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Logwood's passing reference to the English language's becoming his "thinking language" is absolutely fascinating. I cannot imagine what kind of mental processes I'd have to go through to be able to change my internal language. Perhaps the ability to do so is age-relatec; perhaps it has something to do with one's learning two languages together. For Logwood: How old were you when this happened? Did you learn Hebrew and English concurrently? Is it difficult to think in English and then sort of automatically translate to Hebrew while speaking. For others who might be interested in discussing this: If you sitched your thinking language from one to another, how old were you when you did so? Why did you do so? Does it hamper your communcation in any way? For instance, when holding a conversation in your "old language" do you internally translate from old to new, then formulate a response in new and translate it to old for speaking? Seems very cumbersome to me. Or do you switch your thinking language sort of automatically. I am certain this phenomenon (though of course it isn't really a phenomenon except to me because I'ver never heard of it before) would be more prevalent where people routinely speak several languages, something that isn't at all common in the US, unless you call Southern a language  . AH! Another question: Do you find yourself mixing the two languages, either in thinking or in speaking. Here I'm thinking about languages like Tagalog which as I undestand it is a mixture of several tongues.
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Changing the language you think in, at least on some level (I don't know about deep grammatical structures, if that is relevant), isn't uncommon. I did this by choice, when I lived in Germany, as part of the exercise of acquiring the language. I think most people keep their native tongue for math. I did not, but my math skills are less than rudimentary, so this probably wasn't very different from other kinds of thinking. What seems unusual in Logwoods case is that, if I understood right, he adopted English as his "internal" language even though he was in a Hebrew-speaking environment.
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That's correct, inselpeter. Of course I can't pin an exact age when it started happening, it was more of a gradual process as you can imagine. The more I understood and practiced English, the more it took over me. At some point (by the age of 17-18, or alternatively 2-3 years ago), it surpassed my Hebrew (as I never took into Hebrew studies to answer your second question). Nowadays, in fact, I can read English books more easily than Hebraic ones! Quote:
Is it difficult to think in English and then sort of automatically translate to Hebrew while speaking.
Oftentimes yes. It's actually very inhibitive, because you can't say what is straight off your mind, and it definitely makes communication less fluent (and you might even say cumbersome). In a way I'm my own translator - imagine that!
Quote:
Do you find yourself mixing the two languages, either in thinking or in speaking.
In thinking I differentiate Hebrew and English, and, even though rarely, I still happen to think in Hebrew. But I hope to suppress this nasty old habit completely one day.
In speaking-- only if I talk to those who I know understand English, then I often mix the languages.
Edit: A lot of times I find myself translating what people say from Hebrew to English, just for fun and for practice.
Last edited by Logwood; 12/09/05 08:01 PM.
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This all reminds me of a 1982 Clint Eastwood movie called "FireFox" where he steals a prototype Soviet jet-plane in which he can only operate certain controls by thinking in Russian.
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So he crashed where, exactly?
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this is interesting. i only know english, but i can think in knitting, (and design, and think out complex knitting patterns (sometimes in several colors) and 'knit them on the fly' (i don't need to write down what i am doing, or when or where.. i can just look at each stitch as it 'comes up' and know what color or stitch its should be--
knitting is very binary, (and helped me understand computers) I taught my son binary at a young age, and he learned to think in binary. he can add, subtract and multipy in binary (mental!) i can add and subtract (on paper, making little tic marks for the carries) and can do simple multiplication (up to 4 times table in binary (again on paper) but i slow down, (and make more mistakes) above that. I certainly don't think (fluently) in binary.
Do musicians (or just composers?) think in music? are there other ways of thinking besides linguisticly and mathmatically? (thinking knitting is some what mathmatical)
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I'm not sure that folks think in language. Maybe, maybe not. Are dreams linguistic? Or knitting or music as of troy asks? How are memories stored in the brain? As small stories? or movies? or something else entirely?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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When I lived in Mexico (between the ages of 20 and 31), completely immersed in Spanish, I thought in Spanish and even dreamed in Spanish. If I was living in a border town, I spoke Spanglish to those who were bilingual. At times, while speaking to my family by phone or on my visits home in the summers, I would sometimes search for the word I wanted in English, my first language. I could easily think of the word I wanted in Spanish, but struggled for the English equivalent. There were certain concepts that had a single word in Spanish but required a paragraph to explain in English and vice versa. That's what I loved about Spanglish. You pick and choose from whichever more completely describes what you want to say. I tend to think of myself having an internal translator. Most of the time it is running smoothly in the background but at times it becomes unstable and I am an unwilling victim of the blue screen of death in the mind!  Rebooting is the only solution, but by then, it's a little late to save me.
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Do musicians (or just composers?) think in music? Yes... well, sorta! I've done a lot of harmonic analysis in my *day(s) and because of it, as I listen to a song, I (often) catch myself thinking about what the (diatonic) function of each chord is as it is being played. It is a skill originally developed to make it easy(er) to transcribe music, but often turns what was conceived as form into a function... not that those are in any way, shape or *form mutually exclusive, but. 
