Frances to Cheerskep and Katy and others... Allow me to toss this pragmatist thrust into the fray. The mind can likely be in two kinds of thought, either as nondiscursive or as discursive, but with both kinds the thought must be as signs, and if any thought is then expressed to the self or to others then it must also be by way of still further interpreted signs. If the thought is nondiscursive as nonverbal and nonlingual signs, be they icons or indexes or symbols, but is to be expressed with the verbal signs of linguistic language, then the thought comes before the symbolic words it will be translated into and articulated in, yet not before the nonlingual signs it is in. If the thought however is discursive as verbal and lingual signs to start with, and is to be expressed with the same verbal signs of linguistic language, be they a domestic or foreign language, then the original inner thought before its expression is as the symbolic words it is made of, and not before them. The only thought that mind can get without words first is nondiscursive thought, but then such thought must nonetheless be in some kind of signs. The words do not symbolize discursive thought as a deeper object needing added signification, but rather the discursive thought is the words, because there is no further system of devices other than signs in the mind for thought that the mind can be in. The thoughts do not lay in the far reaches of the mind made of something, merely waiting to be signified with signs for the self or for others. The signs are the thoughts and the thoughts are the signs, be the signs as semiotic signage or as linguistic language.
Cheerskep wrote... Understood, Katy, but my question wasn't COULD they be expressed in words. It was, don't you get the thought first, and then the words -- though the words may indeed seem to come in the instant? If the thought doesn't come first, what will guide the words you should choose? Have you never struggled to find the suitable words for a thought you already have? Cheerskep wrote... Tell us, Katy, do you therefore believe you can have thoughts that aren't verbalized in your mind? Katy wrote... There are lot of thoughts and ideas, coming and going, and you can express them in writing (composition, speech,etc), in singing, in painting, in 3-d, in cooking (recreate the taste, etc.) A lot of them often hidden, and a lot of them come out intuitively, when the occasion arises.
