General

Re: Thought and Speech

AJ — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 00:37:39 GMT

xahrx:

AJ:
Access to the vast base of human knowledge, ideas, and learning materials requires language, which requires social interaction. So I would once again say this is a separate issue from the one of whether language is needed for your and my thoughts from this moment forward.

But what's the relevance of from this moment forward though?

You're saying - and I fully agree - that language, by allowing us to communicate and hence access a wealth of new ideas, gives us all sorts of indirect assistance toward learning and higher thinking.

However, I am saying that language is not necessary in my thought process right now. I emphasize "right now" or "from this moment forward" because I think it is crucial to the advancement of civilization that people fully understand the implications of the fact that conscious thinking is done fundamentally in sensations and not words in order to avoid a whole host of pitfalls in reasoning. Basically my purpose here is to elucidate the cognition process with the aim of helping people prevent a broad range of logical errors.

xahrx:
The problem I see with your reasoning is how do you honestly separate your current ability to do such visual thinking from your past development and all the experience you've gained thus far. Can you honestly say that, without the benefit of language and the learning and access to ideas it gave you, that you'd be able to do the same visualizations?

I do not think the visualizations I do are special tricks reserved for only myself and Einstein. I think everyone who thinks does so with imagined representations in their five senses, and I casually suppose that most people use the visual modality primarily. What I and a few others have done is merely noticed this phenomenon, which is hard to do only because it is usually set to "auto-ignore" in our minds.

Now let me reiterate that I agree with much of what you are saying about development of thought.

xahrx:
Do you think that kid, or a feral child, can make the same visual reasoning happen in their head that you can? I don't doubt they can think, but how do they categorize concepts? Can they distinguish action from happenstance? Can they distinguish between now, before, and after?

I don't think a feral child would survive long without such abilities.

xahrx:
I can't find the reference right now, but I do recall studies done on certain indigenous people whose concepts of time were wildly different than ours, and as a consequence they didn't get what you and I considered basic cause and effect.

It's also hard to imagine how anyone could survive without a basic understanding of cause and effect, like, "Touch fire, get burned."

Re: Thought and Speech

filc — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:14:33 GMT

You cannot talk without first thinking. Speech is a cognitive ability. Being able to speak in and of itself proves that one was able to think before they talked.

Re: Thought and Speech

xahrx — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 23:00:49 GMT

AJ:
Access to the vast base of human knowledge, ideas, and learning materials requires language, which requires social interaction. So I would once again say this is a separate issue from the one of whether language is needed for your and my thoughts from this moment forward.

But what's the relevance of from this moment forward though? It's an ongoing process on the individual and social level. New ideas are discovered and incorporated, meanings drift and outright change, new expressions and idioms come into play. It's like saying the pricing system isn't needed for your and my buying decisions from this moment forward. It's a process by nature, something ongoing which literally can't be stopped or frozen. And sure we can think from this moment on given our current knowledge, but what about new stuff? If no one communicates it to us? What if we forget certain things? I would say that if you froze our language at this point in time, the quality of our thought would degenerate over time. Others would advance past us, and we would drop below our previous levels.

AJ:
Can you think of an alternative path to the supermarket without using words? I can do it visually, and the thought seems truly complete, indeed far more complete than its verbal approximation. And if only I could output what I am seeing in my mind's eye on computer screen, it would be much more easily and efficiently communicated. Instead of written or spoken instructions, it would be a video.

Granted. But what you're taking for granted is: the fact that you know where you are; know where the supermarket is; know what the supermarket is; know why you need to get there; and the know the routes. So the question isn't can you visualize without words alternate routes to the supermarket, but could you have gotten to the point of doing that without all the previous years of experience you have? Or would you simply have some sense of hunger; a sense that something to eat is in yonder direction, and that there might be more than one way to get there? And would you even have that? In the past some cultures didn't get the idea of photography and paintings. It had to be explained to them what a photograph was, and until it was explained all it was to them was a mass of random colors.

