The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language'

the author's site ^ | 1972 | Dallas Willard

[unspun]

The Absurdity of 'Thinking in Language'

This paper has been read to the University of Southern California philosophy group and the Boston 1972 meeting of the American Philosophical Association, as well as to the Houston meeting of the Southwestern Philosophical Society. Appeared in The Southwestern Journal of Philosophy, IV(1973), pp. 125-132. Numbers in "<>" refer to this journal.

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Among the principal assumptions of major portions of philosophy in recent decades have been: (1) That philosophy somehow consists of (some sort of) logic, and (2) that logic is a study of and theory about (some sort of) language. There, of course, follows from these a third assumption: (3) That philosophy is a study of and theory about (some sort of) language--though this implication should not be taken as representing any phase of the historical development of recent philosophizing. Instead of listing these three points as assumptions, it would probably be more correct to regard them as categories or complexes of assumptions; or perhaps, more vaguely still, as 'tendencies' or proclivities of recent philosophical thinking. But precision of these points need not be put in issue here, as this paper does not seek any large-scale resolution of the problem area in question. The aim here is to examine only one proposition which plays a role in the clearly existent tendencies referred to: Namely, the proposition that we think in or with language. I hope to show, first, that we do not always think in or with language; and then, second, that the very conception of thinking in or with language involves an absurdity. What implications this has for broader philosophical assumptions or tendencies will not be dealt with here, though the implications in question seem to me to be extremely important ones. That human beings think in language is explicitly stated in such diverse places as ordinary newspapers, the more sophisticated popular magazines and journals, and serious discourse in the humanities and the social sciences, as well as in the technical writings of philosophers. To prove this broad range of consensus would be idle; but, in order to have the philosophical context clearly before us, we may give a few brief quotations. <126>       (1) Man, like every living creature, thinks unceasingly, but does not know it: the thinking which becomes conscious of itself is only the smallest part thereof. And, we may say, the worst part:--for this conscious thinking alone is done in words, that is to say, in the symbols for communication, by means of which the origin of consciousness is revealed. (Nietzsche, Joyful Wisdom, sub-sec. # 354)      (2) Let no one be contemptuous of symbols! A good deal depends upon a practical selection of them. Furthermore, their value is not diminished by the fact that after much practice, we no longer really need to call forth a symbol, we do not need to speak out loud in order to think. The fact remains that we think in words or, when not in words, then in mathematical or other symbols. (Frege, Mind, Vol. 73, p. 156)      (3) It is misleading then to talk of thinking as of a 'mental activity'. We may say that thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs. This activity is performed by the hand, when we think by writing; by the mouth and larynx, when we think by speaking; and if we think by imagining signs or pictures, I can give you no agent that thinks. If then you say that in such cases the mind thinks, I would only draw your attention to the fact that you are using a metaphor, that here the mind is an agent in a different sense from that in which the hand can be said to be an agent in writing. (Wittgenstein, Blue Book, pp. 6-7)      (4) ... The woof and warp of all thought and all research is symbols, and the life of thought and science is the life inherent in symbols; so that it is wrong to say that a good language is important to good thought, merely; for it is of the essence of it. (C. S. Peirce, Collected Papers, II, p. 129)      (5) Words only matter because words are what we think with. (H. H. Price, Aristotelian Society, Suppl. Vol. XIX, p. 7)      (6) Theorizing is an activity which most people can and normally do conduct in silence. They articulate in sentences the theories that they construct, but they do not most of the time speak these sentences out loud. They say them to themselves.... Much of our ordinary thinking is conducted in internal monologue or silent soliloquy, usually accompanied by an internal cinematograph-show of visual imagery.... This trick of talking to oneself in silence is acquired neither quickly nor without effort.... (Ryle, Concept of Mind, p. 27. See also pp. 282-83 and 296-97) <127>      (7)This helps to elucidate the well-known difficulty of thinking without words. Certain kinds of thinking are pieces of intelligent talking to oneself. Consider the