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I'm a native speaker of Spanish and I live in Spain, where I teach in English. I don't think I have a "thinking language", but rather two distinct sets of linguistic paradigms to express whatever I'm thinking. For me there's no effort involved in using either of the two languages, so I don't think I'm "thinking" in one and then translating to the other, unless this is happening at some level that I can't be conscious of. I think it depends on the context. I speak English normally with my English-language friends and colleagues, but express myself in Spanish elsewhere. In the classroom with my Spanish students I can switch between the two without a break. When as a kid I was living abroad with my family, my sister and I were schooled in English and as a result we'd speak together in English or Spanish as the whim took us. One thing I rarely do, however, is code-switching. I can switch between languages, but not really in the middle of a sentence or a turn of speech. The most interesting example of this I have ever come across is people from Gibraltar, who'll speak English or Spanish, or a curious mixture of the two among themselves. A funny thing that happens, though, is that although apparently I can keep Spanish and English totally separate, this is not so with English and my third language, French, which I'm not as proficient in. For some disconcerting reason, I speak French with an English accent, which is plain weird for someone who learnt French in Spain. 
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English and Russian are possibly the best thinking languages because, I'm told, each contains more words than any other language
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Russian's probably got more one letter words than any other language.
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Quote:
Russian's probably got more one letter words than any other language.
You got some splainin' to do. It's been a lotta years since I took Russian, but I recall only one one-letter word, even though the Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: 21 consonants, 10 vowels, and two letters without sound - soft sign and hard sign.
TEd
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If you think that you think in words you are wrong; you don't.
Our God-given senses receive information about our surroundings and our brains then store and later retrieve this information from an electrochemical-association file of molecular symbols, and then (occasionally even when necessary) we translate this information electrochemically into language.
What, you think that dogs can't think?
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As a musician, I definitely think "in music". I can hear something, whether in my mind or from an outside instrument, and play it or write it down. Teaching piano students, I see that they learn music a number of ways. Some of the most musical ones don't read music with ease, and it seems that they do better in attempting to read, by following the notes and playing them without actually naming them. It's a direct translation from eye to hand, without translating notes as "C" or "F#". And of course many great musicians play by ear. That's definitely non-translated, as is much of improvisation.
As for other languages, living in France for a year, my English syntax often got convoluted. I do enjoy speaking Frenglish, but it is certainly frowned upon by serious speakers of French.
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Quote:
If you think that you think in words you are wrong; you don't.
Please provide citations to support this. It might also be a good idea to describe what you mean by thinking.
Here's what I meant, just so we are hopefully on the same wavelength. Say I'm out in the shop working on a project, and I have to change a dimension on a piece of wood. I say to myself (silently though at times I might mutter out loud), Let's see, this is 100 mm long, and doesn't fit by 3 mm. I need to set the saw stop to 97." The words actually form in my mind, just as they are doing right now when I am typing this sentence.
TEd
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Quote:
Quote:
Russian's probably got more one letter words than any other language.
You got some splainin' to do. It's been a lotta years since I took Russian, but I recall only one one-letter word, even though the Russian alphabet consists of 33 letters: 21 consonants, 10 vowels, and two letters without sound - soft sign and hard sign.
Taking them alphabetically:
A: conj. but, and, or; interj. ah!
B: gram. (used with the conditional and subjunctive moods); should, would; may, might
V: prep. in
I: conj. and; but; although
K: prep. to, towards; by; for
O: prep. about, concerning, of
S: prep, with; from, since
U: prep. at, by, to; close by, close to, near
Ya: pron. I
NB: Some of these may have two or three letter variants. This does not mean that they are not one letter words. Also note that the last entry appears to be two letters only because it is the transliteration of a single Russian character. It's the famous backwards R.
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I'll be darned. I shoulda remembered "I" of course, and I did remember the backward R, but I do not remember ANY of the rest of these with any specificity. I vaguely remember the v, but if pressed I'd have said it was a letter tacked onto the front of another word to give the idea of "in".
One question: what's a "gram" as a part of speech?
TEd
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Quote:
If you think that you think in words you are wrong; you don't.
Our God-given senses receive information about our surroundings and our brains then store and later retrieve this information from an electrochemical-association file of molecular symbols, and then (occasionally even when necessary) we translate this information electrochemically into language.
What, you think that dogs can't think?
I, for one, don't think we 'think' in an "apparent" internal language, at least not as the entirety of those processes we vaguely reference when speaking of thinking. Still, as they will tell you in Lhasa, it takes a lot of discipline to silence the babble, and whatever the babble is, it shapes and colors an aspect of thought, and it can be changed.
Dogs behave.
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I know i think (and learn) more with images than with words.
