We associate words with their meanings all the time, could this just be human nature to categorize things?
Maybe since we have learned to put words with their meanings as children, it has become a habit rather than nature, why else would we desire to know the name of a movie that’s on tv while the content will not change?
true. i dont think is human nature. someone who grew up alone on a island wouldnt do this…i think its a horrible side effect of language/ego. try onl hearing the sound of a word (like the diffrent pitches) if you say the word enough, and concentrate you can seperate the meaning of the word and the sound of it, intresting note: once seperated the actual sound of the word sounds Much different then the way it sounded with meanig behind it.
Interesting topic. 
I feel we associate words with their meanings in the form of “mental words” (i.e. if you say “bear”, my mind usually thinks immdiately of the actual word “bear” itself. Then I think of what a bear looks like).
We cannot think of something that cannot be described with pre-existing words.
Godzilla, for instance, could be said to not exist. But what is Godzilla? He has scaley, slimy skin…a dinosaur-like tail…huge teeth…and bad breathe.
But, scalely skin, bad breathe, and huge teeth, do, in fact already exist. Hence, we can only think of Godzilla as hideous combination of things that already exist.
Hence, IMHO, our thinking is limited by our language.
no, Godzilla RULES…
-Imp
Now, if i did think of a counterexample to your theory, I wouldn’t be able to tell you about it - d’oh!
Association is needed for the mind to quickly compute assumptions and probabillities. Like a b-Tree in Computer Science.
Translation: The closer the branch is to the “root” node the easier and the quicker the mind can reach it.
Therefore habits are the mind’s way of preprocessing data and “code” so it can be able to do more things when needed.
Example: If something scares you and you need to get up and RUN… Do you have to think about HOW to run or just WHERE?
In theory, that would be correct.
I disagree…
If we can not think without language then how does one learn the think being as children are born without the imediate use of language?
I think you may be mistaken. One can think in “objects” as I do it all the time when I read. I don’t HEAR the words in my mind I simply connect the concept. By doing this I can read much faster than if I “sub-vocalize” or think the words as if I’m speaking them.
Another example “Godzilla”:
Just because I can’t put a word to Godzill’s skin or size doesn’t mean I can’t come to terms with those concepts. It simply means I’ll have limited ability to EXPRESS what I concieve.
So in saying, our language doesn’t “limit” our thought it simply leads the mind to focus on the concept associated with the word / term - even if the term is reflexive unto itself or another concept – like two mirrors facing each other.
PS: Also I would say that more people are most likely predominantly visual thinkers than anything else. Example: What does a CAT look like? … Did you see a cat? Can you read that sentence without seeing a cat? The first time?
Well, I feel this is compensated by the fact that children who are very young don’t have the cognitive abilities to understand very much, anyways. Hence, the need for language is uneccessary at that point.
I never meant to say that I feel that all humans think of things as “mental words” rather than “mental pictures or images”. I merely meant to say that unless you know what “oogy” means, you can use it to describe anything that has the characteristic if “oogy-ness”.
Just my 2 cents (or a dollar, to whoever needs the extra money )… 
Grunts and groans will sometimes suffice. There are times they do make sense, no? I can think of examples, but I won’t say them here. 
Yes but a baby cries the same way when it is hunger as it does when it is feeling uncomfortable (not extreme pain; just minor discomfort). It just makes a happy sound(s) when it is happy, and cries when it is said.
There is no specific “I’m feeling hungery” noise, and there is no specific “I’m tired noise”. Just plain old crying. True?
You need to spend more time around babies. They have distinctly different cries. A cry of pain sounds different than a cry of frustration. I always listen when I hear a child crying in a store. You can hear the difference when the child is crying because she didn’t get a nap, or when she hurt herself.
When you have babies of your own, you will learn the difference very quickly.
Normal verbal communication uses tone as a significant part of the message. That is why a phone call can give more information than just text.
I am reading a book right now The Language Instinct by Stephen Pinker in which he talks about this very idea. He calls it, " a conventional absurdity: a statement that goes against all common sense but that everyone believes because they dimly remember hearing it somewhere and because is it so pregnant with possibilities."
He goes on to say, “We have all had the experience of uttering or writing a sentence, then stopping and realizing that it wasn’t exactly what we meant to say. To have that feeling, there has to be a ‘what we meant to say’ that is different from what we said. Sometimes it is not easy to find any words that properly convey a thought. When we hear or read, we usually remember the gist, not the exact words, so there has to be such a thing as a gist that is not the same as a bunch of words. And if thoughts depended on words how could a new word ever be coined?”
"As we shall see in this chapter, there is no scientific evidence that languages dramatically shape their speakers’ way of thinking.â€
He concludes this argument with, "We end up with the following picture. People do not think in English or Chinese or Apache; they think in the language of thought.â€
The author provides many examples to solidify his claims. I recommend this book to everyone. As the author says in the introduction, “I have never me a person who is not interested in language.â€
Our communication is limited by our language not our thinking. Thought as image… a memory, the details the smells, the feelings, is impossible to convey in totality through language, but one still has the thought.
“Cellar Door” I don’t know what poet, or writer said it, but its said to be the most beautiful sounding two word combination in the english language, when you first hear it it doesn’t seem that way, say it over a couple of times and listen to the actual sounds, then you do see the beauty in it.
When you say that its a horrible side of effect of language/ego, that really rang true with me!! thats exactly what It seems to be to me to. It seems to me that language either created, or incredibly strengthened the ego, the I, the me. I think that as soon as we started seperating ourselves through language, when we began to refer to ourselves, as Me, I, and you, them, that that either created, or strengthened the “I” the ego, to give us the narcisistic state of the human mind today.
I saw you post in another thread the necessity of getting rid of your ego, and let me just say that I completely agree with you.
Okay…good thoughts Xanderman, thank-you.
I’ll have to give you the benefit of the doubt concerning how babies express themselves. Being that I’m only 16, my exposure around infants has been quite little, and thus, I cannot confirm nor refute your claims.
Interesting, and in this case, I must admit, I agree with you. But would you not agree that most people (except children who are too young to speak) assosciate things mentaly with the corresponding word? Perhaps they may not neccessarily imagine in their mind the actual word (spelled out with letters), itself. But do not most people at least imagine the word as a “mental concept”?
What I mean is:
You say “bannana”. Upon hearing that word, I instantly think of another word I know: “Lunch”. Why? Because I see bannas most often at lunch than at any other time during the day. This may not be what you think of when you hear the word “bannana” spoken, but you still probably think of at least something (as opposed to not having any thought/picture/etc. that is invoked when you hear that word).
My point is this:
The process of thought when one hears a famiular word does not start with the person first imagining an image of a bannana. First, the person sub-consciencely must comphrend what a bannana actually is. They do this usually by mentally rtecognizing that the word is familur, and then…they think of an event, and image, a thought, etc.
The “mental concept” of a given word is allways the first thing we think of. Even if we don’t end up having an picture of a bannana pop up in our minds as a first reaction to hearing the word…we still must take the effort to comprehend and compute the word’s meaning. This is a subconscience act, so we do not realize that we are doing it.
The process is this:
- Person hears word
- Person Subconsciencely recognizes the word as being familuar
- Person subconsciencely computes/comprehends the word’s meaning
- Person reacts to hearing the word by having a given thought/past event/image/etc. pop into his mind
I hope that you guys will understand what I’m trying to say. Right now, I’m having difficulty putting my thought into words. This, I feel is due to the fact that my knowledge of different words is limited.