
Language Is the Scaffold of the Mind - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/issue/76/language/language-is-the-scaffold-of-the-mind
======
ken
One of the most important realizations I've had about dealing with other
people is that "thinking" is a generic term and does not describe the same
method of action in everyone. As but a few examples:

\- Richard Feynman described an experiment he did to time himself counting to
60. He could do it while reading, but not talking. His friend John Tukey could
talk while counting time, but not read.

\- Temple Grandin described thinking of a word as seeing every individual
example of that item she's ever seen.

\- Some people claim to be visual thinkers, but there are blind people who are
still perfectly able to think. Likewise with deafness. Clearly neither of
these can be the only basis for thought.

This was an "a-ha" moment that explained a lot of human behavior.

For example, why does my manager put me in a noisy room and still expect me to
write software, and propose "headphones" when I complain about the noise? He
doesn't use silence as a scratch space for thinking. On the flip side, I don't
understand why he cares if the lights are on. That's decidedly less important
to me than whether we have extra toilet paper.

This article does confirm that thinking is not merely talking to one's self,
which seems obvious to me but apparently is not a universal belief. Questions
like "Multi-linguals, what language do you think in?" puzzle me because I
don't generally think in _any_ language, up until the point where I need to
generate words. It's like asking what language a(n instrumental) symphony is
written in, or what the key signature is of a painting. The question is a type
error.

~~~
goto_self
> Some people claim to be visual thinkers, but there are blind people who are
> still perfectly able to think. Likewise with deafness. Clearly neither of
> these can be the only basis for thought.

I don't dispute your conclusions, but I think you might be taking the idea of
visual thought too literally. It doesn't necessarily mean a rendered view of a
scene, but rather can encompass abstract visual-like spaces such as control
flow graphs when thinking through the proof of a program's correctness

~~~
ken
You may be right. Though, I recently ran across the concept of "aphantasia",
e.g., [1]. Apparently not being able to visualize what my friends and family
look like is not normal! Or being unable to recall colors.

There's even this [2] "test", which claims that most people when told to
imagine a red star will "see" an actual image, which I'm still trying to
understand.

I can think about control flow graphs in my head, but it's not exactly visual.
(You could also represent any graph as a table, of course, but I don't think
of it in tabular form, either.) The visual is more like the means of
communication. Similarly, in math, equations and procedures aren't always how
I _do_ work, but they are often how I _communicate_ what I've done. I wonder
if that could be what other people mean when they speak of visualization. When
I'm asked to compute 19*21, I'm not literally expanding (x-1)(x+1), but that's
essentially what I'm doing, and if you asked me to explain, that's probably
what I'd say. Thoughts are simply a different medium (than words or graphs or
equations or music), and every serialization method I've tried so far is
extremely lossy.

[1]: [https://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/cant-visualize-
you-m...](https://www.world-of-lucid-dreaming.com/cant-visualize-you-may-have-
aphantasia.html) [2]:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/aioyga/simple_a...](https://www.reddit.com/r/Aphantasia/comments/aioyga/simple_aphantasia_test/eepc14o/)

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amflare
“Don't you see that the whole aim of Newspeak is to narrow the range of
thought? In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible, because
there will be no words in which to express it. Every concept that can ever be
needed will be expressed by exactly one word, with its meaning rigidly defined
and all its subsidiary meanings rubbed out and forgotten... Has it ever
occurred to you, Winston, that by the year 2050, at the very latest, not a
single human being will be alive who could understand such a conversation as
we are having now?”

― George Orwell, 1984

~~~
DonaldPShimoda
"In the end we shall make thought-crime literally impossible"

To accomplish this successfully depends upon a strong interpretation of the
Sapir-Whorf hypothesis: that your language _determines_ your thought. Most
linguists disagree with this principle. Just because you have no word for a
chair does not mean you couldn't use one, and just because you have no word
for love doesn't mean you can't feel it.

(However, a weakened from of the hypothesis — that language merely
_influences_ your thought — is frequently accepted.)

It's also worth pointing out that not all people think explicitly in words.
Such a person would be impervious to the Party's methods of thought-control, I
think.

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slowmovintarget
At first I thought this might be just a retread of Sapir-Whorf, but it isn't.
The article discusses how language taken from an adult mind (such as for
people with aphasia) doesn't affect their ability to think. But doing this to
a forming mind has drastic consequences.

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alanbernstein
Funny that Wittgenstein is mentioned, but his "ladder" is not:

"My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who
understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used
them - as steps - to climb up beyond them (he must, so to speak, throw away
the ladder after he has climbed up it). He must transcend these propositions,
and then he will see the world alright."

~~~
lioeters
That metaphor of the ladder - at least on the surface - has a parallel in Zen
Buddhism. There's even a Koan about climbing to the top of a ladder, then
taking one more step.

It reminds me also of another famous expression, that language is the finger
pointing at the moon. In that sense, one might say that Wittgenstein's
propositions are also meant to be a finger that points to a truth beyond
itself.

~~~
alanbernstein
That parallel is why this quote had such strong staying power for me. I don't
know of another Western philosopher that describes so clearly a concept so
similar to enlightenment.

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program_whiz
Language is definitely the most self-important part of the mind, and the only
part proclaiming itself as "indispensable". The voice in our heads is most
definitely telling us "if I wasn't here saying these things you'd be dead by
now."

The math part of your brain never shouts equations at you to guilt and cow you
into submission to do things you otherwise wouldn't or forego opportunities to
quell the demons within. We also never consider that losing another faculty
would "completely stop our ability to function", but we do think that about
language. This article proves otherwise (its just another function, like math
or the ability to do spatial reasoning).