I also think kineticly --i either imagine myself moving round an object, or mental rotate the object in my head.
i designed 2 kitchens by imagining them, and 'walking' round them, to make sure they would work (they did). as a child i used to love to watch the 'movement' of my mothers sewing machine, (by age 12 i was sometimes able to repair it. (i could see where it didn't move right) I still like to watch machines (I love industrial museums!) (and i like random movement too, i love my lava lamp!)
I can (and have) imagine an article of clothing and then 'study' it to see how its made, and then take out tape measure, french curve and other tools to measure and make the pattern. (or when knitting, imagined something, and then just taken up needles and knit). Knitting 'emerges' completely (and often flawlessly) from my needle.. (but no sees the hours i spend "virtually knitting" it in my head (or all the mistakes and problems i encountered there, and resolved before i ever picked up yarn!)
i can think in words, but this definately is my most laborous way to think--and i am not very good at it. (and problem words (to spell) get images as nmemotics)
as for music--well i love music, and respond to it emotionaly, but i have 'tin ear'. i don't hear the subtlies that others speak of, --i recognize that others get much more out of music, (but i total enjoy music, even if i don't 'get' half of it!) i can understand that music can be a mode for thinking (but no way, no how, can i think in music!)
I think language provides a long lasting way to convay thoughts. it provides an agreed upon set of codes to explain things..like a color.
red, not maroon, not cerise, not pink, but red--fully saturated, but not a dark shade, nor a pale tint, not so blue as red delicious apple nor so yellow as a macintosh, but red, pure red, like a rome beauty apple.
I can see a color, and with words, i can convay my visual thoughts. Yes, it takes some common background (those outside of US might not know all 3 varieties of apple, but..) they have a closer idea of the color even if they only know one variety. words provide a common frame of reference.
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**All three varieties**
That many?
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Quote:
I know i think (and learn) more with images than with words.
I also think kineticly --i either imagine myself moving round an object, or mental rotate the object in my head.
Yes, I do this, too. When I am knitting (and, like you oftroy, I can see what each stitch should be as it comes up and seldom have to use the pattern) and when I am potting or printmaking or drawing, any of those visual and manual things, I don't think in words - or at least, I don't think I do. But when I'm writing, I'm definitely thinking in words, not just when I'm doing the writing, but when I'm working out a problem. When I'm working with clay and having a problem, what is going on in my mind is not "Okay, this has to go HERE, and if I press THERE...." It's more like a sixty-cycle hum, and all the "thinking" is going on in my hands and body.
I've known for years that when I create something new, it take me a lot longer to make it because I am thinking about it in my head. Then I do use words interiorly. Once the body has learned the process, I am faster. Then, if I start to think in words, I slow down.
I noticed that when I was teaching someone to card wool, I wanted to demonstrate how to take the batt of wool neatly off the card using something a friend calls "the tennis racket move". I couldn't do it while I watched! I had to kind of detach my mind and let my hands do it, then recall it afterwards. I know this sounds really silly, but it's the only way I can describe the process.
When singing with the choir I belong to, I notice I think differently again. I don't read music, and have to rely on the patterns my ear picks up. In a way I translate these into visual curves.
We probably all think in several "languages", even if we have only one verbal one.
Occasionally, as a generation that grew up with the bilingual cornflakes box, I think in French.
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I'm actually beginning to think I'm retarded. I just cannot do any of this. Music particularly. I envy all of you!
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In relation to thinking and doing without verbalising, there's one activity where my brain has clearly switched from one way of operating to another.
As a teenager in school I learnt to touchtype. I don't know if you have ever learnt this, but basically you have a blank keyboard and your fingers have to find their place and stay in place in order to find all the keys around them. It was extremely hard and slow going at first - not to mention very repetitive - but then a breakthrough moment came when one could keep one's eyes on the copy page all the time, and every finger knew where it should go. After that, it was just a matter of picking up speed. Very useful it was, and all in Spanish, of course.
Fast forward a couple of years and I began to study English at uni. We had projects to submit to different classes, typewritten, but that didn't worry me, consummate typist that I thought I was. Hah! The first time I tried to touchtype in English, I almost fainted! I thought I'd lost it completely! You see... I was loooking at my copy page, my fingers were typing away, and there on my sheet of paper was some kind of phonetic transcription of what I was trying to write. This kept happening, and after the initial dismay I realised I must be "hearing" the words in my head as I read them, and then typing their sound. This hadn't come through in Spanish, which is written basically just as it sounds, but here was proof - in some kind of pidgin - that my typing was linguistically mediated.
However, I had no way out other than to type the dratted papers in any case, so I stuck with it and over a few weeks it seems that I was able to train my brain to recognise not sounds but graphs (pictures, in some way), which is what I do now, touchtyping in English, Spanish or French.
In fact, I don't even know whether my brain is linguistically aware of what I'm typing -- it sounds more like the "from the eye to the hand" mechanism that someone mentioned earlier on this thread.
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Pooh-Bah
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>>linguistically mediated<<
"phonetically mediated"? -- "linguistically" being much broader.
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think in language
Is the language of the mind, English, or whatever your first language is?
Are words thoughts?
