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GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 11:46 AM
So I'm sitting here after an all-night online poker session sipping on OJ, enjoying a Sausage McMuffin with Egg or three, listening to Frank, and doing some reading. So I'm doing all this and I start thinking, and as soon as I do a thought comes to mind: Is abstract thinking possible without language? Obviously very rudimentary thought is possible, such as images and such, but is complex thought?

GoT

ThaSaltCracka
09-28-2004, 11:50 AM
what is abstract thinking?

elwoodblues
09-28-2004, 11:51 AM
Interesting question. When I think about complex problems, I tend to talk it out in my head --- using language. What goes on in the mind of the deaf?

GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 11:52 AM
what is abstract thinking?

Logical thinking.

GoT

GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 11:53 AM
What goes on in the mind of the deaf?

That was one of the first questions that came to my mind. For someone who was born deaf, what does their thought process "sound" like? Or does it sound at all?

GoT

nolanfan34
09-28-2004, 11:54 AM
[ QUOTE ]
Interesting question. When I think about complex problems, I tend to talk it out in my head --- using language. What goes on in the mind of the deaf?

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a great question. Interesting topic.

I for one know that I talk things through when I'm awake, but I know I sometimes dream about poker too, and talk myself through playing different hands. Is that the sign of an addict? /images/graemlins/blush.gif

Clarkmeister
09-28-2004, 11:58 AM
Aren't you at Commerce? If so, what on earth are you doing playing online? If not, and you are home, disregard.

elwoodblues
09-28-2004, 11:59 AM
[ QUOTE ]
I know I sometimes dream about poker too, and talk myself through playing different hands. Is that the sign of an addict?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's probably a sign that you think about it a lot. I know that when I was in school, I would wake up from a dream with an answer to a problem I had been thinking about or a new argument in a debate/mock trial.

I have been told that people who study foreign languages will sometimes dream in that language --- a foreign concept to me.

GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 12:02 PM
Aren't you at Commerce?

I live like 20 minutes from the Commerce. I moved down from Seattle about 9 months ago.

GoT

ThaSaltCracka
09-28-2004, 12:03 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Logical thinking.

[/ QUOTE ] Why the hell would you need to talk to yourself to do this?

sfer
09-28-2004, 12:04 PM
This is one of the central questions in Linguistics.

GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 12:06 PM
Why the hell would you need to talk to yourself to do this?

Maybe you misunderstood my pondering. What "language" do you think in, if any? Could you without one? I don't think I can.

GoT

ThaSaltCracka
09-28-2004, 12:14 PM
hehe, I think I did misunderstand you.

[ QUOTE ]
What "language" do you think in, if any? Could you without one?

[/ QUOTE ] I think it's similar to how people read. I mean, most people don't read outloud, so how do people absorb what they are reading? There must be some sort of internal "language" that we all have.

elwoodblues
09-28-2004, 12:25 PM
[ QUOTE ]
most people don't read outloud

[/ QUOTE ]

No, but most people do vocalize their reading in their mind. This is one of the surest ways to be a slow reader. People will often even move their lips when they read.

In college I took a class where we paced our reading speed/comprehension as a baseline. Then learned to not pronounce the words in our mind (and other minor techniques.) In a matter of days, I had tripled my reading speed. Not only that, but my comprehension improved. I had poor comprehension because my mind wandered (because I got bored because I was reading too slowly.) When I read faster, my mind didn't have time to wander and I was able to concentrate more on the book.

Depending on what I'm reading, I'll sometimes read the book aloud (in my head) and sometimes read it quickly...Using the quick method, I've pounded through some fluff novels (300-400 pages) in a few hours. It's crazy, but it works.

stoxtrader
09-28-2004, 12:33 PM
are math and science considered language? I think it may be possible to have logical thought through these disciplines without thinking in words per se (sp?), but im really just throwing darts in the dark here.

doughhater
09-28-2004, 12:48 PM
I know that I personally think in English. That is, my thoughts become coherent through their relation to words that I know to have specific meaning. My question is: how do people who are fluent in multiple languages think? Do they have a dominant language that governs their thoughts or do certain concepts translate better to certain languages? I've always been fascinated by this.

GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 12:54 PM
are math and science considered language?

Not in the sense of the word as I'm posing the question. When I "think" in these terms, it's always in English. I have an impossible time putting together an analytical math or science related thought without the use of English in my head.

GoT

tpir90036
09-28-2004, 01:38 PM
[ QUOTE ]
For someone who was born deaf, what does their thought process "sound" like? Or does it sound at all?


[/ QUOTE ]
I would imagine that they think in sign language since it is how they communciate. As one might imagine, being deaf from birth has a pretty drastic effect on your intellectual development since your communication skills will never quite get there. I think Cecil Adams addressed this in an article a little ways back .... lemme check.... yeah, here it is:

http://www.straightdope.com/columns/031226.html

Lots of other good stuff on that page for anyone who has never read his columns and has a lot of time to kill. The archives could eat up weeks.

-tpir

GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 01:56 PM
Great link. EXACTLY the type of response I was looking for.

GoT

eLROY
09-28-2004, 03:18 PM
For me yes, for Bill Clinton no.

But I'll ask different question: Does "Let's build a bridge to the 21st century" count as a thought?

MaxPower
09-28-2004, 03:24 PM
First you have to define what you mean by thinking.

When you have a conversation do you think consciously about what words you are going to say before you say them? Sometimes you do, but mostly you just talk and words come out of your mouth. Still there must be some thought processes that are causing you to say those words.

Even if you are only talking about conscious thought, I do not believe language is necessary for logical or abstract thinking because you can use imagery to think as well.

I'm sure there is a lot written about this in cognitive psychology or linguistics. My guess is that some kind of complex thought is capable without language, but that language greatly affects the direction of our thought.

pokerjo22
09-28-2004, 03:51 PM
Just off the top of my head:

Jean Piaget argued that language was dependent on thought, Lev Vygotsky argued that thought depended on language, while Jerome Bruner argued that thought and language were inextricably intertwined.

Albert Einstein claimed that he thought mainly in images and came up with the theory of relativity by imagining riding on a light beam.

Perhpas the most abstract thought is mathematical, and a lot of mathematicians claim to think spatially rather than verbally, a claim that seems to be supported by images of brain activity while they are thinking.

andyfox
09-28-2004, 03:55 PM
Isn't it the same thought Bush is claiming to have now? That Social Security and the income tax, the way they're currently constituted, are archaic remants of the early 20th century and need to be, well, bridged to the 21st.

andyfox
09-28-2004, 03:55 PM
Sinatra or Zappa?

HDPM
09-28-2004, 04:08 PM
yeah, some good points. I think it is also important to separate our mental functions. And I don't mean conscious vs. "subconscious" or "unconscious". Our minds work at many different levels in different ways. Visualization is a rational, conscious mental activity but does not depend on language. Other thought processes depend on, or are at least forever intertwined with, language. Whatever the language is, including sign language. One small example is something I read recently about athletes. The best athletes have brains that are not active in the language centers when they are perfoming a given skill. But less skilled people have more activity in that part of their brain during a given activity. This may be the root of the age old problem about why the best athletes are not the best teachers and coaches. Their minds use visualization and non-linguistic processes to perform a skill. Others use their language conceptual centers more, so they can better explain what is happening, but can't do it as well. (Note Sklansky is correct saying the old play/teach distinction is essentially BS in poker.)

Also, at some point language was invented. It took a mind without language to invent language. So I think there are mental processes in our consciousness that operate without language, but language and certain mental functions are inseparable/ the thought needs the language.

beerbandit
09-28-2004, 04:21 PM
elwood,

do you have any information on the text that was used for this class or any links that may be helpful. id be interested in viewing the material, this is one area that id like to improve in also. thanks

cheers
beer

sam h
09-28-2004, 04:59 PM
Not to find out a definitive answer to this question, but because you are a smart guy with an active mind who might really enjoy deeply exploring questions like this in a cognitive science class - trust me, this is a question that's attracted a lot of attention - or other interesting issues in other disciplines.

