Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

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seeds
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by seeds »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:00 am ...some people believe it's impossible for themselves or anyone else to control their thoughts in order to choose what to think about.
Yet they were able to control their thoughts long enough to shape them into that self-contradicting belief - a belief made up of thoughts of which they chose to think about.

Some people also believe that the earth is flat.
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Sculptor
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

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Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:00 am
Sculptor wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 5:49 pm
Belinda wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 4:06 pm

Yes, but there is also neural connection to the cognitive part of the brain. When someone gets a knee jerk reaction, even if they were blind they would know their knee had jerked.I think.
True, but that happens after its all over. The knee jerks before you are aware.


A little time passes between the effects on nerve endings or organs of special sense, and the cognitive brain. There is no possibility of thought of the event 's happening before the cognitive brain is involved.
Absolutely NO. The reflex is a special case. The nerve impulse only travels to the spinal chord, and the motor response happens there, by the time the brain figures out you have been struck the knee has already jerked.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HboN--B8wGc/T ... 00/ub.jpeg
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Belinda »

Sculptor wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 5:27 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:00 am
Sculptor wrote: Wed Jun 10, 2020 5:49 pm

True, but that happens after its all over. The knee jerks before you are aware.


A little time passes between the effects on nerve endings or organs of special sense, and the cognitive brain. There is no possibility of thought of the event 's happening before the cognitive brain is involved.
Absolutely NO. The reflex is a special case. The nerve impulse only travels to the spinal chord, and the motor response happens there, by the time the brain figures out you have been struck the knee has already jerked.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HboN--B8wGc/T ... 00/ub.jpeg
Yes. I thought we had already agreed that and passed on to how the cognitive brain gets to know the knee has jerked.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Sculptor »

Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:51 pm
Sculptor wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 5:27 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Jun 11, 2020 10:00 am

A little time passes between the effects on nerve endings or organs of special sense, and the cognitive brain. There is no possibility of thought of the event 's happening before the cognitive brain is involved.
Absolutely NO. The reflex is a special case. The nerve impulse only travels to the spinal chord, and the motor response happens there, by the time the brain figures out you have been struck the knee has already jerked.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-HboN--B8wGc/T ... 00/ub.jpeg
Yes. I thought we had already agreed that and passed on to how the cognitive brain gets to know the knee has jerked.
I was responding the this sentence "There is no possibility of thought of the event 's happening before the cognitive brain is involved."
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Belinda »

The reflexive knee jerk is involuntary which means cognition does not cause it.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by gaffo »

yes.

IMO.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Hobbes' Choice »

RCSaunders wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:55 pm
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2016 11:25 am Finally take a look at any pre-talking human baby and tell me it can't think.
It can't think!
Prove it!
So dogs and cats can't think - Is that right?
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by RCSaunders »

Hobbes' Choice wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:59 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:55 pm
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Wed Oct 12, 2016 11:25 am Finally take a look at any pre-talking human baby and tell me it can't think.
It can't think!
Prove it!
So dogs and cats can't think - Is that right?
What I mean by thinking is the ability to verbally explain, to oneself or others, what one is thinking and what it means. If your dog or cat can explain what it thinks to you, than it can think. So, you can answer your own question.

If you mean something else by thinking, like just anything that goes on in one's consciousness, we do not mean the same thing by thinking.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by gaffo »

RCSaunders wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:56 pm
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:59 pm
RCSaunders wrote: Fri Apr 17, 2020 5:55 pm
It can't think!
Prove it!
So dogs and cats can't think - Is that right?
What I mean by thinking is the ability to verbally explain, to oneself or others, what one is thinking and what it means. If your dog or cat can explain what it thinks to you, than it can think. So, you can answer your own question.

If you mean something else by thinking, like just anything that goes on in one's consciousness, we do not mean the same thing by thinking.
language is not need to think, as a kid (5 yrs and younger) i thought visually. i assume higher animals do the same.

language serves to catagorize. this is like that


nothing more.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Belinda »

gaffo wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:14 am
RCSaunders wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:56 pm
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:59 pm

Prove it!
So dogs and cats can't think - Is that right?
What I mean by thinking is the ability to verbally explain, to oneself or others, what one is thinking and what it means. If your dog or cat can explain what it thinks to you, than it can think. So, you can answer your own question.

