Thought is pre-language Our thoughts are not in language

[Didymos Thomas]

How can a being understand what I am saying without understanding what I mean?

Imagine some alien humanoid species that can reason, but does not have emotion. If you say to him "I feel sad" he would be able to understand what you say, but not what you mean because he has no experience of sadness.

[de Silentio]

Imagine some alien humanoid species that can reason, but does not have emotion. If you say to him "I feel sad" he would be able to understand what you say, but not what you mean because he has no experience of sadness.

Since this being has no experience of sadness, what use is his reason in understanding it? Reason does not work by itself, it works in conjuction with experience to create the knowledge which enables one to understand.

Furthermore, it seems to me that even our ability to reason is aided by experience. If your alien being has never experienced sadness, then his ability to reason effectively would be drastically hindered when it comes to understanding sadness, or any emotion for that matter.

[Quatl]

Originally Posted by de Silentio

Since this being has no experience of sadness, what use is his reason in understanding it? Reason does not work by itself, it works in conjuction with experience to create the knowledge which enables one to understand.

Furthermore, it seems to me that even our ability to reason is aided by experience. If your alien being has never experienced sadness, then his ability to reason effectively would be drastically hindered when it comes to understanding sadness, or any emotion for that matter.

It would be hindered, however he could still understand "I am sad" in (at least) these ways:

The person is experiencing a sensation called sadness.

Sadness is a feeling that humans have when certain kinds of bad things happen.

Something bad has happened to this human.

Is any of my recent behavior among those things which humans have said made them sad? Perhaps I should apologize, or offer sympathetic comments to smooth over the relationship. (humans seem to expect this even when sympathy and empathy are absent between them.)

This human may behave in certain ways now that he is "sad." I can extrapolate from past experiences of sad humans to make some predictions.

This human may not be truthful, as he is smiling as he said it, but prior humans who said this were frowning, or crying as they did so.
-
I'm sure there are other ways that the being could "understand" us based on this statement.

[No0ne]

Originally Posted by Aedes

Anthropologically language and thought probably co-evolved.

But the real question philosophically is the following:

Which can exist without the other?

Language cannot exist without thought. There is no way. But thought can indeed exist without language.

How complex could thoughts be without language? Well, if you took a potential brilliant philosophical genius at infancy, raised him in a room with no features, never let him interact with other humans, never taught him a language, and he survived to adulthood, what could he think? Could he ever generate complex thoughts? Could he understand anything more than the most basic cause and effect relationships?

The thing is that our thoughts are trained and nurtured by interaction with others, chiefly our parents and siblings, but also in school. And language (whether spoken or Braille or sign language or whatever) is the common currency of that growth process.

Also to add onto your thought's of such.

Language cannot be within are thought if we do not have a perception of that language that would be turned into thought that we can understand.

Also the act of preceiving the perception of lanuage and thought, is another factor that effect's how we think, see, and display all thing's we do, and say to other's.

But it seems likly the brain would only have a need for the mind, if it was first intended for the act of self-presavation, by mean's of communication with one another collectively, which would mean we would have to have the same mean's of displaying are thought's and action's within the same perception of are own and other's.

So in short, yes that person could create complex thought's, but they would be created in a way that only that person could understand, therefore his perception of all thing's would be diffrent from our's, and allso are perception of his action's would be.

The brain dosnt speak english but it can function correctly, mainly because it know's what is what, and what that dose, with "That" during this and that process.. therefore it's language wouldnt be in a way we could understand, a transaltion would be needed, it also applie's to people that use sign, and brail for the mean's of communication to other's.. a translation is allways needed.

But to answer your question (Which can exist without the other?)
well... thought is a mean's of communication and language to one's self, this dosnt mean that another person need's to understand it :/ so thought is language and language is thought. because there all made in the same spot.

--=Thank you for your time on reading this I hope it wasnt to long of a post for such an comment=--

[No0ne]

Originally Posted by Didymos Thomas

Imagine some alien humanoid species that can reason, but does not have emotion. If you say to him "I feel sad" he would be able to understand what you say, but not what you mean because he has no experience of sadness.

correct, there would be know way for him to know what that person truly felt, but he would preceive how the word was used, and macth it to the action's that led him to using the word sad, therefore after time a understanding of what makes that person sad and what dose not can be created,

But it's hard to say that he could not experience sadness, but mostlikly there bodies wouldnt have the same physical reaction, to compair are sad action to.

So if when your sad you dont do some thing's like, you were to chat on line the oppisite of when your not. that could be a point of reference for the alien to relate to, but the word's would not be the same, nor would the phyiscal brain's method of creating the sadness, but the action's that they do would be the same. So when the alien gose to a chat room and act's the oppisite of normal, he could say he was sad, only after analization of what would be and what would not be an action that display's (Sad). So yes he would have no experience of sadness, before he knew what sadness is, but that wouldnt mean that at a later point of time he couldnt experience or relate to the action's that sadness create's.