way in which I 'thinkingly' wrote the last sentence. I can no more do the 'thinking' part without the talking (or writing) part than a man can do the being graceful part of walking apart from the walking (or some equivalent activity). (J.J.C. Smart, Philosophy and Scientific Realism, p. 89) These quotations will suffice to establish the context within which philosophers speak of thinking in language (or with language). Many other quotations could be added from the literature.1 It is not assumed here that the persons quoted all occupy the same position with reference to the relationship between thought and language. Yet it would be interesting to see what any of these thinkers, or others who suppose that human beings think in language, could save of their position from the critique which follows. Uneasiness about the conception of thinking in or with language has been expressed by a number of writers, but only over limited aspects of it.2 Here we shall consider arguments which purport to call the conception into question entirely and in principle. First, consider a reason for rejecting the view that we always think in language. It consists in the fact that thinking often occurs without the production, manipulation, or perception of sense-perceptible signs, without which there is no use of language. Such occurrences often provoke offers of 'A penny for your thoughts.' Thinking: Whatever we may decide to call them, and however it is that we are conscious of them, there are intentional states of persons, more or less fixed or fleeting, which do not require for their obtaining that what they are about or of be perceived by, or be impinging causally upon, the person involved. In order to think of3 Henry the Eighth, <128> of the first auto one owned, of the Pythagorean theorem, or of the Mississippi River, it is not required that they should disturb my nervous system. Such states (t-states) of persons are often called 'thoughts', especially in contrast with 'perceptions', and being in such a state is one of the things more commonly called 'thinking'. One no more needs to be going through a change of such states in order to be thinking, than he needs to be changing his bodily position in order to be sitting or lying or sleeping. Rarely if ever--as is alleged in the case of mystic contemplation--are these t-states unchanging. Usually they flow, at varying rates, intermingled with person states of many sorts, governed by such transitional structures as inference, goal orientation, objective structures given in perception or in other ways, and elemental association of 'ideas', among others. In what follows, we shall use 'thinking' to cover both the single t-state and the flow of such states, without regard to how intermingled with other person states. Language: Sense perceptible signs or symbols are an essential constituent of language. It is always false to say that language is present or in use where no signs are present or in use. And, whatever else a sign may be, it is something which is apprehendable via its sensible qualities. That is, it is something which can be either seen, heard, felt, tasted or smelled. Moreover, the use of language requires some level of actual sensuous apprehension of the signs which are in use on the occasion. (Confusion or distortion of this sensuous feedback can render a subject incapable of writing or speaking; and, of course, without perception of the sign-sequences emitted, one cannot understand the person emitting language.) Now cases can be produced almost at will where thinking occurs without language being present or in use. This, of course, is something which everyone--including the proponent of thinking-in-language--very well knows. It is these cases which, together with the assumption that we always think in language, create what in (7) was called "the well-known difficulty of thinking without words." If, as in (3), "thinking is essentially the activity of operating with signs," then when there are no signs--and when, consequently, the means by which we produce, manipulate, or perceive signs are not functioning--we do have a difficulty. In fact, a difficulty so severe that it amounts to a proof that thinking is not essentially the activity of operating with signs, and that often we think entirely without language. One cannot operate with signs where there are no signs. <129>  As the above quotations indicate, the most common move made to save 'thinking in language' at this point is the shift to 'silent soliloquy,' as in (6), or to 'pieces of intelligent talking to oneself,' as in (7). These are latter-day shades of John Watson's 'sub-vocal language.' Of course one can talk to oneself or write to onself. But talking and writing to oneself require the production and perception of sensuous signs just as much as talking and writing to another. The realization of this is what drives the thinking-in-language advocate to silent soliloquy or to nonvocal speaking--the written counterpart of which would be invisible writing. That is, they are driven to flat absurdities. A silent soliloquy--that is, silent speaking--is precisely on a par with a silent trumpet solo, for example, or silent thunder. A poet may say:        Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard             Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;        Not to the sensual ear, but, more endeared,             Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone;...                (Keats, Ode to a Grecian Urn) But there are in fact no unhearable melodies, no ears other than the "sensual," no ditties of no tone. What those who speak of silent discourse have in mind is, no doubt, the fact that interlaced with our thinking of or about things is a great deal of imaging of linguistic entities. (This is especially true of academics or intellectuals in general, because of their great concern with expression of thought. Probably an adequate phenomenology of thinking would exhibit great contrast between them and other classes of persons precisely at the relation between thinking and degree of activity in imaging linguistic entities and events.) But imaging a word is not using a word, any more than imaging a horse is using a horse. Moreover, imaging a word, phrase, or sentence is not producing or perceiving a word, phrase, or sentence any more than imaging a horse is producing or perceiving--or otherwise 'having'--a horse. To image a linguistic sequence is not to have it in a special sort of place--the mind--nor is it to have a special sort of linguistic sequence. To image is to exemplify a certain sort of thinking or intentional state, and a sort which does have interesting relationships with other kinds of thinking. But there is no reason at all to suppose that all kinds of thinking necessarily involve or are accompanied by this kind of thinking (imaging) directed upon language segments. And if there were, it still would not follow that all thinking requires language, since this kind of thinking about language segments is not itself language at all. Nor does it require any <130> language present in order for it to come to pass, since intentional inexistence applies to mental events when language segments are the objects, as well as when sticks and stones and animals are. Having considered a reason for rejecting the proposition that human beings always think in language, let us now consider whether they ever do. In fact, the difficulty is not, as Smart (above) and others have thought, in seeing how one can think without language, but in seeing how one would think with it. Thinking with or in language must consist in doing something with symbols, and so necessarily involves doing something to them--e.g., producing, altering, or perceiving them. If we would do something with the knife (e.g., cut the bread), we must do something to the knife, (e.g., clasp it in our hands). But, as we have seen, thinking occurs where nothing at all is being done to or with signs, there not being any signs in these cases. The power or act of having or changing t-states--that is, the power or act of thinking--is, then, not a power or act of having or altering linguistic symbols. (It is not, in fact, a power of doing anything with or in anything at all. The profound difference in kinds of powers and acts involved here is what Wittgenstein calls attention to in the last sentence of (3) above.) Thought is, of course, practical, in that it exercises an influence upon, or makes some difference in, the world of sense particulars. But it alone is not capable of acting with the sorts of particulars used in linguistic behavior as its immediate instruments. It is just this incapacity which makes it impossible for the advocates of thinking-in-language to give any account of the mechanisms or the 'how' by which the words in which we, allegedly, think are produced, manipulated, and gotten rid of--though they must be produced (or stored and hauled out), manipulated, and, in some sense, gotten rid of, if we are to think with and in them as our tools or instruments. Merely to ask the question of how, in detail, this is done in the course of thinking reveals, I believe, the absurdity of 'thinking in language'. Mere thinking can do nothing to signs which might be used in a language, and hence it can do nothing with such signs, or in the act of modifying the conditions of such signs. It is absurd to suppose that one can do x with y without in some way bringing about a change in the condition, state, relations, or properties of y. It is this and only this that I put by saying that it is absurd to suppose that one can do something with y while doing nothing to y. If it is replied that, of course, the mind or thought does not do these things, but that when we write, speak, hear, see, and otherwise relate to actual words in the actual employment of language, we then are thinking, with bodily parts managing the symbols involved, then it <131> must be pointed out that, while we may indeed also be thinking in such cases, we are not simply thinking. The total event