~~~
friendlybus
The sex drive is the most self-important part of the mind. It's the only part
proclaiming itself as "indispensable". The feeling in our pants is definitely
signalling to us "if I wasn't here feeling these urges our species would be
dead by now."

~~~
jsharf
There's still generic variation to the point where for some people this isn't
a drive. Sure, it's a trait which self-selects itself for removal, but it's
likely polygenic, which means it is much more likely that it can persist
across generations despite being selected against. A lot of these things are
non-intuitive, like how altruism can persist across generations despite being
similar.

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Merrill
My wife has anomic aphasia. She can reason and think OK, but she has
difficulty in coming up with the words to express herself. In some cases
circumlocution works. In other cases, twenty questions works. We also rely on
our ability to finish each others sentences.

On the other hand, the calculator and scheduler are pretty much gone. If it is
three now, and dinner is at six, the fact that dinner will be three hours from
now is a separate fact.

The mind is a collection of apps.

~~~
dredmorbius
Is this a condition she's always had, or acquired with time/age?

~~~
Merrill
It is the result of a stroke. Small to moderate strokes can result in an array
of fairly specific impairments.

Congenital malformations could conceivably do the same, but likely brain
plasticity at an early age can compensate for missing tissue in many cases. It
might explain certain learning disabilities.

~~~
dredmorbius
I'm sorry to hear that.

Though yes, as you noted, brain plasticity would likely compensate, at least
somewhat. As I've grown older, I've increasingly noticed that there are many
people who do seem to have fundamental deficits in organised thinking and
linguistic abilities. More often written, but also spoken. Sometimes as
elements of another condition (e.g., Parkinsons), but in many cases apparently
either congenital or aquired through early environment.

~~~
Merrill
I'm very fortunate to have her with me still.

Brain capabilities probably vary as much as other phenotype characteristics.
No one without the genes for it will be able to do a good still rings
gymnastic routine. And at the other end of performance, many will struggle to
finish a 5K. But the fact that you can't run well doesn't mean that you can't
shot put or swim well. The use of IQ as a single dimension obscures a
multiplicity of abilities.

~~~
dredmorbius
I've wrestled with (and mostly fought against) single metrics of quality for
most of my career, though being able to articulate what the problems are has
only come to me relatively recently.

Quality is ultimately suitedness to task, and tasks vary. The more specialised
a task, the narrower the quality component parameters, much of which may come
from disabling rather than enabling characteristics. Anna Karenina / rocket-
science principle: there are many ways to get a complex thing wrong, generally
only one narrow path to getting them right.

The breadth of evolutionary adaptations displayed by life on Earth, or even
within the narrower scope of Olympic athlete body morphology, is an
instructive lesson. None is globally "better", each is adapted (or selected)
to purpose or goal.

[http://files.newsnetz.ch/story/1/7/0/17034522/19/topelement....](http://files.newsnetz.ch/story/1/7/0/17034522/19/topelement.jpg)

------
johnisgood
Slightly related: any Lojban speakers here? :)

Linguistic properties of Lojban:

\- is designed to express complex logical constructs precisely.

\- has no irregularities or ambiguities in spelling and grammar (although word
derivation relies on arbitrary variant forms). This gives rise to high
intelligibility for computer parsing.

\- is designed to be as culturally neutral as possible.

\- allows highly systematic learning and use, compared to most natural
languages.

\- possesses an intricate system of indicators which effectively communicate
contextual attitude or emotions.

\---

Applications of Lojban:

\- Lojban as a speakable language

\- Lojban as a literary and cultural language

\- Lojban as a means of creativity

\- Lojban as a potential machine interlingua

\- Lojban as a programming language

\- Lojban as a speakable logic

\---

More information:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lojban)

Some songs in Lojban:
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ZA'O+by+Djemyna...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=ZA'O+by+Djemynai)

------
raywu
The dimension that interests me, is the way, we, human, ascribe words to
emotions. I may feel sad minutes before I associate this feeling with the word
“sadness.” Upon identification, the word “sadness” may bring other
connotations, which enhances or detracts from my initial raw emotion. Which is
the cause and which is the effect—do I feel more sad because I recognize the
word “sadness?” I can identify sadness in other beings (ie. dogs). Do I, as a
human, really need the word “sadness” to help me understand my emotion? What
do I call the state of raw emotion prior to the word association?

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marton78
The obligatory link to the excellent Radiolab episode "Words" was missing from
the comments. Here it is:
[http://www.capradio.org/news/radiolab/2014/07/16/radiolab-
wo...](http://www.capradio.org/news/radiolab/2014/07/16/radiolab-words/)

~~~
raywu
What’s it about?

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agoodthrowaway
This is a cool article. It raises all kinds of interesting questions.

I’ve often wondered if it’s possible to have consciousness as we experience it
without language. When I think, I do so in words so I can’t imagine how I
would do that without words. I also wonder if you lack language; say you were
raised by wolves; would you create one in your mind.

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sova
STephen Plinker would disagree with this idea that language is the basal layer
of thought. Intention and mind first, language as a filter later. It's kinda
reductive to say that your thoughts are your words. Words are like structures
in the waves of water your mind produces

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ssully
Slightly off topic, but I once had music described to me as follows: music is
to time, as architecture is to physical space. It really changed how I thought
about music and how it's experienced.

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adamnemecek
They are adjoints. William Lawvere's "Adjointness in foundations" as well as
Godel's "Completeness theorem" say that much.

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rhacker
> Once we acquire language, we can live without it.

Do you think they meant - "can't"

~~~
ken
No. Why do you ask? The entire article supports this subtitle as written.

