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Non-Linguistic Thoughts
do they exist? are they possible?

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Non-Linguistic Thoughts

ontophile
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Posted 01/03/08 - 11:13 AM: Subject: Non-Linguistic Thoughts	#1
I have been arguing with a friend for some time now. We both agree that Locke, Berkeley and Hume all have a very imagistic notion of ideas. When someone says "tree" you supposedly get an image of a tree in your head, otherwise communication and understanding did not take place. But as you read these words, you do not receive a series of images in your head; therefore, this imagistic notion of ideas is incorrect, because there is no one-to-one correspondence between words and pictures in one's mind. In other words, only if my mind's eye was constantly flooded with pictures would the imagistic theory of thought be true. My friend and I do not disagree about this. Similarly though, I do not hear voices in my head when I think, nor do I see a scroll of words moving before my mind's eye. In fact, most of my thoughts are not fully articulated in my head, nor are they always in the form of some image. Therefore, I conclude (but my friend doesn't) that there are linguistic thoughts (like when you pretty much talk to yourself in your head) and then there are the other 90% of thoughts which do not occur in a language; they are non-linguistic thoughts. I'm bilingual and most of my thoughts are not in either of the languages which I speak. If, everytime I had a thought, it had to aleady be in words, then we would never be at a loss for words, AND it would take much longer to think than it typically does. I can have a very complex idea in an instant and so can you. These are my reasonings. What are y'all's thoughts?

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Posted 01/03/08 - 12:32 PM:	#2
I am of the opinion that everything can be put into words, because a word is a mere symbol (or it least it is capable of being a symbol, among other things). It may not be that it will be understood by others, but if need be you can simply take one huge thought and label it with one word. I also think that all thoughts exist "non-linguistically," however, whether people are capable of thinking them without words (or further, symbols of some kind) is highly questionable.
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Jesroy
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Posted 01/03/08 - 12:41 PM:	#3
I would also like to question what you mean by "thought." It is very apparent that people, and I know that I myself am constantly "thinking" without words. Thinking with words is, among other things, a mechanism to facilitize thoughts. It is also something that becomes a habit from talking and hearing words all the time, or, better stated, from hearing objects referred to by words all the time. Then one begins thinking of words before objects (or words as objects of a sort), but recalling all the effects and logical consequences that follow from the object associated with the object, although it is truly the word, not the object, they have in mind. Therefore it is possible to think using words in place of objects, reaching the same conclusions, but often easier, because 1. words have been structured (or developed naturally, in either case "language") so that they are easy to understand in connection with one another, 2. one simply associates the connections with words very quickly after habit and so thoughts branch out as consequences and effects appear along with the words, and 3. a word is a word is a word, and 4. one can keep track of things with symbols, such as words. There is a 5. I was thinking of but it now eludes me. I should have put it into words when I had the chance.
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myrmecophaga
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Posted 01/03/08 - 02:28 PM:	#4
Read Richard Feynman's "Surely your joking Mr. Feynman" where he discusses some experiments he did with regards to the workings of the mind etc.
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SIR2U
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Posted 01/03/08 - 08:46 PM:	#5
Thought processes within the brain run on 2 levels, conscious and sub-conscious. What we hear in our head is conscious, which means basically that we are aware of it. According to most experts, the rest of our thinking is done sub-consciously, meaning that we are not aware of it happening. These sub-conscious thoughts must begin and end as linguistic thoughts as you call them, but just like the conscious thoughts they are only electro-chemical processes in our brains. It is quite easy to see where most of our thinking is actually done, in the sub-conscious. If we had to vocalize all of our thoughts to our selves we would still be in the stone age. Try to think of a known word that does not bring some sort of image to mind when you consciously think about it. It happens because words are images that the mind finds easier to handle than pictures, but we still need to have an original image of a tree to understand the word. Now try to do it with an unknown word, you don't get an image do you? Thats because there is no connection to a real object or an idea. Even when we think consciously the brain often moves too fast for us to be able to see most of the images. Little babies work only with images, because they have no vocabulary, but their brains still process the sight of a bottle and they understand the meaning of it.
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Posted 01/03/08 - 09:36 PM:	#6
Languages can be hierarchical. When Europeans first encountered tomatoes, they didn't have difficulty describing them and naming them based on objects they already knew, "passion apples", "golden apples", and "wolf peach", (the last one is based on a story of a fruit that was used to poison wolves and the reason that it was initially considered poisonous -- it is still the basis for the scientific name). Eventually, many languages borrowed the native word for the fruit and today we can describe a great variety of tomatoes by adding more adjectives. When you encounter something, you can usually describe it in terms of similar attributes. When you imagine something, you can describe it using similar linguistic handles. I think there is a tendency to assume that the reason you so strongly associate an image with a word is because of a dependency on the word. If that were true, it would be extremely difficult for a baby to utter its first word. But you can check with the way that babies develop that they take some experience, real, imagined or illusionary and sample for descriptive or explicit "word" association. There are also a large vocabulary of gesture, facial and body expression sounds or visual cues that we rely on. Even if there is something so fundamentally unlike anything else ever experienced, (everything must have been that way initially), it is a simple feat for the mind to create new categories until more information comes in. Science, for example, uses names for quantum particles, dark energy and dark matter, which we have not yet directly experienced, but which we can deduce particular attributes.
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hyena in petticoat
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Posted 01/03/08 - 09:53 PM:	#7
When one thinks of a specific object, one tends to "visualize" that object in his head. So it's like we have ideas with which we can attach specific representation (pictures). But then, I don't think we can visualize all of our thougths. Our thought process is so swift and vague and complicated (I think). So no, I don't think it's purely liguistic nor imagistic. As to how to decsribe it, I'm at a lost for description. Maybe, as hinted/ indicated at the other responses above, they know how to accurately describe/ explain the process with ehrm... scientific terms/ in a scientific sort of way?
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Posted 01/04/08 - 12:53 AM:	#8
I'll go static answers. Yes, you can have a thought that is not purely language. No, you may not be able to express the thought to another. You can use any symbol, or combination thereof, and never truly show what you mean; only come close sometimes.

