I am currently attending university and taking classes in a language other than my native tongue. There is always this continual inner push to spend more time thinking in the foreign tongue in order to increase my fluency, which vastly increased before, when I had had a very strong commitment to think in the foreign tongue, and whenever I noticed that I was thinking in English, I would spend the time to think the same phrase out in Spanish .
One day during a lecture I was tempting to understand a certain chemical reaction with multiple steps. When I had been at it for quite a while, I asked myself which language I was using? Then I realized I hadn't been using any language, but only the symbolic language of chemistry: arrows, chemical symbols, numbers that represent multiples of various chemicals. I thought this was odd for me, because I am someone who has much more talent in the area of language than symbolic reasoning (at least when applied to mathematics).
I was once looking at an animation of a pumping heart. I didn't know any of the terminology of the various parts, but had an understanding of the path that the blood takes, from the body into the heart, onto the lungs, then back into the heart and out to the body. I found the animation terribly fascinating, as I sought to follow the path of the blood without any words. It seemed to me like I was trying to understand the system not sequentially as a chain, but more as a whole. I was seeking to relate the state of each part of the system to the concurrent state of any and all other components at every given instance along the way. Not being familiar with the Spanish terminology, I found myself in a limbo trying to relate everything without being able to label the parts. I think it provides a valuable insight in that keeps you away from the sequential orientation of thought that language often requires, when you go on thinking without it.
I think this is something like what it takes to understand how the solar system really works. you have to see multiple moving parts in your mind all at once and understand how they all interact to foresee the resultant phenomenon like eclipses and the like. I think I am weak at this when it involves more than just two interacting factors. I have noticed other people have a lot more facility with this sort of thing, but it seems to me like something you can grow in with practice. I once heard that Einstein said he would experience thoughts in the form of some kind of inner animation and then put that into words and finally mathematics. I can't put down a source for that. Temple Grandin, a gifted inventor with autism, has said the same thing. Although I am not the best at mathematics, when working with chemistry I find a certain degree of facility based on being able to imagine molecules and the way they interact
Today I was walking and I found myself in a language limbo moment again. I decided I would try to extend it as long as I could, and even if I began thinking in words, I would just let it go and continue observing things around me. At the moment I saw some grass and thought green I knew I had faltered, but realized as the cars passed me by I had just been observing them interacting and the sun coming from the sky without making any attempt to label anything. It was very interesting, and it seemed to me to be something like holding your breath to maintain the state. At every moment that you realize you are in the state you want to make a statement in words about it and it takes a strange active passivity to then enter back into it again. If that makes any sense! Active Passivity, ha! Well, maybe I never did ever think without words and I was just fooling myself, but I think it did happen. The state seems to lend itself to a certain kind of unconcerned selflessness, but not in a traditional sense. It's more like, you can't see yourself thinking negatively or positively about anyone including yourself while you are in it. You can make no plans for good or evil. At least to me that was how it seemed. I wondered if it was somehow inconsiderate, or wasteful to inhabit that kind of thinking, like a misuse of the human mind. Finally I began to desire to pray to God. As I believe in God and am a Christian of the sort that believes the God described in the bible is the true one with both his corresponding actions towards man of Mercy and Judgement. I realized I couldn't connect to God without words. If something came into my mind about the nature of God how could I justifiably, in my attempt to go on without words in my mind eschew it. Finally, I tried to just present certain non verbal sentiments to my Lord, but it seemed inadequate and I cried out to him, Daddy. The next thought that occurred to me is that humans need language in order to communicate with God and that was maybe the main original intended purpose of it! Then the thought entered, "But maybe the word attitude signifies certain morally significant communications towards God that can be expressed on through to the heavens." Perhaps, but I think it is necessary to verbalize what you are able to verbalize.
Wordless thinking seems valuable, especially for mechanical reasoning, but to the extent that it isolates you, I think you need to abandon it, and also use language to communicate your non-verbally reasoned intuits to others including God himself. But right now it is occurring to me, I never really attempted to maintain that state of non verbal thinking in a forced or immersed social setting. Sex must be an incredible form of nonverbal communication. As well as all displays of affection or body language.
Another example of nonverbal thought that almost everyone has experienced, and probably more than ever a s small child, is the state in which you know what you want to communicate but have yet, or are unable to formulate the set of words which effectively communicates it. This often happens to people who are writing an essay and encountering complex ideas. Obviously you have formulated a thought, yet language is currently in a state of failure of expressing. So, for me, this proves that the state exists. Thoughts exist before words and are then put into words as a conduit to express them to others. Then, in the process of conforming thoughts to words we notice that we ourselves are provided greater insights into the phenomenon we are expressing! So, we then begin to speak to ourselves about everything whether doing so is beneficial, harmful, or indifferent. I think it could be any of the three at any given time! I noticed that after I learned the terminology for the parts of the heart it was much more easy to understand and put the process together as a whole, but I lost interest in that super understanding which would have been what I described earlier as seeking to relate the state of each part of the system to the concurrent state of any and all other components at every given instance along the way. Language seems to facilitate picking a certain point in time and answering questions about what is happening somewhere else in the system, as in taking a snapshot of the phenomenon. Thinking without words seems to work more on the basis of understanding multiple occurrences within a system and being able to evaluate the whole and each isolated part in a fluid, kinetic, more global way with less differentiation or isolation of the component parts.
