Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

What did you say? And what did you mean by it?

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creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

All statements, assuming sincerity in speech, are statements that the speaker believes to be true. Truth is presupposed in thought/belief statements. The presupposition of truth inherent to all statements is the result of drawing a correlation between what the statement is saying about the way things are, and the way things are. When the truth of the statement is not presupposed, it is not thought/believed by the speaker. No presupposition of truth, no statement of thought/belief.

All statements are meaningful. All meaning consists of something to become sign/symbol, something to become significant/symbolized, and a creature capable of drawing correlations, associations, and/or otherwise connecting the two. All language is predication. All predication consists of meaningful correlation. All statements of thought/belief consist of meaningful correlation. So, at the very least, all this must somehow inform our task of setting out and/or discovering non-linguistic thought/belief.

Non-linguistic thought/belief must consist of correlation, presuppose it's own truth, and be meaningful to the thinking/believing creature.

All thought/belief consists of correlations. Drawing a correlation between things is existentially dependent upon a plurality of things and a creature capable of doing so. If thought and belief can be said to be formed and/or otherwise held/had by non linguistic beasties, then the beast is drawing a correlation between 'objects' of physiological sensory perception and/or itself. The itself portion is critical to understanding the evolutionary process of thought/belief.

Written history shows that human knowledge accrues complexity and there is no good reason to believe that thought/belief are any different. Since all thought and belief consists of correlations, non linguistic rudimentary thought/belief must consist of correlations drawn between things that exist in their entirety prior to becoming a part of the creature's thought/belief.
Atla
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Atla »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:36 pm All statements, assuming sincerity in speech, are statements that the speaker believes to be true. Truth is presupposed in thought/belief statements. The presupposition of truth inherent to all statements is the result of drawing a correlation between what the statement is saying about the way things are, and the way things are. When the truth of the statement is not presupposed, it is not thought/believed by the speaker. No presupposition of truth, no statement of thought/belief.
What about people who have no concept of truth / no concept of things being a certain way?
creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

Belinda wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 5:49 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 4:50 pm
Belinda wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 1:10 pm Language is one of several symbolic media of communication. It's impossible to think as humans think without the ability to symbolise categories(frames, models, heuristics).
Yes, as humans we think in quite complex ways. However, if all of these ways include drawing correlations between different things, and drawing correlations between different things does not require language but still counts as a rudimentary form of thinking, then we arrive at an outline that serves as a continuum of complexity with the simplest kinds of thought on the one end and the most complex on the other.
Yes, I can see that it's a continuum.However it has been said that humans have evolved as they have, and differently from other animals, because unlike other animals,human culture affects genetics. Not, I stress, in a Lamarkian way but slowly like Darwinian evolution.
It is worth noting here that there are innumerable human thought/belief that have social constructs as a part of the correlation. This is part of what makes our thought/belief different in complexity. All social constructs are linguistic. Thus, all such thought/belief involving them are existentially dependent upon language.
creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:51 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:36 pm All statements, assuming sincerity in speech, are statements that the speaker believes to be true. Truth is presupposed in thought/belief statements. The presupposition of truth inherent to all statements is the result of drawing a correlation between what the statement is saying about the way things are, and the way things are. When the truth of the statement is not presupposed, it is not thought/believed by the speaker. No presupposition of truth, no statement of thought/belief.
What about people who have no concept of truth / no concept of things being a certain way?
The presupposition of truth(as correspondence) does not require a conception of "truth". Things are the way they are regardless of whether or not someone has a concept of things being a certain way.

So... I'm not following. What about them?
creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:55 pm
Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:51 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:36 pm All statements, assuming sincerity in speech, are statements that the speaker believes to be true. Truth is presupposed in thought/belief statements. The presupposition of truth inherent to all statements is the result of drawing a correlation between what the statement is saying about the way things are, and the way things are. When the truth of the statement is not presupposed, it is not thought/believed by the speaker. No presupposition of truth, no statement of thought/belief.
What about people who have no concept of truth / no concept of things being a certain way?
The presupposition of truth(as correspondence) does not require a conception of "truth". Things are the way they are regardless of whether or not someone has a concept of things being a certain way.

So... I'm not following. What about them?
Such people wouldn't make belief statements. Beyond that... I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Atla
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Atla »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:59 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:55 pm
Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:51 pm
What about people who have no concept of truth / no concept of things being a certain way?
The presupposition of truth(as correspondence) does not require a conception of "truth". Things are the way they are regardless of whether or not someone has a concept of things being a certain way.

So... I'm not following. What about them?
Such people wouldn't make belief statements. Beyond that... I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Well that's from the perspective of people who have a concept of truth / a concept of things being a certain way.

A person who lacks these will still make statements, maybe draw some correlations. But such a person will not understand what a presupposition of truth is, or what a belief is.
creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:08 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:59 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:55 pm

The presupposition of truth(as correspondence) does not require a conception of "truth". Things are the way they are regardless of whether or not someone has a concept of things being a certain way.

So... I'm not following. What about them?
Such people wouldn't make belief statements. Beyond that... I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Well that's from the perspective of people who have a concept of truth / a concept of things being a certain way.

