|
Silversoul
Rhizome


Registered: 01/01/05
Posts: 23,576
Loc: The Barricades
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: Acaterpillar]
#9559552 - 01/06/09 06:53 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
To a certain extent language may influence our thoughts. However, for thoughts to originate from language, language would have to precede thoughts. And if language preceded thoughts, then how did language develop?
--------------------
|
Acaterpillar
A little mad...



Registered: 06/09/07
Posts: 18,693
Loc: Down the rabbit hole
Last seen: 4 months, 27 days
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: Silversoul]
#9559607 - 01/06/09 07:00 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
I would say it's more of a conditioning our mind undergoes.
I think it also depends on what kind of learners we are. I'm a visual learner so usually without realizing it, when I think of something, I see the image of that thing. When I'm playing a piece that I memorized off of some sheet music, it's weird but I literally see the sheet music in my head as I'm playing, of course this is with the "eye" in your head that's looking inwards not outwards.
So I would say before the development of language, people would associate things we whatever they normally do. So for example when a caveman sees the footprint of a jaguar, he may think of the scream of one if he's audio, or maybe he'll see the image of one in his head if he's visual. But I think what language does it condition our minds to be able to process thoughts in a different format.
I guess I agree with Boneman in that it's both. I have the ability to process thoughts in language, which while I'm doing this I'm still processing images and situations, but it's more concrete or in depth I guess, or I can just simply go without the language and still function fine.
Some weird stuff. I'm still thinking about it, and trying to figure it out.
-------------------- Aaa...E I O Uuu...A E I O Uuu..A E I O uh Uuu.. *Cough* *Cough* Ooo...U E I O Aaa...U E I Aaa..A E I O Uuuuu... At first sight, The Perfection of Wisdom is bewildering, full of paradox and apparent irrationality.
|
Newbie
User of semicolons.



Registered: 07/18/04
Posts: 24,711
Loc: SoCal
Last seen: 2 hours, 18 minutes
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: Acaterpillar]
#9559635 - 01/06/09 07:03 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
I really incorporate all different types of learning, but most of my thinking is accomplished in English. Sometimes active processes are construed as basic emotions; (yes/no, up/down, left/right, black/white), but if it's something I have great interest in, English steps in and mediates.
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: Acaterpillar]
#9559672 - 01/06/09 07:09 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
This is a very difficult question.
So much depends upon whether consciousness evolved before language or vice versa.
I think the first thing to do if one were to attack this in a philosophically rigorous way would be to define what a thought is... the concept is so nebulous as it stands that it prevents adequate resolution of the question.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
Acaterpillar
A little mad...



Registered: 06/09/07
Posts: 18,693
Loc: Down the rabbit hole
Last seen: 4 months, 27 days
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: deCypher]
#9559695 - 01/06/09 07:12 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
What I'm defining as thought here is anything YOU (your conciousness not your brain) are actively pondering on, or contemplating. So I'm saying that telling your muscles to contract and detract is not a thought.
-------------------- Aaa...E I O Uuu...A E I O Uuu..A E I O uh Uuu.. *Cough* *Cough* Ooo...U E I O Aaa...U E I Aaa..A E I O Uuuuu... At first sight, The Perfection of Wisdom is bewildering, full of paradox and apparent irrationality.
|
andrewss
precariously aggrandized


Registered: 08/17/07
Posts: 8,725
Loc: ohio
Last seen: 2 months, 15 days
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: deCypher]
#9559718 - 01/06/09 07:15 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
I would say that language is just the surface of consciousness for humans. It seems we subsume in some sense emotions and instinctual actions through language's operation. Communication between humans forged the emergence of a hyper consciousness that can be aware of it being aware that it is aware... if that makes any sense; and in all reality perhaps it is nonsense.
I dunno, I would say languages formation is so hard to nail down but no doubt its a surface thing that is inspired by and resides among the complex actions of our brain.
-------------------- Jesus loves you.
Edited by andrewss (01/06/09 07:16 PM)
|
deCypher



Registered: 02/10/08
Posts: 56,232
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: Acaterpillar]
#9559721 - 01/06/09 07:15 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Then I would say no. I can think of hearing a song or envisioning a picture with my mind's eye, for example... these certainly don't count as language.
-------------------- We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
 
|
andrewss
precariously aggrandized


Registered: 08/17/07
Posts: 8,725
Loc: ohio
Last seen: 2 months, 15 days
|
Re: Are our thoughts constructed by language? [Re: deCypher]
#9559754 - 01/06/09 07:19 PM (15 years, 1 month ago) |
|
|
Its just by languages function that we can reflect and attempt to comprehend as much as possible what has impressed upon our sensory inputs.
I am open to the idea that humans do not have a monopoly on this sort of perspective in cognition, surely lower animals have some degree of reasoning power, I just wonder how different it is for us that we have a more apparently diverse pool of expressions to work with.... blahhhh
-------------------- Jesus loves you.
|
|