I am currently attending university and taking classes in a language other than my native tongue. There is always this continual inner push to spend more time thinking in the foreign tongue in order to increase my fluency, which vastly increased before, when I had had a very strong commitment to think in the foreign tongue, and whenever I noticed that I was thinking in English, I would spend the time to think the same phrase out in Spanish .
One day during a lecture I was tempting to understand a certain chemical reaction with multiple steps. When I had been at it for quite a while, I asked myself which language I was using? Then I realized I hadn't been using any language, but only the symbolic language of chemistry: arrows, chemical symbols, numbers that represent multiples of various chemicals. I thought this was odd for me, because I am someone who has much more talent in the area of language than symbolic reasoning (at least when applied to mathematics).
I was once looking at an animation of a pumping heart. I didn't know any of the terminology of the various parts, but had an understanding of the path that the blood takes, from the body into the heart, onto the lungs, then back into the heart and out to the body. I found the animation terribly fascinating, as I sought to follow the path of the blood without any words. It seemed to me like I was trying to understand the system not sequentially as a chain, but more as a whole. I was seeking to relate the state of each part of the system to the concurrent state of any and all other components at every given instance along the way. Not being familiar with the Spanish terminology, I found myself in a limbo trying to relate everything without being able to label the parts. I think it provides a valuable insight in that keeps you away from the sequential orientation of thought that language often requires, when you go on thinking without it.
I think this is something like what it takes to understand how the solar system really works. you have to see multiple moving parts in your mind all at once and understand how they all interact to foresee the resultant phenomenon like eclipses and the like. I think I am weak at this when it involves more than just two interacting factors. I have noticed other people have a lot more facility with this sort of thing, but it seems to me like something you can grow in with practice. I once heard that Einstein said he would experience thoughts in the form of some kind of inner animation and then put that into words and finally mathematics. I can't put down a source for that. Temple Grandin, a gifted inventor with autism, has said the same thing. Although I am not the best at mathematics, when working with chemistry I find a certain degree of facility based on being able to imagine molecules and the way they interact
Today I was walking and I found myself in a language limbo moment again. I decided I would try to extend it as long as I could, and even if I began thinking in words, I would just let it go and continue observing things around me. At the moment I saw some grass and thought green I knew I had faltered, but realized as the cars passed me by I had just been observing them interacting and the sun coming from the sky without making any attempt to label anything. It was very interesting, and it seemed to me to be something like holding your breath to maintain the state. At every moment that you realize you are in the state you want to make a statement in words about it and it takes a strange active passivity to then enter back into it again. If that makes any sense! Active Passivity, ha! Well, maybe I never did ever think without words and I was just fooling myself, but I think it did happen. The state seems to lend itself to a certain kind of unconcerned selflessness, but not in a traditional sense. It's more like, you can't see yourself thinking negatively or positively about anyone including yourself while you are in it. You can make no plans for good or evil. At least to me that was how it seemed. I wondered if it was somehow inconsiderate, or wasteful to inhabit that kind of thinking, like a misuse of the human mind. Finally I began to desire to pray to God. As I believe in God and am a Christian of the sort that believes the God described in the bible is the true one with both his corresponding actions towards man of Mercy and Judgement. I realized I couldn't connect to God without words. If something came into my mind about the nature of God how could I justifiably, in my attempt to go on without words in my mind eschew it. Finally, I tried to just present certain non verbal sentiments to my Lord, but it seemed inadequate and I cried out to him, Daddy. The next thought that occurred to me is that humans need language in order to communicate with God and that was maybe the main original intended purpose of it! Then the thought entered, "But maybe the word attitude signifies certain morally significant communications towards God that can be expressed on through to the heavens." Perhaps, but I think it is necessary to verbalize what you are able to verbalize.
Wordless thinking seems valuable, especially for mechanical reasoning, but to the extent that it isolates you, I think you need to abandon it, and also use language to communicate your non-verbally reasoned intuits to others including God himself. But right now it is occurring to me, I never really attempted to maintain that state of non verbal thinking in a forced or immersed social setting. Sex must be an incredible form of nonverbal communication. As well as all displays of affection or body language.
Another example of nonverbal thought that almost everyone has experienced, and probably more than ever a s small child, is the state in which you know what you want to communicate but have yet, or are unable to formulate the set of words which effectively communicates it. This often happens to people who are writing an essay and encountering complex ideas. Obviously you have formulated a thought, yet language is currently in a state of failure of expressing. So, for me, this proves that the state exists. Thoughts exist before words and are then put into words as a conduit to express them to others. Then, in the process of conforming thoughts to words we notice that we ourselves are provided greater insights into the phenomenon we are expressing! So, we then begin to speak to ourselves about everything whether doing so is beneficial, harmful, or indifferent. I think it could be any of the three at any given time! I noticed that after I learned the terminology for the parts of the heart it was much more easy to understand and put the process together as a whole, but I lost interest in that super understanding which would have been what I described earlier as seeking to relate the state of each part of the system to the concurrent state of any and all other components at every given instance along the way. Language seems to facilitate picking a certain point in time and answering questions about what is happening somewhere else in the system, as in taking a snapshot of the phenomenon. Thinking without words seems to work more on the basis of understanding multiple occurrences within a system and being able to evaluate the whole and each isolated part in a fluid, kinetic, more global way with less differentiation or isolation of the component parts.