Thinking without language (idea)

A highly subjective writeup on...

the process of thinking

Since I speak a few languages (this, this, this, this and this), I often get asked what language I think in. The person who asked me this was American, when I was about 15 years old. She only spoke English. This made me think a lot. How do you explain these concepts to someone who speaks one language? The result is basically this WU :)

Although there are several good explanations and philosophical / psychological proofs for what I'm about to tell, I have to admit that I can't really understand those explanations. In general, because things tend to get way too technical.

"Proofs" pointing towards that you don't think in a language.

Have you ever:

1. Had a feeling you couldn't describe?
2. Wanted to say some idea you've had, but just couldn't do it?
3. Had to illustrate something you've tried to tell someone, because the words weren't getting you where you wanted?

These three examples are essentially the same: You know there is something you want to convey, but you just can't. The reason for this doesn't have to be that you don't know enough words (although the english language has so many words you're hardly going to know them all), but it might be that there is no word that describes the feeling / emotion / picture you are trying to explain.

The brain-computer

FROM THOUGHT TO WORDS


         +----------------+
         |                |
         |    THOUGHT     |
         |                |
         +---+--------+---+
             |        |    
      +------+--+  +--+----------+
      | STORAGE |  | TRANSLATOR  |
      +---------+  +-+-----------+   
                     |
                     +-- ENGLISH -----.
                     |                 >-- OUTPUT (Words)
                     +-- DUTCH   -----'

I usually think of my brain and the processes going on in there as a computer. Not because I'm so terribly, horribly smart, but because the processes seem to be much the same. The psychological term used for the process labelled "thought" above is mentalese.

I disagree with the general theory of Mentalese for several reasons, mainly because it does not coincide with my experiences.

Instead of an universal "thought language" that everybody shares, I believe that everyone is equipped with potential to develop their own system of thought. The fact that some people are artists with words, while others are artists with numbers, artists with music, artists in sportsor artists with colours and shapes, and the fact that not all people see those arts, or even recognize numbers or paintings or music as art, proves to me that there is more difference than taste, preference and culture - there must be sheer difference in the way information is stored, processed and expressed.

As seen from the chart above, I don't believe there is a connection between the storage and the translator. In other words; You can't say something without thinking about it first (arguably, you can say something stupid that you regret, but I refuse to believe there is no thought process involved).

Final point

My sister speaks the same array of languages that I do. She has lived in France and gone to the IB (International Baccalaureate) school in Norway. This results in that it is more or less random which language we speak in when there is just the two of us. This has the interesting effect that later, when my mother asks me what we spoke about, I will be able to tell her exactly what we spoke about. I might even quote my sister, but I might quote her in a different language - I can't remember what language we used when talking together.

To me, that proves that information is stored independently from a language.

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