here, to which language certainly is essential, is not thinking. Correct use of language can even occur, as has been pointed out by Wittgenstein, without the occurrence of any peculiarly relevant t-states. On the other hand, thinking does occur without the use of hands, mouth, ears, eyes, fingers in any appropriately relevant manner. Hence, what can only occur by the use of these is not the same as thinking, though it may somehow involve or influence thinking. Smart remarks in (7) that, when he thinkingly wrote the sentence, "Certain kinds of thinking are pieces of intelligent talking to oneself," he could "no more do the 'thinking' part without the talking (or writing) part than a man can do the being graceful part of walking apart from the walking." This may be true of thinkingly writing the sentence (whatever that means). But it does not follow that one cannot think that certain kinds of thinking are pieces of intelligent talking to oneself without the use of language, though Smart clearly thinks that it does. Of course one cannot thinkingly write without writing. But that is nothing to the point of whether or not we can and do think with or without words. Also, the comparison to graceful walking is not apt. We do, as above shown, sometimes think without words or symbols, while no cases of grace without behavior are known. Now it is very certainly true that some processes clearly involving thinking as described above depend for their occurrence upon linguistic behavior and the sensible signs which it involves, for example, the processes of learning algebra or the history of the Basques, or learning how to counsel emotionally upset persons. But it is to be noted that these are not themselves processes of thinking, but rather are extremely complex processes involving all kinds of events and entities other than language and other than thinking--e.g., feelings, perceptions, buildings, other persons, days and nights, books, and so on. None of these processes is a process of thinking; and for that reason alone it is invalid to infer from them that thinking is linguistic behavior, or that one thinks with language. What is essential to things or events of a certain sort must be shown essential to them taken by themselves, not in combination with many other things. With reference to the involved processes in question, it might be more appropriate (though it would still be wrong) to say--as some have said in recent years--that we live in or with language. Nevertheless, it is certain that some kind of dependence relation--probably similar to feedback mechanisms--exists between linguistic processes and their sensuous signs, on the one hand, and certain sequences of t-states on the other. What, exactly, this relation <132> of dependence is continues to be veiled by, among other things, a priori assumptions about what thinking and language must be and do. One such assumption is that which holds thinking essentially to be an operation with signs or symbols, or doing something with--or in--linguistic processes or entities. The view that we (necessarily) think without language is, today, regarded as so outlandish as not to merit serious consideration. But this is not due to a lack of arguments to support it. My object here has been to focus upon certain arguments purporting to show the absurdity of thinking in language. The main points in these arguments are: Thinking does occur without any accompanying language whatsoever, and thus shows itself not to be a power or act of managing linguistic signs, once it is clear what such a sign is. Thinking, as distinct from behavioral processes involving it, can do nothing to signs or symbols, and hence can do nothing with them. NOTES See for example, Ramsey's Foundations of Mathematics, p. 138, and Kneale's remarks in Feigl and Sellars, Readings in Philosophical Analysis, p. 42. Return to text. See S. Morris Engel, "Thought and Language," Dialogue, Vol. 3, 1964, 160-170; Jerome Shaffer, "Recent Work on the Mind-Body Problem," American Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. II, 1965, esp. p. 83; R. Kirk, "Rationality Without Language," Mind, 1967, pp. 369-368; G. Ryle, "A Puzzling Element in the Notion of Thinking," in Studies in the Philosophy of Thought and Action, P. F. Strawson, ed., (Oxford: 1968), pp. 7-23. Interesting remarks on the issues here are also found in Bruce Aune's Knowledge, Mind and Nature, chap. VIII and H. H. Price's Thinking and Experience, Chap. X.  See also Wm. James, "Thought Before Language; A Deaf Mute's Recollections," Mind, Vol. I, 1892; and see Wittgenstein's comments on this in Philosophical Investigations, No. 342. Return to text. I use only think here, for simplicity; but think that and other structures of such intentional states (and sequences thereof) might also be mentioned. Specifically, I would also wish to hold that instances of thinking that, in the sense of inferring or puzzling something out, occur in the absence of appropriate linguistic entities or activities. Return to text.