Is thinking merely talking to yourself?
Is communication a way to transfer thoughts from one mind to another?
Can you speak as fast as you think?
Are sounds or colors thoughts?
Are some thoughts unspeakable or simply ineffable?
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Quote:
>>linguistically mediated<<
"phonetically mediated"? -- "linguistically" being much broader.
Yes, clearly phonetically, thank you... But I guess what I meant was that it was mediated by language in some way. After all, my brain was hearing the sounds because it knows the phonetic idiosyncrasies of English. So yes, mediated by English language phonetics.
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Is the language of the mind, English, or whatever your first language is? Not necessarah-lee, but primarily. It seems that those who know different languages can, with some *effort, switch back and forth. Are words thoughts? Yes, but they are not the only *things that are. Is thinking merely talking to yourself? I can think a melody. I can think in multiple part harmony... so the answer is: No, but it does seem to be self-oriented. Is communication a way to transfer thoughts from one mind to another? That, IMHO, depends on your intent.  Can you speak as fast as you think? For me *they are about the same speed. Are sounds or colors thoughts? The above consensus says: Yes. Are some thoughts unspeakable or simply ineffable? I say: Without a doubt!
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Are words thoughts?
I don't think so, although words, like other signs, can be associated with thoughts, but I don't think the words and thoughts are interchangeable. I can think about words, but I don't think I think in words or sentences. I think in thoughts which are, in some way, related to words.
Is thinking merely talking to yourself?
Not anymore than humming to yourself is thinking. Are thoughts tangible? How do I model a world, by humming, speaking, or thinking? I think that seeing is closer to thinking than speaking is. Whatever it is that maps thinking to speaking it is fundamentally different from what maps feeling to making music. Except, of course, that much of our thinking is abstract. How do we visualize the abstract? By making it concrete. How does a preposition mean? Is it the same kind of meaning / expressing as a noun or a verb?
Ceci n'est pas un seing.
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Fascinating THread, TEd!
I'm late to the party, and don't have a whole lot to add. Connie and Marianna pretty much summed up the bilingual aspect of things -- I switch back and forth depending on circumstances, and also can think/speak Portuginglês and Portuñol. But I always do mental math in English, as another poster mentioned. When I think about non-word related things, then yes, like Helen and Elizabeth, I think in images and will often rehearse something as if I were running a video tape (e.g. cooking, I'm not a very arts-and-crafts kind of person) in my mind first.
TEd, how do you go about woodworking? Surely you don't totally think only in words when you're carpentering?
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Quote:
Say I'm out in the shop working on a project, and I have to change a dimension on a piece of wood. I say to myself (silently though at times I might mutter out loud), Let's see, this is 100 mm long, and doesn't fit by 3 mm. I need to set the saw stop to 97." The words actually form in my mind, just as they are doing right now when I am typing this sentence.
Oh, I see you already answered this and I missed it the first time around. But are there really no mental pictures to go along with what you're muttering?
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Mental word-pictures.
For me, it's just words. I am not at all a visual person, and I absolutely and unequivocally think in words. I recognise the difference between thinking and talking to myself, but even my most internal thinking is done in words. For a few years in my late teens, I had two thinking languges, English and German, but now it's just the one, although I did dream in Italian once.
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Betsy:
I see what you're saying. Whenever I am about to do something in the shop which involves a power tool, I have one hard and fast rule. Go through all the motions in my mind at least once and usually twice before I go through the motions with my body. The absolutely most dangerous thing I could do out there is to do something without being fully prepared.
I guess this is a combination of images and words, and I actually see myself doing the task from two perspectives, outside the body and inside the body. What this does is it makes me think about the safety issues. I would NEVER EVER push a piece of wood into a sawblade with my bare hands if doing so brought me within the red zone of the blade, which is defined by the red table insert that surrounds the blade.
So when I am planning the action I see the need for a push block or similar aid to keep my fingers away from the blade, and then I make sure I have the push block available, because many times I start a cut without the push block and then reach for it during the operation.
I guess I don't use words that much in thinking through these operations, but I guess I hadn't thought of that as thinking.
I'm trying to imagine what it would be like to see music, as has been referred to above, and I cannot wrap my mind around the concept.
Somewhere recently I saw (may have been a part of) a conversation about woodcarving. And what came across to me was that I am unable to do subtractive woodworking. My mind won't let me go from a big block of wood to a carving of a bird. Were I to start whittling I'd end up eventually with no block of wood and a big pile of shavings.
But I can look at a pile of wood and imagine a desk arising out of the pile piece by piece. Right now I'm building four bedside tables for Christmas presents for my immediate family, and though I'm about half finished with the project I've probably picked up a ruler only once or twice, and that was to verify that my height to width ration was somewhere around 1.6 (The Golden Ratio). For all the rest I merely use a story stick or hold a piece of wood up to the place it's supposed to go and use a knife to mark the cut.
In a way I guess this is along the lines of Helen's knowing what the next stitch just naturally has to be, but I'm in complete awe of her ability.
