Language and thought (moved)

[AbacotJosser]

There is an experiment you can do in your brain on yourself, and I don't know what it means, yet it is interesting.

 

Everybody in this forum is musing on how we use language in our thinking process... but isn't it obvious that using language is not required for thought? Clearly not. We could start with human children and trace their ability to think. They make deductions about their environment without formulating sentences.

 

What about other animals than us? A tiger or a bear for example... I once saw a bear push a "bear-proof" container over the edge of a small cliff. The container broke open, the bear went down and enjoyed a meal. I don't think the bear was thinking in words, and yet he was able to deduce something about cause and effect. When I asked our outfitter if he had ever heard of this behavior before, he had.

 

Here is your experiment.... Just for fun... and I don't have any clue whether it is important or silly... but with some practice you can turn off language inside your brain.

 

Try it.

 

It gives you a different perspective.... For me, it seems to lose certain elements such as calculation, but it opens up other subtle things that are masked by using language.

 

I will leave you with one more story of a human child, who was 8 months old. His mother and father and I watched him, barely able to walk, stumble up to a cabinet door under the kitchen sink. He pulled himself up, and in so doing the cabinet door came open about an inch and stopped. It seemed to us he noticed that it stopped and became curious as to why. After a minute or two, he placed the right side of his head to the left of the door, and began pulling on the door and watching the inside. He was muttering something, but it was unintelligible, but what he did amazed the three of us. He pulled the door open an inch, spied the child proof lock, and reached with his right hand up to the lock and pulled until the cabinet door suddenly swung open, at which time he lost his balance and fell to the floor and the door, being spring loaded swung shut again.

 

We didn't say anything but kept watching. He pulled himself up to the door again, and on his second attempt opened it without falling down.

 

No one had trained the boy to do this, but he came to the solution himself by what I would argue was true scientific process of deductive reasoning.

 

That boy did not have a vocabulary sufficient to describe the problem.

 

 

 

I don't want to bias anyone, but I challenge anyone who is interested enough to clear your mind of words to the fullest extent you can. Then, simply observe the world without trying to use words.. Just observe. You will find that words are not necessary to function well.

 

if you try this I would be curious to read your comments.

 

 

 

 

[Moontanman]

There is an experiment you can do in your brain on yourself, and I don't know what it means, yet it is interesting.

 

Everybody in this forum is musing on how we use language in our thinking process... but isn't it obvious that using language is not required for thought? Clearly not. We could start with human children and trace their ability to think. They make deductions about their environment without formulating sentences.

 

What about other animals than us? A tiger or a bear for example... I once saw a bear push a "bear-proof" container over the edge of a small cliff. The container broke open, the bear went down and enjoyed a meal. I don't think the bear was thinking in words, and yet he was able to deduce something about cause and effect. When I asked our outfitter if he had ever heard of this behavior before, he had.

 

Here is your experiment.... Just for fun... and I don't have any clue whether it is important or silly... but with some practice you can turn off language inside your brain.

 

Try it.

 

It gives you a different perspective.... For me, it seems to lose certain elements such as calculation, but it opens up other subtle things that are masked by using language.

 

I will leave you with one more story of a human child, who was 8 months old. His mother and father and I watched him, barely able to walk, stumble up to a cabinet door under the kitchen sink. He pulled himself up, and in so doing the cabinet door came open about an inch and stopped. It seemed to us he noticed that it stopped and became curious as to why. After a minute or two, he placed the right side of his head to the left of the door, and began pulling on the door and watching the inside. He was muttering something, but it was unintelligible, but what he did amazed the three of us. He pulled the door open an inch, spied the child proof lock, and reached with his right hand up to the lock and pulled until the cabinet door suddenly swung open, at which time he lost his balance and fell to the floor and the door, being spring loaded swung shut again.

 

We didn't say anything but kept watching. He pulled himself up to the door again, and on his second attempt opened it without falling down.

 

No one had trained the boy to do this, but he came to the solution himself by what I would argue was true scientific process of deductive reasoning.

 

That boy did not have a vocabulary sufficient to describe the problem.

 

 

 

I don't want to bias anyone, but I challenge anyone who is interested enough to clear your mind of words to the fullest extent you can. Then, simply observe the world without trying to use words.. Just observe. You will find that words are not necessary to function well.

 

if you try this I would be curious to read your comments.

 

 

I have to agree with you, i have seen my kids to similar things but that didn't really surprise me but I also have raised 7 basset hounds, supposed to dumb as stumps as judged by most other dog breeds but these dogs do some amazing things when it suits them. i think they are just stubborn and no dumb. One of mine saved my life another one of them would pretend to be asleep beside his dog bowl and catch squirrels that came to steal his food. I've seen them to some amazing things, but probably most amazing is how they train people to do their bidding, that is the best, we currently have three of the short legged things and they have trained my wife to give them treats at both 9pm and 11pm, I have no idea how they know what time it is but they come and get her to give them treats. It's really funny to watch them use her love of them to manipulate her. Of course they do me as well but I almost never give them treats so they ignore me on that front...

