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From: mark@digi-g.UUCP (Mark Mendel)
Newsgroups: net.ai,net.nlang
Subject: Re: The Soapy-Woof theory of talk.
Message-ID: <378@digi-g.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 11-Nov-84 15:14:00 EST
Article-I.D.: digi-g.378
Posted: Sun Nov 11 15:14:00 1984
Date-Received: Sun, 18-Nov-84 04:00:19 EST
References: <>
Reply-To: mark@digi-g.UUCP (mark)
Organization: DigiGraphic Systems Corp., Mpls.  MN
Lines: 33
Summary: 

arndt@lymph.DEC writes:
>
> ...  does language really have THAT much control over how we think?
>
That depends on what you mean by `think'.

This is one of my pet theories.

At the very least, there are functional areas of the mind that perform
verbal reasoning.  This area maintains the continuous internal dialogue
that we all experience.  Most people identify this area as `I'.  There
are certainly non-verbal areas, too.  But this is not identified as the
self.  Consider, as an example, reflex actions: `I jumped out of the way
before I was even aware of it...'.  Other non-verbal areas influence
the `verbal-consciousness' with messages called `intuition'.

I believe that the reason we assign such importance the the verbal
consciousness is that we are social animals.  The importance of our
interactions with others of our ilk is so great that we tend to define
ourselves as that which others can experience.  Because language is the
primary means of communication with others, we percieve verbal
conscioussness as being terribly important. Self-awareness would not exist
without the built-in social hooks.

Language, however, has little effect on the non-verbal areas of the mind.
A human in total isolation with no language experience could probably
function quite well with no internal dialogue. Many complex tasks, which
we would like to have computers emulate, are performed without language.

Comments?

					-- Mark Mendel 
					-- ...ihnp4!umn-cs!digi-g!mark