TEd
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> story stick
always loved that name.
Anna:
math is in English? I thought math was in Math.
I need to think more about this thread.....
formerly known as etaoin...
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One question: what's a "gram" as a part of speech?
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B: gram. (used with the conditional and subjunctive moods); should, would; may, might
I know almost enough Russian to get into trouble trying to buy something in a store, but I think it's not so much a part of speech as sort of a verbal marker of some sort.
Just out of curiosity, what was the one letter word you remembered.
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yeah, but i still can spell to save my life! and articles and tenses (not in spoken language, but most certainly in written) remain obscure concepts!
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i still can spell to save my life!
You can say that again!
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The word for I (backwards capital R), pronounced ya. I cannot believe I forgot the word for and, which is ee, written with an i (I think).
I've always found it interesting that Russian has not only the sound shch (as in Khrushchev), but they have a single letter to represent it. I wonder what Cyril was smoking at the time.
TEd
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I wonder what Cyril was smoking at the time.
Incense.
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...Cyril was smoking at the time.
Incense.
Is that what makes the Orthodox cross?
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IMO, this thread is one of the most interesting we have had since the Time thread. I know that when I have something to write, whether an essay, poem, letter, story, etc., I see it as being in a pot on the backburner of my mind, simmering away. I write better on a keyboard, incorporating the rhythms of the words, the construction and the keyboard. I don't know if I explained that very well, but that's the best I can do. I also work on the pottery wheel without being aware of thinking, just feeling the clay "speak" to me.
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Pooh-Bah
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Heidegger wrote something called "What Is Called Thinking." God help me, I never read it, 'but someone I know who has' told me that Heidegger says, and his Crenolin, Hannah Arendt agrees, that it *is* possible that someone who never wrote might still be the greatest thinker, but no one would ever know. Of course, we got a good chuckle over that. But I guess that makes him jut the opposite of the late Wittgenstein who, I suppose, would say that such a statement doesn't mean anything. All of which really does have something to do with what we've been talking about, or think we've been.
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I suppose a lot of the difference of opinion on whether we think in a language is dependent on what our definition of thinking is. If you believe, e.g., that what we do when we direct our legs while crossing a stream on stepping stones is thinking then, no, we'd best not be thinking in any language or we'd slip and fall on the first stone. With this definition any linguistic connection is just following along with the non-linguistic thinking we do. If helen or Elizabeth Creith were to stop and vocalize about what they were doing when knitting it might resemble what TEd was doing when he was deciding where to set his saw.
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Intellectuals who propose that "someone who never wrote might still be the greatest thinker, but no one would ever know." fail to acknowledge, that they wouldn't be here except for ancient people who could 'think' like animals, --and were successful hunters...
i suspect (having all the grace of an elephant in a china shop) that if i had to hunt food to survive, i would be dead in six months (if not sooner!)
It seems evident that many illiterate people function very well in our society, (but how many of us have the skills to survive in a stone age society--or even a simple hunter gatherer society?
When life depends on the ability to make twine, and fashion the twine into an effective snare, or into a net to catch a fish, or into a foot strap so we can shimmy up a tree trunk to harvest fruits or nuts growning out of reach--which of us would survive.
We have reached a very comfortable point in society, we don't need basic survival skills, (and many of us don't have them!)
who is more clever? the first being who realized that plant matter could be split, and then piled, and then woven into a mesh to make a net (and successfully harvest fish) or any modern day intellect who spends hours parcing a paragraph?
We can easily pooh-pooh 'simple machines' like the wheel, the lever, the screw, the pulley. but these remain, wonderful technological acheivements, made by, (for the most part) societies that had no written languges. and i do think writing/reading plays an important part of 'thinking' in language.
I don't think the screw(as a tool) grew out of 'discussions' or focus groups, or 'teams' of designers with talking points and bullets. It came from thinking--and the person doing the thinking was thinking in images.
and i think we(US/UK/western european culture)often fail to acknowledge or value this sort of thinking.
but (to para phrase a quote) societies that value their philosophers more than their plumbers, will soon find, neither their ideas (or their pipes!) hold water.
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Re: Connie's statement I write better on a keyboard, incorporating the rhythms, I am wondering whether anyone else gets caught up, as I do sometimes, in the rhythmic sound of the keys being struck? If I start thinking about this, I invariably start making mistakes as I try to keep the rhythm going.
As to how I think, I'd say mostly words, but there are also "pictures", some of which are ineffable. (hi, var.) With enough effort, though, I can put anything into words because for my job, we had to. For ex., we couldn't put something like, "He looked upset", and leave it at that; it had to include a description of facts, such as "His head was lowered and his mouth turned downwards at the corners".
As to looking at pieces and imagining the whole--I absolutely cannot do this! I need to see the whole thing, or at least a picture of it, first; and then often I can "see" the parts in my head, and how they fit. (Speaking of things I am relatively familiar with, that is: say, toys or furniture. Definitely not a car engine!)
