Does Language and Environment Shape Our Thinking?

[Mariko]

Emotional, Visual and Auditory is how we think. Some of us use one of those senses more than the other two but I do think language was a product of these primal senses, a way to organize things between them all, hence language could have never been invented could we not think of names to give things or words to express the way we feel.

 

[loseyourname]

Reviving ancient threads, eh? Couldn't somebody have simply asked Hellen Keller if she ever had thoughts before learning a language?

 

[Doctordick]

Reviving ancient threads, eh? Couldn't somebody have simply asked Hellen Keller if she ever had thoughts before learning a language?

Well, did you have any thoughts before learning a language:

Doesn't anyone around here ever think about things before they post?

Have fun -- Dick

 

[the_truth]

If we did not have language we would invent a form of unspoken language in our minds in order to understand the same concepts we are used to using language for. We do it all the time, when we remember how to tie our shoe laces.

Can you describe how to tie your shoe laces? You would have to compose some new terminology and think of how to explain how to tie your shoe laces first in order to do so as you have not already done so, yet you can tie your shoe laces.

We can think without spoken language, however communication is a part of thinking and that could be called language, though this is not what you meant so..

The answer is yes.

 

[Doctordick]

If we did not have language we would invent a form of unspoken language in our minds in order to understand the same concepts we are used to using language for. We do it all the time, when we remember how to tie our shoe laces.

Well, I won't argue with you over this statement but I think the rest of your post misses the point.

Can you describe how to tie your shoe laces? You would have to compose some new terminology and think of how to explain how to tie your shoe laces first in order to do so as you have not already done so, yet you can tie your shoe laces.

That was not the question! The question was, "did you have any thoughts before learning a language?" Put it another way, do you remember having any thoughts before you learned a language? I don't know about you but my children had a rather substantial vocabulary long before they had learned to tie their shoe laces. It seems to me that there is little evidence that conscious thought occurs prior to learning a language.

We can think without spoken language, however communication is a part of thinking and that could be called language, though this is not what you meant so..

How do you come to know what I meant? Read my essay on squirrel logic[URL]. There is a big difference between "training" and "teaching". This is why idiot savants are seldom credited with "thinking".

We also seldom use the word thinking when we talk of animals. Animals can be trained to do a lot of things but, do they perform their feats because they "know what to do" or do they actually "think" the performance out? Note that I am not claiming that animals cannot think but rather that, if they do, I suspect they do possesses mental processes equivalent to language.

The answer is yes.

Yes to what? That humans can think before they learn a language or that some people think before they post?

You all need to take a look at a report published in the June 25, 2005 issue of Science News, Vol. 167, No 26 : Personable Brain Cells: Neurons as virtuosos of face, object recognition. Apparently significant primary elements of memory may be attached to specific neurons. Maybe there is a specific neuron for each qualia we come to know. The exact scientists may work this out yet.

Have fun -- Dick

 

[Nomy-the wanderer]

Interesting thread, i believe that thinkign is language dependent, cause people invented language and ecause u can think with any language u like, i do think in 3 languages..and on my way to do the same with the fourth...I think it depends more on the environment where u live, the way u were raised, surroundings, the nature of the place where u r ...

It's not the language..

 

[Mariko]

Wait I have a problem with this... How could we even invent words could we not think of a name to give things?

 

[Astronuc]

I would launch a soft attack against Humboldt’s theory that people who speak different languages think differently. The reason for a soft attack is at least twofold because depending on how “think differently” is defined it could be argued that even people speaking the same language may think differently from each other, heh. The difficult task of ‘looking’ inside someone’s head to determine the exact nature of their thinking has to be considered, too.

True, but if one tries to translate one language to another, one finds subtle differences, which indicate slight differences in thinking. For example in English - subject, direct object, indirect object - are used. In German, one has the nominative, accusative (like D.O.), and dative (I.O.) cases, and possessive. There is rarely a unique one-to-one correspondence between prepositions of both languages. Then consider Russian - nominative, accusative, dative, genitive, prepositional, and instrumental cases. Among the three languages there are interesting differences among preposition-noun and verb-preposition-noun differences. Then through in Hindi, Japanese, Chinese and a host of other languages in the differences in thinking are quite interesting (although in many cases the basic concept is the same, as BoulderHead has indicated).

For reference, see - Internet Grammar of English
German Grammar on the Web
An On-line Russian Reference Grammar

Perhaps in more complex concepts, the thinking is quite different. But language and culture are somewhat inseparable. See my next set of comments.

