thinking in your head

[toolman]

Greetings,

 

Just had a thought.. back in the day, when man first exisited, but didnt have a structured language, we used getures, promts to communicate, how did they think in their head? Today we think in our head in spoken language. If you did not speak a language, how would you think in your head?

 

Just a thought..

[LucidDreamer]

Most of my thoughts are more visual than verbal. I would imagine that early hominids where mostly visual thinkers. You don't need the word apple, juicy, or red to imagine biting into a juicy red apple. I think there is more than ample evidence indicating that primates are good visual thinkers.

[5614]

this is a really dumb question, but how do we know that once upon a time there was no language.... you cant really say well my great great X100 grandfather couldnt speak, coz he couldnt have answered the question....

 

if no-one could speak how could you form a language, sure you could point at the pick dark grey object and say "rock" but no proper language could form....

[toolman]

I see. How about problem solving? When ever i try to work something out in my head, i normally think logically using words. Some things you cant think about visually.

[ydoaPs]

it works better if you ditch words and go with ideas.

 

it makes reading A LOT faster. don't say the words to yourself. when you are walking down the street and see bob, you don't say to yourself "thats bob"; you just recognize him. do the same with words and you will go much faster. sorry for the off topic paragraph, but it kinda helped my point.

[LucidDreamer]

I see. How about problem solving? When ever i try to work something out in my head, i normally think logically using words. Some things you cant think about visually.

 

I think part of the answer to your question is that they didn't think as logically as you do. They also didn't have as much capacity to think in abstract terms. However, every other species on the planet manages to survive without man's ability to think. You can think of early hominids as having intelligence somewhere in-between your own intelligence and that of a chimpanzee. They acquired the ability to think abstractly and an improved verbal capacity over a period of 10 million years or so. Intelligence is a wonderfully powerful survival adaptation. That’s why there are billions of humans today and there was a much smaller population of early hominids.

[EvolvEarth]

Obviously, there is a mechanism that was lost in humans because we relied so heavily on speech. When observing common household pets, you could tell they are thinking in many situations. They don't have language, but by reading their body language, you can tell they are thinking about something. Now, they could be very lucid visuals, or perhaps it's a thought process totally unfamiliar with us. There are slightly autistic people out there who do not think in words and have been studied. Maybe you can pull an article on that somewhere.

[Sayonara]

Isn't language basically a formalised labelling system for abstract thought?

 

It clearly did not come first.

[Duke]

What if you are deaf and blind?

[Quixix]

If you had to think in words your thought processes would be tremendously slowed down. Neither is thought necesarily a logical process, I would say that it is mainly the opposite. Logics is an invented human discipline.

I would tend to believe that thought is just the concatenated activation of neural circuits, created mainly by associations.

 

...just an activated circuit.

Just

[Sayonara]

What if you are deaf and blind?

"What if" with respect to what?

[Duke]

If you have never seen anything would it be possible to visualy think of something? If you have never heard anything would you have that little voice in your head when you read stuff?

[Quixix]

If you have never seen anything would it be possible to visualy think of something? If you have never heard anything would you have that little voice in your head when you read stuff?

I don't believe so. Very few areas of the brain of a new-born show any signs of activity. Not after diverse stimulus have stablished circuits can you visualize or relive experiences

[Duke]

Yeah I agree. It was more in response to my lesser explained comment earlier.

[badchad]

I wish I could find the reference, but I thought I read somewhere that the actual language can affect the thought process. For instance, when asked a series of "subjective" questions which were used to describe a person's mood, or emotional state, their responses would vary depending on what language they answered or "thought" in.

[Quixix]

I wish I could find the reference, but I thought I read somewhere that the actual language can affect the thought process. For instance, when asked a series of "subjective" questions which were used to describe a person's mood, or emotional state, their responses would vary depending on what language they answered or "thought" in.

I do agree on that, the questions and words are undoubtly an stimulus input, the words or language used, as well as the concepts expressed, may be associated to particular and personal past experiences, they may have very different emotional charges, which will invariably affect our thought processes.

Now about using words to think, I believe it is rather the other way around, we put words to our thoughts, aloud or mentally, but by the time you utter the first word of a sentence, you already know what you are going to say, and innumerable "thoughts", explicit or implicit, have gone through you mind.