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You can prove to yourself that it isn't you who is doing the thinking.
(1) Think of something that you can't remember; a name, a place, a etc.
(2) Tell yourself that you need to remember that something.
(3) Stop thinking about it.
Later when you suddenly remember what you couldn't remember earlier, ask yourself who was it that was doing the looking for the answer.
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Speaking of "thought processing" this guy is terrible at integration but astoundingly amazing at word retention.
Nasa tries to figure out real-life Rain Man's brain
Robin McKie, science editor
Sunday December 11, 2005
The Observer
It took Kim Peek just over an hour to read Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October. Four months later, when asked to give the name of the book's Russian radio operator, Peek quoted the entire relevant passage.
It was a prodigious feat. Yet for Peek - the real-life 'savant' on whom Dustin Hoffman's character in the film Rain Man is based - such recall only gives a glimpse of his powers. He knows 9,000 books off by heart; he can direct people around US cities from maps he has memorised years ago; and he has total recall of the dates of all major world events.
Now studies of Peek's abilities are being used by scientists to shed intriguing light on the human mind, and to open the way for men and women to exploit far more of their intellectual potential, as the latest issue of Scientific American reveals.
'Kim's story tells us that the human brain is far more flexible than we had thought,' said Darold Treffert, a psychiatrist and co-author of the Scientific American paper told The Observer. 'Like many other savants, he has suffered disability in one area of his brain, but has compensated by acquiring remarkable new abilities in other areas. This shows we all have considerable hidden intellectual potential. By studying Kim and other savants, we can learn how to tap those powers.'
This potential has been of particular interest to Nasa - currently carrying out lengthy electronic scans of Kim's brain in its attempts to understand how astronauts are using their brains while on deep space missions.
Kim - now 54 - was born with a malformed cerebellum, at the base of his brain, and lacks a corpus callosum, the thick bundle of nerves that normally connects the brain's two hemispheres. As a child he was assumed to be suffering from severe mental retardation. Only later was his condition found to be more complex. He had superb abilities at arithmetic but could not deal with the abstractions of mathematics. In 1988 he was given an IQ rating of 87, well below average. Yet some of his subscores were in the genius bracket, while others plunged into the mentally retarded range.
Kim has poor physical co-ordination, cannot button his shirts but has remarkable memory power and has started to develop as an accomplished pianist in the last two years. This latest development - in a man in his 50s with large chunks of his brain missing - is particularly significant, added Treffert. 'His brain is still adapting to his condition, even in mid-life.'
One key to understanding Kim's condition is that his right and left brain hemispheres are not connected. Our left brain, in which our linguistic prowess has its centre, tends to dominate our right. That has not happened with Kim, however, suggesting the possibility that his right brain has been allowed to develop more freely and reach a greater potential than normal.
Kim displays little personal interest in people outside the arithmetical details of their lives. When I talked to him by phone in his home in Salt Lake City last week, he asked for my birthday. I told him. 'Ah, you were born on a Sunday, your next birthday will be a Sunday, and you are scheduled to retire on a Thursday,' he replied, correctly.
'He remembers 98 per cent of what he reads,' said his father Fran. 'It's like downloading data on to a hard disk - except his never crashes.'
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Last edited by themilum; 12/16/05 05:24 AM.
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>ask yourself who was it that was doing the looking for the answer.
you were, of course.
the answer to this "riddle" is suggested in your own "rain man" story. when you can't recall a name or some thing, you've probably just lost the neural pathway to that memeory cell; and while you're busy doing something else, your brain establishes a new(?) pathway.
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>ask yourself who was it that was doing the looking for the answer.
you were, of course.
the answer to this "riddle" is suggested in your own "rain man" story. when you can't recall a name or some thing, you've probably just lost the neural pathway to that memeory cell; and while you're busy doing something else, your brain establishes a new(?) pathway.
You got the right string, tsuwm, but the wrong yo-yo.
The underlying point of my so-called "riddle" is that the conscious "self" is but an instrument of a non-lingual biological system that dictates our interactions with the surrounding environment.
It follows that we who think we are smart, are but a collection of cells operating under a biological imperative without any conscious control by our psyche. Agreed?
I guess I'd best stop here because it is considered "taboo" to talk religion on this "word restricted" Awad message board.
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Quote:
Quote:
>ask yourself who was it that was doing the looking for the answer.
you were, of course.
the answer to this "riddle" is suggested in your own "rain man" story. when you can't recall a name or some thing, you've probably just lost the neural pathway to that memeory cell; and while you're busy doing something else, your brain establishes a new(?) pathway.
The underlying point of my so-called "riddle" is that the conscious "self" is but an instrument of a non-lingual biological system that dictates our interactions with the surrounding environment.
It follows that we who think we are smart, are but a collection of cells operating under a biological imperative without any conscious control by our psyche. Agreed?
I can't agree. The conscious self is often not the most efficient way of dealing with the surrounding environment - cf earlier posts about survival. Why would it be maintained - or developed - by "a collection of cells operating under a biological imperative"?