A person who lacks these will still make statements, maybe draw some correlations. But such a person will not understand what a presupposition of truth is, or what a belief is.
Perhaps, but they will still form belief by virtue of drawing correlations. All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content. Thus, they will still presuppose correspondence. They will still believe what they say.
Atla
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Atla »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:11 pm
Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:08 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 7:59 pm

Such people wouldn't make belief statements. Beyond that... I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Well that's from the perspective of people who have a concept of truth / a concept of things being a certain way.

A person who lacks these will still make statements, maybe draw some correlations. But such a person will not understand what a presupposition of truth is, or what a belief is.
Perhaps, but they will still form belief by virtue of drawing correlations. All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content. Thus, they will still presuppose correspondence. They will still believe what they say.
Well I've seen people with no concept of truth who neither believe nor disbelieve what they say; such a thing makes no sense to them. But it's certainly a minority.
creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:20 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:11 pm
Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:08 pm
Well that's from the perspective of people who have a concept of truth / a concept of things being a certain way.

A person who lacks these will still make statements, maybe draw some correlations. But such a person will not understand what a presupposition of truth is, or what a belief is.
Perhaps, but they will still form belief by virtue of drawing correlations. All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content. Thus, they will still presuppose correspondence. They will still believe what they say.
Well I've seen people with no concept of truth who neither believe nor disbelieve what they say; such a thing makes no sense to them. But it's certainly a minority.
Example?
Atla
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Atla »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:27 pm
Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:20 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:11 pm

Perhaps, but they will still form belief by virtue of drawing correlations. All correlation presupposes the existence of it's own content. Thus, they will still presuppose correspondence. They will still believe what they say.
Well I've seen people with no concept of truth who neither believe nor disbelieve what they say; such a thing makes no sense to them. But it's certainly a minority.
Example?
I think this is fairly common among people with Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and psychopathy. Some of them strongly believe what they say though (in that moment, it's not about truth).
TimeSeeker
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by TimeSeeker »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:27 pm Example?
Example: the notion of belief is non-empirical and so I have no idea what it really means beyond interpreting the question as "what do you think?".

The theory goes as follows: if beliefs influence your actions (e.g there's a causal relationship) then you ought to be able to infer people's beliefs from their actions. Principle of super-position.

And so - if there is any significant difference between a theist-belief and an atheist-non-belief there ought to be some testable/falsifiable difference in behaviour.

Got anything? I don't. It's just a game of labelling your metaphysical concepts differently.
There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere—no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and some-when.

--William James
Last edited by TimeSeeker on Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.
creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:36 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:27 pm
Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:20 pm
Well I've seen people with no concept of truth who neither believe nor disbelieve what they say; such a thing makes no sense to them. But it's certainly a minority.
Example?
I think this is fairly common among people with Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and psychopathy. Some of them strongly believe what they say though (in that moment, it's not about truth).
Well, now you're talking about specific individual circumstances where people have lost the ability to discern what's true and what's not. That's about uncertainty. That comes from a habit of deliberately misrepresenting one's own belief over such a long period of time(for whatever reason) that the person no longer knows what's true and what's not because they can no longer remember what they believe and what they don't.

All of them know how to tell whether or not "The cup is on the table" is true.
TimeSeeker
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by TimeSeeker »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:47 pm All of them know how to tell whether or not "The cup is on the table" is true.
Trivialities. Things which can be asserted through direct observation are hardly ever the points of contention and debate.

It's those damn edge cases...
Atla
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by Atla »

creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:47 pm
Atla wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:36 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:27 pm

Example?
I think this is fairly common among people with Borderline Personality Disorder, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, and psychopathy. Some of them strongly believe what they say though (in that moment, it's not about truth).
Well, now you're talking about specific individual circumstances where people have lost the ability to discern what's true and what's not. That's about uncertainty. That comes from a habit of deliberately misrepresenting one's own belief over such a long period of time(for whatever reason) that the person no longer knows what's true and what's not because they can no longer remember what they believe and what they don't.

All of them know how to tell whether or not "The cup is on the table" is true.
No, I mean that the idea that something can be true or false didn't make sense to them in the first place. They don't think like that, probably most of them can't think like that.
creativesoul
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Re: Is It Possible To Think Without Language?

Post by creativesoul »

TimeSeeker wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:40 pm
creativesoul wrote: Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:27 pm Example?
Example: the notion of belief is non-empirical and so I have no idea what it really means beyond interpreting the question as "what do you think?".

The theory goes as follows: if beliefs influence your actions (e.g there's a causal relationship) then you ought to be able to infer people's beliefs from their actions. Principle of super-position.

And so - if there is any significant difference between a theist-belief and an atheist-non-belief there ought to be some testable/falsifiable difference in behaviour.

Got anything? I don't. It's just a game of labelling your metaphysical concepts differently.
There can be no difference anywhere that doesn't make a difference elsewhere—no difference in abstract truth that doesn't express itself in a difference in concrete fact and in conduct consequent upon that fact, imposed on somebody, somehow, somewhere and some-when.

--William James
The theory doesn't take all the relevant facts into consideration. The same behaviour can be indicative of more than one operative belief. The same belief can cause different actions. Behaviourism fails.
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