[thinktwice]

antagonistic?

That is a matter calling for a referee to judge.

Let me again thank you for your posts.

[unspun]

antagonistic? That is a matter calling for a referee to judge. Let me again thank you for your posts.

Seems a reasonable question, granted the context.

[Ohioan]

Don't you think that people who have been together a long time (like a married couple) would be likely to go through the same series of reactions and initial associations after an event, in order to often simultaneously introduce the same exact (seemingly non-connected) next topic of conversation?

Certainly, the situation you suggest is very common. People who have shared a great many experiences, will first of all have a great many of the same images and similar perceptions from past experiences, that will be reviewed by their minds in determining the simultaneous reactions to which you refer. It is also a likely fact, that many people who marry in the first place, are drawn together, by a tendency to react in similar--or at least compatible ways--to a whole raft of dynamic situations, that arise in the course of everyday living.

If so, isn't it possible that there are wider commonalities that we might share in different types of groups that might be studied? Just curious as to your thoughts.

Sure. Your thoughts are very cogent, and well considered.

However, my point is really not directed to the types of study that you suggest. My only point, here, was the much simpler one, that excessive verbalization stultifies the analytic processes. That while we all must verbalize to explain our conclusions, we analyze better, when we keep the images foremost and the words secondary.

This is absolutely obvious to anyone who really understands the ordinary analytic function that every sentient being--including many of the less sapient beasts as well--continually engage in. That some, here, would deny this, shows how confused by excessive verbalization, many in our society have become. But consider, what happens every single waking hour, of every single day of your life:

What startles you; what you stop to remark upon verbally, is the thing which catches your attention, because it is not completely customary. If the birds wake you in the morning, every morning, you do not comment on the birds waking you every morning. But if one morning there is some sort of unaccustomed noise, you may very well comment upon that. But what incites you to comment on that? Surely it is the unusualness of the sound. Yet that can only be determined by a mental scan of what is usual, what is accustomed.

The brain is constantly scanning all of your data bank of past experiences, to react to every new experience. This involves a scanning of millions of images and perceptions, every second. No body on earth verbalizes at even the tiniest fraction of one percent of that speed. We are not really conscious of this process--only the result, when our brains kick out the message that "here" is something worthy or requiring our conscious notice.

It is very important that Conservatives begin to better understand the importance of images. The Left has been undermining us with image projection, via Hollywood and the TV networks, and the discussion in this thread is important, because the right image is not worth just a thousand words. There are images that you could not adequately describe in words, with all the words that you will ever use in a lifetime.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Consort]

My only point, here, was the much simpler one, that excessive verbalization stultifies the analytic processes.

It is very important that Conservatives begin to better understand the importance of images.

While I very much agree with both statements, I'm not sure about the context in which you are using them. On your web site (Debate Handbook) and on the "Return Of The Gods Web Site" you mentioned above, and on all the links on each, there is verbalization, a lot of verbalization, and some might say that there is excess verbalization.....but there are no images that I could find. What am I missing?

[betty boop]

Bartley was attempting to rigorously rationalize Christianity, but he recognized that to do so essentially required rationalizing atheism and many other religions as well.

I haven't read Bartley, tortoise, and he does sound very interesting. However, from the outset it really appears to me that to try "to rigorously rationalize Christianity" is an exercise in futility. For if such a project were to succeed, it could only do so by completely "losing" the essence of Christianity, which is superrational (for lack of a better word). It is to pretend that either God does not exist (which is impossible to demonstrate) or that God and His relations with man are reducible to purely human categories. But we cannot do the latter and still be talking about God. We would only be talking about man. Which, come to think of it, may be the entire point of the exercise.

That this approach is a "false step" is attested to by the situation that arises from it, in that both theism and atheism are effectively, qualitatively put on the same footing. There's got to be something "wrong" when reason gets stuck in a situation when it must regard two mutually exclusive things as implicitly equal in terms of the analytical operation being performed on them. Even if we only notice this in retrospect.