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Posted 01/06/08 - 11:29 AM:	#9
After studying Augustine this past semester and upon some reflection, there seems to be a link between Augustine's concept of the "significable" and the non-linguistic thought. For, as I have experienced, most of the time my "ah-hah" moments are not constituted by words. More often than not, my own mental process is a flow of something other than words, namely that which words signify, or significables as Augustine would call it. Being a philosopher it seems, consists of, at least in part, being acutely aware of these significables and their nuances, whether they be context, meaning, implication, etc. This, I think, is what the underlying hierarchy of language is, or maybe where it is, within intellectual space, if you will.
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drewster1829
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Posted 01/15/08 - 10:29 AM:	#10
I was thinking of the thoughts of a child who could not yet speak, and that makes sense that they would be in images...but what about Helen Keller as a child, before she learned to communicate through touch? Obviously she had thoughts, but as she could neither hear nor see, how could her thoughts be represented as either language or images? Perhaps that's the non-semantic section of thought which we are talking about? It's like the 'tip of the tongue' syndrome, where you can't remember the word for something. In trying to remember (or bring the memory into conscious thought), we try to picture the person or object, and usually we can get the the first letter, and maybe a word it rhymes with. Language is a very powerful tool, yet I believe our brains works beyond the constraints of it. That being said, I think it also depends on the individual. Some people may think more with the 'voice in the head', while others may think in images of objects, while others might think in images of languges (written words or numbers), and perhaps others more through touch. I think the variation from individual to individual might be relatively small, but how could one prove it? We as humans tend to assume that everyone thinks like ourselves, while I personally think that there's a lot of difference in how one person thinks from another (which is probably one reason why it's hard to demonstrate your point of view to another in many situations, as you can't get across to them).
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the.yangist
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Posted 01/16/08 - 01:06 AM:	#11
We can just cut the Broca's Areas out of some subjects' heads and find out if they lose other cognitive abilities. Obviously, without the Broca's Areas (given exceptions of brain adaptation to tumors or trauma, etc.), you couldn't communicate with them effectively, but you could still measure their ability to interpret and properly manipulate their world with a series of non-symbolic problems (e.g. how to warm oneself with blankets, how to use keys to open doors, etc.).
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paperwork
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Posted 01/31/08 - 07:25 PM:	#12
I normally think in nothing but language, but I have certainly experienced those moments when thought is like a flowing singularity where everything is indistinguishable. But these moments are always the companion of a great struggle to comprehend something, and come with a sense of ineffable understanding that is fleeting. So to be a bit of an orthodox structuralist, I think that the job of language is to delimit this nebulous into a series of articulate, communicable units, and that the brief, ephemeral moments of realization are therefore little more than an overload that causes linguistic structure to dissipate. Now perhaps I do casually think without language, but I would describe what happens to be a sense of direction spontaneously followed by a stream of words. It is often as if they unfold from nowhere. And, to move on, I do not believe that this, nor anything particular from within this thread, can contradict the empiricists' notion of ideas. This is because it is a very general concept, encompassing sense impressions, feelings, linguistic thought and the imagination. So I am certain that anything put forward here pertaining to the mind can be subsumed under it. Edited by paperwork on 01/31/08 - 07:49 PM

