[sowbug]

I liked the post's title more than the article's contents. It got me wondering about the difference between language and thought, if there actually is any. Is thought just unspoken language? Do we think if we don't know a language?

Is there a subset of any human language that can be described by a formal regular grammar without giving up the expressiveness of human language? Is there a notion of "Turing completeness" but for thought rather than computation?

[layer8]

I’m able to suppress my inner voice for a couple of seconds. Similar to meditation, it’s not easy. I find it striking how much the level of thinking devolves in that language-less state, including abstract thought. I imagine that it is a like how an animal’s consciousness may feel.

[blackbear_]

> Is thought just unspoken language? Do we think if we don't know a language?

I find it pretty obvious that there are many ways of thinking that are not language, just consider abstract concepts in math and related fields. When working my way through math and programming problems, a large part of my thinking is not through words but.. Some kind of visualization?

[sowbug]

I know what you mean. I wonder whether it's useful to distinguish thinking from that "mind's eye" imaging capability that I believe you're describing. They might be separate things. It's pretty evident that a cat or a dog, or even a fish, has memory. Is memory the ability to conjure things in the mind's eye? If remembering one image reminds us of other images, then language-free thought might be moving through a chain of images. Perhaps humans are good at creating such chains in their heads, while a fly or an ant can't do much more beyond matching a memory to their actual instantaneous sensory input, and reacting accordingly. Substitute "image" with symbolic memories, and that might be the start of abstract reasoning.

In other words, there's probably basic consciousness at one end of a spectrum, and thinking evidenced by language on the other end. Somewhere between those two, one might draw a line between thought and mere conscious awareness.

[melanieb421]

I wrote the article, and am personally extremely interested in this angle. What would happen to writing if we could directly transfer ideas without any kind of mediation? Would we need to "translate" at all? Would we still want to write for the beauty of it, and read for the meaning it adds to our lives?