[Kedas]

My thoughts:

Just want to add that words aren't 'thinking' functions they are just data/links.

The thinking is done with logic.

The questions you ask is: do we process word or visual data.

 

If you see something big first you have the impression of big then it's translated to the word 'big'. So words were never part of the process of thinking (compare function) in this example only at the end for communication purpose.

 

edit:

more or less what Quixix said.

[Quixix]

My thoughts:

Just want to add that words aren't 'thinking' functions they are just data/links.

The thinking is done with logic.

The questions you ask is: do we process word or visual data.

 

If you see something big first you have the impression of big then it's translated to the word 'big'. So words were never part of the process of thinking (compare function) in this example only at the end for communication purpose.

 

edit:

more or less what Quixix said.

Yes, more or less. We also process abstract concepts (just to be precise,in your example, "big" is a concept, not a visual image).

I don't think that logics has much to do with mental thinking, although you may say that there is logical thinking and illogical thinking. I, for one, am aware of having absolutely illogical thoughts! (But I try to keep them to myself!)

[Kedas]

Yes' date=' more or less. We also process abstract concepts (just to be precise,in your example, "big" is a concept, not a visual image).

I don't think that logics has much to do with mental thinking, although you may say that there is logical thinking and illogical thinking. I, for one, am aware of having absolutely illogical thoughts! (But I try to keep them to myself!)[/quote']

 

I didn't exclude ANY data type.

It is not because it are illogical thoughts that no logic functions are used.

If you think that good+good=bad then that's fine for me

 

except of a few compare functions I don't think we have much functions.

[LucidDreamer]

I think we do use a form of logic in our decision making process. Early on, either from a natural hard wiring or from an early learning process, we establish an association between a series of actions with the concept of correct. When every we go through the process of making a decision to do something we run through our memories to decide if its a good idea. For example, when we are young we learn that eating is a good thing because it takes away the hunger and gives us energy. There may be some instinctual influences but this is irrelevant because I am only referring to our intellectual understanding of hunger.

 

So this is how our logic goes: correct = good, if full then good, and if I eat then I will be full. Therefore we eat. I believe our minds go through this process when we make most of our decisions. The difference between our logic and the logic of a computer is that our logic is malleable. It also makes comparisons between two pieces of logic. Later on when we are middle aged and we are deciding if we want to eat that piece of pie our logic might go bad = incorrect, if we are fat then that is bad, if we eat that pie then we will get fat. So we don't eat that pie. But sometimes we do because we compare the two sets of logic and we give values to how bad it is to be fat and how good it is to be full.

 

My thoughts:

Just want to add that words aren't 'thinking' functions they are just data/links.

The thinking is done with logic.

The questions you ask is: do we process word or visual data.

Isn't language basically a formalised labelling system for abstract thought?

It clearly did not come first.

 

I agree. I believe words are just a means to label concrete and abstract terms. I think they are more than just a means of communication because they give abstract concepts a definite title that allows us to more efficiently categorize and store our data.

[[Tycho?]]

I recently heard about a study done in one of the extremely remote tribal areas. I dont know where, but one of those areas that has had almost no contact with the outside world.

 

In that language that they spoke, they had 3 words used in counting. They were "one" "two" and "many". They then tested members of the tribe with some basic math. They found that even with numbers as small as 4 and 5, they had a large amount of difficult dealing with them, while using only 1 and 2 they found very easy. They did not have the language to deal with them. Obviosuly the concept of "three" is not difficult, it can be easily visualized. But this shows that language does indeed play a very very large role in though processes and problem solving.

[NavajoEverclear]

My guess is it would have worked similarly to spoken language, you would visualize, or think of hand signals or whatever as your communication and thats how you'd see it in your brain. The evidence i have, is something you may not undestand but i'll try to explain.

 

For a few monthes, it just started out of doodles, then evolved into art, i've been drawing complex ink designs, consisting mostly of curves and spirals, an occasional straight line for diversity. You'd have to see it to know what i mean probobaly. Anyway, for about the last month i get developed visual ideas in my head spontaneously. I think its coming from somewhere unconsciosus. You've heard of similar things happen to musicians who suddenly just hear a song. This isn't exactly the same as language, but it illustrates the concept that you can think in terms of something other than verbal words, though just as fluently as verbal language

 

 

it works better if you ditch words and go with ideas.

