4 ms·
Personally, I believe it's the same part of your brain that forms words that also thinks conceptually. Words are never that far from human cognition. If you wa
by vinceguidry 8y ago
Personally, I believe it's the same part of your brain that forms words that also thinks conceptually. Words are never that far from human cognition.
If you want to get a sense for what non-linguistic thought would be, think more like your dog. The two language areas are the only functional difference between us and the animals. Once you start getting into the realm of things that dogs or other animals can't do, you're thinking linguistically.
- Retric 8y agoThis is the kind of thing you can look at using MRI scans and not all thoughts involve the linguistic centers of the brain.
- vinceguidry 8y agoI'm not disputing that and I left my MRI machine in my other pants, so we'll have to go on intuition until someone with an MRI decides to investigate.
- btmorex 8y agoPlease explain https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aphasia then My own personal anecdotal experience is that thinking in words is far, far slower than skipping them and sticking to concepts and connections.
- vinceguidry 8y agoWhat's there to explain? There's two parts of the brain involved in speech generation, damage one of them and you suddenly lose the ability to work with words. Depending on the extent of the damage, you will lose various comprehension abilities. Like I stated earlier, I don't think all cognition is linguistic in nature, but I think you'll definitely lose 'something' if you break your language part. My argument is that without language, we'll be present-focused and unable to appreciate conceptual subtleties, due to the inability to name and remix thoughts. Like other nonverbal mammals.
- perl4ever 8y agoI find words are my most effective path to concepts and connections. It might be related to how early you learn to read or innate brain wiring.
- taneq 8y ago> My own personal anecdotal experience is that thinking in words is far, far slower than skipping them and sticking to concepts and connections. I find this as well. I've often caught myself waiting for my inner monologue to finish narrating a thought while simultaneously being fully aware that I've finished the reasoning part and already know the answer. When this happens I actively try to let go of the narration and just take the results and run with them. It's difficult but sometimes doable, and (for me at least) there's about an order of magnitude speedup.
- dingo_bat 8y ago> Words are never that far from human cognition. If true, I wonder how humans thought before language had evolved. Sounds like hell.