I deal every day with people who tell me "my snake likes me". Snakes, now - there's an animal with a set of biological imperatives. They have a brain which deals with the four Fs - fight, flight, feeding and - um - mating. They do not have the right kind of brain to like anyone. They cannot behave altruistically. People, on the other hand, are capable of being emotionally moved by another's experience, or even by a fictional one - something that I can hardly see as being a possibility for a collection of cells operating under a biological imperative.
Connie, what you said about pottery and the wheel - this makes complete sense to me. It's what I meant when I was talking about the transition from having to think with my head when doing pottery to thinking with my hands. Same thing happens with spinning and other physical activities - once learned, they are in the body, not the brain.
My brother, who flies light aircraft, told me once that one factor in large aircraft crashes is this: flying is really a right-brain activity, like, say, pottery. It's body-knowledge. But large aircraft have a multitude of numerical dials and readouts, which require left-brain activity. In a crisis there is a split-second when the two parts of the brain "argue" over who has control. I believe this, partly because when I am fully into a "body-knowledge" activity like pottery, spinning, drawing, I find it hard to speak or follow a conversation, although I can hum or sing.
I agree - a very interesting thread. I think a lot about how the brain works, and about how people and animals think. I've said from time to time that I keep certain animals and not others partly because I can "hear" my chosen critters thinking. I know what they'll do, and I have a good idea of their moods. (Snakes have a sixty-cycle hum.) Of course I'm not really hearing them think, but observation and learning help me understand and intuit their behaviour.
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I deal every day with people who tell me "my snake likes me". Snakes, now - there's an animal with a set of biological imperatives. They have a brain which deals with the four Fs - fight, flight, feeding and - um - mating. They do not have the right kind of brain to like anyone. They cannot behave altruistically. People, on the other hand, are capable of being emotionally moved by another's experience, or even by a fictional one - something that I can hardly see as being a possibility for a collection of cells operating under a biological imperative.
You are certainly no cretin, Elizabeth Creith, you are, in fact, one hundred percent right...in as far as you go. Yes, our current way of thinking about ourselves assigns us altruism but run with me here for a minute and I'll move you one planet closer to the Sun.
First out, I'll assume that we both agree that our brains file information by some manner of association, so permit me to precondition your belief system by bringing to your forebrain certain associated ideas that you probably already accept.
* Einstein imagined riding on a beam of light and saw Relativity.
* First, man saw the Universe revolving around a stationary Earth, then later he saw the Earth spinning around the Sun, then, almost yesterday, man saw the Sun circling the galatic center, then....
* Question: Which entity goes forth through time; the bee or the hive?
Now, ready? Here is the denouement.
Because we are communities of cells that move about in a eat-or-be-eaten environment and can only continue through time by interacting with other communities of our kind, we evolved a language to help us fight off the bears (so to speak).
Our language initially served only to transfer survival information to other colonies of cells like ourselves and vice versa. But from this humble but grunting begining, came systems of culture that protected us from bears and other systems of culture that were lacking in refinements and soon the social system became more important than the isolated celluar colony.
In summary.
Our biology drives the car; our sense of touch, taste, smell, hearing, and seeing, are our sensor gauges; and our language - which begot our sense-of-self as a tool - is merely the mechanical power-train and engine that moves us through the streetways of our Culture.
It is good to be born into a good Culture.
Oh yeah, I amost forgot, I tendered the colored snake like twofold. One, to say Merry Christmas,
and two, to point out that words like "like", like all words, are merely functional and have no ultimate meaning.
Last edited by themilum; 12/18/05 10:36 PM.
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o wow!!! this is some hi-fi thread...i really cudnt understand much here...seems interesting n kinda adult type material....will have to re-read it again..i guess
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Intellectuals who propose that "someone who never wrote might still be the greatest thinker, but no one would ever know." fail to acknowledge, that they wouldn't be here except for ancient people who could 'think' like animals, --and were successful hunters...
I doubt very much that many people outside the Bible Belt, whether intellectual or not, would fail to acknowledge this. But it isn't always what they aretalking about. The title of Heidegger's treatise actually suggests he was doing something somewhat akin to what we are doing here: he was asking was is called thinking.
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> I doubt very much that many people outside the Bible Belt, whether intellectual or not, would fail to acknowledge this. I do not doubt that many people not outside of the Bible Belt would seldom fail to disagree with you more. or less.  
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> I doubt very much that many people outside the Bible Belt, whether intellectual or not, would fail to acknowledge this.
I do not doubt that many people not outside of the Bible Belt would seldom fail to disagree with you more. or less.
I will meet you on the field of honor at dawn, sir.
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yeahbut first I wanna know *what we're fightin' about..!
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As if *that* ever mattered!
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You gotta a point there, DaI! 
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and you will see it promptly at dawn
Last edited by inselpeter; 12/22/05 08:01 PM.
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dost feel no prick of conscience, sirruh?