The problem I see with your reasoning is how do you honestly separate your current ability to do such visual thinking from your past development and all the experience you've gained thus far. Can you honestly say that, without the benefit of language and the learning and access to ideas it gave you, that you'd be able to do the same visualizations? I'm not saying it's impossible, but I don't think it can be taken for granted. The Forbidden Experiment would be to take a kid, deprive him of almost all interaction and stimuli, and see what happens. Do you think that kid, or a feral child, can make the same visual reasoning happen in their head that you can? I don't doubt they can think, but how do they categorize concepts? Can they distinguish action from happenstance? Can they distinguish between now, before, and after? I can't find the reference right now, but I do recall studies done on certain indigenous people whose concepts of time were wildly different than ours, and as a consequence they didn't get what you and I considered basic cause and effect. A basic conditional statement requires you understand something preceeds something else and causes it.

Or think of one of the famous Feynman examples of cargo cult science, mistaking correlation for causation; the tribes build runways to attract more planes and cargo. This isn't a fanciful example, people get cause and effect mixed up all the time because they mistake correlation with causation or because they misinterpret the motives and/or sequence of events in question. That so many people in this day and age and with the resources and knowledge available to us still make this kind of mistake, and that they do so regularly, has to make you wonder what our brains are really capable on on their own and without the social construct of language and all the advantages it gives to guide them.

I think what it comes down to is when discussing thought is we take a lot for granted that we probably shouldn't. I don't think it's a foregone conclusion that without your history that you'd be able to do the same visual reasoning.

Re: Thought and Speech

DD5 — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:33:19 GMT

xahrx:
Aphasia as I understand it affects one's ability to speak or write inlanguage, not one's ability to understand it and use it internally.

And you wrongly understand it. Aphasia can affect all aspects of language; expression and comprehension. There are many other types of language disorders that render the person unable to use verbal human language to communicate.

xahrx:
And evidence seems to show that after a certain point in their development, kids simply don't pick it up anymore.

This is certainly true but how does this in any way support your assertions? There is a window for the natural acquisition of language. This window is most likely controlled by our genes.

xahrx:
So perhaps you could explain how a person with a severe inability to communicate with others is somehow capable of thoughts just as rich and varied as a 'normal' person.

So an American thinks in English, while a Frenchman thinks in French? That's quite absurd. The thought process is comprised of concepts which must be independent of the language faculty. A child could never learn how to talk if he did not first posses the concept behind the word. This applies also to syntax and grammar. The rules of language allow the person to express his thoughts and read the thoughts of others. The rules (grammer) would be meaningless if there wasn't already a thought process prior to any acquisition of language.

There is ample scientific evidence especially from the fields of cognitive science and psycho-linguistics, but there is also evidence from other fields such as neuroscience, genetics, and other.

I am forced for the 2nd time this week to recommend the book "The language Instinct" by Steven Pinker.

Re: Thought and Speech

xahrx — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 19:09:13 GMT

DD5:
Of course there is. Do you make the claim that people suffering from aphasia lose some (or all) ability to think? Do you make the claim that people with severe language disorders necessarily must have thinking disorders?

Aphasia as I understand it affects one's ability to speak or write inlanguage, not one's ability to understand it and use it internally. So I don't see the relevance of aphasia which seems to be more of a mechanical failure of the mental equipment needed to get language out of the head and into oral or written form. If I'm wrong on the nature of the condition, please let me know. But so far as I can see it's not relevant because the use of language internally for thought is not affected.

DD5:
Your response is very dogmatic. As if these questions that you raise have never been raised before and haven't been previously studied and researched.

And yours is irrelevant. To the extent that aphasia goes beyond mere processing issues for written and oral language to actual comprehension problems, then yes the lack of language limits a person's ability to think. If you can't communicate to them the concept of a Quasar or a Magnetar for example, it's not likely they'll figure it out for themselves. Anything that is not self evident or discoverable on their own will remain outside their knowledge unless or until a way is found to communicate that concept to them and put it in context. As I've said, in a very real way language is capital; the concepts and the words that refer to them are not necessarily self evident or discoverable to all, they had to be developed over time through accumulated individual interactions. Socially we've been adding to our knowledgebase for millenia and what we currently 'think' on a day to day basis currently is at least in part the product of what came before and what we've learned from others. And if it is impossible for whatever reason to communicate what came before to someone so they can learn it, then unless they figure it out on their own they will simply not have the knowledge.