If you mean something else by thinking, like just anything that goes on in one's consciousness, we do not mean the same thing by thinking.
language is not need to think, as a kid (5 yrs and younger) i thought visually. i assume higher animals do the same.

language serves to catagorize. this is like that


nothing more.
Language uses symbols which usually have no resemblance to the thing symbolised. Onomatopoeia and other poetic tropes are the exception.
I guess your "thought visually" is not symbol but analogue like maps are not symbols but analogues.
I suppose that , besides symbolic thought , we all do analogical thought too.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by RCSaunders »

gaffo wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:14 am
RCSaunders wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:56 pm
Hobbes' Choice wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 12:59 pm

Prove it!
So dogs and cats can't think - Is that right?
What I mean by thinking is the ability to verbally explain, to oneself or others, what one is thinking and what it means. If your dog or cat can explain what it thinks to you, than it can think. So, you can answer your own question.

If you mean something else by thinking, like just anything that goes on in one's consciousness, we do not mean the same thing by thinking.
language is not need to think, as a kid (5 yrs and younger) i thought visually. i assume higher animals do the same.

language serves to catagorize. this is like that


nothing more.
You can call anything you like thinking--imagination, feelings, dreams, day-dreams, or anything else you consciously experience. If you are going to call all those things, or any of them thinking, you will need another word to identify the process of mentally asking and answering questions, make judgments, and creating new concepts verbally, which is what is meant by reason (or thinking) in epistemology.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by RCSaunders »

Belinda wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 7:51 am
gaffo wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:14 am
RCSaunders wrote: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:56 pm
What I mean by thinking is the ability to verbally explain, to oneself or others, what one is thinking and what it means. If your dog or cat can explain what it thinks to you, than it can think. So, you can answer your own question.

If you mean something else by thinking, like just anything that goes on in one's consciousness, we do not mean the same thing by thinking.
language is not need to think, as a kid (5 yrs and younger) i thought visually. i assume higher animals do the same.

language serves to catagorize. this is like that


nothing more.
Language uses symbols which usually have no resemblance to the thing symbolised. Onomatopoeia and other poetic tropes are the exception.
I guess your "thought visually" is not symbol but analogue like maps are not symbols but analogues.
I suppose that , besides symbolic thought , we all do analogical thought too.
Informally, I see nothing wrong with visualization being used as way of contemplating some things being call, "thinking," but technically, (epistemologically), I think imagination (which so often accompanies reason when picturing the things our concepts identify) should be kept separate and identifed as, "imagination." Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts, and all real knowledge is held in the from of propositions.

I'm not such a prig as to insist anyone else see it that way, however.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Belinda »

RCSaunders wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 2:30 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 7:51 am
gaffo wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 1:14 am

language is not need to think, as a kid (5 yrs and younger) i thought visually. i assume higher animals do the same.

language serves to catagorize. this is like that


nothing more.
Language uses symbols which usually have no resemblance to the thing symbolised. Onomatopoeia and other poetic tropes are the exception.
I guess your "thought visually" is not symbol but analogue like maps are not symbols but analogues.
I suppose that , besides symbolic thought , we all do analogical thought too.
Informally, I see nothing wrong with visualization being used as way of contemplating some things being call, "thinking," but technically, (epistemologically), I think imagination (which so often accompanies reason when picturing the things our concepts identify) should be kept separate and identifed as, "imagination." Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts, and all real knowledge is held in the from of propositions.

I'm not such a prig as to insist anyone else see it that way, however.
I try to falsify your "Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts,and all real knowledge is held in the form of propositions." and I cannot falsify your meta-proposition.

What I can do is include in your meta-proposition that maps, poems, pictures, sculptures, novels, motor cars,sparking plugs, trained dogs, wheels, dairy cows ,and vacuum cleaners are also propositions. Any artefact is proposed by at least one active agent for consideration as useful, beautiful, true, or good. I'd exclude from the category of 'propositions' wild animals,wild plants, and human beings.

Joke artefacts such as Heath Robinson machines which portray absurd propositions are funny because of the element of truth they contain.The truth they contain is that some machines are not viable propositions.

Regarding human beings as propositions, if anyone proposes human beings must be for such and such a purpose that proposition is immoral because human beings are not means to ends.For instance the Nazis in Germany proposed women were for Kinder, Kuche, Kirche and the immorality was that women were thus designated as means to ends.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by RCSaunders »

Belinda wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 8:39 am
RCSaunders wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 2:30 am
Belinda wrote: Tue Aug 11, 2020 7:51 am

Language uses symbols which usually have no resemblance to the thing symbolised. Onomatopoeia and other poetic tropes are the exception.
I guess your "thought visually" is not symbol but analogue like maps are not symbols but analogues.
I suppose that , besides symbolic thought , we all do analogical thought too.
Informally, I see nothing wrong with visualization being used as way of contemplating some things being call, "thinking," but technically, (epistemologically), I think imagination (which so often accompanies reason when picturing the things our concepts identify) should be kept separate and identifed as, "imagination." Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts, and all real knowledge is held in the from of propositions.

