Is it possible to think without knowing a language?

mxyzptlk · 2 years

I used to have seizures. The ones that didn't knock me out completely, made me forget how to speak. There were quite a few times that I tried to talk to someone when it was happening, but I could not remember any words or even how to form sentences. I also tried to write notes to myself when it was happening, but it always seemed to turn out to be gibberish.

Even though I couldn't speak, I still tried to, and I remember the episodes, so I believe you can think without words.

sakabako · 2 years

When you throw or catch a ball you think without using language.

rspeer · 2 years

If you couldn't, how would you learn your first language?

formermormon · 2 years

Consider feral children, who grow up without language (usually raised by animals) -- they can think, to a certain extent, but they won't think in the same terms as you or I do. They think about the things they need to survive.

Then compare that with the notion that language exists to facilitate communication of shared concepts in a social environment. We don't need language to frame ideas in our own heads, necessarily, but more to communicate those ideas with others. Language is all about making our understanding of things common to another, where our shared conceptual background is the set of sounds we make and the shared understanding of those sounds.

Anyway, I suck at explaining this, but long explanation short, words and language are for communicating ideas, and we are just so overly accustomed to conceptualizing things in order to share them with others that we use language to "think" about things. It's not needed... it just comes as a result of being social, communicative creatures.

carlEdwards · 2 years

Read "Languages of the Mind" by Ray Jackendoff. He postulates, I believe 5 internal languages only one of which is speech. Internal languages are systems the brain can think (write) in and translate between.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_Jackendoff

glitch83 · 2 years

Yes definitely - there are a few examples of humans growing up with animals in the wild and being more intelligent than the animals that it grew up with. Though the way you used "thinking" makes me believe that you are talking about consciousness which is in itself controversial. I personally don't believe in free will in the context of consciousness but many do.

behanger · 2 years

Yes it is possible, I do it all the time. Thinking is more like 3D movies, which I then can describe in words, a bit. It works for sound techniques, programming, drawing, figuring out how I feel about a situation, deciding on which couch to buy, and wether I want to spend money on a faster engine for my boat. All this I do thinking in images, it's only when I think of how to get these across that I start using words.

timothj · 2 years

It is possible for people without language to exist in modern society-- catching subways, working, etc-- according to Pinker's book "The Language Instinct." Also, I can see my dog thinking, sometimes. She has a few words, but no language to speak of.

kabads · 2 years

Depends how you define thought. If thoughts can be reactions in the brain to stimulus, then no language is required.

MekkaLekkaHigh · 2 years

Dogs and other animals think without language.

gukeums1 · 2 years

You might think you hear yourself speaking, but really, you're experiencing thought clusters. You can think much faster than you can speak! The idea that you "speakthink" is probably a bit of an illusion; really, you're probably just fitting words to your concepts more than using words to form concepts.

Note: this post heavily relies on personal experience and is likely inaccurate.

prioryofsion · 2 years

Yes.

Looking outside of humans into animals (which seem to have nothing as complex and generative as human language) you can find cognition in the absence of language all over the place. Non-human primates have an intricate understanding of their social standing and use it to navigate their social environment, crows and other birds demonstrate complex problem solving behaviors, and even human infants, prior to learning a language, are thinking about their world and learning all sorts of things.

But as undeniable proof of thought in the absence of language? I'd probably point to Helen Keller and call it a night.

seraph582 · 2 years

Some folks are visual. I use my visual thinking to imagine systems and how subsets of systems work together on an individual basis when I design and work on software.

I then translate what I see mentally into whatever objects or syntax is necessary to recreate it or fix whatever's already there.

PublicStranger · 2 years

Most of my thinking is without words. I think more in concepts. Have you ever had a word on the tip of your tongue, but the concept you have in mind is very clear and palpable? That's how I think most of the time. I really only switch to words when I am considering something to say or write to someone.

I also have a couple memories as a child that pre-date my ability to speak English, and I certainly was thinking in those memories.

In one memory, I was taking a bath in a sink (it was in an apartment my family moved out of right around my first birthday) and my dad repeatedly jumped up from behind the counter to surprise me. I distinctly remember trying to anticipate when he would pop up next.