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Posted 02/02/08 - 09:38 PM:	#13
I'd like to echo everyone else in that ideas aren't dependent on language, because sometimes it's hard or even impossible to express ideas in language. Maybe it makes though simpler sometimes because we can remember basic functions between ideas in a language- we know what the concept of love is, but we also know how it works with other ideas, making it easier to understand the interactions between it and other ideas without actually considering all of what "love" means in the process.
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Posted 02/11/08 - 05:23 AM:	#14
ontophile wrote: I... It is the grammar of language that first allows us to define ourselves as "i", so surely, any discussion of pre-linguistic thought is undermined by an argument which begins in the first person?

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Posted 02/11/08 - 05:24 AM:	#15
ontophile wrote: I have been arguing with a friend for some time now. We both agree that Locke, Berkeley and Hume all have a very imagistic notion of ideas. When someone says "tree" you supposedly get an image of a tree in your head, otherwise communication and understanding did not take place. But as you read these words, you do not receive a series of images in your head; therefore, this imagistic notion of ideas is incorrect, because there is no one-to-one correspondence between words and pictures in one's mind. In other words, only if my mind's eye was constantly flooded with pictures would the imagistic theory of thought be true. My friend and I do not disagree about this. Similarly though, I do not hear voices in my head when I think, nor do I see a scroll of words moving before my mind's eye. In fact, most of my thoughts are not fully articulated in my head, nor are they always in the form of some image. Therefore, I conclude (but my friend doesn't) that there are linguistic thoughts (like when you pretty much talk to yourself in your head) and then there are the other 90% of thoughts which do not occur in a language; they are non-linguistic thoughts. I'm bilingual and most of my thoughts are not in either of the languages which I speak. If, everytime I had a thought, it had to aleady be in words, then we would never be at a loss for words, AND it would take much longer to think than it typically does. I can have a very complex idea in an instant and so can you. These are my reasonings. What are y'all's thoughts? . It is the grammar of language that first allows us to define ourselves as "i", so surely, any discussion of pre-linguistic thought is undermined by an argument which begins in the first person?