There's a reason why feral kids have problems communcating, but seem to imitate the animals they interacted with quite well: that's what they learned growing up and what was necessary for them to survive. No one told them about relativity or Keynesianism, and no one filled them in the basics of a language which they could then use as a base to access the various histories both written and oral we all take for granted, which would have included all that stuff. And evidence seems to show that after a certain point in their development, kids simply don't pick it up anymore. There's a reason why adults have such a hard time learning new languages on the whole while kids pick them up much easier. And language, while not necessary for thought itself, is what is used to communicate. So perhaps you could explain how a person with a severe inability to communicate with others is somehow capable of thoughts just as rich and varied as a 'normal' person.

Re: Thought and Speech

AJ — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 18:03:31 GMT

xahrx:
Thought and language's role in it is a far more complex subject with few clear answers. One of the aspects of thought is self communication; we all talk to ourselves. Some of us have full blown debates with ourselves in our own heads. The real question is to what extent is this necessary and required for thought? There's no answer. There may never be.

I know the answer, because I have seen my own thoughts on occasion. I've been given the grand tour, and I've seen logical deduction complete with forking paths of conditionals all happen in my mind with only moving pictures, sounds, and bodily sensations. Only after a brief yet perceptible delay do the words come, if they come at all.

Now it's a different issue whether complex thinking ability would develop without exposure to other people (since it is known that anyone exposed to other people will develop language). Merely by the lack of intellectual stimulation, any modern IQ testing will surely not be suited to assessing whatever form of intelligence a feral child may develop, assuming that the lack of "sophisticated" intellectual stimulation from outside doesn't hobble him completely in that regard.

xahrx:
Thought definitely preceeds language, but we are such social animals it's really impossible, ethically at least, to determine to what extend we depend on existing thought and communication, the capital base so to speak, in forming our own thoughts and knowledge later on in life.

Since social interaction effectively implies language, the question is whether social interaction boosts thinking ability, not to mention the impact of the huge knowledge base, ideas, and learning materials we have access to once we acquire language. Without a doubt all those things tend to boost thinking ability immensely, especially thinking of the type most respected and valued in our culture. So I think the issue you're raising is about development, not about whether words are necessary or beneficial for thought here and now, for the average adult or youth.

xahrx:
The experience with feral kids seems to show that we would eventually hit a wall, a limit to expression.

A feral kid's priorities and sharpened faculties would be wildly different from our own, and most people - even scientists - seem oblivious to how many hidden conventions and norms there are in language. So that even if we could get the feral child to "understand" a question, the whole nature of the exercise may escape him, making the results useless.

xahrx:
What's more, there seems to be evidence that if our brains lack the early social stimulation of communication with others, it misses an opportunity to develop that seems to be permanently closed off after a certain point. So it's quite possible even thought as we know it has a social aspect to it. I guess it boils down to whether or not someone like Einstein would have been as brilliant without social interaction.

Access to the vast base of human knowledge, ideas, and learning materials requires language, which requires social interaction. So I would once again say this is a separate issue from the one of whether language is needed for your and my thoughts from this moment forward.

xahrx:
Is any thought truly complete until it is articulated?

Can you think of an alternative path to the supermarket without using words? I can do it visually, and the thought seems truly complete, indeed far more complete than its verbal approximation. And if only I could output what I am seeing in my mind's eye on computer screen, it would be much more easily and efficiently communicated. Instead of written or spoken instructions, it would be a video.

Now, I'm sure anyone reading this may be thinking, "OK fine, that's visual thinking about something that is inherently visual, but what about abstract concepts like the question of whether the State is necessary or not?"

I see that visually as well. Naturally if the question is phrased in words I'm first going to have to translate the words into thoughts (commonly known as "interpreting the question"). Since at this moment I'm thinking of the State in terms of centralized power, I basically see a collection of field lines (signifying "power") over a generic territory-shape (since I am American it happens to be shaped like the US), with a concentration in one part of the map.

On the basic level, since I have already decided that the state is not necessary, accompanying that image I get a very slight physical sensation around in my sternum that I know means essentially "negative/no/reject!/etc." In other words I already have a solid belief about the matter based on prior analysis, so I don't analyze the question again.