In another memory, I was riding in the backseat of the car while it was raining, and my parents were talking in the front seat. I had no idea what they were saying; it didn't even occur to me that they were trying to communicate anything at all. They were just making pleasant sounds, and I remember thinking how warm and safe I felt hearing them speak.

[deleted] · 2 years

I rarely think in words when interacting with the world. I only really think in words when I close my eyes or am cut off from visual input.

Mr_Zero · 2 years

Probably more so than not.

gliscameria · 2 years

Depends.

Can you 'think' without having ways of labeling things? I would say no. I'll use the 1984 argument that your vocabulary limits the ideas you are capable of having. As in, if you can't make a distinction between a bicycle and cold, then you aren't going be able to think, but if you have a means of holding those two things separately, you can. For this argument I will argue that instincts are not 'thinking'.

Can you think without using words? Absolutely. Reading vocally slows our thinking down tremendously, and it's a terrible shame we are taught to read that way.

merdiff · 2 years

Of course you can. You can think in images, emotions, sounds, smells and imagining physical movement (thanks to your motor neurons). How do you think intelligent mammals manage to do anything?

PsychRabbit · 2 years

Is it possible to be warm without fire? What exactly do you mean by thinking?

[deleted] · 2 years

Yes one can, but i have doubts as to the level of abstraction or depth one can achieve without using a language or without having learned a language.

[deleted] · 2 years

You can definitely form thoughts and chain them together using mental images alone.

If you only speak a single language the translation from mental images to words happens so quickly that you can't notice the delay between the two. However, when you are learning a second language and try to form sentences in it you will often find that mental images come to your mind --not only referring to nouns, but whole ideas as well-- and yet since your ability to speak that second language is limited you may simply not know how to translate those mental images into words, or if it happens there will be a noticeable delay (up to seconds).

To those who argue that this doesn't happen I can only advice them to learn a second language and see for themselves.

dearsomething · 2 years

Answer this: do you believe animals think? Do they know languages?

elsquire77 · 2 years

I used to teach English to Spanish speaking people, and I only spoke English to them. I would tell them the meaning of the words through drawings and acting, but the thing I asked them the most was to think in English... some of them would say it was impossible because they didn't speak it. The point of it all was to "forget" Spanish and not to think in Spanish... I know I think in both English and Spanish, but to say that I could think without language is kind of hard...

shaggorama · 2 years

see: feral children

also: theory-theory of mind vs. simulation-theory of mind

cvrc · 2 years

Yes, but you still need symbols to represent the objects and relations in your mind. The language is a ready library with predefined symbols.

majidrazvi · 2 years

Dr Jill Bolte Taylor claims she did just that.

webnrrd2k · 2 years

Yes. Well, sort-of if you count a visual language as being a "language. Check out Temple Grandin's The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's.

In a nutshell, Temple was born without the ability to use verbal language due to Autism and developed a visual language on her own. She's very smart, she even has a Ph.D. but just doesn't use language like most other people.

In order to deal with the sensory overload from her Autism, she'd build "confinement boxes" for herself. It turns out that this gives her a lot of insight into how animals, like cattle, deal with confinement. I believe that she's a consultant for designing animal handling systems.

(I haven't read any of her books, but just heard about her a few different times).

digitizemd · 2 years

Animals who have higher functioning cognitive ability (problem solving) have language to some extent. And recently a group found a species of monkeys who had developed syntax. As someone else said, define 'to think'. To some extent, I'm sure a lot of living things 'think'. Perhaps not in terms of strategy, but if they were to see a predator, for instance, a trigger would go off in their head. But is that thinking?

You could probably substitute observation for thinking. And as Skiphead, said, the answer to your question is no. How do you have an intentionality without a name for an object?

MyssX · 2 years

No, a child does not know the existence of it's mother until it can say the word mum. Of course you can think if you don't have language, it's just in pictures, colours, feelings, and sounds.

SkipHead · 2 years

The correct answer is: No.

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