Language and Cognition?

[steve_bank]

Well, I’ve reconsidered, or re-thought this (HA!). I do see images when I think. For example, when I think of my car, an image forms in my head instantaneously.

However, I’m not sure which comes first, the word of the image.

Thanks for the clarifying definitions, DBT. I may read the whole article if I have time. I have to admit I have long used the “memory theater” technique (described by Yates, referenced in the article) as a tool for memorizing lists.

However, I’m still not clear about what actually thinking in images might mean, other than just copying other actions, but I am open to the possibility. It seems to me that there is some layer of thinking that comes before visualization or words.

Steve: Interestingly, there are linguists (e.g. George Lakoff) who posit that all language (and therefore all thought?) is built from metaphor. Lakoff even has a book out describing mathematics as metaphor. I look forward to viewing the squirrel video as soon as I locate it.

Images? Are you sure? Not more like 3D renderings or clouds of structures? That what experiences. Not flat 2D images

Way back in the 70s when I first Read The Hobbit and Lord Of The Rings Imagined what it would look like as I read. When the first movie came out it was similar to what I imagined. It is called imagination.

In a book on Tibetan Yoga there was a technique. Look at a complex image like a mandela. Close your eyes and pan and zoom the mental image.

I see mechanical structures in 3D. When I took mechanical drawing before computers my problem was I couldn't draw a straight line with a ruler. Could not easily translated mental pictures to paper.

Right now I am picturing naked women in living color....it is called daydreaming. Have you ever had a dream you couldn't tell from reality?

When I was in the hospital I stared having hallucinations while awake from drug combos. It was like watching TV.

 

[Speakpigeon]

Over on Freethought Blogs, Mano Singham discusses a new book by Frans de Waal, a psychologist and primatologist, about the relationship between cognition and language. Basically, de Waal argues that language and thought are not all that connected, and that many non-verbal animals can think. The book is Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?

Here is an excerpt from the book.

Yes, language is just one cognitive process among others. It gives access to ideas you couldn't think without it but it cannot do by itself what is done through other cognitive processes, like perception, imagination, intuition, memory, sensations, impressions etc. Obviously, language has a special place in our lives as it is also the means by which we communicate ideas to other people, which is really how humanity was able to come out of and distinguished itself from the pack of all animal species, which is rather a crucial fact. It's also a very effective and economical way by which to produce new ideas, although it will always be in conjunction with memory, imagination, intuition, impressions etc. Language gives us access to an entirely new level of thinking. It's like getting access to a new dimension. Clearly, it has it's limitations but it's to be understood as complementary to our other capabilities.

Singham makes the point that it is often very difficult to translate our thoughts into words, an observation I have found to be true.

Me too. Intuitions and logical intuitions in particular show we can have ideas without using language and so far, some of our logical intuitions can't be replicated using language.

Still, I tend to reserve the term "thinking" to linguistic processes. I don't see ideas produced without using language as thinking, although it's probably because the process in this case in unconscious whereas thinking in words requires some of the process to be conscious, not just the end result as with intuitions or memory for example.
EB