The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language'

the author's site ^ | 1972 | Dallas Willard

[Consort]

That, and finding a relationship or a possible relationship. Linking this to that.

I think the definition covers it.

[Hank Kerchief]

Well, if that is true, he ought to be able to explain to us how he does it, without using language.

It depends how broadly we define language. Are the mimes using the language? In some sense they are.

We ought not define anything incorrectly. If a mime communicates anything it is communication by demonstration, not explanation. Generally, a mime does not communicate at all, at least, not ideas (or concepts), which is what language communicates. A mime's act produces impressions, about which those who watch may form ideas.

The fact that different people will form completely different ideas from watching the same act excludes the mime's acts from the realm of communication. (There is, however, a subtle form of mimicry, which is what mimes do, called signing, which really is a form of language. The most common form is that used by the deaf.)

Hank

[Yeti]

For example, suppose some idiot claims he can think without language. Well, if that is true, he ought to be able to explain to us how he does it, without using language.

Explaining his thought is not the same thing as thinking it.

[fifteendogs]

Past and future are time relative. They are important, but have no impact on the experience of events. What you experience is what you exoerience. It is only relative to a point in time. I experienced what you did relative to the current point in time. I'm sorry, language can be so difficult.

[squarebarb]

illicit=elicit

[Consort]

...language can be so difficult.

Yes, but I think telepathy doesn't needs the physical language. It takes place on on the mental or psychic or noetic level.

[squarebarb]

Exactly. Allegory, legend, myths, tales and parables --- storytelling --- convey much more than grim logical analyses. See Levi-Strauss on this matter, he wrote about three tomes on it and I desperately tried to read them all. But in reality, the storyteller's map of conscious thought is quite deep. This man is writing as if it were the individual, discrete word that mattered. As 'symbol', etc. Doesn't. Storytellers create story-roads which lead the mind down fascinating paths. Individual words are lonesome losers except in the case of 'Careful!' or 'Stop!' and these are actually imperative sentences of one word. Chew on that, you-all.

[Lorianne]

For example, suppose some idiot claims he can think without language. Well, if that is true, he ought to be able to explain to us how he does it, without using language.

I think without language all the time. As an architect I think spatially in forms, volumes and voids. The thoughts do not need langauge to be formulated but to communicate them I may need to build a 3D model or make a 2D drawing to convey a 3D concept. Or I could say it or write it in millions of words which still may not communicate the concept as I conceptualize it. Spatial thinking is only one example of thinking without language or symbols. Mathematicians and musicians also think without language.

[fifteendogs]

telepathy is a form of commuunication, just like speaking a language. You can communicate in a whisper, you can communicate at a level of normal talk, or you can communicate as if you were yelling. There is no sound.

Telepathy is not reading other peoples minds. No one knows what I am thinking unless I wish to communicate my thoughts, I do not know what others are thinking unless they wish to communicate their thoughts. When I am in communication with someone, they fully understand my thoughts and I fully understand theirs. There is no language structure, there is only understanding.

[Consort]

Yes, the unfiltered contact with other than just the physical plain, a facility of the higher non-physical self.

[Hank Kerchief]

Explaining his thought is not the same thing as thinking it.

I think you know what I mean. I mean if he has a thought which can be explained, which is the same thing as a thought which can be understood, the (intellectual) means of explaining it are identical to the means of understanding it. In other words, if you explain something to me and I understand what you explain, you must have first thought that explanation yourself, to understand it, else you could not have explained it to me.

The whole problem is that people are loose with language, and on this thread are equating anything that goes on in people's heads with "thinking". If the word "thought" is going to be used in this loose way, then we need to use another word for what real thinking is. Of course, there is already such a word, reason, which is not possible without language.

Hank

[RightWhale]

Like a cartoon, Dilbert maybe, or Hi and Lois. Boss, mom, says to employee, child: "Do you understand?"

Employee, kid says: "Sure, got it."

Oh, yeah, sure. There was a linkage, maybe the one the boss, mom was broadcasting through mental telepathy.

[Cicero]

Interesting article. I have to think about it, but he persuades me that his basic point has merit.

[fifteendogs]

It has been mre than 25 years since I have been able to communicate with someone using telepathy. Your language is fairly rich in description but is limited in comprehension.The only media which offers any satisfaction is radio. It is a pleasure to use ones mind and imagination. Imagination is lacking in telepathy, due to the fact that total understanding is prevalent in the process. Radio allows one to experience the language without reference points. One must use imagination to establish the reference points. Are you reallyinterested in this conversation or are you just putting me on.

[Hank Kerchief]

I think without language all the time. As an architect I think spatially in forms, volumes and voids. The thoughts do not need langauge to be formulated but to communicate them I may need to build a 3D model or make a 2D drawing to convey a 3D concept. Or I could say it or write it in millions of words which still may not communicate the concept as I conceptualize it. Spatial thinking is only one example of thinking without language or symbols. Mathematicians and musicians also think without language.

If you choose to use the words "thought" and "thinking" to identify anything that goes on in your head (consciousness) that is fine, but in that case, we must use another word for that process of non-contradictory identification, integration, and abstraction by which we understand things and make our choices, for example. The formal name for that process is reason, and the only tool we have for doing that is language.

Most of what you describe is correctly called imagination, a very important part of human consciousness, but it is not, in a technical sense "thinking." I personally do not care if you want to call it thinking, but the rational process is only possible using language, and until you have identified those events and entities you describe as "... forms, volumes and voids..." by means of concrete words representing the concepts for what those, "forms, volumes and voids," actually mean, they remain nothing more than images and musings in your imagination, and while interesting to you, are useless to you or anyone else.

Hank

[RightWhale]

Jugglers, magicians, philosophers, and minstrels have been banned from polite society from time to time. Probably for good reason: leading the impressionable into error.

[Lorianne]

Most of what you describe is correctly called imagination, a very important part of human consciousness, but it is not, in a technical sense "thinking." I personally do not care if you want to call it thinking, but the rational process is only possible using language, and until you have identified those events and entities you describe as "... forms, volumes and voids..." by means of concrete words representing the concepts for what those, "forms, volumes and voids," actually mean, they remain nothing more than images and musings in your imagination, and while interesting to you, are useless to you or anyone else.

Well people pay quite a bit of money for these musings that are not translated into words, but are rather translated into 3D models and 2D drawings. So evidently it is not "words" which define the thinking, much less make them useful.

[Consort]

Your language is fairly rich in description but is limited in comprehension.

Do you mean the English language or are you referring to me personally? Either way, I'm not sure what you mean by that.

...radio...

I don't see how the radio analogy fits in.

Are you reallyinterested in this conversation or are you just putting me on.

I'm interested.

[thinktwice]

If thinking is basically a language process, how does one explain "English" thinking to those doing "Chinese" thinking without some "Translation" thinking going on between those involved?

The only practical conclusion is that thinking is not a language process, that words are expressions for concepts, that words pertain to particulars within reality that rational humans have the ability to comprehend (and associate words with) irregardless of language.

[unspun]

Jugglers, magicians, philosophers, and minstrels have been banned from polite society from time to time. Probably for good reason: leading the impressionable into error.

And those who would try to be in control of their environment (and those in it) have been prone to put themselves in charge of polite society. Some have called such people censors (of language) and police of thought.