If you're willing to make something out of it, college can be a very rewarding intellectual experience. And one that you will not be able to replicate as an autodidact.

J.A.Sucker
09-28-2004, 06:56 PM
Funny. I was wondering the same thing.

As for GoT's question, the answer is yes. It's called math.

GuyOnTilt
09-28-2004, 07:58 PM
Funny. I was wondering the same thing.

Sinatra. Love 'im.

GoT

John Feeney
09-28-2004, 09:37 PM
You can investigate this by doing some research on the "Whorfian hypothesis" or the "Sapir-Whorf hypothesis." As another poster mentioned it's one of the classic debates in linguistics, and is discussed often in anthropology and cross-cultural psychology as well.

Zeno
09-29-2004, 03:14 AM
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: A relativistic doctrine. According to Sapir, "We see and hear...very largely as we do because the language habits of our community predispose certain choices of interpertation'. Whorf developed the idea, attempting to illustrate it from American Indian Languages. The doctrine risks collapse into the truism that some things can be said more easily in some languages than in others. - The Oxford Companion to Philosophy

__________________________________________________ ____


Don't 'all' written languages start as picture (thought vision) representations (ideograms) of things then evolve into more abstractions or abstract concepts? Chinese, for example, still has the base ideogram character of language. A little off topic but interesting and certainly related to the subject at hand.

-Zeno

Zeno
09-29-2004, 03:24 AM
[ QUOTE ]
It's called math.

[/ QUOTE ]

Math manipulates symbols as a way of keeping track of abstract concepts or logical constructs if you perfer. The symbols are shorthand. Do you need the symbols to do the math? Rhetorical question really.

The image or vision part of thought is important as the common term 'in your mind's eye' so clearly illustrates.

I have visions all the time. But then, I am insane.

-Zeno

elwoodblues
09-29-2004, 09:08 AM
We didn't use a text, mainly just photocopied articles and professor instruction. I'll see if I can dig anything up.

The key is to just let your eyes scan over the words without stopping to pronounce them. For it to work well, you should try to improve your vocabulary as well. Once you are able to glance at words and know what they are without pronouncing (it really isn't difficult), then you can start grouping 2 or 3 words together. This is part of the reason why you can read a newspaper much faster than a book (another is just eye fatigue from reading left to right). On a good day you can just let your eyes slowly fall down the column. Typical reading speed is around 250 to 300 words per minute. That's right about where I was when I started the class. Just after not pronouncing the words in my head (nothing else, no grouping of words or working on expanding my vocabulary) I was reading about 800 words per minute. When all was said and done, I could read about 1000 words per minute in a book and about 1200 in a newspaper. They also have reading software for computers (I once had it but got rid of it) where it will display text one (or two-three) words on the screen at a time and then flash to the next. Because you don't have to move your eyes at all, you can get up to about 1200 or so with those as well. It's crazy how easy it is.

eLROY
09-29-2004, 10:29 AM
I haven't read any of the other posts in this thread. But if you are really curious about this, you can start with two things. First, read "The Sensory Order" by Friedrich Hayek, and then read the main paper on "ICMAUS neural" by J. Gerard Wolff. Once you've done that to establish a common language and context, I'll tell you what I think I know.

jagoff
09-29-2004, 01:47 PM
Deaf and mute are not the same thing. Think of it this way...hum to yourself, you can hear the vibrations in your head. That is the sound of a deaf person's voice in their head. That is about the best description that I can come up with. Gimme some weed and it will be better I promise!

John Feeney
09-29-2004, 01:58 PM
[ QUOTE ]
Don't 'all' written languages start as picture (thought vision) representations (ideograms) of things then evolve into more abstractions or abstract concepts? Chinese, for example, still has the base ideogram character of language. A little off topic but interesting and certainly related to the subject at hand.


[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, it does seem related. It would seem to argue against the idea that language of an abstract sort, rather than mental images by themselves, is necessary for complex thought. And while I'm not sure, I believe the current thinking points that way rather than toward full support of the Whorfian hypothesis.