The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language'

the author's site ^ | 1972 | Dallas Willard

[RightWhale]

Einstein thought in pictures, he said. For an autistic person he sure made a lot of lucid contributions in many fields.

[Lorianne]

As an architect I often think spatially without symbols (words or numbers). I think conceptually in terms of form, volume and voids. (I'm sure there are other fields where this is common). To express my ideas I have to build a 3D model or draw a 2D drawing to express a 3D concept.

I've often wondered if there were a way to think about other non-spatial concepts without language or symbols but I don't think I have been able to do this. Some musical composers were said to have been able to compose music conceptually and then play it withough having to trascribe it to musical notation. I'm sure mathematicians are able to think like this too, very theoretical without actual numbers.

There is also a condition known as synethesia in which people can smell a form or taste a number or letter or hear a note in place of an image (say of a tree) or see a color in place of a symbol. In this condition people mix up their senses. It's a facinating condition.

[dark_lord]

Yeah, right.

“It consists in the fact that thinking often occurs without the production, manipulation, or perception of sense-perceptible signs, without which there is no use of language. Such occurrences often provoke offers of 'A penny for your thoughts.'”

Note his thesis is to prove that thinking occurs without language, and right out of the gate he simply asserts that it is so –- dishonestly. He is already narrowly defining "language" -- but see below.

He then makes an assertion: “Thinking: Whatever we may decide to call them, and however it is that we are conscious of them, there are intentional states of persons, more or less fixed or fleeting, which do not require for their obtaining that what they are about or of be perceived by, or be impinging causally upon, the person involved’”

What the heck does THAT mean? Typical academic slight of hand. If he can't blind you with his brilliance he will baffle you with his bullshit.

“Such states (t-states) of persons are often called 'thoughts', especially in contrast with 'perceptions', and being in such a state is one of the things more commonly called 'thinking'. One no more needs to be going through a change of such states in order to be thinking, than he needs to be changing his bodily position in order to be sitting or lying or sleeping.”

Another assertion. No effort is made to prove this assertion.

“Usually they flow, at varying rates, intermingled with person states of many sorts, governed by such transitional structures as inference, goal orientation, objective structures given in perception or in other ways, and elemental association of 'ideas', among others. In what follows, we shall use 'thinking' to cover both the single t-state and the flow of such states, without regard to how intermingled with other person states. “

Fuzzy academic prose at it finest. Pay no attention to the fact that he is talking pure nonsense by this point.

“Language: Sense perceptible signs or symbols are an essential constituent of language. It is always false to say that language is present or in use where no signs are present or in use…”

Ah ha. So of course, as soon as I speak of concepts, or metaphors, or any other higher level construct, I am not really using language but something else. And therefore I don’t need language to speak. See, the way this works is first he puts you to sleep with a bunch of nonsense. Then he defines things the way nobody else would define them. Then, using his personal definitions, he proves his case. TA DA!

[tpaine]

I thought you might want to give this some thought. You may even wish to find the words to express what you think.
12 -unwound-


Finding the words to express my thoughts has never been me big problem here at FR.
Choosing the right ones to avoid being banned is the kicker..

[unspun]

I tend to regard thinking as being a pseudo-sensory process. Since verbal language is one form of sensory perception, some thinking can be done in that form. Thinking may also be done in written form, non-linguistic visual forms, musical form, non-musical non-verbal audio forms, tactile forms, etc.

Then, would it not be likely that thinking is a sub-sensory process, at its root? Is thinking not our behavior on a level which may "hold" things sensory, so to speak and deal with them and fashion things from them (or not) as well as other imaginings, impulses, considerations, desires, etc?

Lorianne just said this:

Some interesting concepts in this piece though I admit much of it is over my head. I've often wondered if we do sometimes think without symbols. I believe I do in the spatial sense, but not in other areas.

What other areas? And what happens in your mind just before you arrive at the symbols you relate to the impetus your mind generates?

[unspun]

Finding the words to express my thoughts has never been me big problem here at FR. Choosing the right ones to avoid being banned is the kicker.

;-) But is much of that really going on?

[supercat]

Some interesting concepts in this piece though I admit much of it is over my head. I've often wondered if we do sometimes think without symbols. I believe I do in the spatial sense, but not in other areas.

What other areas? And what happens in your mind just before you arrive at the symbols you relate to the impetus your mind generates?

Am I the only person who, when I get hungry, starts thinking about how food will taste? Or who, when I miss my kitty, think about the feel of his warm furr and purring vibrations against my face? Such thoughts are clearly verbal in neither nature nor origin.

[Lorianne]

I'm not sure. Anything no spatial I gues.

Have you ever had an idea that you think is an not an idea because you can't express it? The word "ambiance" sort of alludes to this. You can walk into a place and have a certain conceptual feeling that cannot be put into words for example. Sometimes a piece of music can illicit the same response that can't be captured or conveyed in language.

[unspun]

I do think you're on to something.