thaKillingToke
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Posted 02/11/08 - 04:34 PM:	#16
A couple more thoughts on the topic. I'm not sure that it's particularly fair to criticize Locke, Berkeley and Hume as having 'imagistic' epistemologies. That doesn't penetrate very far into what they were talking about, imho. The category of 'idea' was not limited to these folks, but they modified and applied it in their own ways through their respective philosophies. The idea of the 'idea' is a way of talking about thought and the content of thought in a way that is accessible and easily contrastable to the category of 'impressions'. Where we might get tricked is in the dependency of ideas upon impressions. For certainly, as SIR2U points out, known words (or symbols) are associated with specific sets of impressions, and meaning is a function of thinking through impressions (sorting impressions), which need not occur in an explicitly 'linguistic' manner. We won't understand the symbol 'tree' unless we associate it with the impression of seeing a tree, of feeling a tree. The Hellen Keller example is instructive: A direct association of a symbol with a sensation. But the idea of a tree is not simply a single sense impression of a visual localization, or a touch of bark. It is a massive set of impressions all collected and integrated into a functional class. The idea of the 'tree' is a formal object of thought that organizes a myriad number of similar impressions under a single salient 'image' or symbol. When we apply words to thoughts (and things) this allows us to more efficiently find this set in our memory, and call it to mind to understand meaning. Words become identifiers of these classes. And, if a class is particularly connected to the visual realm, it may coalesce into a vague super-image. But note that neither this image nor the set (the class) itself, as an idea, exists in reality, that is, in the phenomenal world (except as a thought in the mind). Hence the idea of 'tree' does not directly refer us to any existing tree. It refers the subject to the entire history of hesh experience of encountering phenomena that answer to the description of 'tree', that seem to hesh judgment as similar enough to be part of the extension of the class. Most of this work is done 'subconsciously' as we say, automatically, as the mind processes information. In effect, a being with a mind having the faculties that we do cannot help but think in terms of classes, and hence set up these relationships of meaning by grouping impressions into these integrated aggregates, these cognitive schema. I'm not sure how useful the distinction between 'linguistic' and 'non-linguistic' thought is. The process of thinking through words/ symbols is the same as the process of thinking through impressions/ classes, only words are even more abstract, more unit-like. They are a condensation of impressions. The point is that the relationship of elements is the same. Words are functional, concepts/ classes are functional. They organize impressions and experiences into communicable units. In fact, it's doubtful that we ever actually think in terms of language. Rather, we are thinking in terms of classes, in terms of experiences, in terms of immediate and remembered impressions, and only when we are pressed to communicate do we verbalize them as words. We use words when we are speaking--and in many cases this will extend to our own internal narrative, when we are thinking through a narration-story in imagination. But mere thinking is probably not done 'through' words. So what about classes that are not connected to impressions? Perhaps these are transcendental categories of Thought itself? 8) Edited by hyena in petticoat on 02/11/08 - 05:08 PM. Reason: Illiteracy.
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Posted 02/11/08 - 05:42 PM:	#17
I catch myself thinking in words, images or both depending on what it is I'm doing. How can anyone say that every single person's thought process is the same. If it was, would this discussion even be taking place? One's thought process is a product of their life experience, which includes what they've seen, heard and read. Every person has an ultimately unique life experience. People's genetics also vary and may make someone more right or left brained which will give them a tendency to think in certain ways. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that asserting how every person's thought process works by simply describing your own is a bit presumptuous.

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Posted 02/23/08 - 04:24 PM:	#18
Think of "red". What comes to mind? Most would agree with me when I say that the concept of redness cannot be described in words-sure, it could be a "vivid colour that many associate with anger", but this would not, without prior knowledge of redness, allow somebody to experience redness-see Frank Jackson's thought experiment about Mary the scientist. When we think of redness, we seem to hold an image, rather than a linguistic description, in our minds.

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Posted 03/18/08 - 09:50 PM:	#19
It seems as though thoughts can exist without a corresponding linguistic signifier. I�m positive that they do all the time. However, I think that most of our analytical appraisal of our experiences and ideas are processed symbolically. I suggest this because of the simple heuristic value of thinking in terms of pre-existing symbols that have defined relations to other symbols and signified objects. Furthermore, when we do think in non-linguistic terms, we are likely to interpret those thoughts in linguistic terms.
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Posted 04/01/08 - 02:35 AM: Subject: Non-Linguistic Thoughts	#20
If we consider the word language as variety of 'carrier signal' for a given message then images are also a form of language, as are the synaptic firings of private neuronal architectures or even the culturally localised semiotic structures in fine art or graphic design. We are seduced into understanding 'language'only in terms of those syntactic/semiotic/semantic structures that employ 'words', but this is a false assumption, IMHO. Once we analyse what goes on in our use of that singular example of an organising scheme and content relationship (pace Davidson), we appreciate that essentially speech acts (or text) is but one example of a particular 'carrier signal' (the organising scheme... signifying)that transmits and receives 'the message' (the meaningful content... that is signified). Given the above, our public languages (whether words or images) and private thoughts (conscious, sub conscious or at a network level of electro-chemical input and output... engaging the axons and dendrites of neuronal cells) are to be categorised with any other signalled message, that by necessity involves semiotics (signs), syntactic structures (signifying rules/ codes/ algorithms), and semantics (the message/meaningful content). This is IMHO self evident from such a priori reasoning because, by definition, if content is transmitted and received then messaging must have transpired. Public language and private thought MUST interact thereby demonstrating such hypotheses. Edited by Glypt on 04/02/08 - 02:08 AM