Christianity has a tradition of faith in search of understanding (or of its reason -- fides quaerens intellectum) -- that goes back at least as far as Augustine. But this quest employs reason in a different manner than the "reductive" type of reason that seems to be a consequence of materialist doctrine. For one thing, this reason is confident (now there's a pregnant word in this context!) that the world (universe) is lawful, i.e., ordered; and, therefore, knowable because it is made by an Intelligence who also made us humans intelligent, that we may know it. Thus the world of creation is said to be "an open book" for man to read, and to understand by means of reason. This is precisely the understanding and attitude that made science possible as a going concern in the Christian West.

What rationalist reason wants to do, however, is to try to find a way to explain the ordered world without Creator, without an ordering (designing) Mind. Judging by their products, such efforts tend to deform and efface Reality and, thus, prevent our true understanding of it. Or so it seems to me.

Thank you so much, tortoise, for your excellent contributions to this discussion.

[unspun]

More important than that consideration by far, however, is the fact that your observation is completely historically unfounded....

Seems that those who argue against all that is the human soul and see its involvements only in terms of logic or irrationalilty, have that difficulty you and Ms. Newman described, betty boop in thread, THEOLOGY AND SCIENCE WITHOUT DUALISM, the difficulty knowing what one may rest upon.

Getting back to that interesting "lifeboat" example that was offered yesterday, I think a lifeboat is a pretty decent picture of what we all need, but if reason were all we had to cling to, that would be only wreckage.

But on a fit lifeboat, reason would seem to be an essential part of one oar, called wisdom -- a critical part of that which remains above the surface on that oar. The other oar of course would be revelation. One would row the HMB Salvation knowing that we had neither conceived nor constructed that boat, but row it trusting its provider that it is what it's name is and worthy to reach its haven.

We would know enough then, knowledge being to us something that is a sharing, true nature to true nature, allowing us to under-stand by the one who shares His nature.

[unspun]

fides quaerens intellectum

Thank you so much, tortoise, for your excellent contributions to this discussion.

Yes, from one whose grades went steadily down in his two years of High School Latin, thank you all for sharing of your educations.

[unspun]

"Slow and steady...."

[unspun]

And the thread is still here, especially if anyone wants to chat more about "The Absurdity of Thinking in Language," or matters closely or distantly... (well it would be difficult to post what is distantly related) ...not quite as closely related.

That would be for anyone who hasn't already gone out the "Yea" or "Nay" doors, or who wish to slip back in.

But harkening to the issues of the article, the two questions were:

1. Do we always think in language?

2. Do we ever think in language?

You may have already said, but would you like to post your determinations?

(I imagine this is the last mass ping from me in this thread, thank you for relating.)

[Alamo-Girl]

Great catch, betty boop! Thank you so much for the analysis!

[tpaine]

It has been determined:

1. Somebody always thinks nobody is anybody.
2. Does anybody ever think nobodys language is somebody else's?

Nobody may have already said, but would somebody like to post anybodys determinations?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thank you so much for sharing your views in the last round of posts! This thread has been extremely helpful to me, and I'm sure to others as well.

Somewhere earlier on this thread I may have already mentioned my determination with regard to the article itself, namely that I do not primarily think in language except to comprehend (as in read or hear) or to convey (as in speak or write.)

[tpaine]

It has been determined:

1. Somebody always thinks nobody is anybody.
2. Does anybody ever think nobodys language is somebody else's?

Nobody may have already said, but would somebody like to post anybodys determinations?

PS -- Thanks to everybody, hugs to somebody, shrugs to anybody, but
nobody really cares.

[Eastbound]

So, the janitor comes back in to sweep up and finds an empty blackboard. Wish I knew something profound to scribble up there. Instead, may I ask a simple question?

If proving that 2x3=6 requires a reversing of the problem, 6/3=2, why is there not a similar math formula or grammatical rules for proving the truth or consistency of a written sentence or phrase so that it means the exact thing backwards or forwards? A formula or rule that would maintain the integrity and intent of the statement regardless of what language it is translated into or from?