 

it makes reading A LOT faster. don't say the words to yourself. when you are walking down the street and see bob' date=' you don't say to yourself "thats bob"; you just recognize him. do the same with words and you will go much faster. sorry for the off topic paragraph, but it kinda helped my point.[/quote']

 

I totally agree with that, i think putting language into our brains vastly limits the way we think, to what we consider capable of being put into words, even thought there are endless thought processes and emotions for which we have no words.

 

I have often thought giving things names is meaningless and simply provokes us to skip over details more important than names. But since we aren't telepathic, what option do we have? And you can recognize people without names, but without names how do you refer to someone who is not present. If they are present you can gesture to, or talk to that person. but if not, a name makes for a quick way to identify who you are talking about.

[Sayonara]

I agree. I believe words are just a means to label concrete and abstract terms. I think they are more than just a means of communication because they give abstract concepts a definite title that allows us to more efficiently categorize and store our data.

More specifically, formalisation means that everyone uses the same labels.

 

 

'']In that language that they spoke, they had 3 words used in counting. They were "one" "two" and "many". They then tested members of the tribe with some basic math. They found that even with numbers as small as 4 and 5, they had a large amount of difficult dealing with them, while using only 1 and 2 they found very easy. They did not have the language to deal with them. Obviosuly the concept of "three" is not difficult, it can be easily visualized. But this shows that language does indeed play a very very large role in though processes and problem solving.

When you say "they had a large amount of difficult dealing with them", do you mean they were unable to communicate the concept to each other, or they were unable to conceive of the concept itself? Because the two are not the same thing.

[Quixix]

I think we do use a form of logic in our decision making process. Early on' date=' either from a natural hard wiring or from an early learning process, we establish an association between a series of actions with the concept of correct. When every we go through the process of making a decision to do something we run through our memories to decide if its a good idea. For example, when we are young we learn that eating is a good thing because it takes away the hunger and gives us energy. There may be some instinctual influences but this is irrelevant because I am only referring to our intellectual understanding of hunger.

 

So this is how our logic goes: correct = good, if full then good, and if I eat then I will be full. Therefore we eat. I believe our minds go through this process when we make most of our decisions. The difference between our logic and the logic of a computer is that our logic is malleable. It also makes comparisons between two pieces of logic. Later on when we are middle aged and we are deciding if we want to eat that piece of pie our logic might go bad = incorrect, if we are fat then that is bad, if we eat that pie then we will get fat. So we don't eat that pie. But sometimes we do because we compare the two sets of logic and we give values to how bad it is to be fat and how good it is to be full.

 

 

 

 

I agree. I believe words are just a means to label concrete and abstract terms. I think they are more than just a means of communication because they give abstract concepts a definite title that allows us to more efficiently categorize and store our data.[/quote']

I think you have now introduced a new concept, "decision making". Several studies on people with impaired brains, show that in certain circumstances, usually related with emotion centers, reasoning abilities continue intact, while decision making ability is lost.

[LucidDreamer]

More specifically' date=' formalisation means that everyone uses the same labels.

[/quote']

I was actually trying to say that by having a more efficient labeling system the verbal functions help us to think. Not only does it help us to communicate with others by giving us exact labels, but it also helps us to communicate within our own brains. I don't know how much of an impact this has on our thinking process but I would imagine it has some.

 

I think you have now introduced a new concept, "decision making". Several studies on people with impaired brains, show that in certain circumstances, usually related with emotion centers, reasoning abilities continue intact, while decision making ability is lost.

 

I think that we would have to have a form of logic to have reason. Logic includes the the kind of mathmatical logic with the, if then, or, nor, symbols. I think it is essential to reason that we make these kind of connections between the different objects in our mind. If we are going to dedcutively reason that since the butler is a canadian, and all canadians love asparagus, that the butler loves asparagus then we must need a kind of logic to deduce this. I'm not saying its any kind of strict system, just that reason impicictly implies logic.