Thoughts without language.

[Ryusaki]

I am german. When i speak english i start to think in english. I do not think in german and than translate the content, i try to form my thoughts into an english sentence. It works the other way around to, if i read english texts i don't need to translate the information into german before i can understand it. Sometimes its strange, i can understand the english, but i don't know the german translation.

Thoughts without language is easy, i am a very visual person, i imagine lots of things.

 

[Global]

I am german. When i speak english i start to think in english. I do not think in german and than translate the content, i try to form my thoughts into an english sentence. It works the other way around to, if i read english texts i don't need to translate the information into german before i can understand it. Sometimes its strange, i can understand the english, but i don't know the german translation.

Thoughts without language is easy, i am a very visual person, i imagine lots of things.

It's funny you mention that. I learned Italian later in life, and I too noticed that when I think in Italian, I'm not running some kind of serial translation in my head. I hear the Italian word-thoughts and they are understood.

 

[Nitegazer]

Language is certainly intermingled with thought for me. I have found that as I learn new vocabulary, like the names of birds, that my experience of birds is fundamentally altered. Language enriches my understanding much more than experience could alone. Words like ichorid, creeper and scapulars create a web of meaning. So, I would put myself into the camp of limited vocabulary leads to limited experience.

That is not to say that I think there is no thought without language. I can consider and experience fear through a series of images that need no words to be potent. Music also expresses thought without language. But, words create the structure; they are the framework on which I position images to synthesize and integrate thought.

Regarding different languages, there is a fun book called The Meaning of Tingo by Jacot de Boinod that lists words with no easy translation into English (eg. Mencolek -Indonesian for that old trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them.)

 

[Orion]

I think everything is a language which acts as a derivative of the one thing which makes everything, if you can dig it. Words are just a derivative from emotion or thought, which is the eventuality of something else. Human language is way down the line into peripheral abstraction, I think emotions and thoughts are closer to source than words are.

Applied to DMT for example : Trip itself > Memory of the trip > talking about the trip > hearing someone talking about their trip > forming your own vision based on their language of the trip.

I think deciphering thought isn't just an attempt to decode but to change it to fit a meaning.

What is it we are deciphering to in the end ? A changed version of the original reality, subjective and unique to someone else, now changed to fit ours. I suppose language is the only consistent part of existence, be it applied to words or in a broader sense nature itself.

Ya dig ?

 

[alloneallalone]

Orion, That was pretty awesome, but between memory of the trip, and talking about the trip, what puts those words in your head for you to talk about it with? I really like to talk immediately after coming back from a trip, and I always voice record on my cell phone so I can go back and listen to the partially incoherent babble later on. But I always feel the need to put things into words and think them over, map them out, before I can actually accept something and consider it understood. Maybe it's just a me thing though. maybe that's why I'm always so overwhelmed, when I can't explain my hyperspace experiences to myself at times. I can't just let pictures be pictures, or feelings be feelings.

 

[alloneallalone]

Ryusaki, That's one thing that has always puzzled me about learning another language, you don't just learn the words, you have to learn to understand it, very interesting to read about.

 

[Orion]

I mean to imply that even though the words themselves decode and experience and give rise to an understanding, it may be that we just have a feeling of understanding as our brain folds it neatly into a package we can look at, one we can come to terms with in a way that can be explained, because you want to be able to compartmentalize each piece of it how you imagine everyone else does. I think that's why even after you fully (I use that word loosely) come to terms with something like a DMT trip, you lose the feeling even though you came to be content with it in a language, a memory, allocated the meanings all in the right place. But upon return it's like 'aha yes THIS is it', and it really is ...because you're there.

It's just my personal preference not to want to understand such things though, because I personally don't believe we ever do. I believe that we believe we do, and that some claim to even know they do.

I also mean to imply that even the trip itself in its most valid raw form is still a translation from something else which came even sooner, what that is I'm not sure, but it's a language again.

We are our own authorities. So if your way is to use human language to come to rest on it, then this is your way and no one can say otherwise. I used to do the exact same thing by recording on my phone upon return but my thoughts about that gradually shifted to where they are now.

 

[Ryusaki]

@alloneallalone
It gets even worse..
I learned a lot by playing videogames and watching movies in english or with english subtitles.
The language itself not only changes your way of thinking, it can even change your behavior and personality.
My speaking abilities are somewhat limited, there is some inconsistence in my pronunciation.
But if you get me angry you might be astonished how fluent and creative i swear. Hollywood can do that.
When i have to interact with woman i am way more direct, and more like an macho. Its not even funny, when speaking english i often speak before i think, with astonishing results.
I usually more shy and introvert, but this part of my personality is supressed when thinking in E. it is simply not there. All selfcensoring fear-based processes based on the german language cannot compute the english, or are completly turned off.

 

[Mustelid]

Very Orwellian there. The lexicon defines what people can think.