Seems to me that would go a long way towards eliminating any mis-understanding between correspondents. Think of the applications.

If nobody wants to go there, just use the eraser. Thanks.

[bondserv]

Thanks for the Ping again unspun.

My profession is Data Communications training, and many of the protocols that are used to transfer Data over the internet are called Number Languages.

Our experience in training tells us that people think conceptually, and tend to lean to a combination of auditory and visual learning. There are a few people who are tactile learners and the hands on labs cements the ideas for them. Most people benefit from a combination of all three.

The best retention of information comes from when the student understands a concept and can integrate that concept with other concepts. The three learning types do not respond to language, but the language the instructor uses is a tool that drives the concept.

Therefore, in my opinion, language is the second step our minds take to convey concepts. It takes effort to come up with words to most precisely get across ideas. It is clear to me that language is only a tool that we and machines use to pass information i.e. set up and tear down a transfer of concepts (information).

[Kudsman]

Read, witnessed, and a big fat aaaaaaaaaaaaamennnnnnnnnnn. Keep FReeping brother unspun cause I'm a pullin wit ya. :-D

[William Terrell]

1. Do we always think in language? 2. Do we ever think in language?

When I read these two questions, I had thoughts about them. They were not in words. They were just there. If I were to explain them to someone, it would probably take five minutes.

When I decided to communicate the thoughts, like I'm doing now, I then translated them into words using thought. Apparently when I use thought to interact to the outside world, I use it in words. When I'm recieving input from the world and evaluating it, I don't use words; I can't because the input I'm recieving is moving too fast.

When I'm thinking about a solution to a material problem, I use words sometimes, when there are distractions around or I'm trying to to wring implications out of a data item thats a symptom of the problem. Those seems to be the points where I start using thought instead of letting it flow.

Reckon the above would have taken 5 minutes to communicate (including the time to put the words together)?

[FreeReign]

When I read these two questions, I had thoughts about them. They were not in words. They were just there. If I were to explain them to someone, it would probably take five minutes.

You've put the concept to words very succinctly and you've made it very identifiable.

[betty boop]

That while we all must verbalize to explain our conclusions, we analyze better, when we keep the images foremost and the words secondary.... This is absolutely obvious to anyone who really understands the ordinary analytic function that every sentient being--including many of the less sapient beasts as well--continually engage in. That some, here, would deny this, shows how confused by excessive verbalization, many in our society have become. But consider, what happens every single waking hour, of every single day of your life: ... What startles you; what you stop to remark upon verbally, is the thing which catches your attention, because it is not completely customary. If the birds wake you in the morning, every morning, you do not comment on the birds waking you every morning. But if one morning there is some sort of unaccustomed noise, you may very well comment upon that.

What a spectacular observation, Ohioan, so well articulated! But don't you go encouraging political conservatives to get carried away by "images" before they first understand how images derive their power. I think you have given a marvelous description of that process.

Still, I wonder whether the political Left -- which arguably is far more adroit in the use of "images" than the political Right -- really understands this source, deep down. If they don't, maybe their putative "advantage" is illusionary?

[Kudsman]

It has been determined: 2. Does anybody ever think nobodys language is somebody else's? Excuse me MR. Paine but if it has been determined then what he77 are you asking a question for? and who or what are you citing as being the determiner? You?

I want you to know that you make it real hard for me to read back through this thread. Not because of anything specific that you might drivel over but just the sheer idiocy of some of your musings. From this day forward everytime I see the name tpaine attached to a post I'm out of here. You will forever remind me of pain. I think that to totally ignore you is the worst thing that I could do to you.

In closing Thanks to everybody, hugs to somebody, shrugs to anybody, but nobody really cares. reminds me of an old (well not light years or anything like that) Rodney Dangerfield line. To paraphrase "oh I know you care, about what I haven't a clue" other than you. Bye. C-ya. Don't call me I wont call you. Have a nice day and don't forget your change. ;-)