was a product of cognitive development or could the two have developed simultaneously?
     
  19. §outh§tar is feeling caustic Registered Senior Member

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    Hello invert. I was thinking of bringing up the language of the Piraha tribe. Are you familiar with it? Here is an interesting link: http://ling.man.ac.uk/info/staff/DE/culturalgrammar.pdf

    There is an abstract in the beginning, for all who are interested.

    Prince James, I will respond once I do some research..

    I asked Prince James to specify criteria by which to determine such 'easily obvious facts' as the difference in thought between human beings and animals. What do you think of Hume's categorization:

    It is easy to elaborate on both categories and I doubt there is any example to be cited or even conceived of which can be demonstrated to overlap. The apparent difficulty to me is in such a scenario:

    Say I think to myself, 'I want a sandwich'. But I do not actually want a sandwich (and so the thought is not 'a matter of fact'). How shall we categorize this thought?

    Does it appear to you too that statements devoid of truth value cannot be relegated to this scheme? I can infer from this that verbal thoughts require their own special categories. What do you make of this?

    The special connundrum being that in order to make this a valid scientific/philosophical description we must be able to determine what criterion determines what I termed 'truth value'. Hume calls this 'belief' and proceeded to define belief as subjective. If we can admit that the certainty that comes from belief implies the truth value of a statement then the connundrum is fixed. Of course we are then confined to talking about subjective truth.

    I'm itching to bring to mention the fact that phantom limb patients know their conditions to be illusion and not delusion and the fact that stimulation of the mandible with a cotton swab provided like feeling in the phantom hand. I do not feel as though cases as special as these, of phantom limb patients and the Piraha, can be overlooked without rendering our definitions, descriptions, and discussions incomplete.

    Note: samcdkey was the first to bring up the Piraha, although I don't know how much he knows about the topic.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2006
  20. Avatar smoking revolver Valued Senior Member

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    Sure, I think without any verbal projections all the time, it's a lot quicker to do so and a blessing if you want to think on abstract concepts and ideas.
    Frequently I have a thought of a concept that takes a second or so to percieve with my brain, but takes hours to write it down on paper.
    I mostly think verbally when learning stuff for uni or planning conversations with other people.
     
  21. Prince_James Plutarch (Mickey's Dog) Registered Senior Member

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    §outh§tar:

    Take your time. We had a most interesting exchange just prior and I know that you shall respond thoughtfully and with interesting insights.
     
  22. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    Invert, I haven't read all your posts (my pc went offline last night) but I can see ToR all over them , so I figure I annoyed you quite a bit, I did however note the apology for being pissy. You were pissy, condescending, patronising and sexist (ref 'dearie'). You harp on about me trying to talk about chimps as if they are human, when I have done no such thing, your first post in this discussion was with the attitude 'game on', I noted a flaw in two of the things you said which you later explained, regardless this is not a thread about chimps its about thinking without language. Your chimps and tools reference was disputed merely because 2yr old kids (who indisputably think) also cannot use tools to make tools. I NEVER said as you suggest that chimps are the same as 2yr old children? This is what I said:

    "Invert are you aware that the chimps brain is strictly limited in terms of its ability to learn new things and while they develop at the same rate as a human baby, this STOPS at age 2. thus every adult chimp will only ever have the relative intelligence of a very average 2 yr old child. " relative intelligence of a 2yr old child NOT the same.

    Moreover when ever I read on the web (not the discovery channel- I never watch it) about animals and intelligence they seem to want to measure it against human intelligence ie apes intelligence developmentally of 4yr old human, dolphin 3yr old, these are not my references they are popular references, rightly or wrongly. There is no suggestion however that animals are humans.

    On the subject of intelligence there is NO sure fire way of measuring this as there is not even as far as I am aware a universally scientifically agreed idea of what intelligence is? Lots of ideas but nothing universally agreed.

    There is no universally agreed idea of cosnciousness is, some think animals are not conscious others dispute this based on a differring view of what consciousness is. So much is in disupte.

    Am I wrong on this?

    Re The brain thing, If you have a a better source rather than being offensive why not just provide it? You did but not after being as you call it 'pissy'.These forums are for learning and as the main tools for learning are the writings and research of others, why should I not trust my source in the absence of another?

    I have already acknolwedged the jury scientifically (while majority of the scientific community now seem to hold with the Pinker veiw) is still out on this topic. Hence the interesting debate which will rage on, we cannot solve it if greater men before us have not reached agreement yet. But it's interesting, at least it was till you started flinging insults around. You are the only one to do so too. VERY disappointing.
     
    Last edited: Jul 29, 2006
  23. Theoryofrelativity Banned Banned

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    This may not relate to the above, but I think some people cannot think past what they are taught to think. Many times I have tried to have a philosophical argument with a pal and asked them 'their' opinion to only ever be met with 'quotes' of other peoples opinions. I respond that I want to hear what 'they' think to which they inform me they have told me already. Agreeing with the words of someone past is one thing but never being able to formlate something new /different/contrary?

    Myself on the subject of time, I see time in terms of distance, a route we are travelling, thus free will can alter that route or it is predetermined dependant on how many branches there are that lead in different directions. *opens flood gates*

    sorry off topic
     

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