 

One time, one of the smartest of the lot was out in the yard with me, he had never chased a ball and I thought it would be interesting to teach him to do so and fun for both of us. So I got a ball and showed it to him made sure he saw me throw it and told him to go get it, he rushed out to get it and brought it back and dropped it at my feet. I praised him, I was genuinely surprised he had done it on the first try. So i showed him the ball again and threw it and told him to go get it. he sat and watched it arc through the air and watched it roll on the ground and looked up at me with this odd look and walked off. he never chased a ball again....

Edited January 16, 2012 by Moontanman

[Tres Juicy]

While I agree with both posts above, my OP relates to higher thought rather than basic problem solving (as described)

[AbacotJosser]

With all due respect, the assertion that language is necessary for "higher thought" processes to occur is an opinion and not a fact.

 

You may be struggling with a confirmation bias that words are enabling you to maintain.

 

 

Being able to formulate an appropriate mental model is the only key ingredient to effective thinking I know of. My opinion is that it doesn't matter whether you build the model in words or pictures, but I find pictures often are superior to words.

 

Here is another anecdote: Three days ago my boss and I interviewed a job candidate, and my boss likes to see how people think so he gives them puzzles to solve. He gave this interviewee this problem: Imagine a 10"x x 10" x 10" cube built of 1000 1" cubes. How many cubes can you see from the outside.

 

The interviewee immediately set about describing an algorithm (in words), using summation and arithmetic so that after about 8 minutes, and on his third try gave the correct answer.

 

I am not a genius, but it took me about a minute and the reason I got there so fast is because of imagination.

 

Everything came down to a mental picture. It occurred to me that the number of cubes I could see was equal to the total number of cubes minus the cubes that I could not see.

 

I imagined a smaller cube inside the big cube and it quickly became obvious the dimensions of the unseen cube was 8 x 8 x 8.

 

The total number of cubes is 10x10x10.

 

So, the solution is (10x10x10) - (8 x 8 x 8).

 

I did my arithmetic using words, and my first answer was wrong because I calculated wrong. In my head, I said 8 x 8 = 48 and 48 X 8 is 384.... 1000 - 384... and guess what, I was wrong because my arithmetic was flawed.

 

The irony is that my mental model was spot on, but I only developed errors after I began using words in my thought process.

 

With all due respect, I submit to you that words often get in the way of higher reasoning and there is plenty of data to support this assertion.

 

 

Chess players, for example, when thinking about a position often think in terms of mental pictures of the board (not words).

 

 

Anyway, I don't mean to be disrespectful, so if you think this thread is irrelevant I will withdraw from further discussion.

[Tres Juicy]

With all due respect, the assertion that language is necessary for "higher thought" processes to occur is an opinion and not a fact.

 

You may be struggling with a confirmation bias that words are enabling you to maintain.

 

 

Being able to formulate an appropriate mental model is the only key ingredient to effective thinking I know of. My opinion is that it doesn't matter whether you build the model in words or pictures, but I find pictures often are superior to words.

 

Here is another anecdote: Three days ago my boss and I interviewed a job candidate, and my boss likes to see how people think so he gives them puzzles to solve. He gave this interviewee this problem: Imagine a 10"x x 10" x 10" cube built of 1000 1" cubes. How many cubes can you see from the outside.

 

The interviewee immediately set about describing an algorithm (in words), using summation and arithmetic so that after about 8 minutes, and on his third try gave the correct answer.

 

I am not a genius, but it took me about a minute and the reason I got there so fast is because of imagination.

 

Everything came down to a mental picture. It occurred to me that the number of cubes I could see was equal to the total number of cubes minus the cubes that I could not see.

 

I imagined a smaller cube inside the big cube and it quickly became obvious the dimensions of the unseen cube was 8 x 8 x 8.

 

The total number of cubes is 10x10x10.

 

So, the solution is (10x10x10) - (8 x 8 x 8).

 

I did my arithmetic using words, and my first answer was wrong because I calculated wrong. In my head, I said 8 x 8 = 48 and 48 X 8 is 384.... 1000 - 384... and guess what, I was wrong because my arithmetic was flawed.

 

The irony is that my mental model was spot on, but I only developed errors after I began using words in my thought process.

 

With all due respect, I submit to you that words often get in the way of higher reasoning and there is plenty of data to support this assertion.

 

 

Chess players, for example, when thinking about a position often think in terms of mental pictures of the board (not words).

 

 

Anyway, I don't mean to be disrespectful, so if you think this thread is irrelevant I will withdraw from further discussion.

 

 

Not at all, you're more than welcome to interject.

 

the assertion that language is necessary for "higher thought" processes to occur is an opinion and not a fact.

 

I am not saying that at all, I am merely asking if this could be the case and if language shapes our thought processes in some way

[michel123456]

(...)Here is another anecdote: Three days ago my boss and I interviewed a job candidate, and my boss likes to see how people think so he gives them puzzles to solve. He gave this interviewee this problem: Imagine a 10"x x 10" x 10" cube built of 1000 1" cubes. How many cubes can you see from the outside.

(...)

 

I thought it was trickier because one can see only three sides of a cube at a time. (unless using mirrors)