all communicable/ transmitttable thought is speech thought - the source and nature of all other thought is moot given it can not be transmitted but only speculated upon - or empirically identified and reported upon anecdotally, oin other words by being turned into speech-thought
On Tue, Aug 21, 2012 at 11:10 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > William writes: > > "How can you prove that "speechless thought does not exist" is an > incorrect > statement? To answer you must define speech and thought and existence. > > "I'll try in the context of the statement. > > "speech = any word or utterance, including gesture. > thought = any conception including feeling sensation and emotion. > existence = any conscious awareness of something presumed to be outside > the > self or independent of the self. > > "I'm inclined to agree that humans think with 'speech' as defined above. > That > does not mean that any speech is adequate or correct. > wc" > > Cheerskep's reply: > > Writers struggle to put their thoughts into words -- how could that be if > their thoughts are in words? How could you ever mis-speak yourself? > Rock-climbers, chefs, chess-players, even tennis-players -- we'd say > they're > thinking > all the time, just not with words. Ponder how much thinking goes through > your mind as you drive. Now ponder how much of this "thinking" is entified > in > "speech". You are aware of a myriad of elements in your surroundings, and > you respond to what you aware of, not to any verbal articulation of those > elements. > > As you're driving you're suddenly aware of a deer right in front of you (a > brown deer, a small deer) and you veer to the right because you're also > aware of a car coming from the other direction in the lane on your left. > What > is > passing through your mind is AWARENESS, consciousness. You are not "saying > to yourself" "There's a small, brown deer in front of me that I don't want > to hit with my car, but I also don't want to ram that oncoming car head on, > so I'll go to the right because I see room on the shoulder over there..." > Your response is "reasoned", but your actions are responses to the > awarenesses, > not to any verbal articulations of the content and implications of what's > in your vision. > > Beware of begging the question by saying "But it's not 'thinking' until I > put into speech each of those elements," or "Any 'understanding' of a > vision > and response to that understanding is merely instinct before it is 'put > into > words'." > > The movie "Brian's Song" tells some of the story of Brian Piccolo, who was > the second-string runner behind Gale Sayers on the professional football > team, the Chicago Bears. Brian seldom got to play because Sayers was so > good. > In the movie, Brian asks Sayers, "Gale, when you run, do you think about it > or do you just do it?" Sayers replied, "I just do it." So Brian says, > "Well, > would you try thinking about it?" For football insiders that's a celebrated > exchange. I hated it. In my youth I was also the runner in our football > games (before you say it, I'll say it: "I didn't have one-tenth of Sayers's > talent.") But I could "see" what he was doing. For example, when he was in > the > clear with only one man in front of him, he'd often run at about 85% speed > and the potential tackler would angle toward a point where it appeared he'd > meet Sayers. At the last moment, Sayers would hit the accelerator up to > 100%, > and, when the tackler got to the "point", Sayers was past it. I'd often > done > that in the past, so I knew Sayers was doing a great deal of cerebration as > he executed that stactic. The depiction of Sayers as a kind of > nonreflective monkey repelled me. Articulate he was not, but thinking he > was. > > -- S a u l O s t r o w *Critical Voices* 21STREETPROJECTS 162 West 21 St NYC, NY 10011 [email protected]