However, if I were to ask myself to verify this belief again, or to give the reasons, I could do that visually, too. In fact, the very act of asking myself to verify the belief makes the image go half-translucent, fold back and tilt to the left like a door swinging open, and I briefly hear a "dwinggg" sound sort of like this, which in my mind means "consider: ..." (I watched a lot of cartoons as a kid.) Something like that anyway. Seeing one's own thought process is quite tricky because it happens so fast and we default to ignoring the details so we can focus on other things.

xahrx:
And when it is articulated, has language limited it by destroying its purity for the sake of common ground?

Absolutely yes, at least much of the time language does destroy the purity or accuracy in some way or other. This is the primary problem. "As soon as you speak about a thing you miss the mark." It is only because we are all human and have much shared experience and norms that we can communicate at all. But if you consider how little we can really express about what's in our own mind, it can be kind of disheartening.

I suppose all children with active imaginations are faced from an early age with the question, "Why bother imagining an amazing fantasy world or having very complex and subtle ideas if you can never convey them to anyone else, if all you can ever express are (relatively) cheap imitations?"

I suspect most people eventually surrendered to this issue as they grew up, to smooth communications with others and fit in better. I've been a lot more stubborn about it, and it cost me socially at least until my early teens, because the things I thought to communicate were always too detailed and hence ill-suited to verbal expression. Even now you can see my habit of writing long sentences with many details, qualifications, and parenthetical statements, even though I know I lose a lot of would-be readers because of it.

xahrx:
And unless it is articulated, what use is it, both to the thinker and to those others who may benefit from it?

To the thinker, I say the words are not needed. One can "articulate" a thought far better in the five senses, especially visually. However, words can serve as an additional checking mechanism. I tend to go back and forth between words and thoughts, using the slight distortion that comes when putting things into words to see things from a slightly different angle, and then going back into pure thought-mode to correct any semantic biases inherent in the words. Eventually, hopefully, I arrive at some set of words or ways of phrasing that passably reflect a distillation of the concept suitable for whatever my communication purposes are. I suppose these last few sentences are just another way of explaining the writing process.

Re: Thought and Speech

DD5 — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 16:01:31 GMT

xahrx:
The real question is to what extent is this necessary and required for thought? There's no answer. There may never be.

Of course there is. Do you make the claim that people suffering from aphasia lose some (or all) ability to think? Do you make the claim that people with severe language disorders necessarily must have thinking disorders?

Your response is very dogmatic. As if these questions that you raise have never been raised before and haven't been previously studied and researched.

Re: Thought and Speech

I. Ryan — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 15:43:57 GMT

xahrx:

Not so clear to me.

I provided an argument, but your post appeared to ignore it entirely.

Re: Thought and Speech

xahrx — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:42:10 GMT

I. Ryan:
It is clear that language does indeed facilitate clearer and more complex thought, provided that the person uses it "correctly".

Not so clear to me. Language does indeed facilitate clearer and more complex communication as opposed to all of us trying to individually articulate thoughts through various means without any common ground being established. However, who determines what is the 'correct' use of a word? Language is a perfect example of a natural order, there is no authority governing it, and no final say as to what is and is not proper, with apologies to Strunk and White.

Thought and language's role in it is a far more complex subject with few clear answers. One of the aspects of thought is self communication; we all talk to ourselves. Some of us have full blown debates with ourselves in our own heads. The real question is to what extent is this necessary and required for thought? There's no answer. There may never be. Thought definitely preceeds language, but we are such social animals it's really impossible, ethically at least, to determine to what extend we depend on existing thought and communication, the capital base so to speak, in forming our own thoughts and knowledge later on in life. The experience with feral kids seems to show that we would eventually hit a wall, a limit to expression. What's more, there seems to be evidence that if our brains lack the early social stimulation of communication with others, it misses an opportunity to develop that seems to be permanently closed off after a certain point. So it's quite possible even thought as we know it has a social aspect to it. I guess it boils down to whether or not someone like Einstein would have been as brilliant without social interaction. And if he was, how would anyone have known if he couldn't articulate his brilliant ideas to them? Is any thought truly complete until it is articulated? And when it is articulated, has language limited it by destroying its purity for the sake of common ground? And unless it is articulated, what use is it, both to the thinker and to those others who may benefit from it?