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Alas, the prick of conscience only. For so are fields of honor maid.
Last edited by inselpeter; 12/22/05 11:32 PM.
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Alas, the prick of conscience only. For so are fields of honor maid.
She began as a maid of honour
But she ended a common tart...
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You were at that wedding, too?
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dost feel no prick of conscience, sirruh?
Didn't know there was a conscience associated with pricks.
TEd
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Pooh-Bah
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>>Yours too?<<
Now I'm not necessarily saying that's a bad thing.
>>associated conscience<<
Perhaps not; definitely got will, though.
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So it's been good will hunting?
TEd
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So, this thread lost two stars. Someone thinks it's gotten outta hand?
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I was raised in Chalmette, La from 6 mos old til almost 5 yrs old and then moved to the MS/LA state line. I was immersed in Southern speak and Cajun French. I find myself still calling things by their Cajun name or saying a phrase in Cajun. I spoke and sang and comforted my children in Cajun when they were very small, as I suppose was done to me. I live in NE MS now and still have people comment about my phrasing and word choices, i.e. I go make groceries, while others would go buy them, I 'ax' people questions while you would ask, a small boat is a pirough (peero), when I want something someone has, I say 'ta-ta', which is roughly 'thank you'. I have a friend and she and I converse in and out of English and Cajun...it's something my husband finds strange but we've always done it so it's normal to us. My husband is from 'up here' so he has only been around the Cajun language for about 20 years and still has to have me 'translate' some of our more deeply Cajun accented friends. I find the people up here to talk VERY COUNTRY...like Lorretta Lynn country! That's the difference a few hours drive can make in an accent. 
"I am the literary equivalent of a Big Mac and Fries." Stephen King
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ok so i have re-read it again..and i have some queries..
i am comfortable with two languages...hindi and english..and i can very well think using both of them...but the point is that if i am conversing or writing in english i think in english ..as in my thoughts occur to me in english...i dnt have to translate frm one to another...like now...while am writing this i am jst typing whatver is coming to me in english ..and the same happens when am talking or writing in hindi..so where does the translation part come in..i mean...whatevr language ur using at any given time becomes ur thinking language ..isnt it so???
and changing from one language to another...wont that be like too difficult n time consuming??..and what about the thoughts for which there arnt any words...how would u communicate them...or are the left uncommunicated....kept to us...in our minds...how many of us would want our thoughts to be left uncommunicated..not expressed???
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I am by no means fluent in French or Spanish (my second and third) but when I am speaking I usually think in the same language. I....just......thought, thri, think...slowerly ..and (what was that word, ah) baderly.
I do have to translate what I hear into English, especially from Spanish, in order to keep the beginning in my head by the time I get to the end of the sentance. Once I have been immersed for a couple of weeks I do less translating and can even understand some things that I couldn't (or occasionally wouldn't) translate.
The truly amazing part is how patient the fluent speakers are with me as I fumble.
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I used to think and dream in a dialect of English (my mother's tongue is Polish), now I rather surmise we have some internal language, never spoken aloud and it's a she-daimonion (didn't give her a name yet) ---- a living informational entity partially immersed in metaverse, somethink like another living being in your head that is amused by our cooperation (symbiosis) and lives on transforming and translating and performing transduction of my thoughts, wherever I chose to communicate in any of the tongues known to me. The hardest work is to talk, writing is *way* easier. If I "talk to myself", though, I use English, mostly. I find it's at times hard to talk in Polish about things that are not mundane nor everyday blurbs. Talking aloud makes me sad and tired. Film on eleven! *She*, right about now, chose a call name for me to tell our community, as the other names ar private - it's "Tehanu", after a female hero that appears out the of "The Tombs of Atuan" by Ursula K. LeGuin.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
SPOILERS AHEAD!
In the book, she is a high priestess of the Nameless Ones and gives up her own name to be known as "The Eaten One" ; to be nameless like her masters, ancient powers of the world that where there before Seguoi spoke the first word and created the Earth Sea. The heroin regains her true name during crucial thread of story. She is part human and part a dragon and can transform herself into either form on whim. Dragons are actually build of language, the Old Speach (as humans call it), a language of powerful magic that some humans imperfectly learn to become mages and practice sorcery or witchcraft. In the language of making wytch words are as real as objects they describe or affect and have a power to change the world, one cannot speak without disturbing the Balance, yet Dragons talk freely using it, because they are able to give utterances several meanings and play with it like any person who is native speaker or talented individual (such talented individuals are called Dragon Lords, for when a dragon meet a human who is worth talking to, the dragon choses to talk to the human instead of eating him or her - that is how one becomes a Dragon Lord :-}). Good choice for a name, Tehanu...I swear it was her, not me - the name simply occured to me when I asked for it :-] { A.A } [-:).
END SPOILERS
Adam "SiRE^23" Gasiorowski
http://www.sire23.prv.pl
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guests, and
1
robot. |
|
Key:
Admin,
Global Mod,
Mod
|
|
|
|