We should all be aware that a single word may have many meanings (rich in metaphor). The context in which a word is used is important; “dinner”, for example, may simply refer to food, or it may be a command to stand up, wash your hands, then walk over to a table and take your place. The vagueness of words, although leading so often to confusion, adds a genuine richness to words that enable people to conceptualize many different things, even with a single word.

language provides context and content. language and thinking go hand-in-hand, as in a closed loop with feedback. Adults and children think differently, because the knowledge and language are different. language can be used to transmit indirect experience - e.g. children studying history of their culture or closer to home - their family.

The idea that thoughts are controlled or influenced by the language we speak can be attacked by realizing that while you may, in English, think: I want my new shirt to be ‘blue’, the Tiv speaker may think; I want my new shirt to be ‘dark’. It seems totally different upon cursory examination, yet while the words may be different both people can be conceptualizing the exact same color in their mind. This then is confirmed by their actions as each goes on to acquire a similarly colored shirt.

Some differences may be inconsequential or insignificant.

 

[bomba923]

As this is a thread on language, a year ago I started a very similar thread:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=46014
However, it may have been less comprehensive (I was planning to mention the Whorf hypothesis, and the counterargument by Steven Pinker (I think it was in his essay, "Mentalese"))--anyway, be sure to see:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=46014

 

[Ubern0va]

Squirrels manage to think without a language, so I don't see why humans couldn't.

I agree with that to an extent. I think (no pun intended) that language helps extend our thoughts into a more complex realm, acting as a sort of prerequisite, allowing advanced human development to occur. Therefore, though I don't believe that thought would be totally non-existent in an organism that can’t speak, I'm quite sure that complex thought would be scarce.

 

[servelan]

Nobody seems to have mentioned it but certain psychedelics allow one to see what it's like not to have language.

Putting any pre-conceived ideas of these substances to one side I would say psilocybin (magic mushrooms) is one of the most reliable - I took quite a large dose the other day and entered this state where all my powers of language were completely wiped out. All self-generated meaning was cleared away too and I was literally an organism just looking out and experiencing the world. Words occasionally came into my head but they didn't mean anything.

It was a very interesting experience because I couldn't language anything but just experience the world in a really fresh and immediate way. Definitely an invaluable experience for me as I realized how much we replace reality with language and we don't even realize we're doing it. Instead of seeing things as they are we seem to replace primary experience with words. Here's an example for you - a baby is lying in it's cot and the most amazing creature comes in through the window. It's a kalaidoscopicly, dazzling fusion of light, sound and movement. The baby's mother comes into the room and says "baby, it's a bird, it's a bird". By the time the child is a few years old he sees a bird and says "it's a bird" and doesn't think twice about it. The amazing reality of this creature has been conveniently tiled over with a word. Do you see what I'm getting at?

 

[professor]

about the languagees may alter our thought process... I am very skeptical i can speak english quite well...spanish somewhere near fluent and enough of other languages liek french and italian to make my way from one place to the next in a forign county... though before learning more than just english, i beleve my thought process must have been much alike, considering my style of writing has not changed any more then the addition of a few new words prehaps...i doubt very seriously that these philosophers were bilingual, or if hey were... then what a strange question to ask... in addition, how could one learn a language at all shortly after being born withuot the ability to think. pause...they couldent. sorry to maim your post, but just an expression of my thoughts on the matter. (though i will admit there ifs certainly a change of the way people think when learning a language...ie the ability to communicate greatly spurred the advancement of human civilization many years ago, and so does it still allow ideas to be more easily transferred and advanced upon.

 

[dexed25]

Just a Dumb Guess

I've long thought that English is lacking a good word for the feeling you have when you witness somebody else getting blamed for doing something (or for failing to do something) that you actually did (or failed to do). I wouldn't be surprised if there are other languages which do have such a word.

ONE WORD: GUILT

 

[tardis]

Good thread and interesting response Servelan. Having grown up in the east (global) and then moved to the US, I recall that there were words in Asia that spoke to different shades of shame, pride and honor. Shades that are not found (at least to the average Joe) in English. The difference in world view stemming from this are real. However the question that I ponder is whether this means that the language one learns first shapes our operating system to use a puter term. Clearly the default OS can be expanded, but how much and how quickly? and even more importantly, is there something we are missing by virtue of our language driven OS?

 

[Mariko]

I was just watching this talk show with a woman who is audtistic and she says audtistic people like animals use sensory thinking... so how does this prove the theory wrong??

 

[Temporarily Blah]

Without reading anything within this topic, I will randomly post what I believe to be possible;

You can think in images, yes there will be differences based on language, and there MIGHT be changes in ways of thinking based on location.

Also, personality effects thinking quite a lot.