I'm not such a prig as to insist anyone else see it that way, however.
I try to falsify your "Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts,and all real knowledge is held in the form of propositions." and I cannot falsify your meta-proposition.

What I can do is include in your meta-proposition that maps, poems, pictures, sculptures, novels, motor cars,sparking plugs, trained dogs, wheels, dairy cows ,and vacuum cleaners are also propositions. Any artefact is proposed by at least one active agent for consideration as useful, beautiful, true, or good. I'd exclude from the category of 'propositions' wild animals,wild plants, and human beings.

Joke artefacts such as Heath Robinson machines which portray absurd propositions are funny because of the element of truth they contain.The truth they contain is that some machines are not viable propositions.

Regarding human beings as propositions, if anyone proposes human beings must be for such and such a purpose that proposition is immoral because human beings are not means to ends.For instance the Nazis in Germany proposed women were for Kinder, Kuche, Kirche and the immorality was that women were thus designated as means to ends.
The word, "proposition," has several different definitions, even in philosophy. When I use the word proposition in epistemology I am referring to one explicit definition, "a verbal statement that asserts something about something else." From my article, "Epistemology, Propositions":
The essential form of any proposition consists of three elements, a subject (the something being asserted about), a predicate (the something being asserted) and a copula (which specifies the exact relationship between the subject and predicate). In the proposition, "coffee is a beverage," the terms are, "coffee," "is," and "a beverage." "Coffee," is the subject, "a beverage," is the predicate, and "is" is the copula.
You do not have to mean by, "proposition," what I mean by proposition, but if you are going to question what I say about propositions and knowledge it must be in terms of what I mean by propositions. If you want to question my view of propositions, that's fine too, so long as you understand what I am really saying.
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Belinda »

RCSaunders wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 4:24 pm
Belinda wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 8:39 am
RCSaunders wrote: Thu Aug 13, 2020 2:30 am
Informally, I see nothing wrong with visualization being used as way of contemplating some things being call, "thinking," but technically, (epistemologically), I think imagination (which so often accompanies reason when picturing the things our concepts identify) should be kept separate and identifed as, "imagination." Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts, and all real knowledge is held in the from of propositions.

I'm not such a prig as to insist anyone else see it that way, however.
I try to falsify your "Propositions cannot be formed with images, only with concepts,and all real knowledge is held in the form of propositions." and I cannot falsify your meta-proposition.

What I can do is include in your meta-proposition that maps, poems, pictures, sculptures, novels, motor cars,sparking plugs, trained dogs, wheels, dairy cows ,and vacuum cleaners are also propositions. Any artefact is proposed by at least one active agent for consideration as useful, beautiful, true, or good. I'd exclude from the category of 'propositions' wild animals,wild plants, and human beings.

Joke artefacts such as Heath Robinson machines which portray absurd propositions are funny because of the element of truth they contain.The truth they contain is that some machines are not viable propositions.

Regarding human beings as propositions, if anyone proposes human beings must be for such and such a purpose that proposition is immoral because human beings are not means to ends.For instance the Nazis in Germany proposed women were for Kinder, Kuche, Kirche and the immorality was that women were thus designated as means to ends.
The word, "proposition," has several different definitions, even in philosophy. When I use the word proposition in epistemology I am referring to one explicit definition, "a verbal statement that asserts something about something else." From my article, "Epistemology, Propositions":
The essential form of any proposition consists of three elements, a subject (the something being asserted about), a predicate (the something being asserted) and a copula (which specifies the exact relationship between the subject and predicate). In the proposition, "coffee is a beverage," the terms are, "coffee," "is," and "a beverage." "Coffee," is the subject, "a beverage," is the predicate, and "is" is the copula.
You do not have to mean by, "proposition," what I mean by proposition, but if you are going to question what I say about propositions and knowledge it must be in terms of what I mean by propositions. If you want to question my view of propositions, that's fine too, so long as you understand what I am really saying.
I think we understand the same by 'proposition' : it's predicating something about a subject.
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