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Posted 04/09/08 - 08:59 AM:	#21
Just a couple of references for those who want to look at this seriously Wegner - The Illusion of Conscious Will Carruthers - just about anything recent. He is of the opinion (in a silly soundbite) that natural language is the language of conscious thought. It is an interesting area for speculation as to how this marries up with Wegners (soundbite) thesis that all productive thought is sub-conscious. Glypt wrote: This is IMHO self evident from such a priori reasoning because, by definition, if content is transmitted and received then messaging must have transpired. Public language and private thought MUST interact thereby demonstrating such hypotheses. Just as an aside, if Carruthers is right, then Glypt hasn't performed 'a priori' reasoning.... Think of it this way, could an adult Papuan woodsman have the slightest idea of what he means, or would he have to first learn what the words (or any other signs) 'mean' i.e. acquire the concepts? And in so doing render them and the relationships between them 'a posteriori'.
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Posted 04/11/08 - 01:00 PM:	#22
Klingsor's goldfish wrote: could an adult Papuan woodsman have the slightest idea of what he means, or would he have to first learn what the words (or any other signs) 'mean' i.e. acquire the concepts? And in so doing render them and the relationships between them 'a posteriori'. The point is that whatever hermeneutic endeavour is necessary for one language to obtain within another, the relation of meaning may be multipli-realised within an infinite range of signifiers. All so called 'languages' have to be encoded and decoded through a range of signifying networks. "Whorf, wanting to demonstrate that Hopi incorporates a metaphysics so alien to ours that Hopi and English cannot , as he puts it, 'be calibrated', uses English to convey the contents of sample Hopi sentences...[ ]...In giving up the dualism of scheme and world, we do not give up the world, but re-establish unmediated touch with the familiar objects whose antics make our sentences and opinions true or false." (Davidson) Edited by Glypt on 04/11/08 - 01:30 PM

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Posted 04/11/08 - 04:25 PM:	#23
It seems intuitively obvious to me that I sometimes think in some mode that is not verbal. This seems particularly clear in cases such as in trying to figure out how to do something in routine everyday life that is problematic, or in past experiences in solving math problems, or in computer programming, or in designing a garden, or determining an efficient logistic to accomplish several necessary tasks before noon, etc. Also, it is very common for children to have conceived of some relationships or some processes for which they have no verbal terms until someone tells them the term that we use for that particular relationship or for that process. I don't doubt that these modes of thinking, including the preconscious or unconscious aspects, are intimately related to language, but I would find it hard to believe that they are entirely congruent with our language circuits. Cheers. jd
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Posted 04/14/08 - 12:27 PM:	#24
congruency presents no barrier to the encoding and decoding that is obtains between analogous and digital signals...as witnessed in the modulating and demodulating of an analogous synwave to binary values and the ensuing packet switching of a modem's hermeneutic tasks. Indeed our spoken words make sinusoidal wave patterns in the air which encode through diaphramatic vibrations on the ear...these analogous sounds are then encoded by the electro-chemical input of our neurological networks and on through and between the axons and dendrites of neuronal brain cells that inform synaptic events...joy of all joys WE THINK!

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Posted 04/14/08 - 10:15 PM:	#25
jdrw wrote: I don't doubt that these modes of thinking, including the preconscious or unconscious aspects, are intimately related to language, but I would find it hard to believe that they are entirely congruent with our language circuits. This whole debate is centered around the issue that your post brings up. Is 'thought' simply defined as 'mental process'? Then certainly there exist non-linguistic thoughts--the part of my brain that engages neurons to control my the rhythm of my breathing is a "non-linguistic thought" according to this definition. But I dispute that there is any meaning to the phrase "there exist non-linguistic thoughts" in the way that most people use the word "thought" in this thread. It's senseless to say that when you think of trees you see an image of a tree, but somehow "not" the word. This is just a more fanciful version of someone saying "when I am in pain I think something that cannot be described with language". But if it cannot be described by language, then how do you even know it exists? You can't qualify it. I refer those in this thread who are interested to Wittgenstein's arguments concerning private language: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_language_arg...
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