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Random Revelation #2357:
What language do you think in? Do you think in a language at all?
Well I do. (This may be a good time to recommend a good therapist.) Currently, it's english, but once it was chinese.
Now, what does that actually mean? I can see two possibilities - one that I am actually thinking in the language - language itself represents the way my thoughts are encoded in my mind, and the formal grammar, vocabulary of my language give structure to my mind. This is the sort of thing referred to in Orwell's "newspeak". Control the language, and control the man.
Alternatively, language can represent some sort of mental division between self awareness, and normal thought. Thought itself would be just a mass of electrical signals, going without labels, in a complex structure, while the aware thought is the mirror that looks upon it, framing it in the learned language. If you knew no language, you still think of things - you just can't comprehend that you are thinking. In some ways, this grants computers thought - they do think in the electrical impulses that constitute their "life", but they lack the language to describe their thought, and so real awareness.
Any thoughts?
What language do you think in? Do you think in a language at all?
Well I do. (This may be a good time to recommend a good therapist.) Currently, it's english, but once it was chinese.
Now, what does that actually mean? I can see two possibilities - one that I am actually thinking in the language - language itself represents the way my thoughts are encoded in my mind, and the formal grammar, vocabulary of my language give structure to my mind. This is the sort of thing referred to in Orwell's "newspeak". Control the language, and control the man.
Alternatively, language can represent some sort of mental division between self awareness, and normal thought. Thought itself would be just a mass of electrical signals, going without labels, in a complex structure, while the aware thought is the mirror that looks upon it, framing it in the learned language. If you knew no language, you still think of things - you just can't comprehend that you are thinking. In some ways, this grants computers thought - they do think in the electrical impulses that constitute their "life", but they lack the language to describe their thought, and so real awareness.
Any thoughts?