 

[Vossistarts]

the 19th century German Philosopher Wilhelm von Humboldt claimed that language was directly connected to thinking

that people around the world should actually think differently due to their native language

the American linguist Benjamin Lee Whorf based his (Whorf-Hypothesis)
on the idea that thoughts are controlled or influenced by the language we speak.

perhaps we can take this one step further into the science of Chorology
which is the relationship between thought and native environment

is our thinking shaped by our native language and native environment?

does the average person in China experience the same thought processes as the average person in Sweden?

does the average person who has grown up in a city surrounded by water such as Stockholm think in the same way as a person who has grown up in a dessert such as Saudi Arabia?

Sure we can think, or at least process our experience of things without language. language is used to recreate the things we experience symbolically. In a real way it cuts us off from the truth of the things we name and conceptualize over. At some point though, you get to know your way around well enough, so that when you see the item we call a tree, you don't have to comment to yourself, " there is a tree". You just know it. Its cognative. Cognative processing ultimately has little need for the language system. It brings us back to experiencing things directly, where perception in vehicle and everything we percieve we flow into and it into us, connected.

 

[Vossistarts]

Nobody seems to have mentioned it but certain psychedelics allow one to see what it's like not to have language.

Putting any pre-conceived ideas of these substances to one side I would say psilocybin (magic mushrooms) is one of the most reliable - I took quite a large dose the other day and entered this state where all my powers of language were completely wiped out. All self-generated meaning was cleared away too and I was literally an organism just looking out and experiencing the world. Words occasionally came into my head but they didn't mean anything.

It was a very interesting experience because I couldn't language anything but just experience the world in a really fresh and immediate way. Definitely an invaluable experience for me as I realized how much we replace reality with language and we don't even realize we're doing it. Instead of seeing things as they are we seem to replace primary experience with words. Here's an example for you - a baby is lying in it's cot and the most amazing creature comes in through the window. It's a kalaidoscopicly, dazzling fusion of light, sound and movement. The baby's mother comes into the room and says "baby, it's a bird, it's a bird". By the time the child is a few years old he sees a bird and says "it's a bird" and doesn't think twice about it. The amazing reality of this creature has been conveniently tiled over with a word. Do you see what I'm getting at?

I surely do see what youre getting at, and its right., Cognative processing is the next step, but drugs arent needed to get there. I've been practicing and observing zen for almost 20 years and have made great progress with letting go of language based processing. Thats essentially what zen is about. As I've made steps towards independence from thinking in words and concepts my creative abilities and intelligence has blossomed in a way i never imagined. we start out learning all the names for things. IN the beginning especially but in many case always, we check our names against the memory of where we learned the name. as we get older we are able to start adding definitions and concepts to the names wever learned for things. definitions are often learned and concepts can be created but however you do your thing, your always tied to points in the past with the system. AS we go further along, we collect more word labels for the new things we learn and concepts seem to interrelate. So we can sit down and quietly consider many things, thing that have become words and our concepts of the things, but what were considering are only subjective ghosts or placeholders of what it IS. What were considering is our idea of what really is. Its rolling a globe over and over in our hands saying we've traveled the whole world.
As long as we use language to process, we call what is called a tree, a tree. Maybe we think some things about a tree, about its roots and trunk and leaves and circulatory system, and to whatever end that is all a tree is to us. But a tree is not a tree . It just is. Our ideas of a tree are dwarfed by what it really is. so you say," well, i can tell you this and this and this about a tree, and you don't call it anything, you just recognize it and all you can say about it is
"it is". So whos way is better?>"

I am connected to what it is in truth its substance. youre carrying around a model in your head that is fabricated out of thoughts that have no substance. Ask me to show something of merit to my way of percieving a tree, I might take what you can leaf home with me for an example. The leaf youll take home as an example of your way of processing is a ghost.

Dont get me completely wrong . I still process a lot of my world with language. Personally i think learning the world symbolically with language is very necessary, but it is not absolute. I can't really describe to you what it is like to experience the world entirely without thought and its only happened to me once for a short time. I can tell you, that the first thought i had after those few minutes was, " this is the next vantage to seeing the world around me exactly or at least more exactly as it is, this is the new frontier of my mind."

 

[co.rinne]

The point is that you can never convey the actual content of the feeling. language is based on assumptions of mutual understanding. When a person describes the exhilieration of riding a roller coaster to me, that person cannot give his or her experiences to me. I have to rely upon inferences by correlating words with experiences, assuming that what someone else experiences is similar to what I experience in the same situation.

I absolutely agree, and i find it intriguing how this assumption can never be proven. What I observe to be green can never be verified as what everyone else observes as green, depending on my eye sight compared to everyone else's eyesight. Green is the only adjective there is for that particular colour. Abit irrelevant, but very interesting to me.

 

[Sriram.S]

I think most people think in their native language(i.e when you are thinking about something inside your head you sort of speak to yourself mostly in your native language).

Sriram

 

[Integral]

This thread has been dead for over 3 years, let it rest in peace.