Re: Thought and Speech

xahrx — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 14:17:28 GMT

AJ:
You're right that language isn't fixed, but it evolves at a glacial pace compared to the act of thinking. It takes but seconds to identify a new concept from among one's thoughts, and maybe minutes or hours/days of contemplation for a gifted thinker to think of a new idea that is worthwhile (for his own personal purposes at least) and not in the current lexicon.

True, but I think one of the reasons for this to date has been the much slower evolution of written language. And with the internet and instant communications, I think that's going to change. It probably won't be long before the simple spelling movement gets going and gets some steam behind it, and in the end why not dump the 'b' at the end of 'dumb'?

As for the rest, made perfect sense. Especially the part about internet arguments. I can't count how many I've had where it's become clear the other person means something completely and totally different when they speak of 'rights' and other such things.

Re: Thought and Speech

AJ — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:20:29 GMT

Le Master:

It's pretty fascinating how acting individuals have spontaneously ordered (xi - xii) language in different locales. In the eastern Amazon speakers must know how they know something before speaking. “He went fishing" (I know because I saw him)” is differently said than “he went fishing (I assume)”.

The Kuuk Thaayorre aborigines don't have words for "left" and "right". They instead use absolute directions. Depending on where one is standing he would say, for example, "I stubbed the big toe on my south-west foot." They subconsciously always know which direction they are facing. So even a small child can point to any direction at any time, even while indoors, whereas a Latin-based-language-speaking genius would likely be utterly clueless and disoriented when asked to.

That's really interesting. Japanese, as you may know, is a highly context-based language. Instead of saying, "It's cold out here," they'll usually just say, "Cold."

The Amazon one where they have to know how they know before they speak is awesome, because certain logical paradoxes (Moore's paradox, etc.) probably wouldn't be phraseable in that language.

Re: Thought and Speech

AJ — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:12:38 GMT

jrmy_jackson:
The question is: what are Mises's thoughts on the relationship between Thought and Speech. Particularly, is Speech necessary for Thought.

On pg. 41 of Human Action, Mises writes disapprovingly of collectivists who say, among other things, that "[t]here is no thinking which does not depend on the concepts and notions of language."

"This methodological individualism has been vehemently attacked by various metaphysical schools and disparaged as a nominalistic fallacy. The notion of an individual, say the critics, is an empty abstraction. Real man is necessarily always a member of a social whole. It is even impossible to imagine the existence of a man separated from the rest of mankind and not connected with society. Man as man is the product of a social evolution. His most eminent feature, reason, could only emerge within the framework of social mutuality. [Opponents of methodological individualism argue that] There is no thinking which does not depend on the concepts and notions of language. But speech is manifestly a social phenomenon. Man is always the member of a collective. As the whole is both logically and temporally prior to its parts or members, the study of the individual is posterior to the study of society. The only adequate method for the scientific treatment of human problems is the method of universalism or collectivism."

So he's basically disagreeing with the bold, saying in effect that there is "thinking which does not depend on the concepts and notions of language." Strictly speaking, then, the answer to your question is apparently "No, Mises doesn't think speech is necessary for thought." But the basis is rather weak in that passage, because he's only indirectly saying that at least some thinking does exist that doesn't require words. He may phrase it more strongly elsewhere.

Re: Thought and Speech

Le Master — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 01:07:44 GMT

It's pretty fascinating how acting individuals have spontaneously ordered (xi - xii) language in different locales. In the eastern Amazon speakers must know how they know something before speaking. “He went fishing" (I know because I saw him)” is differently said than “he went fishing (I assume)”.

The Kuuk Thaayorre aborigines don't have words for "left" and "right". They instead use absolute directions. Depending on where one is standing he would say, for example, "I stubbed the big toe on my south-west foot." They subconsciously always know which direction they are facing. So even a small child can point to any direction at any time, even while indoors, whereas a Latin-based-language-speaking genius would likely be utterly clueless and disoriented when asked to.

Re: Thought and Speech

nirgrahamUK — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:07:58 GMT

language is an obvious bonus. why would anyone, let alone Mises, disagree with that?

Re: Thought and Speech

jrmy_jackson — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 00:04:32 GMT

All I can say is: Wow.

Thank you all so much for sharing your insights and thoughts on this, it's been very fascinating reading, however, I'm not certain that my core question has been answered: What would Mises's opinion on this have been?