Translation and understanding of another's action's and the same shared perception of those action's are a needed. other wise he couldnt see through the eye's of the other, as if he was really the other.

[Didymos Thomas]

Since this being has no experience of sadness, what use is his reason in understanding it? Reason does not work by itself, it works in conjuction with experience to create the knowledge which enables one to understand.

Right. Therefore, the alien could understand what you say (something like 'the human is experiencing some particularly human emotion that is unpleasant') but he could know what you mean, he could not empathize, he couldn't understand what it is to be sad.

Furthermore, it seems to me that even our ability to reason is aided by experience. If your alien being has never experienced sadness, then his ability to reason effectively would be drastically hindered when it comes to understanding sadness, or any emotion for that matter.

As you say, reason does not work by itself. Reason is a tool. Even thought the alien has no experience of the emotion sadness, or even if the alien has no experience of emotion whatsoever, the law of noncontradiction is equally as valid.

But it seems likly the brain would only have a need for the mind, if it was first intended for the act of self-presavation, by mean's of communication with one another collectively, which would mean we would have to have the same mean's of displaying are thought's and action's within the same perception of are own and other's.

I'm not sure the mind/brain exists for self preservation. It seems more likely it exists for the preservation of the group. They allow us to give complex warnings to the group, and complex advice. They also allow us to have the sort of emotions to be willing to die for the sake of the group, or other members of said group.

[Doobah47]

Originally Posted by No0ne

correct, there would be know way for him to know what that person truly felt, but he would preceive how the word was used, and macth it to the action's that led him to using the word sad, therefore after time a understanding of what makes that person sad and what dose not can be created,

But it's hard to say that he could not experience sadness, but mostlikly there bodies wouldnt have the same physical reaction, to compair are sad action to.

...

Translation and understanding of another's action's and the same shared perception of those action's are a needed. other wise he couldnt see through the eye's of the other, as if he was really the other.

Surely, if the alien had a similar type of brain to a human, one capable of responding to regular events, such as the event of sadness which occurs supposedly due to cause and effect, then the alien would learn how to respond to the sadness thus developing a routine reaction to a known event. The alien would also learn to predict sadness by rational means, and develop the ability to modify the human's mood through rational observation. So if the alien were extremely sensitive to changes in the human's mood, it would develop a complete understanding of human emotion, and would be capable of causing mood swings by telling jokes for example. Would the alien then become aware of exactly when and how emotions arise, thus he would develop a type of rational emotion, reacting to certain situations in the same fashion as a human, so it could be said that an innocent bystander might mistake the alien for having emotions.

This is quite a nice analogy for knowing all properties of a thing yet not quite understanding its incomprehensible spirit; like some kind of particle for example.

[urangutan]

Aristoddler, I am with you on this one. You cannot have thought without language. Language can be in any form, a picture, an inaudible sound, a hand gesture even the vision of a death. Meanings of language is what the arguement should be about. As far as I can tell all thought is in English. Maybe people with a different language in their upbringing have pictorial thoughts so as to avoid thinking in English which they do not understand or they are like the French who won't accept that it is a better language. I just thought what to write next and whole process was in a language, English.

[aaron the red]

Originally Posted by pam69ur

It is argued that thought is pre-linquistic. That any attempt to find the essence of thought ends in self-contradiction or paradox. Any attempt to assign an essence to thought ie language images concepts or any "thing" ends in self-contradiction What ever thought is it cannot be rationally discovered What ever constitutes thought will remain forever a mystery Its nature or essence is outside the possiblities of language and logic to discover. Analytical philosophers claims that thought is language-that without language there can be no thought collapse into self-contradiction and with it the whole anayltical philosophical enterprise of a language based language centred thought philosophy


http://gamahucherpress.yellowgum.com...essthought.pdf Contentless Thought: Case Study in the Madhyamika demonstrations of the meaninglessness of all views].

those philosophers who say you cannot think without language are wrong. i know this because i have actually tried it. you can have a complete thought without putting it into words. the point of linguistic thought i think, is it helps us communicate with ourselves more clearly. that certainly doesn't explain why we do it though.

[chad3006]

Originally Posted by aaron the red

those philosophers who say you cannot think without language are wrong. i know this because i have actually tried it. you can have a complete thought without putting it into words. the point of linguistic thought i think, is it helps us communicate with ourselves more clearly. that certainly doesn't explain why we do it though.

I agree. I've done it too. Those "Eureka!" moments don’t come from language. I first have the “Eureka!” then I think of the words necessary to communicate that idea to someone else. Not to mention, the ideas that I have that are tied to so many other things that it would impossible for me to describe using language.