BTW, I don't think I've often tended to mix up my sensations, but I grew up with distinct impressions of some letters and may be even more, numbers; even a tendency to feel what they would be like if they were personified. I think that may be due to being quite "right-brained" (intuitive and so on) while having to deal with very "left-brained" (logical, linear) tasks, but... there is more to such things, it seems to me.

One tends to naturally (humbly) ascertain that there is much more there, than what our human concepts reach, eh? More there than the stolidness of our words relate, especially.

[unspun]

Have you ever had an idea that you think is an not an idea because you can't express it? The word "ambiance" sort of alludes to this. You can walk into a place and have a certain conceptual feeling that cannot be put into words for example. Sometimes a piece of music can illicit the same response that can't be captured or conveyed in language.

Very 'definitely.' Well, maybe not so "definately," but very objectively true nevertheless.

[RightWhale]

a way to think about other non-spatial concepts without language or symbols

Eventually there will be symbols in the results. As a relatively recent development, database analysis and the Geographical Information System, GIS, is coming along to be a powerful tool where words still fail.

[Mike Darancette]

Einstein thought in pictures, he said.

But, Einstein had to be able to think in language (be it English, German or mathematics) to convey his pictures to the "language thinking" world".

I would think most people do some thinking in non-language ways such as remembered smells, tastes, noises and sights. Some of these non-language thoughts probably defy translation to traditional languages.

Imagine the Autistic who cannot covey his hunger, thirst or boredom to the speaking world.

Methinks this author's mental machinations are aimed at making irrelevant the very qualities that make man superior to the lesser (very un-PC) animals.

[tpaine]

Going on?

Are you really that naive?

[VadeRetro]

Truth is, I can hardly read this kind of BS, written as it is with very few concrete nouns. The eyes just glaze over.

[Billthedrill]

With respect, that quote from Wittgenstein is out of context and the general premise of this paper is entirely contrary to Wittgenstein's work, which holds (oversimplifying horribly here) that there is an inextricable link between how we speak of the world and how we think of it; that the structure of language mirrors the structure of reality itself (in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus he goes even further but backs off a bit in his later work, such as the footnoted but not cited Philosophical Investigations. Quine and some of the other University of Chicago philosophers have explored this facet of philosophy well past my humble understanding.

The Tractatus understands thought and language as essentially ways of representing the world and then investigates how they represent in accordance with two basic premises: (1) that representation is only possible by means of underlying structural identities; and (2) that these structures must be in the logical form of possibilities of existence and non-existence....the "representable" side of sense experience belongs to the form of the world, while the non-representable side is the unsayable content, which has no place in language.

(Henry Finch, Wittgenstein, the Early Philosophy)

If you do wish to explore the "direct reference" school of linguistic philosophy as opposed to the Fregean treatment of the matter, I'd recommend an older book, Nathan Salmon's Reference and Essence, 1981, Princeton University Press.

Or you can do as I do and reread Gay Caballeros in Bondage. Wittgenstein probably did...

[Lorianne]

Excellent point. But a Native American of old he would be able to know exactly where he was without the use of symbology but how would he convey that place to someone else?

[unspun]

Am I the only person who, when I get hungry, starts thinking about how food will taste? Or who, when I miss my kitty, think about the feel of his warm furr and purring vibrations against my face? Such thoughts are clearly verbal in neither nature nor origin.

Well said. You've described "apprehensions," it seems to me, but don't similar occurances happen after the fact, or in yet more imaginary ways, more detached from actual events?

The question remains: What happens in the impetus of our minds, right before we grasp either images or symbols, or anything related to what is sensory?

And aren't there things "tangible" to the mind and any number of its kinds of functions, but which are not about things "tangible" to the body?

What about when we sense that an "attitude" is not a "good" attitude, and we "reflect" upon not only how this feels, but how this places us -- and how it is someting having to do with a thing called being "good-natured?" Good for... what? ("What" used here not just to refer to inanimate objects.)

Not the kinds of things that we can stub our toes on, these things, but they are very, very "thingey" to us, are they not? And naturally so. And we know, don't we, that things that occur naturally with us are about what "things" we relate to?

[unspun]

Going on...?

I'm sorry to hear that. Seems like FR may be getting a bit crusty as time goes on. If you ever need a "character witness," I'll vouch for you!

One has to draw lines, but at least some should always be pushing against the lines people just up and draw.

I think our founding fathers would agree.

[RightWhale]

It's a mixture of all these. The various brain lobes seem to specialize in different functions all the way from conscious motor control to subconscious feelings. But, back to language. The language one uses seems to affect how one thinks. Thought associations seem to be different between Englishmen and Chinese, for example. Engineers can often visualize better in 3-D than can non-engineers. Musicians and mathematicians are often the same people. Politicians can't imagine anything beyond the next election. Lawyers see a different world than the one we think we live in. It's not all language differences, but something must account for the fact that sports is in a different section of the paper than theater.

[RightWhale]

how would he convey that place to someone else?

By allegory. Smoke a pipe and tell tales around the campfire. The words build images and make a map to take you all the way from here to there. And of course the trail is made clear using certain mystical powers over animals and nature that are unavailable to modern man.